The London Traveler

Pall Mall has to be one of the more unusual street names in London. There’s an interesting story behind it, too.

Back in the days of the Merry Monarch, Charles II, the court’s craving for entertainment was insatiable. Mistresses, theatre, fashion, silly bets, horseracing - since Lost and Big Brother hadn’t yet been invented, all kinds of other ways of using up the day were created.

One of these was the game of Paille Maille or Pell-Mell… or Pall Mall, similar to the modern game of croquet (which is one of those strange and rather useless things we English are rather good at).

Now I was reminded of this the other day by a marvellous video I was forwarded, which shows a re-enactment of the game of Pall Mall played by chaps in resplendent court costume and full bottomed wigs. Super stuff - and well worth clicking through to YouTube to see.

Visit London - Street Stories

One of the great images of Cockney London is a community having a sing-song around the ‘old Joanna’ (yes, it’s Cockney rhyming slang). But you don’t see that in many pubs these days, which is a pity.

Now artist Luke Jerram is giving Londoners a chance to get back to the old days with his installation ‘Play me I’m yours’ - brightly decorated pianos left around London in public places. There’s one in Soho Square, one outside Tate Britain, one outside the British Library…

And there are fifteen in the City - including one right outside the Royal Exchange and one at St Paul’s Cathedral. Check the map for the full list.

They’re not guaranteed to be concert standard, so there might be a few notes missing in your Chopin etude or Bohemian Rhapsody. They will be in tune though, as a piano tuner does the rounds every day to make sure they’re properly maintained.

Some of the organisers have said they want to induce a sense of ‘public spirit’ - I find it a bit disappointing though that the word ‘fun’ hasn’t been mentioned.

And believe it or not, the police have already been on the case, enquiring whether the players have a public entertainment licence. Yet another little erosion of our liberties - and how we are meant to have a sense of public spirit or indeed fun when you need a licence to play an instrument outside, I don’t know. (In fact, a friend of mine who is involved in licensing as part of his job points out the Public Entertainment Licence no longer exists - it has been subsumed into the premises licence. So the coppers, I’m afraid, haven’t been keeping up with their paperwork, if the report in the Evening Standard is correct.)

Fortunately the score is : coppers nil, pianos one, since the artist had apparently already sorted out the licensing situation.  So if you’re in London between now and July 14, feel free to tickle the ivories all you like.

And if you can’t get to a piano, read the delightful account by Emine Saner in the Guardian of her experiences - which really does make the point that we need more of this kind of spontaneous event, and more of this kind of licit silliness, to lighten our days and help us connect with other people.

Photo by Carlos Madrigal on flickr

I’ve always adored the ‘living statues’ on the Ramblas in Barcelona. Now London has its own ‘living statues’ as part of an Antony Gormley artwork, and they will be occupying the ‘empty plinth’ in Trafalgar Square from July 6th, 24 hours a day, for 100 days, one person for each hour.

(I’d applied on the web site, and I haven’t been chosen this month - but there will still be draws for August, September and October. Maybe I’ll be lucky. I hope so!)

The ‘One & Other’ project features people who have been chosen by lottery from thousands who registered on the internet. Each person chooses what to do while they’re on view - whether that’s sitting still, pacing round, having a birthday party, or - as one architect proposes to do - using pedal power on an exercise bike to make lights flash on your electronic clothing! Some people will use the plinth as a soapbox for causes including disabled rights and global warming; others will aim to entertain, and others have said they will be tweeting during their hour on the plinth.

If you can’t get to Trafalgar Square, you can still see the webcam broadcasting on oneandother.co.uk.

I very much enjoyed Gormley’s Event Horizon a couple of years ago, when he placed statues modelled on a cast of his own body on rooftops around London. They stood enigmatically on cornices, and you might have missed them if you didn’t realise what they were; I know someone who thought one of them was a chap intending to jump, before realising the figure hadn’t moved for fifteen minutes. The new art work, I hope, will mess with our heads in exactly the same way.

Photo of part of Antony Gormley’s Event Horizon installation by Mairi McCann on flickr

Underwear is a matter of passion. The world is divided into two kinds of men - boxer shorts men and Y-fronts men - and ne’er the twain shall meet. And whether you’re a £5 for two from Asda girl, or a La Senza fan, you’re as defined by your underwear choices as by your career or which way you voted last election.

Underwear is also something essentially quite private. So there’s something a little bit naughty and voyeuristic in looking at the exhibition which has just started at the London Fashion and Textile Museum.

But it’s fascinating. For instance the whole concept of underwear before the nineteenth century didn’t really exist - it was just more shirts or chemises, worn under the outer one. Many people had no underwear at all. Most men wore their shirts continuously - going to bed in them and piling their other clothes on top in the morning.

More recently we’ve seen a huge change in the way women’s underwear is seen - moving from the functional  to the much more stylish. And of course Bridget Jones’s ‘Big knickers’!

In fact there’s a serious socio-economic point to be made when you consider how women’s underwear has reflected different views of the female body and even of the place of women in society - or as the exhibition organisers put it, how we’ve moved from the ‘flatten it’ to the ‘push it up’ to the ‘let it all hang out’!

The exhibition also looks at how research enables innovation in the world of underwear. This might not seem like the most scientific of areas, but think again - stretch lycra, underwired bras with a built in ‘memory’, and elastic fabrics have revolutionised underwear design. No more whalebone corsets! (If you’ve got Spanx, anyway.)

Where: London Fashion and Textile Museum, 81 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3XF (London Bridge tube)

When: till 27 September 2009:

How much: £5

Picture by Marlen Slazar on flickr

Westminster Abbey is missing something. Anyone who knows Gloucester cathedral, with its fine Perpendicular tower, or Salisbury with its lovely spire, or Norwich, with its marvellous Norman tower and later spire, can see how Westminster is lacking - there’s just a little pyramid of roof over the crossing, a sort of architectural Elastoplast.

Now the news is that Westminster may get its central tower after all. There are a number of plans for refurbishing the Abbey - including granting visitors access to the triforium, the gallery that runs at first floor level around the church- and as part of these plans, a central ‘corona’ has been mooted.

It’s not the first time someone has had this idea. Wren and Hawksmoor both produced plans for a central tower - Hawksmoor’s plan for the two western towers, which had also been left unfinished by the Gothic buuilders, was built, but his other plan fell by the wayside. Later, in the earlier twentieth century, there were other plans for a monumental tower, but again, they were never brought to fruition.

It will be interesting to see what ideas modern architects have for this feature. Something like Liverpool Catholic Cathedral’s modernist crown? Or something like Ely cathedral’s lantern perhaps - an amazing work of fourteenth century engineering, wholly original and unique.

It’s going to be a difficult project, because whoever wins the design competition is taking on not just Westminster Abbey, a superb rayonnant Gothic design, but the neo-Gothic Houses of Parliament on the other side of the road. They’ll have to produce something that is respectful of the past, but not mere pastiche - and that doesn’t overpower the Abbey, but equally, doesn’t look like a mere ornament.

We have no idea what the original architects would have intended. Cathedrals in the French Gothic style, which influenced Westminster, quite often have a small and ornate central spire rather than a colossal tower - that’s more of an English tradition.  Wren, on the other hand, designed a soaring spire - still in Gothic style, not the Baroque with which he’s more closely associated. There’s an impressive picture of his model in the Daily Mail.

If you’re interested in the plans, there’s a ‘Vision 2020′ exhibition at the Abbey, with free access through the cloisters, open every day 1030-4.

Photo by Rene Ehrhardt on flickr

I am English. But I have one thing in common with many Americans. I don’t really understand cricket.

I’ve got the tea towel - you know, the one that begins “You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.” That really didn’t help.

One of my friends, on the other hand, is a huge cricket fan. She’s even nerdy enough to know all the statistics; she has a copy of Wisden, the cricket ‘Bible’; she adores the county game.

So I thought it might be useful to find out the basis of the game of cricket. How it works, what the rules are, and - this is difficult for some of us - how you actually tell who has won. She first explained to me the basics; it’s like baseball or rounders - you’re trying to score by hitting the ball, and the other team is trying to stop you.

So far so good. But tell me what all the stuff on the pitch is.

You have two wickets, placed opposite each other in the middle of the ground. One batsman defends each wicket. You do know what a wicket is?

Er…

Okay, it’s those three sticks (or stumps, we call them) set in the ground. On top are the bails, two little bits of wood. If a ball hits the wicket and the bails fall off, the batsman is out. You’ll see a white line on the ground, too, that’s called the crease.

One team is batting, and the other team is bowling. Well, one of them bowls, and most of them are fielding. When each team is batting it’s called an ‘innings’. The batsman has to try to hit the ball to the boundary, the edge of the field, and if it gets there but hits the ground first it scores four runs, if it gets there and it’s still in the air it’s a six. If he just clears the ball, he can also make a run for it. He runs to the other wicket, and the other batsman runs to his wicket, and that scores one run.

What happens if they don’t make it?

If one of the fielders manages to hit the wicket with the ball before he’s got there, he’s out. And if a fielder catches the ball from the air, before it hits the ground, it’s a ‘catch’ and the batsman is out.

But I just saw a batsman swing and connect, and the wicket wasn’t hit, but the umpire said he was out. What’s going on?

LBW.

Sorry?

Leg before wicket. It means he was standing in front of the wicket, which isn’t allowed.

So it’s just about making as many runs as possible without being out?

Not quite. You have to understand that there are different rules here for different kinds of cricket. The simple version is just - score more runs than the other team.

That, I understand.

The more complex rule is - score more runs than the other team AND get them all out. If you can’t get all their batsmen out, you draw. So the captain of the team that bats first has to make a tactical decision at some point to ‘declare’ - that is, to stop batting - because he knows he’s got to get through all the batsmen of the other team to win. So he has to think ‘do I have enough runs to beat them’, and balance that against ‘do I have enough time to get them all out’.

How long does the game last?

That depends! A village match might just last a couple of hours. A test match goes on for up to five days - as long as it takes for both teams to complete two innings. So it’s very flexible. Then there’s Twenty20 cricket, with two 75 minutes overs. That’s not real cricket though. At least, I don’t think so.

Cricket is full of weird vocabulary. Googlies, which don’t seem to be anything to do with search engines; spinners, ducks, silly mid off. What on earth do all these words mean?

A googly is a ball that looks as if it will bounce one way, but actually bounces the other way. It’s designed to catch the batsman out. Spin bowlers deliver the ball with a spin, so that it will bounce unpredictably off the ground and off the bat. In fact a googly is a particular kind of spin. A duck is when a batsman is ‘out’ before he has scored at all. And silly mid off is a fielding position. It’s one where the fielder can catch a ball from a poor block - a defensive shot.

My favourite terms though are those for the different kinds of stroke - the different angles that a good batsman can send the ball. Late cut, cut, square cut, square drive, cover drive, off drive, straight drive, on drive, pull, hook, and the best of all, the leg glance.

Where should I go in or near London to see cricket being played?

There’s Lords, home of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). That’s in St John’s Wood, in North London, and it has Test Matches as well as regular county matches.

And there’s also the Oval, in South London, which is the home of Surrey’s county cricket club, and also hosts test cricket.

But if you want a nice day out, Canterbury is a lovely ground. They don’t have test cricket there but they have county matches.

Photo by Les Chatfield on flickr

I’ve always loved secrets. That’s one reason I liked the Factory’s ‘Secret Hamlet’, that toured London playing at different sites and never letting you know till a few days in advance where they’d turn up. It’s why I like the back alleys of the City, with their hidden pubs and gardens.

Now I’ve discovered another secret - Secret Cinema. It’s dedicated to ‘extraordinary films’ in unusual venues - which have included the Hackney Empire theatre, old railway tunnels,  and Dulwich College.

Sign up, and you’ll get an email telling you when (and where) the monthly screenings have been organised.

This is cinema for film buffs. If you want to see Harry Potter or Twilight, don’t bother. On the other hand if your heart beats faster when you hear names like Kurasawa, Bergman, or Gus van Sant, this is for you. Secret Cinema does reserve the right to spring surprises though - apparently they’ve shown Ghostbusters as part of the programme, which is not auteur cinema in any sense of the term! Other intriguing films included Sounds like Teen Spirit, a documentary about the junior Eurovision song contest.

And the great thing is … they don’t tell you what film you’re going to see until it begins! So you are taking pot luck - and Secret Cinema might just jolt you out of your regular habits.

Secret Cinema also tries to decorate the venue, dress the front of house staff, and deliver a whole experience that is themed alongside the film. You might even be asked to dress up for the night. That makes every night a memorable experience, very different from going to the local multiplex.

Just a pity the Secret Cinema only runs once a month!

Photo by Jeremy Keith on flickr, though I’m not sure this is the Secret Cinema.

Many pubs and bars have a poor choice of soft drinks. I don’t actually like Coke very much, and the only other choice in some places is orange juice from a bottle. You know, orange juice with all the orange taken out…

So imagine how delighted I was when I found Fentiman’s marvellous range of drinks. They’re based on botanical recipes from the early 20th century (actually, they do post-date Queen Victoria by a couple of years, but it was too good a headline to miss), and they really are great.

For instance the ginger beer actually tastes of ginger, and it has that marvellous fiery afterburn that the best home made ginger beer has. It’s not too sugary, either, unlike many of the canned varieties.

Then there’s dandelion and burdock - what Coke would be like if it had real guts, dark and tangy, with a slight hint of aniseed.  And a mandarin and orange ‘jigger’ that’s like drinking liquid marmalade. Plus, real lemonade - you know, made with lemons not E numbers.

Fentiman’s even makes what it calls a ‘curiosity cola’, with Catuaba and Guarana extracts. I haven’t had it though, so I can’t yet tell you whether it’s better than Coca-Cola and Pepsi. (But I did notice it has ginger on the ingredients list, too, so I’m hopeful.)

Look out for Fentiman’s characteristic stubby clear glass bottles and olde-style labels. Your taste buds will thank you for it.

Photo by Kirrily Robert on flickr

Open House London is hosting a mini-festival, The Lives of Buildings’, from 26th to 28th June. It’s going to be an interesting programme as it’s focused on how buildings affect our lives, and how the townscape has evolved - and aims to stimulate debate about what we want from our architecture and how our city can be improved.

The programme includes all kinds of guided walks and tours focusing on the built environment.  There’s a definite focus on regeneration - one event I find particularly interesting is a tour of Trinity Buoy Wharf and Container City. If you stay on at Trinity Buoy Wharf afterwards, there’s a parkour event later on. (I hope you don’t have to participate; it’s not the energetic nature of parkour that bugs me, but the manifold possibilities for falling over and twatting yourself. Altogether less dangerous just to watch!)

If you know Central London well, this is your chance to get to know some of the outlying boroughs - there are guided walks in Peckham, Balham (famously ‘Balham, Gateway to the South‘ as Peter Sellers referred to it), Croydon, and Hampstead.

Events also include Capture Camden with Shoot Experience - you’ll need to prebook for your team to join in this photographic exploration of Camden’s architectural heritage.

Once this festival is over, Open House can concentrate on its traditional annual event, the open house weekend, which will be held on 19 and 20 September. It’s worth making a date in your diary, as many buildings are open to the public on those days that are usually closed, or open only to the people working in them.

Photo by Fin Fahey on flickr

Most walks of London focus on the buildings and the history - people, architecture, houses, streets.

Now a series of guided walks focuses instead on exploring London’s green spaces - hidden gardens and parks.

Green City Walks’ ‘Hidden Gardens’ for instance explores the little known green spaces of the City - from rooftop gardens to the graveyards of churches that have disappeared. I know from my own 15 years of working in the City the dense network of tiny passages and alleyways that wriggle through it like maggots through a Swiss cheese, so following some of these by-ways to find the tiny jewels of garden must be fascinating. No need to book for this walk - it starts at 130 every Wednesday afternoon from just outside Moorgate station, and costs a fiver.

‘Jewels of the East’ illuminates another of my old stamping grounds, Mile End, Bow and Victoria Park, and wanders along the canal towpaths. It’s a walk of contrasts - the busy Mile End Road and the quiet canals, the clash between industrial development and tree-lined squares. I used to bike up to Stoke Newington from Bow, taking the canal till I hit the Kingsland Road - there are some amazingly pretty stretches of canal, as nice as anything you see on the posher end of the canal towards Paddington. (And equally there are some very glum, down-at-heel stretches - so it’s worth having a guide to make sure you see the best bits.)

There are also walks through Docklands and Wapping, again using alleyways and short cuts - the Docklands walk is traffic free! And there’s a special walk (which does require booking) following the Regent’s Canal all the way from Limehouse to Little Venice, on 4th July. That costs £20 - because you’ll hitch a lift on a narrowboat and get hot and cold drinks along the way.

The proceeds from the walks are being donated to Oxfam and Cancer Research, by the way. So you can help a good cause as well as exploring some lesser known areas of London - and finding beauty in the middle of what looks like urban sprawl.

Photo by Alan Stanton on flickr