The list (number three)

Here's an updated list with a few items added:

• Tour round Buckingham Palace
• Go up the BT Tower for the view
  
• Cycle around Richmond park
• Sneak into the fancy hotels - Hilton, Savoy etc
• Go to all the museums in London
• Go to all the major art museums in London
  
• Have a drink in the ice-bar off Regent Street
• Do the sing-along sound of music at the Prince Charles cinema
  
• Watch a film at the Electric cinema in Notting Hill
• Watch a film at a Leicester Square cinema
• Watch an IMAX film near Waterloo
• Go to a casino
• Explore the new O2 centre at the Millennium Dome
• Tour round the BBC TV centre and BBC Broadcasting House
• Watch a live, well-attended debate in Parliament (e.g. Prime Ministers questions)
• Go out for an artsy night out in the east-end.
• Shop at Petticoat Lane market
• Go on the rides at the London dungeons
• Sit in on a Sotheby's auction
• Eat at a traditional pie 'n' mash shop
• Tour round Lord's cricket ground
• Tour round Wembley stadium
• Go to the London wetland centre
• Visit Chelsea Physic Garden
• Get into London fashion week
• Tour around City Hall
• Tour around Tower Bridge
• Go to the tennis at Wimbledon
• See some plays
• Ride home in a rickshaw
• Eat at some famous restaurants
• Visit the hidden-away nature reserve behind St. Pancras station
• Visit a big mosque, big synagogue, other big places of worship
  
• Use an "isolation tank" near London Bridge
• Get a free Hare Krishna vegetarian meal
• Go to the the Jazz Cafe in Camden
• Go to some jazz club I've heard about in Soho
• Eat a meal in one of the touristy Leicester square steak houses
  

Pie 'n' Mash Shop

Website: http://www.manze.co.uk
Address: 87 Tower Bridge Road, London, SE1 4TW.

What a treat! Yesterday, being in South East London at around lunch time, I tried again to visit M. Manzes pie and mash shop. Established in 1902 this is the oldest continuously operating pie and mash shop in London.

I arrived at about noon and was glad to see the shop was open. A few people were queuing in front of me so I tried to size-up the shop. It looks very old-fashioned - white and green tiles on the walls and surfaces. There's a long serving counter on the right and a large seating area on the left dotted with people tucking into their hearty food. The pies behind the counter sit on huge baking trays and the mash is in a huge bowl, all ready to be served up.

The orders are phrased as "number of pies" + "number of mash". I ordered a simple "1 vegetarian pie" + "1 mash". The vegetarian pies are unusual so they said it'd take a few minutes. In the mean time I ordered a large sarsaparilla. I sat at the back and looked forward to my food.

The waitresses looked like local women who enjoyed working there. In fact, most of the customers looked like they were proper south Londoners. I felt I stood out a bit - especially after my order of a vegetarian pie. All the real men had ordered "2 pies" + "2 mash". In the end I was glad I didn't have my camera to take photos because I'd have looked even more out of place.

After a tormenting eternity my pie was ready. I went up and hungrily changed my order from "1 mash" to "2 mash and liquor". The waitress put the pie on a plate, used a spoon to smear a mash barricade on the opposite side of the plate and then poured a generous ladle of "liquor" into the centre. The carefully designed food layout ensured the pie and mash held the liquor in without spilling. I paid, raced to the back and tucked in.

Well, what can I say? It was heavenly. When I left I felt full and satisfied. Yum.

Summary: Go there. Eat some pie and mash. Smile. (Try the challenge not to look out-of-place though).

London Transport Museum

Website: http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk

I've been so busy for the past three weeks I've had no time for my Local Tourist trips - until today! I'm not sure... maybe it's because it was on my list, maybe it's the thrilling name of the museum or maybe it had something to do with their latest extensive advertising campaign but today ABJ and I visited the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.

After buying our £6 student tickets we entered a mysteriously modern red-neon lit corridor:
This showed video clips in the walls about transport systems in other cities. We walked up the ramp and found, at the end a huge London tube map on the wall. Round the corner were two lifts and signs saying "Continue your journey this way..." We got in the lift and pressed the button. The doors closed and it was like being in a space rocket crossed with a time machine crossed with a lift. Suddenly the years spun back in time and we were blasted upwards to 1800 (a.k.a. Floor 2).

Exploring the museum was made a lot easier by arrows painted on the floor. Following these we learned all about the time when London had only one bridge across the Thames. The river was busy with steam boats and there were lots of accidents.

We learned about the rise of the railways in London. When first built Euston and King's Cross were on the edge of London and one could walk half and hour in any direction from Westminster or St Paul's and be in the countryside. Ah, those were the days.

To transport people from the train stations to the centre there were horse-drawn cabs and omnibuses. These cabs, buses and trams needed 50,000 horses to run them all and these produced over 1,000 tonnes of dung daily.

Travelling down to Floor 1 we followed the development of the London underground. Trains were built underground to ease congestion on the roads and avoid the demolition needed to build new railways. A big problem with railways underground was how to avoid smoke and steam from the engines. Numerous attempts were made (including trying to power a steam train with hot bricks) but the problem was only completely solved by electrifying the underground railways in the early 1900s.

One of the best pieces on this floor was the wide range of posters that promoted travel on the underground railways to its punters:
We finally made it back to the ground floor which dealt with London transport in 1900-2000. This started with an explanation of the first deep underground tube lines which presented a host of engineering problems. One of these required the invention of the escalator to move people from ground-level deep down to the underground trains.

There was a piece about the unified style of the London underground - from tube station builds to uniforms to lettering...
Best of all was the opportunity to drive a virtual tube train through a computer generated simulation of the Northern line. While we waited this was being monopolised by some punk kid who couldn't even stop correctly at the end of the station platforms. When I eventually had my turn I drove into Tottenham Court Road and pulled to a gentle stop at just the right place... Who knows, maybe I missed my ideal career...

In a big gallery on the ground floor were lots of buses from different times. We climbed in and around these and lamented that loss of the Routemaster bus.

Summary: Surprisingly fun. Well organised layout and interesting information.

Brixton Academy

Website: http://www.brixton-academy.co.uk

Last Monday night ABJ and I went to a free Coldplay concert at Brixton Academy. It was my first time there and I was excited to go inside - especially for free! Doors opened at 6.30pm so we arrived at 6pm and joined a long queue down the side of the building. After half and hour the queue began to slowly move forward.

There was a lot of security at the entrance and ABJ even had to surrender her chewing gum. Once inside, past the big bouncers, there were hordes of Oxfam helpers dispensing free badges and postcards saying "Be Humankind".

We walked away from the security through the crowds of freshly frisked Coldplay fans into the "Stalls". This was a huge downward slope that led to the stage. A few leaning railings broke up the space and we headed straight for the nearest one. Fans were standing around packed in near the stage. Most of the other railings were full up but we managed to nab a space wide enough for us two. As more people arrived this had to be guarded strongly against everyone else. A beer cheered me up during the long wait until 7.45pm. I spent the time looking at the venue. There was a balcony for the audience above the stalls and high up on both sides of the stage were Roman-style terraces with fake plants and classical architecture.

By 7.45pm the arena was packed full of hip young people and Jon Hopkins came on to DJ some music. He accompanied a surreal 30 minute animated film that was projected onto a 20ft screen:
It was all a "very 21st Century" form of entertainment.

The film ended, the crew laboriously packed up the screen and his equipment and started a sound check for Coldplay. At this point I'd been standing/leaning/slouching for about 2 hours... At last, finally, after such a long wait, Coldplay emerged from the shadows and appeared on stage.

They played their first few songs with lots of energy and lead singer Chris Martin was visibly sweating. For the first few songs he had an odd habit of acting out the lyrics he was singing using his fingers. Luckily this stopped early on.

The audience were loving it and sang along to the songs they knew. At one point Chris Martin segued from one song to another magnificently - only to then come to a crashing halt and shout "Wasn't that a smooth transition!". Yeah Chris... It would have been great if you hadn't stopped to say how great it was...

They played "Yellow" gently from a balcony and we were in a good position clutching to our railing to see it all. The experience wasn't so good for people at the back under the balcony - they could just see the crowd's heads aimed upwards at the front. Finally Coldplay returned to the stage and played their final song with a burst of butterfly confetti.
Summary: A good looking venue - especially to see the "world's biggest band" for free.

Museums and Art Galleries (First attempt)

There is a vast number of museums and art galleries in London and my original list included "Go to all the museums in London". I now realise just how many there are - ranging from huge to tiny, national to local. I have to be selective. Below is a hasty list (bulked out by skimming through the Wikipedia list) of the "I should start with these..." museums and galleries:

Museums:

• London Transport Museum
• Sherlock Holmes Museum
• Dicken's House Museum
• Maritime Museum, Greenwich
  
• Cutty Sark and Golden Hind
• Bank of England Museum
• Guards Museum in London*
  
• HMS Belfast
• Clockmakers' Museum
• Dr. Johnson's House
• Hogarth's House
• Kensington Palace
• The National Archives
• Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising
• Wellcome Collection
• Madame Tussauds
• Science Museum
• Natural History Museum
• Victoria and Albert Museum
• Royal Observatory, Greenwich
• Wellington Arch

* This blog began after I saw the Guards Museum in London and realised just how many museums etc there were that I'd never even heard about, let alone visited.

Art Galleries:

• Barbican
• White Cube
• Dulwich Picture Gallery
• Guildhall Art Gallery
• National Gallery
• National Portrait Gallery
• Tate Modern
• Tate Britain

Looks like I'll have to work harder on the art gallery front...

The Sherlock Holmes Museum

Website: http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk

I regularly pass The Sherlock Holmes Museum on the bus and today decided to pay it a visit. Located at "221b Baker Street" (but actually located at number 239 Baker Street) this museum is a busy tourist hotspot. Unfortunately, as you'll read, I was fairly disappointed with what I found...

Museum tickets are sold at the back of the ground floor shop. Available to buy are all sorts of tacky things - deer stalker hats, pipes, Victorian sweets, music boxes, London guide books, etc. I avoided these "temptations" and bought my £6 ticket/information leaflet.

The museum entrance is next door to the shop. A Victorian policeman (i.e. a young man in costume) stands by the entrance to check tickets and pose for photos. After he gave me the nod to continue I began climbing the stairs of the house, unsure what to expect. Would there be informative displays all about Arthur Conan Doyle? Perhaps a "History of Sherlock Holmes" display? How big would the museum be? I turned the corner on the stairs and glimpsed a woman dressed as a Victorian maid. Aha! So there'd be character-based re-tellings of famous Sherlock Holmes stories! Or perhaps even re-enactments? There'd surely be one famous character per room of the house! Of course. This was going to be great...

Then I arrived in the first room - Sherlock Holmes' bedroom:There were a few old pieces of furniture, a few old pictures on the wall, a pair of handcuffs on the bed... Hmmm... In hope of some information I copied the other four tourists in the room and vigorously read my information booklet. I decided I was a "Category b" visitor:

b) You know a great deal about Sherlock Holmes! You've read most of the stories, you've seen all his films on TV and you are an admirer of the famous detective. You'd like to visit his rooms to see if they are quite as you imagined.

I realised I'd pictured Sherlock Holmes' house to be a lot bigger.

In hope of finding a more museum-like experience I went next door into the study. It was just me and the Victorian maid. "Great!" I thought. "Now it's time for some history of Sherlock Holmes."
"Hi," she said.
"Hi... So this is the study is it?" I asked.
"Yes."
Hmmm... Maybe she needed some encouragement. Perhaps if I asked her some questions...
"You can take photos," she said suddenly.
"Oh... Erm. OK." Was that an order?
I snapped an obligatory photo of the room:
"Doctor Watson will be back in 20 minutes," she said.
"So there is a Doctor Watson? Is there a Sherlock Holmes?" I asked.
"Yes. But it's his day off."
"Oh..." I guess he doesn't do Sundays. "Are you supposed to be a character?" I asked.
"No."
Oh...
"I just do tea-breaks."
Oh... Well that's that.

I left the study and climbed the stairs once more. The second floor had Watson's room and Mrs Hudson's room. The rooms on the third floor contained life-sized wax figures from Sherlock Holmes stories. There was a variety of murderers and blackmailers on show and it was sometimes hard to tell the wax figures from the slowly moving tourists. Over in the corner stood Watson and Holmes:
The second and third floors were good fun since, as well as the wax figures, there were props and snippets from stories dotted around the rooms. It was fun to read these and remember the cases that Sherlock Holmes had solved. It was also interesting to discover that Sherlock Holmes receives enormous numbers of letters from around the world. Some of these letters were on display - including one from a young girl requesting help with the mystery of where her cat goes every night.

The museum layout leads you finally into a small cramped toilet room at the top of the house - a fitting anticlimax. By the time I returned downstairs to the study I was hoping Doctor Watson would be there. There was no sign of him and instead I found three women talking to the Victorian maid. She was telling them she was a film student who lived in the East End - how authentic.

Weighing up whether or not I should wait for Watson I decided to cut my loses and leave.

Summary: It looks fun and authentic on the outside but there's not much content. Not worth a visit even if you're a die-hard fan.

Leicester Square Cinema

Website: http://www.odeon.co.uk

Last night, along with 15 of my work mates, I went to see a film at the Odeon, Leicester Square. It was the opening night of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and the outside of the huge cinema was decorated with Indiana Jones posters topped by a huge 20ft tall "INDY" sign.

This was my first trip to the Odeon Leicester Square - the biggest cinema in the UK - and, upon arriving, I knew it would be a huge event. The film was sold out so hundreds of people were piling in through the main doors - the queue for popcorn and ice cream lasted at least 15 minutes. The cinema auditorium itself has two-tiered seating and, unfortunately, we were sitting at the back of the top tier. We were so high up and far away that the massive screen looked the size of a TV.

When we finally got our seats the room darkened, the trailers began and I realised the audience sat submerged beneath a cloud of dank popcorn fumes. Since it was the opening night the audience of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Indy fans were buoyant. They cheered at the trailers, cheered at the film's opening logos, cheered at the first appearance of Harrison Ford, cheered when Harrison Ford first put on his hat etc etc. At last the audience stopped cheering and the film began proper.

It was a good film. But... the screen looked as big as a TV, the audience felt like freighted cattle and the ticket price was extremely high - around £15 per person.

Summary: Might go back and try the VIP area I've heard rumours about but otherwise a bit too expensive to be worth going again.