BRISTOL

If you take a stroll along Bristol’s central Corn Street, keeping your gaze far above the vintage clothing stalls and wooden tables stacked with second-hand books, you’ll catch sight of the striking red-and-white clockface that adorns the Grade I-listed Corn Exchange building, once used by merchants to trade their wares.

Take a second to study the 19th-century clock, and you’ll notice it has two minute hands. The faster is set to Greenwich Mean Time, Britain’s legal standardised time since 1880, while the slower maintains traditional Bristol Mean Time, which — based on the point when the sun is at its highest in the sky — historically runs 10 minutes behind London. An apt metaphor, some might say, for how Bristol has always taken pride in setting itself apart from the crowd.

Growing up in nearby Cardiff, Bristol’s cross-border cousin just 25 miles away, my teenage years were spent listening to animated tales of burgeoning Bristol music festivals (such as the now-annual Love Saves the Day) and all-night skatepark raves (the humble beginnings of iconic Bristol nightclub Motion). Bristol, clearly, was the most exciting place on the planet.

And even now, seeing it with bar.