The London Traveler

If you like the Gothic – that is, the macabre, rather than the medieval style – there’s no better place to visit in London than Old Saint Pancras cemetery.
Huge trees shade the place; in winter, their trunks are stark, and you can  hear their twigs rattling above you. Sometimes one hurtles down, blown off by a gust of wind. Behind loom tall brick tenements, bare and gloomy like Scottish castles. And everywhere, of course, are gravestones. Just take a stormy sky and the threat of rain, and you could fancy yourself on the set of a horror film.
Both the railway …read more

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The black cab is one of London’s icons. And if you’re hailing a taxi on the street, it will be one of these – though it may not be black these days, since they’re allowed to carry advertising on the outside as well as the inside.
But black cabs are not cheap. Heathrow to Central London will cost you about £70. You can expect even a ten minute journey of about a mile or so to cost between a fiver and £8.
So it’s worth having the number of a minicab firm. You can’t hire a minicab off the street, as you …read more

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Want to go to India, but can’t afford the plane fare? Buy a tube ticket instead.
Shri Swaminarayan Mandir is a taste of India marooned in the middle of Metroland. It’s a massive Hindu temple, built in traditional style, towering over the suburban sprawl of Neasden. All around may be mock Tudor semis and housing estates – but as soon as you go through the gate, you’re in the presence of the Hindu gods.
The temple’s profile is unmistakable; towering pinnacles of gleaming white limestone (perhaps best seen when they’re lit by a pale sun against a stormy sky). Every surface is …read more

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I found the most fascinating article today on one of London’s little mysteries.
I’ve always wondered about the huge piers in the water next to Blackfriars Bridge when I pass them. They obviously supported something – or were intended to; but were they the remains of a project that never got built, or the ruins of a bridge that fell?
On Currybet.net Martin Belam makes all clear.  There was indeed a bridge here, used by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, back in the 1860s.
In those days, there were scores of railway companies – every market town seemed to have its own …read more

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In between the cutting edge of BritArt and BritPop (which I’ll admit is hardly cutting edge any more, really) and the classical tourist appeal of Westminster or the Ritz, there’s a twentieth-century London that we’ve almost lost sight of completely. Post-war and early Sixties London are almost foreign countries for us these days.
The Ace Cafe is a real historic site. It opened in 1938, as a roadside cafe catering for traffic on the new North Circular road. The cafe was soon joined by a petrol station. Damaged in the Second World War, it was rebuilt in a sort of late …read more

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I’ve always loved the Hackney Empire. It’s a lovely theatre, but it’s the audiences thatmake it special.
When I went to the double bill Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci there, my evening was made by the two little old ladies in front of me discussing the plots of operas. Both of them had the kind of Cockney accent the casting director of East Enders would kill for, and neither of them can have been much under eighty.
“This is the one where they get buried alive, isn’t it?” said one.
A supercilious grin had just begin to display itself on my features when the …read more

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It’s panto season and the pantomime dames are out in force. The jowlier and less shaven they are, the better- there’s nothing quite as British as the sight of a totally unconvincing ‘Dame’, all stubble and hairy legs under the makeup and gold lamé.
The Pantomime Dame is one of those great English traditions. I suspect Aussie Dame Edna Everage owes much of her glam to this strand of drag. Widow Twankey, in Aladdin, is always a dame – the ugly sisters in Cindarella are often blokes, too.
But London is also seeing an explosion of a rather more thoroughgoing drag style …read more

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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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