The London Traveler

As the year rolls on, most of us are somewhere in between our January resolution to get fit and our realisation at the start of the summer that we really ought to have done something about it… so I thought, as the days are growing longer, this might be a good time to start a mini-series on getting fit in London, with a firm emphasis on the outdoors.
Let’s start with the Hash House Harriers. This is running – but not as you know it.
The Hashers meet at a pub. A ‘hare’ sets a trail, with blobs of flour liberally scattered …read more

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This little pub just off the river Thames was CAMRA’s Greater London pub of the year in 2007, and when I visited recently I could see why.
It’s quite plain looking, a nice enough frontage overshadowed by big mansion blocks on both sides, with a small beer garden or courtyard at the side. (It was a bit cold for using that, really. In London, beer gardens don’t come into their own till June. Mad dogs and Englishmen may go out in the midday sun, but that’s only if there is any midday sun!)
Inside, there’s a huge U-shaped wooden bar. And straight …read more

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Not a lot of ancient London is left. You won’t find much in the City, of course, because the Great Fire of 1666 destroyed most of it – there are a couple of medieval churches left, but little else predates Sir Christopher Wren’s rebuilding. And in the West End, most of the older buildings have been replaced by more fashionable and up-to-date edifices.
If you want to see older buildings your best bet is to take a day trip; to Norwich for instance (less than two hours by train from Liverpool Street) or Cambridge (just over an hour from King’s Cross).
But …read more

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The Foundling Museum commemorates the days when unwanted children might be left at the doors of the Foundling Hospital. Hopefully this Easter it will resound to the delighted cries of much happier children on the Easter Trail.
And perhaps the delighted cries of their money-saving parents – who get to see the museum for free, instead of paying the entrance fee, just as long as they are accompanying their children! (Children, by the way, always get free entry here.)
The Foundling Hospital is a fascinating place. It was founded by philanthropist Thomas Coram – who had two great friends you’ve probably heard …read more

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I’m not particularly into old blocks of stone. People have shown me ruins of priories, ruins of castles, ruins of palaces, and they usually leave me cold.
But there are two remnants of ancient London within a few minutes’ walk of each other that really do make me stop and wonder. They’re both in the middle of the modern City – between office blocks and busy roads – and they both hark back to London’s most ancient past.
First, the Mithraeum, in Queen Victoria Street. It’s actually been resited since it was discovered – it was found in Walbrook, the other side …read more

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I thought the Tea Dance was something that went out forever with my grandad’s generation.
But like many features of British culture of the past, it’s being revived. Rag Roof Theatre hosts tea dances at Finsbury Old Town Hall on a regular basis.  (Though occasionally the company takes itself off to Brighton where it also hosts dances.)
The music is 1920s to 1940s – think flappers, Charleston, big bands – or rhythm & blues and early jive.
And oh yes, there’s tea and cakes as well. What’s not to love – in a post-modern, ever-so-slightly ironic way, of course?

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Tate Modern has sprung a new sight on London to join the interesting riverbank scene.
In a joint venture with the Design Museum, Tate Modern is hosting an icon of modern architecture – the Maison Tropicale by French architect Jean Prouvé. It’s a stunning creation which to me looks like a cross between Le Corbusier’s cool rationalism and the tinniness of an American diner. Perhaps nowadays it doesn’t look too shocking, but in its day it must have been quite a stunning innovation. Even today it has lessons to teach – how to reconcile prefabrication with artistic integrity.
In fact Prouvé could …read more

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There’s something wonderful about walking past a really good coffee shop. The smell of roasting coffee grabs you by the nose and pulls you in the door…
And that always used to happen to me when I wandered down Monmouth Street, just off Seven Dials.
This is a real coffee shop, not a Starbucks or a Costa Coffee. It’s one for the gourmet, with coffees from Rwanda and Ethiopia as well as more ‘regular’ sources like Colombia, Brazil and Kenya. And they roast their own beans. Hence the lovely smell, I suppose.
You can buy your beans here. You can also buy a …read more

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March 13th will see the opening of the 2008 Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park. If you fancy yourself as a Charles Saatchi but you haven’t got the millions you need to be a patron of the arts, the Affordable Art Fair is your chance to find an original work of art for your flat.
You will have to ante up £10 for an entry ticket. But that’s hardly Saatchi money. (It wouldn’t go far towards getting you a Damien Hirst jewel-encrusted skull, would it?)
120 different galleries are exhibiting at the fair, most with a determinedly contemporary feel – this isn’t …read more

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In a spare half hour recently I took out the ‘Blue Guide’ to London to flick through it. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but as I leafed through the book I began to feel that it was describing a different London from the one I knew.
It was a London that didn’t have Stoke Newington or the Edgware Road in it. A London without curry houses or balti places. A London without gurdwaras or mosques or black people or council estates. In short, it was London presented for the slightly literary traveller as a neat poached fillet – skinless, …read more

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