The London Traveler

Panto is one of the great traditions of the English theatre. Based on old fairy stories – Dick Whittington and his Cat, Aladdin and the Forty Thieves, Cinderella or Red Riding Hood – it’s become a separate genre with its own characteristics;

pantomime dames, aka men in drag playing old ladies, often of a villainous disposition;
audience participation – chants of ‘Behind you!’ and ‘Oh no it isn’t!’
camp jokes and doubles entendres which adults in the audience will understand and the under-tens hopefully won’t.

London is rich in panto and other Christmas or fairy tale themed performances this year.  But few of them …read more

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Out in Oman for Christmas a few years ago, I managed to maintain my Christmas tradition of listening to the service from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge – using our dial-up internet connection to get the broadcast from the BBC. I’ve never missed it; but I had difficulty explaining this obsession to my French boyfriend!
Since the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was first broadcast in 1938, it has been an essential part of many families’ Christmas.  But Londoners can get their dose of King’s College Choir a little earlier, as the choir will be singing at the Royal Albert Hall …read more

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The days when milkmaids wandered the streets of central London are long gone. But farmers’ markets still offer Londoners the opportunity to come face to face with food producers – and get fresh fruit, meat and veg as well as selection of goodies such as pies and cakes.
Stoke Newington Farmers Market takes over the playground of William Patten Primary School in Church Street  on Saturdays. And unlike many other farmer’ markets, it’s all organic (except for wild and biodynamic produce).With a 100 mile catchment area it features producers from Kent and Essex – as well as having a Caribbean food …read more

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London is full of kebab and curry houses. The difficulty is finding a really good one.
Lahore Kebab House is the cognoscenti’s choice. It’s one of those places that does one thing, but does it extremely well.
Not that you’ll worry about lack of choice (though vegetarians probably should give this restaurant a miss). There are spicy sausages, kebabs, lamb cutlets, chicken tikka. All kinds of grilled meat. And puffy little roti that melt in the mouth.
No pork, though. And no alcohol. This is a Muslim owned business and they take the prohibition on booze strictly enough not to sell it. But …read more

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Waterloo Place is absolutely crowded with statues. But they’re not all of Waterloo heroes like the Duke of Wellington. Two of them, almost facing each other, are the statues of great explorers – Robert Falcon Scott and John Franklin. Franklin had explored the far north of the Arctic – Scott, the furthest south in the Antarctic.
Sir John Franklin took part in the battle of Trafalgar, with Nelson – but his own claim to fame rests on his  exploration of the Arctic. He mapped huge expanses of the coastline, found new species of plants, and collected notes on geology and weather …read more

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Okay, maybe not drugs – but certainly socks with a rock and roll attitude!
This time of year my legs start getting cold. Tights are not enough. And trousers are boring. So Tabio is your answer – socks, dayglo tights, and leg warmers to die for.
I particularly liked the angora bed socks and furry leg warmers – something a bit different. Patterned socks aren’t so much my thing, but they have a good selection of those, too, as well as lots of over knee socks, plain, ribbed or even decorated with knitted chevrons and lozenges.
It’s a bright …read more

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A nice little video on The Times website takes us through Westminster tube station and explains some of the engineering wizardry that was needed to create the structure.
Okay, it’s a two minute video so it doesn’t go into nearly enough nerdy detail for me. If you want a more leisurely approach, there are some super pictures on the Metro-bits website.
And there is a marvellous article in the London Review of Books which analyses the architecture of each of the Jubilee Line stations – all built for the Jubilee line extension which was a Millennium project – as well as …read more

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“In some countries you wouldn’t have the right to visit this exhibition about your rights.”
The handout for the British Library’s exhibition makes its point emphatically. You might look at some of the documents displayed here and think they are just dry, dusty old bits of paper – but the history of British freedom is a long one, and without that history, we wouldn’t have the freedom to live our lives as we do.
When I was at school I got the benefit of what could broadly be called the Whig view of history – Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution of …read more

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 Life isn’t easy if you’re a vegetarian. Just too many restaurants have a single vegetarian option, or offer an unimaginative array of single-veg dishes.
Buffet V is different. It’s a Chinese buffet with a difference – all the dishes are vegetarian. Soya ‘duck’ and ‘chicken’ are available, but you can also find spiced aubergines, spring rolls, wonderful greens. It even smells great when you’re walking down the road – which is what attracted me in the first place.
And the greens actually looked green – not completely limp and overcooked. In fact the whole display looked exceptionally appetising, with a …read more

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This tiny food stand is a must if you’re anywhere near Charing Cross Road or Cambridge Circus.
This stall doesn’t do simple straight-up orange juice or apple juice. It offers you a wide range of interesting mixes, at £2.50 for a small one or £3 for a large juice. (Smoothies are 50p more.)
‘Robust’ mixes carrot, beetroot, celery and ginger; the Apple zing mixed carrot, apple and ginger, and the ‘cool and spicy’ option is orange, pear and ginger. All rather different – and if you’re thinking ginger is a bit of leitmotif here, you’d be right. These juices …read more

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