Comments (0)

By David, January 21, 2006

A Northern bottle-nosed whale swam up the Thames on Friday and made it about as far as Battersea Bridge. This morning I went to have a look and I took some pictures.

This is supposedly the first time a whale has been seen in the Thames since records began for this kind of thing but I saw on the news an historian from the Museum of London said that it has happened once before in the 17th century. Then, as now, thousands of people flocked to the river to catch a glimpse of the creature. It shows how attitudes have changed when you consider that then, they harpooned the poor whale but today rescuers have managed to catch the whale and are in the process of dragging it back out to the estuary.

It’s great living in central London. There’s always so much interesting stuff happening on our doorstep.

Comments (2)

By David, March 19, 2005

The No 19 Routemasters won’t be growling past our windows much longer. According to the London Bus Page, the last Routemaster will pull into the Battersea Garage on 1 April 2005.

This is just one more in a growing list of routes that have been phasing out their Routemasters over the last year. By the end of 2006 there won’t be any left.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Routemasters. Sure they are noisy and bouncy and they leak when it rains, but they have character. They are so quintessentially “London”. Like black cabs, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

The Routemasters are fifty years old this year. They come from another time. A time of Pea-soupers. A time when people weren’t as concerned about safety. Try introducing a new vehicle now with no doors but just a big gaping hole at the back where people can jump on and off at will. And there isn’t anything quite like that thrill you get as you leap onto the deck of a moving Routemaster, clinging to the pole, secretly thinking how cool you must have looked.

And what will happen to all the conductors? They are all slightly mad in their own unique ways. What will happen to them? The guy who gives a commentary of the central London bus stops. The man with the oversize hat to contain his huge dreads. The old bloke who seemed to speak in words he had made up himself. What will they do?

So the other weekend I decided to take a few photos of them before they went the way of the Concorde. They are in the gallery.

Also, I have decided not to post any more geeky comments on this site. If you are into that kind of stuff you will be able to find it on my other website,www.sharedmemory.net.

Comments (0)

By David, July 8, 2004

It is the British Grand Prix this weekend at Silverstone. There are plans to bring a Monaco style GP to London and to promote this idea there was a parade of F1 cars down Regent street on Tuesday night.

Working nearby and finishing at 4:15, I thought it might be cool to wander down after work and have a look. By the time I got there at about 4:30 Regent Street was already lined with people four-deep. So I stood around for a while staring at the same empty road as half a million other fans. Occasionally some security people would walk past. There was not a car in sight.

After about an hour of this, the crowd had grown even more and I was comforted by the fact that if all the blood were to drain to my toes and I was to pass out I wouldn’t actually fall over. Having run out of lamp posts, people were now scaling the scaffolding in front of a building site in amusingly reckless ways. The crowd, strangely bored with standing on one spot looking at nothing, voiced encouragement, pantomime style, as a tubby fellow had a go, exposing a builder’s cleavage on the way up.

My spirits lifted briefly as the safety car roared up regent street. Unfortunately, no F1 cars followed.

Fifteen minutes more of this and I gave up and headed for the bus stop. There were flashbacks to Millennium Eve as I was trapped by what seemed like a thousand bodies on all sides. Eventually I made it to my bus stop and after waiting for a bus for about forty minutes, I decided I may as well take some photos of what I could see as I had lugged my camera in especially. By this time I could hear the F1 cars and assumed them to be somewhere in the middle of the crowds. Piccadilly Circus was bursting with people. Not only were the roads overflowing, but it appeared the buildings were as well. A large number of people were actually on the roofs of the buildings lining Regent Street.

Having given up on the buses and Piccadilly Circus tube being closed, I headed for Leicester Square tube station. It was there I found all the buses and jumped on an exceedingly slow 19 that took the most diverted route imaginable. Not only did it not link back up to its normal route until it turned on to Battersea Bridge, but it didn’t stop once and if I hadn’t leaped off at the traffic lights I would have finished up at the Battersea depot.

So, I didn’t actually see any cars. But hey, I got to stand around a lot and take some photos of a whole bunch of people. Yay.

Comments (0)

By David, May 29, 2003

Well, Matt should be landing in Cairo right about now. I hope he packed some sunscreen. I checked the weather: 37C. Yuck.

He was originally going to fly to Cairo from Algiers, but decided to swing by London when an earthquake changed his itinerary. Unbeknownst to me, he had been in contact with Kathryn and they had hatched a plan to surprise me on my birthday.

We had just returned from tea at the Ritz (photos here), an experience I thoroughly recommend, and as I walked through the door I was greeted by a voice which intoned, “Good evening.” Needless to say I was somewhat surprised.

That night we had dinner at Wagamama in Covent Garden. Matt paid for that. The next morning dawned bright and blue, and by a stroke of good fortune it was a bank holiday and I had the day off. So we went to Bluebird for breakfast, alfresco style. It was lovely. Matt paid for that too.

After a hard day’s shopping we had dinner at Pizza Express at the end of our street. Yum, pizza. Matt paid.

It was great timing, really. I had a few days off, as did Kathryn, it was my birthday and the weather was bloody marvellous. We had a great time and were sorry to see Matt go.

There are pictures in the London gallery.

Comments (0)

By David, February 16, 2003

On Saturday London played host to the biggest public demonstration Britain has ever seen. About one million people converged on Hyde Park to protest against the probable war with Iraq.

Being a tool of corporate greed I had to work, but Kathryn was there and she took some photographs. You can find them in the Gallery.

Comments (0)

By David, January 7, 2003

Snow Chaos Hits London

So shouted the headline from the Evening Standard seller’s stand I could see through the window of HMV.
Snow Chaos. Snow Chaos? This is indicative of the hyperbole employed by the tabloid press. And also the British pre-occupation with the weather. And also the inability of London to deal with any hint of snow. Or rain. Or falling leaves.

Today was cold, yes; about 1. It did snow, yes; I should know I rode through it at 8am – nice. But chaos? There was only the lightest sprinkle of snow, and as soon as it hit the ground it melted.

For those of you too lazy to click to the article, let me quote a few salient comments:

• High ground such as Wimbledon Hill and Hampstead Heath was hit particularly badly, with motorists careering wildly on skidpan roads.
• Forecasters predicted that the cold snap would continue, probably into next week, with average temperatures between 0-3C (32-36F).

Motorists careering wildly on skidpan roads?

Average temperatures between 0-3C?

Russia is averaging about -20 and we are complaining about 0? That’s not even negative!

Here is another bit that made me laugh:

• Treacherous roads were not the only problem facing those driving to work today. After a series of opportunist thefts, police warned motorists not to defrost cars by leaving them unattended with the engines running.

Puhleez

Comments (0)

By David, November 26, 1999

We have finally found a place to live. After many hours and miles walking the cold, dark streets of London, Kathryn and I have found a place at Acton, West London. Click here for a map view of our street, Spencer St. It is a one bedroom flat on the lower-ground floor of a Victorian conversion. We have the whole floor as well as a front and back garden with space to park a BBQ and our own front door. Compared to other places we had seen this was by far the biggest. Pictures will follow when I take them and finish the roll. It is in a little group of streets called Poets Corner because of such street names as Chaucer Rd and Shakespeare Rd. Acton is a nice quiet area near the Ealing Film Studios where I think they used to film comedies. If you start walking west from Oxford St you should get to Acton in about an hour. We move in next weekend (4th).

Churches

I had a day off yesterday, so I went to see some churches that had been on my list for a while. They are three of the finest churches in London but most tourists miss them.
First I went to Southwark Cathedral which I have passed many times on the train. The grey church is tucked away between warehouses and cranes near London Bridge and is easily missed. When HV Morton visited the cathedral in 1951 the verger told him: “If this cathedral stood within ten miles of a popular watering-place, it would be one of the most famous sights in England. Although millions of people pass it every week, they are alway in a hurry, either rushing to work or else rushing home after work.” Like so many other cathedrals it was covered in scaffolding outside, but it was very pleasant within. I thought it was a bit steep asking for a £2.50 donation and then charging you £1.50 for a photo license, but that’s London. Better value than St Pauls.
There is a memorial to Shakespeare who lived in the parish for a while and performed at the Globe Theatre nearby.

I have decided to start collecting epitaphs. As HV Morton says, “They always seemed much more worth collecting than many things.” There are many interesting ones in Southwark but I made a note of this one:

Wenceslas Hollar (1607 – 1677)
Exile from Bohemia – Artist in England

The works of nature and of men
By thee preserved, take life again.
And ev’n thy Prague serenely shines,
Secure from ravage in thy lines.
In just return this marble frame
Would add some ages to thy name:

Too frail, alas! ‘Tis forced to own
Thy shadows will outlast the stone.
George Vertue 1745

From the cathedral I took a tube to Bank to see the church of St Stephen Walbrook. This is the church Wren practised his dome building on before St Pauls and is in the street of the same name (which used to be a little stream leading to the Thames), next to the Lord Mayor’s nice (Mansion) House. I arrived half an hour late to hear the sung Eucharist, which is at the unususal time of 12:45 Thursdays. I looked in through the windowed doors and the choir sounded very good. While waiting for the service to finish I bought a baguette from Pret on Cannon Street and ate it in a little patch of trees and a fountain off College Street. It was a lovely day; the sky was clear and the weather was very mild.
St Stephen Walbrook is a lovely church. It is very small, just one square room really, but this room is topped by a lovely dome and in the centre, surrounded by sixteen pillars, is a huge boulder for an altarstone.

I then walked down Queen Victoria Street to Mansion House Station passing the remains of the Roman Temple of Mithras. Not much to look at but it is very old. It is also one of the few places of historical interest that is 100% free.

I emerged from Temple tube and, after buying a lemon for Kathryn who isn’t feeling the best, walked up Fleet Street to Temple Bar for one of the most amazing experiences of my life. You wouldn’t know it, but behind the buildings on Fleet Street lies another world. I ducked down a little alley past a guy selling newspapers and suddenly it was if I had stepped through a transporter and landed in Oxford. The Temple Church stood in front of me surrounded by the peaceful and scholarly looking buildings of Inner Temple, one of the Inns of Court (where the barristers hang out). The church was built by the Knights Templar in the 12th century before they got too rich and the King shut them down. It is wonderful. It is the only round church left in London. Inside are some ancient effigies of knights and on the curved wall of the nave are some wonderfully grotesque stone faces.

It is right up there with the chapel in Edinburgh Castle for my favourite little churches.

Comments (0)

By David, November 20, 1999

Last Friday the roof exploded. It was my day off (the last I would get for another six days) and I had planned to sleep in before going to look at flats in a relaxing kind of way. This was not to be. I was woken by Kathryn at 7:30am when she informed me of the fact that water was leaking from the ceiling outside our room. It went something like this…

Kathryn: Dave, you better get up, there’s water leaking from the roof.
David: ?
Kathryn: While engaged in the usual frantic busy-ness that females begin the day with – I have put some buckets down but I think you better get up. It’s also leaking upstairs.
David: ??
Kathryn: I have to go to work now but you should get up and call Gill.
David: Struggling to comprehend this strange turn of events – ???
Kathryn: The number’s in my phone, I really have to go, I’ll be late.
David: Getting out of bed – S**t.

I looked at the hall. Water was now running out of the light fitting. I rang Gill, who said she would come right away. I called Thames Water, who told me to switch off the water. I tried to do this but had no idea where the tap was. (Oh yeah, Malcolm was at this stage blissfully unaware in New York.) I eventually found the mains tap in the basement and turned on all the other taps in the house to drain the tank. Water was by now flowing freely out of several light sockets, and I had already had to change a bucket and two saucepans.
I eventually got in touch with a plumber who would come as soon as he could.
It was at this stage that water started to drip from the dining room ceiling on the ground floor. Not surprised by this I positioned the wok strategically, remembering the immortal words of Clint Eastwood: “Adapt, Improvise, Overcome”.
When the light shorted out in the dining room I decided to have some toast while I waited for the plumber (the water had by now slowed in the upper levels, so I thought the worst was over. Ha!)
As I was adjusting a saucepan on the table under a new leak I heard a groaning sound. My instincts only just saved me as I leapt across the room just as a large piece of the ceiling collapsed onto the table, showering the four walls (and my piece of toast, dammit) with mud and water.
A torrent fell from the roof.
I think I said something like, “By jove, that was a close one, what?”
I rang Mary who lives next door who came over with some more buckets. Eventually the flood slowed to a trickle and Gill arrived. Soon after, the plumber arrived and replaced the faulty valve that had unleashed such watery destruction on my day off.
Kathryn arrived home shortly after to help clean up, but we had done all we could so we went shopping at Sainsbury’s.

J Sainsbury

As some of you may know, I used to work at Coles, so I know a little more about the workings of supermarkets than most, and I could tell you a few stories. But believe me when I say this: supermarkets in Adelaide are a seriously classy operation compared to London. Some things to appreciate:

Being greeted: You may think you don’t like it when they say “Hi, how are you today?”, but trust me, it is better than being completely ignored.

Having your bags packed: You will miss this when it just does not happen. Ever. And all your groceries are piling up at the end of a conveyer belt as you struggle to keep up, stuffing bread into plastic bags you can’t open.

Friendly staff: The staff in Adelaide may say nasty things about customers when they are not in earshot but when dealing with customers they usually do a genuinely good job. The staff at New Cross Sainsbury’s are rude and unfriendly. They suck.

Flat Hunting

We still have not found a place to call our own. But I live in hope. We have a first week of December deadline and I am positive we will meet it.

Christmas shopping

Here’s a tip: Do it in July. Oxford Street is hell. Trust me, I work there. It is only November and it is already a war zone. We were there this afternoon and only just made it back alive. I caught a swift and obviously intentional elbow to the guts by some *&£$&^ while fighting my way to Debenhams.
If you must go there, I would suggest body armour and if you want to make reasonably good time some offensive weaponry is a must, say, brass knuckles or a good stout club.
On a lighter note, the lights (sorry, no pun intended, honestly) have been switched on in Regent, Oxford and Bond Streets. The Bond Street ones are the nicest. They are blue and look quite beautiful. Oxford Street has some pretty ones as well. The best time to appreciate them is at 3am when there are comparatively few people on the streets. Photos to come…

Comments (0)

By David, October 10, 1999

I’m sorry I haven’t updated the site for a while; I have been very busy with work lately. I have now been working at HMV for three weeks. It took me the first two weeks for my feet to get used to it but I am no longer in constant pain.

The Club

On the 4th Malcolm took us to the Reform Club to see the Medici String Quartet perform. This was where Phineous Phogg (or something) set out from on his trip around the world in 80 days. It is a magnificent if somewhat gloomy building styled after a Roman house/palace. I imagine it must be very pleasant to sit and read the paper in the morning. The quartet performed in a very intimate setting and they were extremely good (duh!). They all had wonderful instruments which no doubt helped. They played Haydn’s ‘Bird’ quartet which brought back memories of the Divertimento performances:)

After the concert, which also included Beethoven’s Op.59 No.1, we repaired to the dining room for dinner (or was it supper?) It was very nice food accompanied by very nice wine and we returned home with very full stomachs.

Greenwich

Unusually, I had a whole weekend off work so we went to Greenwich. Londoners will tell you what a wonderful place Greenwich is; “delightful” they say. I suppose it is much nicer than a lot of London, but that isn’t necessarily saying much. Still, it is a very pleasant place with nice antique shops and it has a much more open and clean feeling to it than, say, Oxford Street. It has quite a nautical air about it.

The Royal Observatory is very fine indeed. It sits atop a hill in the lovely Greenwich Park and has a great view of the Millenium Dome and the City. It is filled with globes, astrolabes, telescopes and wonderful models of the solar system. They are superbly crafted from brass with little gears and springs and most are 200 years old.

The Observatory looks down on the Maritime Museum, a large and occasionally perplexing building. It has some interesting stuff in it, especially if you like boats, but there were some exhibits, like the model of an All Black doing the Haka, that I just couldn’t figure out.

London, the safest city in the world

Rewinding to Wednesday over a week ago, I had finished a drink at the Woodstock, the local for HMV Oxford Street. It was about 10:30pm and the staff had gone to the pub after another long day setting up for ‘HMV’s biggest ever sale’ (it happens every year) which started the next day. As I was walking to the bus stop with Neal he made an interesting comment. He said, ‘You know, I was walking along here one night when I saw a guy get shot.’ Ooooooookaaaaayy…

A night at the opera

On Thursday we went to the amazing Colliseum to see the English National Opera perform Monteverdi’s Orfeo. Unfortunately I was seated behind a human bear but what I could see by craning around his shaggy head was excellent. I would have preferred a more lavishly baroque staging rather than the stark minimalist one, but the music was simply wonderful. I spent a large portion of the evening with my mouth hanging open in a stupid grin. It really was fantastic.

Singing

One of my workmates has suggested I join the choir he sings in. It is the East London Chorus and they are performing Monteverdi’s Vespers soon. Although they are an amateur group they are conducted by Murray Stewart who also conducts the London Pro Arte Orchestra so it might be good to get to know him.

Holidays

I have to take my holidays in a couple of weeks. I get about a week off. We may go to Paris for a couple of days as its only £79 on the train. Actually its only £35 to fly to Edinburgh. Or maybe Amsterdam (£50). Decisions, decisions…

Comments (0)

By David, September 11, 1999

London

We caught the train to London and were greeted on our arrival by Malcolm’s secretary Gill. After somehow managing to stuff the suitcases into the back of a little Renault Clio we made our way from Waterloo Station to New Cross.

And we have been here ever since. In the last couple of weeks we have seen St Paul’s cathedral, climbed the Monument, and walked a long way. We also spent one memorable afternoon at the DSS applying for a National Insurance number (I shall take a book next time). We have seen an exhibition of Rembrandt’s self portraits at the National Gallery and been to a performance of Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre. On Monday night we are seeing The Importance of Being Earnest at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

Kathryn has registered with several employment agencies and a high-paying job is just days away. She is doing a week of temp work next week.

London Life

Unfortunately the Goodies and Monty Python are not on TV every night as I had hoped. In fact they aren’t on at all. Still, Not the Nine O’Clock News is very funny and the Simpsons are on BBC2 (no ads).

The Italian Job has just been re-released in the cinemas here and I hope to see those Mini Coopers driving up and down stairs on the big screen. If you have never seen it, go and rent it now. The car chase is better than the Blues Brothers.

£££

Yes, London is incredibly expensive, especially travel. Petrol costs 70p/L, not that that affects me but if you start converting all the prices into AUD then you won’t buy anything. It is almost true that what you can buy with a £ and a $ roughly equate. An all day travel card costs £3.80, a sandwich from Pret a Manger (very nice and our staple lunchtime diet) costs about £2.80 and a coke is about 75p. It must be the climate because bottles are 500ml and cans are 330ml.

How’s the weather

You know how when it has been a really hot day in Adelaide, say 35 – 40 degrees, there is usually a story in the Advertiser with a picture of some pretty girl frolicking in the surf at Glenelg? Well there was one of those in the Evening Standard last week. The caption told how the temperature soared to 29 degrees in some places.

It has been unusually warm in London since we arrived with temperatures hovering around 30. The city is obviously not prepared for such heatwaves. Even many large stores have no airconditioning and the tube is unbearable. The ventilation in a tube really must be not felt to be believed. Not only are the tubes not airconditioned, on some of them the only ventilation is a tiny sliding grille. Stoopid.

2000

I don’t know if you have seen anything on TV but the Millenium Wheel – the biggest ferris wheel in the world, 100ft taller than Big Ben – spectacularly failed to rise yesterday. Hundreds of people lined Westminster Bridge and the Thames bank to watch three of the biggest cranes in the world lift the wheel upright at a staggeringly boring speed of 14 inches every 5 minutes. It was meant to start going up at 7am and finish at about 11pm. I hoped they had brought a packed lunch. I passed them on the train at about 9am. It still looked flat to me. On the way home that night it was still level. I guess they’ll try again in a couple of days.

The Solar Eclipse

How could I forget? On the day we first arrived in London (11/8/99) we went into town to have a look around. As we walked around Picadilly Circus we wondered why people were looking upwards. I figured it was merely a human fly scaling a building and so paid them little attention. Then as were eating our lunch (a shared ciabatta and water: £6.25) I commented that it seemed dark for 11am and wasn’t the weather funny in the UK. As we left the cafe it suddenly dawned on us that we were right in the path of one of the most astounding coincidences of our solar system. Something that people pay thousands of pounds chasing around the world. We looked up. There was a thin layer of cloud but we could clearly see the sun with a huge bite taken out of it. Cool. We stared dumbly for a moment, permanently damaging our retinas and continued on our way.

Today

And that brings us up to date. As I sit here Concorde has just thundered overhead on its way to Heathrow and the sun is setting over the rooftops of New Cross. I think it’s time for dinner. “Kathryn?…”