The London Traveler

Well this is a bit different from Sotheby’s. I’ve been window shopping at Sotheby’s – I actually furnished much of my Stoke Newington house from the Criterion Auction Rooms!
The Islington branch is in that little bit of Essex Road that hasn’t been complete ly gentrified yet. You find lovely antiques, but you can also find a solid wood Victorian kitchen table like the one in my grandad’s kitchen for ten or fifteen quid  – if you’re lucky.
Auctions are on Mondays. That gives you Friday and the weekend to look at the lots. A viewing here is always fun – it’s …read more

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We’ve all seen the comic cuts where someone sneezes or scratches his nose and ends up buying a Van Gogh he can’t pay for as the auctioneer bangs his gavel…
Don’t worry.  It’s not going to happen to you. Not at Sotheby’s, anyway – you have to  register, and use a numbered paddle to bid. So you can watch the action in the auction room without wondering if you’re going to end up with a few million quid’s worth of Post-Impressionist and no money to pay for it.
So you can settle down, and watch what’s going on. You’ll see bidders raising …read more

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London has street cred. Some places have no street cred at all. In fact, London – the thriving, bustling metropolis – is ringed by towns with negative credibility.
Forty five minutes by train from any London station you find these places. Southend. Sidcup. Croydon. Harlow. Basildon.
What’s wrong with Basildon? 
It’s a ghastly place. A town in the middle of nowhere, among the muddy flat fields of Essex. Inhabited by no-hopers who can’t afford to move out. Where the shopping centre is the most interesting place you can go.
But one brave man is trying to  rehabiliate Basildon’s reputation. In fact, says Vin Harrop, …read more

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London is a city full of trees. The plane trees of its garden squares, the monkey puzzle trees of suburban villas, the great hornbeams of Epping Forest – they’re all part of the city’s character.
Some of these trees are just bit part players in the overall theatre of the city. But others play major roles – you can’t miss them.
Some because of their rarity. There’s an Indian Bean Tree (Catalpa bignoniodes)
in the churchyard of St James’s, Piccadilly, and a Hybrid Strawberry Tree (arbutus x andrachnoides) in Battersea Park.
Others, like the Yew in Totteridge churchyard, qualify by age. This tree is …read more

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Margate’s a funny place. A bit like Southend, it’s a seaside resort that has seen better days.  It’s a bit faded; the Dreamlands amusement park announced it was to close in 2003 (though it did keep going, in summer only, till the rollercoaster got burned down this year).
It doesn’t even have a decent football team. Margate FC plays in the Isthmian League, and if you haven’t heard of that, well, you’re in good company.
The main attractions would seem to be the old windmill, and the Shell Grotto – a mysterious place ‘discovered’ in 1835.  (Some people apparently think it’s an …read more

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I’m a big Ian McKellen fan. And his Richard III is, to my mind, one of the great Shakespearian performances.
But it’s also a wonderful guide to early 20th century building in London – the great days of Art Deco.
And what I think McKellen got absolutely right was the political ambivalence of this architecture. Take a good look at Shell  Mex House in the picture above – doesn’t it look just a bit like something by Albert Speer? The assertiveness of this architecture, its super-human scale, make it just that little bit totalitarian.
And certainly, when these buildings were put up, they …read more

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Coming up at the beginning of August is the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF).
Run by the Campaign for Real Ale, it’s volunteer staffed – I’ll be doing a stint on the bar this year – and is the nation’s premier festival for real ale and fine foreign beers.
There will be at least 450 beers available throughout the festival. And the Champion Beer of Britain will also be chosen out of what’s become an increasingly strong field of contenders. While national brewers do sometimes win – Greene King IPA got the silver award a few years back – microbrewers have a more …read more

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Shoot London is running a photo treasure hunt in Hackney next weekend.
Ten clues will take you to different corners of Hackney, which you have to capture with your camera. To participate, you need a team of two to four people, and you need to reserve your tickets online.
Shoot London’s photo-hunts are usually paid for events,  but Hackney Council has subsidised this one so it’s free. It’s a great opportunity to hone your photographic skills and compare your photos to what other people are taking – and an all round, enjoyable day out.
Where: Hothouse, 274 Richmond Road, London Fields E8
When: Saturday …read more

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I always dreamed of the kind of English country house that isn’t grand, that isn’t palatial, that carries its centuries lightly, that you reach at the end of a long, winding, drive through the woods; and when you get there, it’s on of those houses that’s been built over the ages, always adding new bits on, so that it’s a higgledy-piggledy, patchwork house.
And the other thing I want is a moat. The shimmer of water under the windows. Some waterlilies and maybe a few swans or ducks.
Now if you like that kind of house, Ightham Mote is for you.
At the …read more

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London station pubs are generally rather disappointing. Their prices are often high, the beer offering lacklustre (fizzy keg for the most part), and the premises depressing.
The Betjeman Arms might mark an interesting new departure.  It has real ale – Adnams, Meantime, and Sharp’s (‘Betjeman Bitter’) as well as Belgian beer. That’s a very interesting list for a London pub, with three ales usually on handpump.
At £3 a pint, prices are not extortionate for London. And while I’m not a lover of the faux-traditional style, at least it’s not a fluorescent strip-lit waste of seventies decor, like so many other station …read more

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