The London Traveler

There seems to be a lot of news coming out of the mayor’s office – Boris Johnson has evidently decided to keep journalists busy.
London is to get a new Thames crossing in time for the Olympics. (Actually, given the usual tardiness of planning committees and contractors, I suspect the thing might not be ready in time – and I will bet you many, many pints of beer that it’s over budget  by the time it’s finished!)
This was going to be a road bridge. But experts say this isn’t the best option. A cable car crossing might be better.
It would almost …read more

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Ironmonger Row Baths are a favourite secret spot of mine. I was introduced to them by a colleague who was a keen competitive cyclist, and wanted to keep fit at lunchtime – he swam three days a week and took a Turkish bath on Friday when everyone else in the City was out drinking.
The building is a rather unprepossessing 1930s block on the outside. The interior, though, breaks forth into splendid Modernism, at odds with the neo-Georgian exterior. The main pool room feels light and airy.
But it’s not the swimming pool that is the big secret. It’s the Turkish baths. …read more

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Everyone knows the Knightsbridge Two – Harrods and Harvey Nichols. But for my money, particularly if you’re food shopping,  Fortnums is much more fun.
The shop’s reputation rests on its food hall. And the food really is tremendous. Of course nowadays you can get chorizo in every supermarket and canned olives from the corner shop. But peruse any of Elizabeth David’s cookery books and you’ll get a feel for how difficult it used to be to get such things in England – in one of them she actually gives the addresses of the two (only two!) shops in Soho where you …read more

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Leadenhall Market, the finest complete Victorian market building in London, is worth a visit anyway. It’s a superb space, though not what it was. I remember when it had a faded little supermarket in the middle – a shop that seemed to have come through from the 1950s without ever changing – with a confectionery section where you could get yoghurt cashews and chocolate brazils. And there used to be many more fishmongers and gamedealers; pheasants and grouse hanging up, or rabbits, and the stink of fish. Nowadays, the boutiques have moved in, and the chain stores, and the …read more

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This tower is a child of the sixties. The Post Office commissioned it to protect ‘line of sight’ communications against interruption from the tall buildings then being planned for London; it was opened in 1965 by Prime Minister Harold Wilson – the man who famously invoked “the white heat of technology” in his speeches.
It’s a fine building, making a statement that earlier telecoms masts hadn’t. It’s an early use of a concrete shell clad in glass – for its date, quite a revolutionary technique. We’re used to ‘walls of glass’ today that we forget what a shockingly modernist building this …read more

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Well, summer is here. Nearly.
The Chelsea Flower Show starts tomorrow, at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. It’s the show that sets all the trends in the world of gardening – new kinds of garden, new themes, new plants. It’s as important to gardeners as London Fashion Week is to designers.
Themes this year will include wildlife gardening and xeriscaping – gardens for drier, hotter climates, which we’re expecting as a result of  global warming.
Tickets are sold out, though. But if you’re into peoplewatching, you can still have a lot of fun with the queue, as serious gardeners are joined by ladies in …read more

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Boris Johnson in his wisdom has banned drinking on public transport.
Now I don’t really think that drinking on the Tube is a great British tradition,  or a freedom very greatly worth defending.
But I’m still glad someone saw the opportunity for a little protest. All the more since they made it into a party.
Saturday May 31st is the last day you’ll be able to drink on the Tube. And that’s when the Final Circle Line Party will be held – from 9pm, in the last tube of the train leaving Liverpool Street clockwise.
Sounds like a really good excuse for a knees-up. …read more

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Latest news – Oyster will be extended to many more overground trains from September this year.
Boris Johnson has already got First Great Western to agree to take Oysters – and make discounted fares available – on its trains out of London from September 2008. Now he’s trying to get the other train operators to agree similar deals.

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One of my favourite museums in London is the one I consider the most truly macabre. It’s not the London Dungeon or a torture chamber in the Tower – it’s the museum at Westminster Abbey with its funeral effigies of English Kings.
There seems to have been a tradition of displaying the monarch’s body openly in public. It was one way of making sure the king had died ‘honestly’ – not been made away with – though apparently, the murderers of Edward II managed to avoid being traced by the use of a red hot poker and a piece of antler. …read more

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I thought I’d do a London alphabet. I was going to start it with B for Beer…. but since I’m having a cup of TEA at the moment, and a number of people were intrigued by my where to have tea posting, what better place to start?
(I’ll get round to B later on, I’m sure!)
TEA – a great British Tradition.
TWININGS on the Strand, the original tea shop of what’s now become a global brand.
THE TEA HOUSE in Covent Garden, with the most stunning selection of teapots in its Japanese style window.
THE TEA ROOMS, now sadly departed, a proper …read more

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