June 29th, 2008
There’s a superb piece in the Independent today looking at the decline of the traditional English pub, and featuring interviews with landladies, a pub quizmaster, and regulars.
It includes one lovely old favourite that every Londoner should try once - the Wenlock Arms in Islington.
But I’m not so sure that the great British boozer is on its way out. Look at the Jerusalem Tavern near Farringdon tube station - owned by Suffolk brewery St Peter’s. When I first started drinking there, Farringdon was still the wild west of the City, and the spit-and-sawdust feel of the pub was not post modern or ironic, but really down to earth.
Now, real ale seems to have become trendy. Amy Winehouse lookalikes and smart lads in suits crowd the pavement outside, and they’re not drinking lager. (Though you might not get grapefruit flavoured beer or honey mild in many old style boozers.)
Photo credit: James Cridland on flickr
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June 28th, 2008
Every English child grows up knowing that Hadrian built a wall to keep the Scots out.
But very rarely do we learn anything more about Hadrian. In fact, he’s a fascinating character - a very complex man who left his mark on the city of Rome and on the Roman world.
He didn’t just build the famous wall. He also built boundary defences in North Africa and Germany. He built a new forum and a wonderful set of markets in Rome, and restored Agrippa’s Pantheon. He was interested in architecture - bringing some ideas from the Hellenistic east - and was one of the greatest patrons of any Roman emperor.
He married into the imperial family to ensure his succession. But the love of his life was a Greek boy called Antinous. After his lover drowned, Hadrian had him made into a god. (Though some say that Hadrian had a hand in the drowning - whether for political reasons or out of jealousy.)
Personally, I think you won’t get the best idea of Hadrian’s legacy out of a museum exhibition. Visit Rome, or visit the Wall, and you’ll get much more feeling for the sheer power of the man. But this exhibition does justice to the more private side of the emperor, and it’s already led to some interesting discoveries - including the fact that the head and body of a ‘Hadrian’ that’s been in the museum over a hundred years actually belonged to two separate statues.
So maybe not an exhibition for those who just want to gawp. But definitely one for anybody who has an interest in knowing how and why the Roman Empire took over practically the whole world of its day - or acquainting themselves with the complex character who was the emperor Hadrian.
Where: The British Museum
When: till 26 October; 10-1730
How much: £12 adults (£10 concessions)
Photo credit - Sebastien Bertrand on flickr
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June 27th, 2008
There’s an interesting post on Venere suggesting a checklist of London activities that every visitor or resident ought to tick off.
What’s nice is that it’s clearly affectionate about the city - and doesn’t just suggest the tourist highlights. And I agree with most of the list, though personally, I wouldn’t bother with Harrods….
For what it’s worth, my top ten ‘Londoner’ things;
- Go to Smithfield Market early in the morning, see the market at work, the huge articulated lorries humming gently in the streets around, and get a pint of Guinness with your breakfast in the Fox & Anchor.
- Go to Columbia Road market on Sunday to see how East End street life meets modern style - and buy a nice bunch of flowers or a couple of plants.
- Get a ticket in the ‘gods’ (upper and lower slips) at Covent Garden and see the opera from a tiny perch high above the expensive seats. (Unfortunately, the cheaper tickets sell out fast - you may need to buy yours as soon as the new season brochure comes out.)
- Go out to Greenwich via the pedestrian foot tunnel under the Thames. Get your pie and mash or fish and chips, and then after lunch, walk uphill through the park to the Observatory for one of the best views of London.
- Get the front seat on the bus - just about any bus will do, but I like the number 15 - and take your own sightseeing tour.
- Watch the crowds streaming across London Bridge in the rush hour - into the City at 8-9 in the morning and away again in the evening.
- Get a curry in Brick Lane. Or even better, ignore Brick Lane itself and go to New Tayyab’s in Spitalfields.
- Go to a proper pub and drink a pint of beer brewed in London - that’ll probably be Fullers, but if you’re lucky you’ll find beers by Meantime brewery of Greenwich.
- Go to the Brick Lane Bagel Bake and have a lox (smoked salmon) and cream cheese bagel - part of London’s Jewish heritage.
- You have to go to at least one big free event in Trafalgar Square, whether it’s an anti-war rally, free festival, or New Year get-together.
Of course real Londoners never, ever go to any of the art galleries or museums. And then when they move out of London they spend all their time complaining that now they can’t go to them, they want to!
Photo credit - Pearly Kings and Queens, real Londoners all! Garry Knight on flickr
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June 26th, 2008
Frugality is the new ‘in’ thing.
First of all there’s the credit crunch which is making many people tighten their belts. My friends all know I’m the kind of person who loves finding a nice bit of Betty Barclay or Paul Costelloe in a charity shop - but up till now they’ve regarded it as rather infra dig. Now, they’re all up to it too!
And secondly, of course, there’s global warming, and a lot of people are now thinking about living more sustainable lifestyles.
So a lot more people are interested in sewing or customising their own clothes.
Junky Styling is just the right kind of business for these times. It got started when its two founders started making their own clothes to go clubbing in. Then they got into ‘deconstructing’ charity shop clothes.
The results are fun. Shirt sleeves become shorts, ties are stiched into halternecks; it’s very funky fashion. Probably not what I’d wear for a job interview though!
Where: 12 Dray Walk,The Old Truman Brewery,91 Brick Lane E1
Photo of the Junky Styling Fashion Week party by Fabio Venni, on flickr
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June 25th, 2008
New plans have been announced for Battersea Power Station - one of the capital’s biggest and most shockingly neglected building sites.
This must be the third set of plans for the property, at least, and I’m amazed that in the current economic climate such a grandiose set of plans is being touted. It will cost at least £4bn (that’s about $8m US) and won’t be completed till 2020.
The plans envisage the creation of a huge glass and steel chimney which will dwarf the power station alongside. That just seems to me a massive piece of vandalism. The power station is a monumental building - not just in scale but also in the magnificent self-assertion of its fluted chimneys and the fine red-and-white contrasts of its brickwork against the creamy chimneys. Putting something square, big, and boring next to it is just wrong.
Apparently the new chimney/tower is actually a wind tower, which will provide ventilation through natural suction. Sustainability, tick. (Although in most countries which use this technology, like Oman and the Emirates, it’s high temperatures which drive the use of the wind tower. I don’t remember Battersea as a particularly warm borough.)
But the problem is that this tower - higher than the Gherkin - makes the power station look like a Dinky toy.
I don’t know whether this development will ever get off the ground. And I must admit to mixed feelings. I’d love to see the power station restored, refurbished, and given new life. But not, I think, next to this glass Leviathan.
Photo credit - Jon Bennett on flickr
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June 25th, 2008
Wimbledon is one of Britain’s great icons. Tennis on grass courts, not clay. Players clad in their pristine tennis whites. The gentle sounds of tennis balls bouncing from racquet strings, the thunk-thunk of the ball, polite outbursts of applause.
And, of course, strawberries and cream.
There’s something very British - very middle-class British - about Wimbledon. For instance, the queue. It may not always be apparent when you’re waiting for a bus - not nowadays - but we like to think that while the French have cheese, and the Germans have beer and sausages, we have queues. We’ve made them into a fine art.
And with only 500 tickets available each day (the rest were all booked months ago), of course Wimbledon has a queue.
There’s even a whole web page on the official site devoted to telling you where, how, when to queue - and how to behave while you’re standing in line.
And this is real British Bulldog queuing, so you’ll need all those British qualities of determination in the face of adversity, stoicism, and stiff upper lip- many fans even camp out overnight to be sure they’ll get a ticket!
I’m not a great tennis fan. But I’m always amazed by the spectacle that Wimbledon represents. If you’re into people-watching, it’s a Godsend - you don’t even need a ticket, just watch the queue.
But all this writing about Wimbledon reminds me that it is the season for strawberries and cream. And while tennis leaves me cold, I really am a big fan of strawberries. So excuse me while I disappear off to the fridge for a few minutes…
Photo credit: Geraint Owen on flickr
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June 24th, 2008
You might think a museum of waterworks sounds rather dull. But Victorian London excelled in the creation of excellent waterworks - Bazalgette’s huge sewers, fine pumping stations and public fountains - and it’s a heritage that deserves celebration, and gets it at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum.
The museum is set in a superb Victorian pumping station, which blends functionality with elegance. The fine Italian renaissance style standpipe tower is a local landmark, its restraining arches and cornices clearly asserting its architectural pretensions.
Still, although I’m a bit of a nerd, I’ve never been a model railway fan, and I find the attractions of a lot of inert engines pall rather quickly. That’s why, unless you’re really into mechanics, I’d recommend you visit on one of the Giants of Steam weekends, when you can see the engines at work.
It’s not just about seeing them working - all your senses are involved; the smell of the coals, the noise of the pistons, the heat of flame and steam.
The museum also houses London’s only steam railway, which you can take a ride on. Railways like this one brought coal to the pumping stations to feed the engines, hungry monsters that devoured fuel in huge quantities.
There are Giants of Steam weekends on June 28/29, July 26/27, and September 27/28 - unfortunately there’s no steam day in August.
Where: Green Dragon Lane, Brentford, Brentford, London TW8 0EN (Kew Gardens Tube)
When: Tues-Sun, 11-4
How much: £8.50 (£7.50 OAPs and students), under-16s free when accompanied by a paying adult: Free if you have a London Pass
Photo Credit - Les Chatfield on Flickr
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June 23rd, 2008
I’d heard quite a lot about Silvercane Tours - Simon Rodway’s special interest tours of London. He’s obviously quite busy at the moment, but he agreed to do an interview for The London Traveler about the mysteries of becoming a Blue Badge guide, his favourite sights in London, and his various tours.
LT: How did you first get interested in the history of London? (And are
you a Londoner - or did you grow up somewhere else?)
SR: I am a sufferer of ‘The Alexander The Great Syndrome’. Meaning, someone not born of the culture, but the biggest fan of it. I am a Kiwi of British and NZ/Italian stock. I grew up in Auckland NZ in the 1950s/60s when all NZ history was BRITISH - Churchill and World War II etc.
Now, of course down there it is much more Polynesian and now even East Asian, as well.
So in the 60s/70s I couldn’t wait to get here to London. Everything was Bond
and Blow Up and the Beatles.
The first thing I did when I got off the plane in 1975 was head for The
Roundhouse, to hear Patti Smith supported by The Stranglers. I had arrived!
So …
1. I am a history nut
2. I love walking
3. I read a lot of biographies, so that here in London, uniquely, there are
the physical buildings still existing, where my heroes lived/worked/played.
LT: And that all makes a potent mix which made you into a tour guide! Tell me a bit about the process of getting your Blue Badge - how long it takes, which bits you found most difficult (I know for me remembering dates would be a real problem), what else you were doing at the time.
SR: At 50 years old I enrolled in the Blue Badge qualification - an adult education course, lasting 2 years, that trains up professional British tourist guides.
It’s tough - rather like joining the Marines - they ‘break you down to build you up’ - two 2-hour lectures a week, plus every Saturday an all-day practical on the mic, to the Tower, or Bath or Canterbury or Stratford etc. Then, there’s the exams! Written and practical. The pass rate is around 40% only.
LT: That’s worse than taking the driving test. 43% of people pass that the first time. (I didn’t…)
How do you see your job? We often see images of Big Ben, royal pomp, guardsmen in their bearskins, as if that’s all there was to London - but I see you have Sufragette tours, a James Bond tour, a da Vinci tour, all sorts of interesting off-beat destinations.
SR: London is a 2000 year old city - the world centre for foreign exchange and
insurance, dominated by the mighty Lloyds of London.
And because of the British Empire, London is the world’s most multi-racial and
multi-cultural city, and with the 2012 Games coming our way, it is getting
better all the time. So it is my job to make sure people enjoy this fantastic and ancient river/port city.
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June 23rd, 2008
There’s an interesting suggestion in the Times today that Boris Johnson may revive some of London’s lost rivers.
The Westbourne already surfaces in the Serpentine, but the Fleet (which gives its name to Fleet Street) is completely buried. Other rivers that might resurface are mainly suburban - the Ravensbourne in Lewisham, for instance, or the Wandle in Croydon.
It’s difficult to tell from the Times article whether this idea has got past the kite-flying stage. It would certainly take years to put into practice.
But I do know of one city where a river has been rediscovered - Mechelen, in Belgium. It was once a city built on little islands in the marshy environs of the river Dijle. Later on, the canals and streams were blocked up, and only a tiny stub of one left open to view, the ‘Green Water’, a duckweed-filled inlet behind a couple of monastic refuges.
But a few years ago, Mechelen decided to reclaim its water heritage, and opened up the channel of the Melaan right in the middle of the city. It’s transformed the space - and that’s made a real impact on the quality of life.
My personal choice of a London river to revive? The Walbrook. Just imagine the Walbrook running down from St Stephen’s church towards Cannon Street - what a lovely lunchtime spot that would make in the middle of the City!
Photo credit - Jude Holland on flickr. The photo shows the current route of the Fleet river.
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June 22nd, 2008
Charity shops are a very movable feast. I remember one in Islington that was full of the most dire clothes - really tatty, threadbare, old men’s clothes - but where occasionally you could find beautiful vintage dresses for a few quid. Then there are some where customers complain that the staff know the value of what they’re selling far too well - no bargains perhaps, but a chance to get very, very nice stuff for a secondhand price.
Oxfam’s new boutiques are the second kind of charity shop. There are now three of them - all in West London.
As well as selling secondhand designer clothes, they’ll also be selling a mix of new fairtrade, sustainable, and reworked clothing.
They’re a bit more cutting edge than most charity shops. You’re not going to find anything your aged auntie might want to wear. Oxfam has worked with a number of young designers, and Jane Shepherdson - formerly boss of Top Shop - helped refine the concept. The shops will all carry reworked clothes from Junky Styling and other labels.
The bad news? Well, the prices are way, way above what I’m used to from a charity shop. You’ll pay over £100 for a decent dress. So, I think, Oxfam boutiques are for serious fashionistas only!
Where: 245 Westbourne Grove, LondonW11: 123a Shawfield Street, off King’s Road, SW3: and 190 Chiswick High Road, London W4.
Photo credit: Christan Guthier on flickr
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