london

how was the preparations?

hope you are ok, much love and hugs and salutations and good wishes for an arty-farty fun filled nine days

It's Berwick Street in Soho. How to get to it of course is an entirely different matter and one which can lead to ending up in bizarre pubs.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3243/5763758761_262964c9c7_b.jpgg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3243/5763758761_262964c9c7_b.jpg

unreal city

movin there in october. where should i live?

http://s2.postimage.org/8h1gg0rt1/londonlive2.gif

i like all those places

Even the arse end of Harringay?

Nakh is that taken from the top of the Monument?

Centrepoint was my guess.

Yes you're closer I think - I was at the top of Centrepoint the other week and it looks right in relation to the Opera House, but maybe not high up enough to be the top floor.

was that the day when it was hot and cold and it hailed for a bit? there were some epic skies that day.

http://www.fyms.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/VLC001-580x542.jpg

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9594/london3q.jpg

bit more difficult to guess where this was taken from...

Yes you're closer I think - I was at the top of Centrepoint the other week and it looks right in relation to the Opera House, but maybe not high up enough to be the top floor.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 1 June 2011 14:13 (7 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah i think so, i should have credited the ever interesting nicohogg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicohogg/5763758761/in/photostream

So, I guess I live here now.

It's good here. Explore, you'll have fun.

here 3 and a half years as of about 2 weeks ago. love it. always something new to discover and the familiar stuff is pretty great as it is!

I guess I live here now too! As of... an hour ago. When I decided that a tube ride then an overground ride would be the best way to get to Hackney from Euston I wasn't really thinking of the myriad escalators and stairs I'd have to be tugging my two suitcases over. As such for my first wee while in London I will be doing things that don't involve the use of my right arm.

Yeah, I got about a months worth of pushups yesterday.

haha that IS the best way to get to hackney from euston though

just think of it as an efficient way to travel and exercise at the same time

I've been burned by the 30 so many times but I keep coming back for more

welcome to you both!

Thanks.

And now the obligatory asking for book/recordstore recommendations! I remember recently seeing a feature on the 10 best record stores in London, but can't remember where it was. All I know offhand are Phonica, Rough Trade, and the Notting Hill Music Exchange (where I went today and, well, I am happy as a result.)

Bloomsbury is supposed to be bookstore central, no? I'm gonna be going there tomorrow, so if anyone wants to point me to good academic/art bookstores then my gratitude is to you.

here 3 and a half years as of about 2 weeks ago. love it. always something new to discover and the familiar stuff is pretty great as it is!

Awww. it's stuff like this that makes me think about moving back

lot of the second-hand places in Bloomsbury have closed down, EDB. There's still Skoob in the Brunswick Centre off Russell Square, which is slightly expensive for a 2nd hand bookshop but good for a browse, and I guess the London Review of Books bookshop, which is just expensive for any kind of shop.

There's the big UCL Waterstones on
Gower St which as you might expect has a reasonable remainder/2nd hand section.

For 2nd hand bookshops you might be better off heading to the tape and record exchange shops down in Notting Hill (same for music!). But there are others (xyzzz____ & woof to thread) who will have some good 2nd hand bookshop recommendations.

The charity Oxfam bookshops have a reputation for mendacity but can be worth popping in.

And welcome to London!

EDB record shops you may want to consider;

West - Other than Record Exchange there is Honest Jons (for UK bass/dstep ask them cos they keep stuff back)
North - Camden Record Exchange
East - Flashback & Haggle on Essex Road, Rough Trade East (Not great TBH, you've just missed a big sale where they got rid of stuff v cheap) and Spitalfields Record Fair which is bi-monthly on a Friday I think (it used to be good but getting worse).
Central - On and around Berwick St; Reckless, Record Exchange, SoundsoftheUniverse, Black Market (nr Phonica) and for older stuff - JBs & On The Beat on Hanaway St.
I don't go South fr Record Shopping except to Greeenwich Record Exchange but it's been a while.

For books I get all my academic texts from UCL Waterstones and Blackwells & Folyes on Charing Cross Road. Not sure about Art stuff there was a couple of good shops on Charing Cross Road after Cambridge, maybe Koenig Books is still there? There's also Magma nr there and Artwords in East London - my Art book shopping is for recreational only.

Koenig books is there yeah, and half a dozen second hand places on the same strip. Tate Modern shop has a pretty damn big book section, larger than Foyles even, perhaps.

EDB - where in London are you living? Generally speaking second-hand bookshops are better outside the centre of town, partly because the rents are less mental.

has anyone mentioned Judd Books yet? Judd Books, Marchmont Street. It's really pretty good.

all my best london bookshop experiences have been random 2nd hand places that i can't remember, though bear in mind when i actually know what i want i only ever consider ordering online as an option.

Welcome to London EDB! There is a pretty good second hand Art bookstore worth having a look at if you are visiting Tate Modern building, it's on Holland Street iirc, on the ground floor of a tall glass building.

there's a fantastic 2nd hand bookshop on blackstock rd, highbury - proper wonky shelves toppling over with a treasury of books.

X-Post - Think it is called Marcus Campbell art books.

the 2nd hand bookshop in flask walk in hampstead was always a wonderful place to go - not super good for contemporary 2nd hand but if you're into the minor lights of 1960s socialism it's a treasurehouse.

Yeah, loved that one. Unfortunately it's had a bit knocked in I think? So they've lost a bit of space in the last couple of years but it's still a good place to have a rummage.

Thanks all. I'm living in Paddington (Uni Residence), and will soon acquire an oyster card so I can start scouring the city properly.

there's a fantastic 2nd hand bookshop on blackstock rd, highbury - proper wonky shelves toppling over with a treasury of books.

There's two of them, opposite each other. Both are good. That's where i offload my excess books every month. Nigel Slater does the same, apparently, so it's worth keeping an eye out in the cookery section.

ratsey you made some kind of strange typo, you wrote that skoob is "slightly expensive for a 2nd hand bookshop but good for a browse" when actually what you meant to write is that skoob is (pace time out) "a temple of second hand books" and "the best bookshop in london"

also, i very rarely spend money in bookshops anymore, but when i did i really enjoyed the notting hill music exchange's bookshop -- the 'everything goes down a pound a week until it sells' pricing strategy meant it seemed like i found crazy awesome bargains all the time. also, you can then go to The One Good Taco Place In London

ooer, so many possibilities! finding second hand bookshops and record shops is high on my list of priorities too, so this is all v useful. anyone have any particular lower claptony / hackneyish-area recommendations?

Dalston Oxfam's usually got a decent selection of books.

The charity Oxfam bookshops have a reputation for mendacity but can be worth popping in.

What do they lie about? Do they pass books off as older editions or something?

It's kind of obvious xps but an oyster card and travel in general is the best bargain in London; you don't notice so much 'til you start trying to travel elsewhere. I always had a zones 1-3 oyster, then when I moved away I found myself paying the same for a 3-stop commute on my local train, and that's without getting the tube and an entire bus network thrown in.

Stoke Newington Church St has a bunch of general second hand and charity shops, which are also good for records. In particular, Church Street Bookshop has a really good selection and a high turnover.

thomp - iphone spellcheck typo, sorry.

I need to go to the One Good Taco Place in London more than I need books at the moment tbh, although my (ilx) information suggested that TOGTPIL is actually a stand near Waterloo?

xpost - Col. Poo (cashiered), it's more that they tend to hoover up the second-hand book trade in the areas they are in, thus supposedly 'starving' older, more established second-hand bookshops. I'm not sure that the argument isn't a little tendentious (they don't undercut on price after all afaik) but i've seen it made.

With all these new Londoners around now maybe it's time to have a FAP, like in the old days.

^^

Not had great joy with second hand bookshops here, I've occasionally picked up something nice but there's no real Mecca or place I've found repeatedly good. Will try this skoob place tho, poss tmrw as going to the Renoir.

GR: I take all my opinions on Mexican food from my (Chicagoan) wife, who rates Tacqueria higher than the taco stand on Lower Marsh, although the latter is good too.

That tiny secondhand bookshop on Lower Marsh is one of my favourite places - of any kind - in London. It never has more than a few hundred books, but there's always something i want to buy (and it's usually something I didn't know about before I set foot in there).

Any record collector fancying the prospect of making their travelcard work hard for its money might consider an adventure in the deep South-East - there is a surprisingly good secondhand record shop in Beckenham and another one in West Wickham. If you have the time but not the money, you can get to both using your Z1 travelcard. One bus zone, people. It's a marvel. Having said all that, the mewling on the London Restaurants thread at the very thought of having to go as far away as the Rye Hotel in Peckham (in Z2, 10 minutes out of London Bridge + a 5 minute walk) suggests that this whole paragraph is in vain.

make sure you give http://www.secondlayer.co.uk/ a visit!

(Last year when I wasn't working I actually walked from my place in Peckham to the shop in West Wickham, about 7 miles. I figured after that healthy exercise I could justify spending a few quid on some old vinyl. The next week I walked almost exactly the same distance to the small but really fine soul / funk shop in Putney, and did the same thing. This is the story of how I completed my set of the 1980s Charly reissues of Quinvy / South Camp southern soul reissues. Thanks for listening.)

so wait there's a bookshop next to this taco stand? that's like a whole day out planned for me

i lead a very dull life

*like*

xxpost

xpost

yeh lower marsh is well worth a visit, go check out the necropolis railway station architecture and that bookshop tim mentions is fantastic, as is the classical music + jazz shop down there, pop in and have a chat to the guys in there, they're awesome. lots of good places to eat and it's only a short walk from the thames- it's a nice walk up to tower bridge.

Thanks Tim, I shall see if I can try both.

yep yep yep love that bookshop

working near there for a while sullied my regard for it a little but generally lower marsh is one of my fave london places. not even especially for what's on it, just that there's a nice i dunno, 1989 kinda vibe there that feels rare

Never even been in that bookshop despite living 2 mins away (and working 10 mins away). Will have to make an appointment.

What's the Lower Marsh area like for drinking later at night? Is there anywhere good? Will be round there on Saturday and we'll probably want to keep going past 11. Thinking bars not pubs really - I know about most of the pubs in the area already.

Don't know what The Ruby Lounge vibe is like or how late it opens. But if you want the authentic Lower Marsh late nite dive bar feel it's gotta be Da Vinci's. It's like Edward Hopper's Nighthawks with added drunkenness and thumping techno and homeless people. (So nothing like Edward Hopper's Nighthawks then.)

w/r/t potential FAPs, a few erstwhile ilx people will be at https://www.facebook.com/?sk=events&ap=1#!/event.php?eid=165388490208656 tomorrow, and i will be too

so yeah feel free to come down

looks nice though i think i'll be with my new departmental associates tomorrow evening, i am up for FAPing at some point though.

things i have noticed about london #1: there are certainly a lot of police sirens at night.

I was in the scooter bar on L Marsh a couple of weeks ago, has some nice beers eg Paulaner

busy tomorrow :(

How is it that I always feel freezing AND overheated at the same time. Is this just an early fall thing or a London Thing?

Having never met an Ilx0r, let alone FAPed, the prospect is intriguing...

Think there is an ILB fap happening next Thursday in Borough... Could be expanded into a more general event?

EDB i've had the same sensation the last few days.. i think it's particular to september in london

having come down from scotland these conditions are pretty much peak summer to me. it's confusing, i had already begun adapting to autumn.

i'll probably be making a rare central trek and heading to piccadilly circus tomorrow for the greatest thrill of all, a bank visit. anyone got any recommendations for places to visit around there?

royal academy?
burlington arcade?

piccadilly is best when you're in the mood for ridiculously-out-of-your-rage window-shopping imo - staring at the art in the cork street galleries thinking about whether you'd buy it, checking out the gorgeous classic men's toiletries in geo f trumper, fondling all the books in hatchard's, etc.

the bridge over the pond in st james' park is one of the better bridges.

if you like chinese pork buns you should get one from kowloon in gerrard street, chinatown.

Yes, that bridge - the views from either side are unbelievably gorgeous.

oh also! you can blag your way into the London Library by saying you're thinking of signing up and would like to take a look around - it's amazing in there, seriously.

when i was about 17 i had a fantasy of living in a little serviced flat above Jermyn Street, owning a spaniel called Rupert, and spending my days in the London Library researching/writing whatever novels would enable me to live that particular fabulous lifestyle.

Shall I assume, as a newcomer to London, that the weather is like this all the time, all year round?

yes, do that, that's a very sensible idea.

i'll probably be making a rare central trek and heading to piccadilly circus tomorrow for the greatest thrill of all, a bank visit. anyone got any recommendations for places to visit around there?

If you're into art go to the Royal Academy, as well as the Haunch of Venison, the commercial gallery right behind it, which usually has some good stuff on. Ditto the Hauser & Wirth gallery which is right next to St James's Piccadilly.

The bridge over St James's Park lake is gorgeous obviously but walking west and north from there, across Green Park and Hyde Park and down the Serpentine, would be fantastic in this weather.

^ this - we did v. similar to that when we were down over the Easter weekend when it was scorching hot, and it was glorious.

(the walk, not the galleries, though I'm sure they're great too)

very london ca. 1985 these photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billzpickz/sets/72157627077129642/with/6188537517/

i'm putting on a reading group for which it seems the best meeting time and place will be 6pm on saturday somewhere in south london - anyone got any suggestions for a location reasonably suitable for quiet discussion that'll hold 15-20 people?

[oh also, i took that st james' park bridge visit recommended upthread, and v nice it was. i also visited some of the myriad bookshops of charing cross road - some nice things to be seen, but tbh i think i probably have unreasonable dreams about what a second hand bookshop could be.]

hey, i lost my book somewhere in london in the past couple of days. bump this thread if you spot it.
cheers!

xp The Horse Bar at Waterloo has an upstairs room that if it's not booked could be ideal - you'd be on your own up there so it would certainly be quiet. The main bar can be pretty quiet on a Saturday but I wouldn't guarantee it.

Are there any travel agencies that do good, relatively inexpensive tours of London? I have fifteen Russian teachers coming over next week and they've asked if i can suggest an excursion programme for them for the weekend.

Yeah that room upstairs at the Horse will be pretty good, there are sofas that can moved round as well if I remember correctly.

does anyone know of a newsagent in the Westminster/Victoria area that stocks or might stock the New York Review of Books?

Errr, where's the best place to get a replacement stylus? (Specificaly one for a Shure m44g). The only place I can think of is West-end DJ, but looking at their website they seem a bit pricey, and I don't know of any other "DJ stores" here. Thanks.

I think these guys have a store in London
http://www.decks.co.uk/

There's Superfi on Mornington Crescent, they don't have much of a stock. All these places are much of a muchness in my experience.

Centrally I only know of West-End DJ. Juno.co.uk have good stock of equipment these days and for some stuff I think you can pick up. They're in Camden as far as I know.

erm wtf is going on in TCR? a man has taken people hostage in starbucks? is everyone who's round there ok?

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mobileweb/2012/04/27/tottenham-court-road-evacuated-bomb-threat_n_1458437.html

@hullstephen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqxEDpvLsws

yeah all of TCR is closed!

It was claimed on Twitter that he had failed a training course and wanted his money back.

A Scotland Yard spokesman declined to comment as the situation was unfolding but a source said it was not a terrorist and was not considered a “serious” incident.

“It appears at this stage that the man either has mental health problems or has a personal grievance against a company,” the source said.

good news for wasabi and sainsbury's though as the only foot outlet not cordoned off now

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17869815
Throwing computers out of a window.

feeling him on that

the cordoned area gets wider and wider! our building is now blocked off. great.

hope you've got your sandwiches ken, stay safe man

How fucking far can one person throw a computer from a 5th floor window?

i just ate a sainsbury's curry so at least i'll die with a full stomach.. pressure sure it's just a precaution though police seem quite relaxed down this bit

i just ate a sainsbury's curry so at least i'll die with a full stomach

^ you fool, you're probably too bloated now to crawl through the air-con ducts and take him out

i can fart into the air con and gas him out though

well, i'm gonna have to walk past TCR this afternoon, so if anyone wants me to pick up anything from Sainsbury's...

How about picking up several smashed PCs?

(really they shouldn't drink on duty, but it's a stressful job)

Sorry guys I'm just excited to be here, got a little carried away

nb we don't tip our hostages in london, save your cash

pretty sure this level of police cordon is ott for some dude with a couple of cans of camping gas. it's all the way up to euston road now

and if i had taken lunch half an hour later i would have had a half day off. damn

any sign of boris in a bomb suit yet?

sky are reporting he just threw some files from the window. soon he'll be on to the paper clips.

that's our boris

Hostage-taker now arrested by police, so I guess that's that then.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17869815
Throwing computers out of a window.

― ILX uh-huh-uh uh-huh uh-huh BEEP BOOP BOOP BEEP (snoball), Friday, April 27, 2012 1:14 PM (2 hours ago)

did he want to make something real

Ha!

I think I can hear Yaz, actually.

can't believe I survived that ordeal. i think i might try and get myself on BBC news and maybe write an autobiography

Ordeal? Sainsbury's curry isn't absolutely pukka, but it's not that bad.

My eyewitness report indicates tottenham c road is still closed, with a pile of assorted rubbish on the street. However, I am in Sainsbury's RIGHT NOW.

Meanwhile, the New York Times discovers a mysterious land called East London and would like to let you know about it:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/travel/36-hours-in-east-london.html

9 a.m.
4. ETHNIC BREAKFAST

lol ethnic meaning beigel bake

Head north on Shoreditch High Street until you hit Regent’s Canal, nearing its 200th anniversary and once used to transport goods around the city. On the lively pedestrian and cycling path, walk under arched low bridges and take in the varied architecture.

Though the hottest East London club is always a moving target, you’re safe starting explorations at Hoxton Square.

they rly are str8 trolling

, nearing its 200th anniversary and once used to transport goods around the city

as canals are wont to be employed

lol ethnic meaning beigel bake

for the NEW YORK times lest we forget

lol @ how they couldn't be bothered to leave shoreditch

* Bill
* Auburn, CA
Unless you've been to London several times, I would not recommend going to the East End. Almost all the main tourist sites are in The City and Westminster.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/travel/31hours.html

urgh the queen of hoxton

11:45 p.m.
5) LAST CALL AT LEICESTER SQUARE

Anyone turned off by the charmlessness of Times Square in New York, best regarded as a place that you hurriedly pass through on your way to somewhere else, might be amazed at the late-night vibrancy of Leicester Square, in the heart of the West End. Though the specific elements don't amount to much — a Burger King, a Pizza Hut, a couple of movie theaters, and nightclubs with doormen who are alternately entreating and threatening — it all comes together to create a lively gathering spot for 20-somethings spilling out of nearby pubs by around 11 p.m., most of whom clearly don't want the night to end. It's a sometimes chaotic party scene that lasts until 2:30 a.m. or so, when everyone starts heading home on the early-morning buses that fan out from central London.

speechless.

speechless!

Anyone turned off by the charmlessness of Times Square in New York, best regarded as a place that you hurriedly pass through on your way to somewhere else, might be turned off by the charmlessness of Leicester Square, best regarded as a place that you hurriedly pass through on your way to somewhere else.

Would rather stick a knife in my face than spend a second in Leicester Square.

I always eyeroll at people who think that gentrified Hackney is the x1 place to spend your holiday in London but then again NYT tourist pieces about our fair capital are pretty much my favourite pieces of terrible tourist writing.

This has nothing on their recommendation that American tourists check out New Cross and Deptford. Like I can vaguely see the appeal of going to New Cross if it is going to persist in turning itself into Dalston south of the river but I can't imagine what even the most insufferable of fairweather exoticism-seeking Yank tossers would gain from rocking up on Deptford Broadway on a Saturday night.

I ate at beigel bake tonight guys

You ethnicist

Leicester square was once described as the closest thing London had to a European style piazza or square. On a quiet sunny early morning you can still just about see it if you squint a bit. That was near on 100 years ago now tho. place is a purgatorial shithole at any other time of day, esp Friday night.

To be fair the first piece is specifically about east London, definitely some weird ideas but they do recommend some good stuff.

The canal is sort of ugly I guess, I have visions of terrified Americans walking it at night, but on a sunny day it is a pretty nice walk.

I know this has come up before but I don't think it's weird to use east as your base for seeing London.

that leicester square thing is surely a piss-take SURELY

xxp yeah it's just like any pedestrianised shopping precinct now

the bit between leicester square and piccadilly circus might actually be my least favourite stretch of road in the entire city

Thrill to the shabby faded shittiness of the Capital Radio building!

(used to walk past it every day on my way to work and think to myself 'Chris Tarrant used to work here? Fucking figures...')

Leicester square at night too! It is truly the most horrible atmosphere of anywhere I've ever been. And you'd struggle to find a good pub.

i know right, there are no pubs on the square and very few even near it!

i am SURE the writer must have been somewhere else and got the name wrong

The pubs near Leic Sq are the worst. Packed, standing room only (they take the chairs and table out to fit more people in), full of shrieking office worker twunts.

Soho I could understand at a push. I feel bad for even one poor tourist who specifically times their trip to Leicester Square for 11! It's like somebody told him that as a joke, such a precise recipe for disgust.

why no bloomsbury

Leicester Sq was half dug up for crossrail when I was there recently, made it even more of a dump. Getting harassed for comedy nights.. the pickpocketing.. Most amusing is the article suggests you finish at Moro and go there afterwards.. I think even a cabbie would deter you from that option.

Yeah it's nice around Moro! There are plenty good pubs there.

I know this has come up before but I don't think it's weird to use east as your base for seeing London.

Nothing wrong with using east as your base, but I think its good to see a variety of the rest of London e.g. Regents Park, Hampstead, Chelsea, Soho, Fitzrovia, The Thames embankment/Tate Modern/Southwark, rather than staying in the east.

I personally find that for all the cultural vibrancy, the east is aesthetically grim in a way that depresses me if I stay in it too long.

Yeah it's about variety. The other thing about East London is once you get past Shoreditch and Bethnal Green then it becomes kinda difficult to get to other places, or certainly more difficult than I would want it to be on a brief trip to the city. I'd probably still recommend people go out there in the evening certainly over Leicester Square or the fucking King's Road or wherever but it's still just one part of London.

The area around Exmouth Market/Moro is lovely and both the food and drinking all around there are fantastic but I barely even think of Clerkenwell as East London at all, although I suppose it is technically. But yeah going from there to Leicester Square would just be a bizarre choice, weird they even mentioned Leicester Square at all and not, y'know, Soho two minutes up the road.

I suppose the thing with Bloomsbury is that it's tourist central in some ways and it's lovely and peaceful to just wander round during the day but a bit of a desert, food and drink wise, by night.

Also Slocki are you coming to Todd Terje tonight? In London's brutalist Elephant & Castle you will find an edge that many believe has disappeared from much of New York altogether.

A lot of my friends stay east when they visit (not on my rec either!) and I think it's cos they get an idea of how their friends who live here live.

Like personally I don't care about actual tourist destinations, would rather good restaurants and bars.

I definitely agree there are prettier places than parts of east London, I guess I'm saying I can completely see how some people really should base themselves east, it's one type of holiday.

On the transport thing, walking surely is the way to get around east? Like for young people... maybe less attractive if you're not with someone who knows the area.

Yeah it depends on the kind of trip you want, I maybe wouldn't recommend walking everywhere round East London because a) it's kinda big and a lot of the better places are pretty spaced out and b) the potential to wander off the beaten track and end up somewhere either really boring or just intimidating if you don't know the city is pretty high? But I suppose that's the case with a lot of London. Personally I'd want to be at least a short walk from a Tube station really.

Re: the canal it's actually really pretty if you follow it further West, round Islington but also the stretch between Little Venice and Camden Lock is wonderful.

in any city get the damn bus and go explore

(Part of the reason why the "hey, check out Deptford!" article is so lolworthy is that a lot of Deptford is really quite dark and empty at night, I don't know why you'd recommend anyone going there for a night out, especially having flown several thousand miles).

i dont think its that lolworthy to write about any of these places tbh

a person can read a thousand guides and books about westminster, they're not going to just read this one piece - and if they base a trip around one short piece well thats their problem not the articles. a person is surely capably of assimilating multiple sources and then deciding what works for them

the fact that that deptford article was originally published three years ago as well, it was probably even more barren then

to go so far as to mention the bunker, honestly words fail

people get too caught up in seeing things as "100 places you must see before you die" instead of "here is a place, you might like it, you might not, take it or leave it"

they already have their copy of lonely planet anyhow

also people are kinda assuming some 'default reader' when there are multiple types of reader - what about someone who has been to london 7-8 times already? are they supposed to read about Regents Park again?

Also Slocki are you coming to Todd Terje tonight? In London's brutalist Elephant & Castle you will find an edge that many believe has disappeared from much of New York altogether.

― Homosexual Satan Wasp (Matt DC), Saturday, April 28, 2012 5:11 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wish, I couldn't get tix :(

you'll be fine to get in on the door if you don't go too late.

xxp, yep - London doesn't really have a default off-track destination for people wanting interesting bars and galleries like a lot of other cities have (the Navigli in Milan, etc) and Dalston / Shoreditch are as valid a choice as any. If it can draw people away from the horrors of Camden, which seems to be the place most go for this sort of stuff, that's definitely a good thing.

You could probably learn a lot as a visitor by walking from somewhere like Stamford Hill, through Stoke Newington and Dalston, to the City.

I barely even think of Clerkenwell as East London at all, although I suppose it is technically

Clerkenwell is in no sense East London - it's west of the City!

... but east of Charing X, London's technical centre

i realised the other day that i have come to think of holborn as "south london" and indeed "west london"

Holborn & Bloomsbury now "Midtown"

The property industry has been trying to make "Midtown" happen for years, it isn't working.

Just like they did with "Noho", right?

It's not even the recommendations so much as the gormlessness of the writing itself, so one pub "has been salvaged from the remains of one of the area’s most notorious dives, and now hosts indie types lounging on studded leather sofas on a stripped pine floor, sampling Belgian Trappist beers (£3.60) and baked breaded Camembert with cranberry sauce (£6.95)". But there's generally more dreadful travel writing out there than there is great stuff.

would read an all-ilx 48 hours in london guide

Tuesday
4am

ETHNIC BREAKFAST

In a railway arch in Canning Town, where Blade Runner meets My Beautiful Launderette, sample the local speciality of 'pickles and yams', a common early-morning call from this district's earthily honest street vendors. In this vibrant multicultural district of narrow cobbled streets and gaslit privet-hedged parks, the yammering of Senegalese garment workers and Ruthenian wholesale grocers mingle amid the Muezzins and the dawn chorus of jackdaws and civet cats.

So guess what?

http://travel.nytimes.com/

"London: A Special Issue"

Thrill! Maybe some of it is even correct.

If there's anyone you want doing a guide to London it's A.A Gill...

journalists from new york and london should be forbidden from writing about each others' cities

i remember one particularly awful pre-lehmann circle jerk in 'new york magazine' wherein the relatives merits of both where tediously elaborated

where

Just visited Broadway Market for a banh mi lunch, then strolled along the canal and visited the Geffrye Museum. Excellent afternoon outing, top job NYT.

I just went to Broadway too haha

~I'm everywhere~

Really like the Geffrye museum fwiw.

would read an all-ilx 48 hours in london guide

― J0rdan, Diddy (tpp), Saturday, April 28, 2012 5:50 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the shard!!!

https://p.twimg.com/AuIEKRqCAAAlMnv.jpg

Really want to see that effect irl. Love the shard, it's so futuristic.

love the shard as well, people who whinge about how out-of-place or capitalist it is can do one

i find usually it looks better at night, though the above is an exception.

was surprised on staurday that you can see the shard (and the post office tower) from wormwood scrubs (8 miles away)

gotta ask, what were you doing at wormwood scrubs

Yeah the Shard looks a bit disappointing in grey weather (contrast to the Gherkin which looks good all the time) but those photos in bright sunlight make you realise what the architects were getting at. Looking forward to seeing it properly illuminated at night.

I don't think I like this building very much. Maybe I'll get used to its presence eventually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wormwood_Scrubs.JPG

was walking around the common land that HMP Wormwood Scrubs is named after. didn't really go anywhere near the prison (having missed the turn and there being only so many places you can get across the central line, the next one was too far west for the prison)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormwood_Scrubs

(Trellick Tower's in that picture, which is looking north east ish, shard is behind the trees on the right)

I can't wait until christmas, surely they'll light it up like a huge tree.

xp

large part of the park is designated a model aircraft flying zone (someone was flying noisy jet there on saturday) and also labelled as MOD land on the maps.

i was surprised to learn that the shard is gonna be the tallest building in europe.

love the shard as well, people who whinge about how out-of-place or capitalist it is can do one

Nah, come on, it's a filthy spindle - razor ad city boy filth.

the glass is cheap or sthing which is why it looks kind of dull when it doesn't happen to precisely reflect the sun

its really REALLY out of place - at least it doesn't make sense when looking at it from shabby London Bridge station.

i don't think it's too bad but it is to renzo piano what say neu! 2 is to klaus dinger

the thrustingness that is nauseating makes me feel unwell. I'm fairly free about things generally but I wd like a nasty vicious cock in my horizontal vision?

the apogee is the worst part, there are a few canted plasticky triangular bits that are supposed to signify/homage the sails of london's mercantile history

kinda like the new Utd kit

yes!

what 21st century forms and commodities will be given tribute in the showpiece architecture of the 23rd century

twitter

the glass is cheap or sthing

why oh why didn't they fit the best - everest.

i actually love the way it's out of the way of the usual city cluster of high rises. it makes it seem less obtrusive, like it's not disrupting an already familiar skyline; but at the same time it can suddenly appear from the most unexpected locations.

I'm fairly free about things generally but I wd like a nasty vicious cock in my horizontal vision?

...yes please?

its out-of-placeness is what makes it, if all of london was glass skyscrapers it'd be boring but there's something pleasingly ryugyong about the shard

i mean, i like creepiness, i like gleaming edifices, i like cocks => i lik the shard

I was very drunk when I wrote that, it perhaps wasn't the best expression! I mentally lump it in with the Strata building, the one with those fans at the top, which reminds me of gilette razor packaging, and so has an association of the deoderant and sweat of the city boys squash or gym changing room. As sleek expressions of financification, with the tacit fuck yous to environmentally considerate building and the huge amount of empty office and living space in London that they contain, they also reek of similar attitudes in banking and our Citified government. They are the physical expressions of that, not just implicitly, but in their form as well. I think that's what I was trying to get at in the stupid phrase 'vicious cock'.

That said, when walking across Hyde Park from Kensington to Mayfair, it does provide, in conjunction with the London eye, the curious image of a gigantic spinning wheel that has just fallen off its spindle - which is actually quite pleasing.

'philishave' seems used a bit for the strata tower. Looks quite cheap up close, really feels like it will eventually fit well into elephant's rich patchwork of wrong.

handy elephant-locator when navigating south-eastern streets. I like that.

The Strata tower is the worst building in London, both aesthetically and in terms of what it represents.

The Strata Inhabit website (the information site for residents of the building) won the "Website of the Year" award at the Property Management Awards ceremnony held at Lords on 5th December 2011.[17]

xpost
a utility droid?

doesnt john terry have the penthouse of the strata

Do people live in the strata yet? I can't really imagine it. S'pose it'd be a plausible new Ballard High-Rise ("As he sat on his balcony eating John Terry's dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.")

Is 'what it represents' the purging of Elephant + Heygate + Aylesbury, public/private 'affordable homes' developer lies, etc ? Then otm.

IRLlol

Is 'what it represents' the purging of Elephant + Heygate + Aylesbury, public/private 'affordable homes' developer lies, etc ? Then otm.

Yep. I mean god knows the Elephant needs to be pretty much flattened and started over with but I'm sure there are ways to do that without basically building ludicrous penthouses back-to-back with extreme poverty that you're half-heartedly trying to shift 10mins down the road.

Is 'what it represents' the purging of Elephant + Heygate + Aylesbury, public/private 'affordable homes' developer lies, etc ? Then otm.

Yes it certainly includes that. There is a huge amount of free office space in London. Developments like this are grotesque both in the specifics of motivation and how they are accomplished and also then in the more general philosophy of what they represent. I have nothing against skyscrapers! they're great expressions of humans' futuristic streak, but I wd like to see structures more disruptive to the notions of delusory and in fact destructive super achievement than these chrome and glass yuppie chic buildings. fat chance I know.

And in fact I'm not sure it's the case that they are any more expressions of futurity or desirable in any form. so maybe I have got something against skyscrapers.

in other things London related (and I'm sure everywhere else too) but these gigantic union jacks everywhere give me the heebie-jeebies. not in a surfeit of nationalism sort of way, but because it makes everywhere look like the oft-repeated image of a dystopic, which consists of taking the images of the post-war 1940s and creating a decaying future from them. clearly 1984 is the template. you end up feeling like you're walking around a page from V for Vendetta or something.

Not getting into what it represents, but I think the shard looks quite nice. Loads of people were hating on the Gherkin when it was first built too, and now everyone likes it.

these gigantic union jacks everywhere give me the heebie-jeebies.

Completely agree with this though. I've always liked the fact that the British are less ostentatious with their patriotism than those of many other countries, and I find any reversal of that a bit upsetting.

On a different train that's taking me out past Peckham and there's a great view of the Shard next to all the City skyscrapers and they look tiny in comparison. I've only just appreciated quite how tall it is.

Loads of people were hating on the Gherkin when it was first built too, and now everyone likes it.

Nah I'll keep hating on it thx.

Shard is really hilarious from platform 4 at London Bridge.

Please to identify this building, seen walking northbound around Crouch Hill.

https://p.twimg.com/Awa35BECEAEOano.jpg:large

Ally Pally, innit?

Yep, definitely.

I saw popular beat combo Slayer at that very venue a month ago.

Me too. I used to live right by there. Got too expensive though.

I used to live on the other side - Turnpike Lane/Wood Green - and walk quite a lot up by Ally Pally. There's a curious feel of the esplanade at the top. Something to do with the blue railings and types of lamp posts if I'm remembering rightly. Also perhaps the pitch n putt. I guess that might have been intentional. The lower parts remind me of the half utilised rather scrubby edge-of-town, council-run greensward-plus-football-pitch (no net, leaning posts, sagging crossbar) you get in a lot of smaller English towns.

You can walk very pleasantly from there to Hampstead Heath, pretty much without going near a road, and get a very decent sense of Tottenham to Hampstead north London, and even from there walk fairly pleasantly down into Regent's Park. Then you can go and stand on the Marylebone Road and suck in the fumes of one of the most polluted roads in London as recompense.

Is it worth a trip up Ally Pally to just go for a wander and a walk? I do like a good park, and spent a very pleasant couple of hours in Crystal Palace park last month when I was down, and that doesn't even have its palace any more (though dinosaurs!).

the Strata building, the one with those fans at the top

I was wondering what that was (but not enough to look it up, obv). It's horrible.

definitely, the walk up there is very pleasant + views when you get there

never done it from the hampstead direction though, only from finsbury park

Right, that's our Sunday morning hangover-buster sorted next time we're down. The Crystal Palace thing was a diversion just to kill a couple of hours as we were visiting friends in the area and got on the wrong bus to the wrong part of CP, and it turned out to be a lovely afternoon stroll. I love going past Ally Pally on the train and always mean to head up for a wander.

if you start at finsbury park, i recommend the parkland walk for the first stretch - http://www.haringey.gov.uk/index/community_and_leisure/greenspaces/parks_and_open_spaces_parks_facilities/parklandwalk.htm

Ally Pally, I saw my first gig there (Queen, December 1979) then watched the place burn down 6 months later in a conflagration visible all the way across London. The place was an empty burnt-out shell for years afterwards, then they rebuilt it for Antiques Roadshow suitability. Do they still have a deer pen in the park?

That walk along the abandoned train line really is fantastic. We did it a few years ago with the Psychogeographic Rolling Society and someone at the Tube Station let us into the overgrown station above.

Love the Parkland Walk and the views from Ally Pally are definitely worth the trip. You should try and fit in Queens Wood & Highgate Wood while you're over that way.

There's also a great vintage hi-fi & record shop called Audio Gold at the junction of Park Road and Muswell Hill, on the Crouch End side of Ally Pally.

I still think of that area as the spiritual home/heart/centre of ILX, even if the physical distribution of posters has long moved on.

There's a disused Victorian theatre inside as well, I was there for a halloween comedy gig a few years ago, it looks lovely in general and then you look up and there's big holes in the ceiling...

Parkland Walk is a good walk and a great (if rattly) cycle - it's very emphatic about the non-flatness of London around there - one minute there are streets below you to your left, another there's bridges overhead.

Keep meaning to do the Alexandra Palace walk. I'm a little prejudiced against it after going up there for a gig a few years ago in a horrendous pissy windy November thunderstorm.

so much money in this scene. wtf @ some of these:

http://edmsnob.com/leaked-contracts-performance-perks-favorite-edm-artists/

what are some hackney / lower clapton cafes that are open late and don't do anything notable in terms of food? the big neurotic in me finds it a bit off when i'm getting through one coffee an hour as i work alone while others are eating proper meals.

Can't believe I'm leaving tomorrow morning. I've been listening to End of the Road by Boyz II Men all day, things are very emotional.

how would u rate london out of ten

I dunno, but today, in roughly the same moment, I saw some "random," and maybe slightly "off"-looking dude standing outside (as in, outside but facing into the roped off outdoor section for smokers) a Soho gay bar AMAZINGLY singing parts of soul songs with perfect delivery and another guy walking down the street in a shoulder to foot length yellow and white striped robe-dress with matching yellow flip-flops and Geordi LaForge / Cyclops style sunglasses. Money can't buy that kind of stuff.

had to show a friend visiting from Moscow around yesterday; quite proud of the plan I decided on

- meet at Russell Square
- lunch at Fleet River Bakery
- Sir John Soane's Museum - been meaning to go here for years and it's already one of my favourite places in London - absolutely crammed full of hoarded antiquities, Hogarth paintings, rooms belonging to imaginary monks, an Egyptian sarcophagus, mirrors everywhere, dedications to the family lapdog...you can really feel his hoarder spirit strongly
- bus over to the Barbican, stroll through the estate (ideally would've checked out the rain room but fuck a two-hour wait) (the photography exhibition on at the moment is really good but I'd seen it already)
- stroll through the City and past St Paul's in a token nod to normal tourist sightseeing
- bus over to the Whitechapel Gallery, was interested in the exhibitions on at the moment - liked the Cattelan room and the awesome Penone sculpture, thought the Bochner stuff was a bit obvious in places though
- walk up Brick Lane and through Shoreditch to wind up at Song Que for dinner - weirdly this was the most disappointing bit of the day, Song Que's always been my default Vietnamese choice on that Kingsland Rd strip but both our meals were kinda over-greasy
- bus up to Hackney to finish up in a pub with friends. Didn't quite mean to drag a visitor all the way to my own hood but I cannot control the laziness or flakiness of 99% of my acquaintances

Whitechapel and Brick Lane tends to bring me down (I quite like Fournier St though) and the Kingsland Rd does so as well.

These days I'd be inclined to take visitors west to Kensington/Knightsbridge and do the drinking in some of the mews pubs there like the Grenadier in Belgravia or the Scarsdale Tavern in Edwards Square off Kensington High St. But it'd be a different experience of course.

I hate Brick Lane at night but I have started to quite enjoy rambling around Whitechapel and Brick Lane in the day. There's a great second hand books guy on Sundays, and Spitalfields can be good. Lots of the little streets like Fournier Street are nice too.

Kingsland Road is very dull.

(Not that I meant to diss your agenda Lex...One of the things I love about London is that you can put together infinite collections of differing vibes to give visitors an impression of London on a single visit: such as the elegant formalness of Regents Park, the middle eastern influence on Bayswater, the huge mansions of Holland Park, the incredible grimness of that stretch around New Oxford St/CentrePoint, British Museum and Bloomsbury...]

That bloody rain room has a 2-hr wait every time I go near it

Must check out the John Soames museum, sounds awesome.

John Soane's is a great museum - if you go, I'd visit the Hunterian museum in the Royal College of Surgeons on the other side of the square as well. Astonishing anatomical museum - bits of animals and humans in jars wall to ceiling. Maybe isn't to everyone's taste, image search will give you an idea of some of it.

shit, should warn - that image search will bring up images that some viewers may find disturbing.

Hunterian is the absolute bomb. When I worked at GAFTA (which is right next to the John Soane museum) I used to nip through Lincoln's Inn Fields and spend my lunchhour looking at endless jars of rotting, pickled fetuses and syphilis-rotted penises. Heaven.

Co-sign. Been there with my drawing group two or three times.

keep meaning to see soane's museum by candlelight will get around to it one day

rain room disappointing tho the queue moved quicker than they were saying

Hunterian museum

^ is this the place that does stuff like arsehole cupcakes and std-riddled buns in the tearoom?

I don't know - but not if this is the cupcake thing - the pathology museum is different, never been there.

oh, St Bart's seem quite nervous about it. Not surprised.

John Soane Museum is AMAZING. My general apathy towards pre-modern art/artifact museums was totally blown away by how cool this place is.

If you're willing to put in 2 hours in line, I'd recommend going to one of the free evenings where it's all candle-lit.

oh yes woof, that was what i was thinking of

Went to the Hunterian today. Strikes a decidedly more scholarly note than Peter The Great's equivalent collection (which is more omg look at this three-headed baby!) and seems less grotesque as a result. It was worth seeing.

Loved the Soane museum too.

Soane and the Hunterian are both fantastic...what are other notable small museums in London?

The Petrie Museum, maybe? I have been meaning to go for a while.

The Horniman - not as quirky but it does have a giant overstuffed walrus. Dennis Severs' house - not yet got around to it meself.

William Morris' House in Walthamstow is worth a look, depending on how you feel about the Arts & Crafts movement. Not exactly small, but often overlooked and amazing is the Wallace Collection- Poussin, Canaletto, Gainsborough and the Laughing Cavalier plus loads of armour, porcelain etc. One of my favourite galleries anywhere.

Wallace Collection is great - and well located as part of an overall Marylebone walk from Edgware Road tube that takes in leafy Montagu and Bryanston Squares, through Manchester Square and up Marylebone High St.

Dulwich Picture Gallery's another, strong trad painting collection, often very strong temporary exhibitions, beautiful John Soane building.

I really like the Geffrye Museum, maybe that's a bit big to qualify...?

Leighton House, off Kensington High St., near Holland Park (and Jimmy Page and Michael Winner) is worth a visit as a slightly unusual small museum.

(I read that as "usually unsightly", maybe it was the mention of Michael and Jimmy.)

Was going to chime in with Prince Henry's Room on Fleet St, but apparently it's closed.

Horniman is great and the surrounding grounds have recently been redone (I think they should be finished now) and have a nice view over London.

Went to the Petrie today. It's really interesting. Small but packed with artifacts. Quiet, too.

The William Klein / Daido Moriyama show at the Tate Modern is worth seeing. A Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance is as underwhelming as the reviews suggest, though. The Tanks are great.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/64340000/jpg/_64340140_naked.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20466764

i just think it's brilliant that someone is standing up for what they believe in.

Police - "There's no obvious motive that we can see"

nudist rights, general fighting of the power, right to rub your knackers on a statue's head.

can understand why someone would strip off in rage at whitehall's parade of memorials to warmongers tbh.

vilest road in the capital.

danger of making fun of the mentally ill but lauging with him not at him
http://news.sky.com/story/1015578/naked-man-climbs-on-to-whitehall-statue (video therein)

he must be chilly, it's could out today.

"cold"

"Eyewitnesses said the man could be seen waving his arms"

not the only things he was waving

(sorry v boring at work today)

If you were starting a London day off along the King's Road and ending up at Paddington, where would you want to be inbetween? Interesting shops, nice caffs etc. I realise this is very vague.

exhibition road, bibendum, hyde park

Walk by ridiculous shops on Sloane Street, buy Harvey Nichols food hall products for posh but not too expensive gifts, Serpentine Gallery, dim sum at Royal China on Queensway.

Do you like dinosaurs?

It guess it depends on what you want (a lot of it also comes down to your take on "nice" [read: £££] parts of the city) but I'd say: exhibition road is indeed nice (this also gives you the option of stopping into the the VA or exercising your hypothetical like of dinosaurs), Hyde Park is Hyde Park, and I'd probably go to Notting Hill/Portobello Market, too (though I realize you may not share my willingness to devote all one's time and money to the Notting hill music video exchange and Honest Jons). Also, the semi-closed off road alongside the west end of hyde park with all the embassies makes for a really nice walk.

Depending on route, you could stop for a tea or coffee at the Albert Hall and then admire the Albert Memorial across the road, then walking across Hyde Park.

Other possibilities: I quite like the unlikely looking walk through Paddington Station alongside platforms 8 and 9 (i think) that brings you out on the Paddington Basin of the Grand Union Canal. A very short walk along the canal in the left direction takes you to the houseboats of Little Venice.

Thanks for suggestions. In the olden days, the route probably would have taken in a record shop or two.

[For future reference, not a fan of dinosaurs, particularly].

just bought a ticket to london for 2 weeks in may. super pumped.

What about you - do you like dinosaurs?

I'd wager he does.

I am flying in especially for dinosaurs yes

Cool. I'll see what I can find.

crystal palace park, natural history museum, probably more

I think those are just models / fossils and stuff, not the real thing

Revived, ahead of a jaunt to London tomorrow.
And to see where the dinosaur conversation goes.

Well, I'll probably be run off the London Restaurants thread, if not out of town, but I quite like the Pheasantry on the Kings Road - a Pizza Express in a Georgian building. It has an interesting walled courtyard at the front and the ground floor has some faux 60s artwork and pleasant ambience. The downstairs is uninteresting, though I did once sit next to a group of Chelsea nannies gossiping about their employers which was quite interesting

Other possible stopping points: I like the Victoria pub in Strathearn Place. It's just above Hyde Park and a few minutes from Paddington. It's a classic Victorian traditional style pub (Fullers - I recommend the London Pride). Plus for historic interest, you're a only a few doors away from where John Lennon, George Harrison were first turned on to acid in the 1960s by George's dentist (at 2 Strathearn Place).

And I do recommend Little Venice if you're in the Paddington area:

http://www.london-attractions.info/images/attractions/little-venice.jpg

Possible boozer: the Warwick Castle just off Blomfield Rd, at Warwick Place.

Shame that it gets dark so early at this time of year.

Just be very careful:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01568/ferns_1568189i.jpg

map of where bombs fell during the blitz:

http://bombsight.org/

there's a road i walk down on the way to work (Westville Road, W12) where a terrace has a break in it which has been filled with flats. in the mortar at the end of the terrace is scratched two pairs of initials and a date in 1945...

(oddly not on the map. although there are a couple close by. also nothing in askew road where the pub was bombed)

As far as missing living in London goes, I've been having crazy flashbacks of being Peckham, and only of Peckham, all day. I have no explanation for this.

You were Peckham?

went to mr buckley's on hackney road last night. not usually into small plates because i am a greedy fuck but it was really nice food and wine. didn't get to try the lobster mac & cheese tho :(

shit thought this was london restaurants threadddd

*IN (xposts)

after i came back from living in tokyo for a year i used to have these super weird super vivid flashbacks - like images overlaid on the place where i really was - of unassuming bits of town, like view from across the street from the supermarket, or one particular pedestrian footbridge, never anywhere i had any strong emotions associated with. i think it's just a... processing, kind of thing?

by which I mean: i didn't miss the place yet, but i kept having these visions of it, without feeling and inescapable.

Oh yeah, I'm familiar with the phenomenon, I'm just curious as to why Peckham?

Have you spend a lot of time in Peckham at any point?

No, that's the thing.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69151000/jpg/_69151012_69150604.jpg

Shit getting real in Herne Hill there.

jesus h

http://www.london24.com/polopoly_fs/herne_hill_flood4_1_2322155!image/3709062561.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_490/3709062561.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/12/london-room-rent-gumtree_n_4584275.html

bargain.

having gotten notice to quit on my staggeringly cheap flat earlier today i look forward to living somewhere similar soon.

chriiiiist

we're clinging on to our staggeringly cheap flat by our fingertips - landlady wants to sell up and it will happen this time, she just hasn't got round to formally telling us aagh - once she actually does we're all fucked

*house, even

yeah, there's close to zero chance of me not paying at least an extra £200 a month for anywhere similar to what i have now, and since i'm already quite good at spending all of my income that's gonna make things tough. still, i survived through the rise and rise of lower clapton for a surprisingly long time.

the minute i moved into lower clapton 2 years ago i knew it was on the verge of this. at some point it really feels like gentrification wankery is chasing you and it keeps on catching up...

cosine here, same sitch, crazy cheap flat and landlord is going to sell but hasn't formally told us yet

everything in hackney is insane right now, it seems inevitable that the only people who will be able to live there in a year or so will be either rich or poor, nothing inbetween. there's a 1-bedroom basement flat literally next door to me on the market for £400K. it's to the point that west london i.e. shepherd's bush or fulham might even be cheaper??

Gah, that's terrible, but unfortunately I'm not so sure it is a pisstake.

Hope both all of you find somewhere decent, though I'm aware of how difficult that is right now.

every time i go on moveflat, just to scope out where the fuck i could possibly move to when the inevitable happens, it's absolutely terrifying

Was keeping a eye on Waltham Forest for a while but one bed flats that looked overpriced to me at £150,000 a few years ago are going for £220,000 now.

I could be asked to move out any time and genuinely don't know if there is anywhere left in London proper to move to. Where do people go?

one way i like to depress myself is by checking out the rents on comparable flats in other perfectly nice cities (glasgow, manchester, brighton). tbh if i wasn't academically tied to london i'd probably take this opportunity to move elsewhere.

Tell me about these rents because I am p much feeling v v done with London and if I could rent out this flat and move somewhere cheaper, it might well spur me to leave this shithole. But it would also mean I'd have to fix the damp.

the minute i moved into lower clapton 2 years ago i knew it was on the verge of this. at some point it really feels like gentrification wankery is chasing you and it keeps on catching up...

― lex pretend, Sunday, 12 January 2014 19:35 (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this has been sort of simmering away during the half decade of no growth, a sort of surface level entrenchment of the sort of things that cause estate agents to append 'village' to place names, now with a debt fuelled pseudo-revival it has gone into overdrive

25% of help to buy approved mortgages are in london and environs, so long as you can find a nice 2 bed garden flat for under the 600k threshold

xp well, for example, i'm looking forward to paying as much to live in a cupboard in london as i would to live in this glasgow city centre flat - http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-39261505.html

yeah sure i'll just buy a £575K flat no sweat. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE

high salaries but no savings, just the sort of people in need of public subsidies

maybe this shit will cause some people to remember there is a part of london south of the thames

Has it not gone the same way? I know loads of people being priced out of Brockley, Brixton, Tooting, etc.

HEY.

(Sorry, but Sarf London has seen some fairly ludicrous price rises, too. Several of my friends have ended up priced out of Streatham, believe it or not.)

yeah i've looked at various south locales and it's honestly not much better. brixton is as insane as hackney

:(

"priced out of brockley" - a memoir

yeah i was hearing the orher day about an ad exec who just spent low seven figures on a house in a bit of south london that north londoners would probably associate (assuming they had heard of it) with crime and deprivation

Was keeping a eye on Waltham Forest for a while

Prices have gone absolutely mental in Walthamstow over the last 18 months or so. Don't know if it's happened in Leyton/Leytonstone as well.

Edmonton still a cheaper option, and with good reason.

Waiting for Guardian Weekend to do a glowing "Let's Move To... Mitcham Junction" or something.

A friend is looking to be near the new Saint Martin's (ex-council N1, N7) and reports 'open days' of 30 couples viewing a flat at once, then flat inevitably sells to cash buyer for 10 per cent over the asking price, after sealed bids. Another friend bought a house in Walthamstow, the multiple-viewers at open day happened there, too.

Lots of people buying in the Bushwood section of Leytonstone right now, but also Harringey between Manor House and Turnpike Lane.

lol @ the trendy faux-S London locations listed above. charlton/woolwich border clearly where it's at. 15 months & no trouble (but then I am a man)

Is "but then I am a man" the new "I'm white, BTW"?

I live in South London (but then I am a man!)

I was not a man until South London. But then I was a man!

I like this catchphrase. But then I'm drunk.

If we must, my ex was flashed once while dog-walking round these parts - I was acknowledging that there are harassments men just don't cop

this has been sort of simmering away during the half decade of no growth, a sort of surface level entrenchment of the sort of things that cause estate agents to append 'village' to place names, now with a debt fuelled pseudo-revival it has gone into overdrive

The funniest example of this is surely Brixton 'village'.

The challenge is finding somewhere in zone 2/3 that isn't a 'village' just yet.

ok we're pretty fucken guilty as charged on that count

Oh yes Charlton Village, yes.

My street got declared a villaaaaaarge after a movie star moved in & wrote a column for the Guardian saying how nice it is. How much will this add to my house value?

I look forward to Thamesmead village.

I'm not even going to google that.

Another friend bought a house in Walthamstow, the multiple-viewers at open day happened there, too

When we were looking a year ago (in Walthamstow) this was the case *all* the time. Any property worth having was sold instantly before it even officially came onto the market. The estate agents had backlogs of clients on their books who had sales lined up but couldn't find anywhere to buy, so they would tip them off whenever they went to do a valuation and would then get them an early viewing (on the same day as all the others on their books). Basically no chance for a second viewing, no possibility for negotiation of price. Several times we called back the next morning to find places had already been sold.

but also Harringey between Manor House and Turnpike Lane

Harringay (in Haringey).

Someone told me recently that if a property has been on the market for more than three days then it's either severely overpriced or there's something wrong with it, although that may have been an exaggeration.

Think that depends v much on the neighbourhood. The people upstairs have just sold/bought and though I wasn't on good enough terms with the old neighbours for them to even tell me they were selling, they were having an unusual amount of visitors for several weeks. But although I'm on better terms with the new neighbours, I'm not on good enough terms to ask them how much they paid and how quickly they sold.

Owning a house right now feels like both a blessing when reading the horrendous issues my renting friends are facing, and also a millstone, like I'm attached to this hugely valuable thing I got entirely by accident and sheer luck, and yet if I get rid of it, I will never ever get another one.

This place is a total fucking shithole isn't it
― dave q, Saturday, May 11, 2002 12:00 AM (11 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

... and that was 11 years ago, can you imagine what it's like now?

Brockely's still on offer for about £400pcm. I lived their for two years and the rent didn't change, my ex hosuemates stayed in the property and still pay the same...

It depends entirely on your landlord - those who have owned their place for ages will typically be renting at a lower rate at £400pcm-ish is fairly achieveable. If they bought more recently then they're likely to be renting it at a stupidly insane rate - I saw £600pcm plus quoted for a shared house in Herne Hill recently.

Brixton and Hackney are basically the same thing - the most fashionable parts of their respective areas, for that alone they're going to be overpriced even by London standards.

Throw Peckham in there as well.

Herne Hill is pretty damn posh these days and has been for some time! It was out of my price range when I was last looking 10 years ago!

Can attest to insanity in Walthamstow, in our street flats that were going for low £200k are now going for £350k. We are basically stuck where we are as we're paying probably £300 a month below market rent, luckily our landlord likes us and has paid his mortgage off.

Kinda thinking London is not for the likes of me any more, if it ever was. The only people I knew who owned their place even last decade were people who had help from their parents. I was looking at SE London now even NE London is out of the question but tbh it's not really any cheaper.

£600 a month would have been expensive for a room in a shared house even for a gentrified bit of South London not that long ago, especially one that isn't on the Tube.

It's partly the Overground that's sent everything mental but not everywhere even has that excuse.

xp The cost of commuting in is crazy as well. It's fairly typical for my colleagues to be paying £5000 - £9000 a year in train fares, which isn't any more supportable in the long run.

There definitely needs to be more work done to encourage companies / jobs to relocate to other cities.

Friend who had v. small (350 sf) ex-council one-bed in Bloomsbury sold it for £360K last year, thinking he would relocate and wind up either mortgage-free or on a very low one, but seems to have just missed out on getting similar-but-larger flats near Caledonian Road. Judging by his experiences over the last year, once prices go past £250K and pass the stamp duty threshold, there's not much barrier to them going straight to £300K. His offers have been trumped by cash buyers on many, many occasions.

I can confirm rents in Herne Hill rents are as bonkers as ever. We moved out of our tiny one bed roomed garden flat near brockwell park (which the landlord is now advertising for £1100 a month) up the the road to West Norwood to a 2 bedroomed house for only slightly more. I think Tulse/West Norwood is on the turn too. There were more baby buggies than people in the railway at Tulse Hill station last sunday afternoon.

I was recently told by a resident that the Hither Green / Lee area hasn't been subject to the kind of madness which other bits of not-too-distant South East London have. I understand it's unremarkably alright around there but it's not an area I know well (or one I care to know well, particularly).

depends which part of hither green/lee. several 'conservation areas' round there, and the inevitable blackheath creep. closer you get to downham the cheaper i'd imagine

and 'unremarkably alright'? sir it is PARADISE

It's pretty nice around there, I know it well. Last time I was round there the big pub next to the station had gone gastro and a lot of the shops in the market area had turned decidedly pastel-shaded so I suspect it's on the turn.

Conversely the Old Tiger's Head is painted a weird shade of pink now and looks like an Eastenders wine bar from 1988 so god knows what's going on there.

lol @ the lord northbrook. went in there quite a bit when it were a propah boozah n the england footy was on

about 4x as many fancy restaurants as a decade ago, yeah, blackheath is comin'. so flee south, south to where the rents are yet cheap, where baring road sheers off toward grove park, where bromley looms

It's cheap round there because it's shit. I mean there is literally nothing of interest.

Last time I was round there all the pubs had been demolished and replaced with big ugly furniture outlets, it made me nostalgic even for the roughest of them.

Are these prices going to fall back down again once Help to Buy stops, then? Or have they just permanently moved prices out of yet more people's reach?

Hopefully the end of HTB will mean some of the mad overheating stops but I don't get the expression we'll see prices actually fall anytime soon - it seems to take really bad conditions for prices to actually fall, I'm afraid. Most people seem to refuse to sell in a falling market unless they have to.

If interest rates shoot up, now that might be different.

NB I really don't know what I'm on about.

I do not think HTB has had a major impact yet. Interest rates rising could cool things but BTL rents could go up.

Was thinking interest rates rising could lead to a lot of repossessions? One thing holding me back from trying to get on HTB is that we could barely get a mortgage to cover a 2 bed flat somewhere out of the way around Waltham Forest as it is and that's with relatively low rates, if they go up I'd be stuck with huge mortgage repayments on some shithole. There must be a lot of people who are stretching themselves beyond their means?

That's a real concern when I see friends on new teachers' salaries looking to get a 95% LTV mortgage on a 250k flat. People seem to be judging repayments against what they're overpaying in rent now without really thinking about what happens if the rates go up. The challenge at a national level is that outside of a few pockets houses are not overpriced really and increasing rates to cool London could crash everywhere else.

outside of a few pockets houses are not overpriced really

Is this right? I heard the opposite when I went home for Xmas, unless Worcester is one of the pockets.

Was thinking interest rates rising could lead to a lot of repossessions?

Not necessarily. I mean, obviously if rates go up a lot it will lead to an increase in repossessions, but I think a relatively modest increase wouldn't lead to catastrophe. Firstly, a lot of people will have fixed rate mortgages. Secondly, people on variable mortgages who got them before the crash are paying considerably less now than they were pre-crash, so (assuming they still have the same income) they can afford for their mortgages to go back up again. Thirdly, people who bought even a fairly short time ago (e.g. a year) have probably seen the value of their property go up by 10% or more - if they became unable to pay their mortgage they could sell their property for a profit and move somewhere cheaper. Repossessions only really kick when people can't sell their property (usually because they're in negative equity).

xp Might be. West / South-west tends to be a bit more expensive, i think. Central England and the North is mostly a way off the peak of a few years ago. You can get a nice three-bed family home in Birmingham for about the same as a pokey studio on the fringes of London.

hell of a commute, though

fwiw Worcester is in Central England, albeit the south west part of it.

My sense of geography is awful, tbh.

Xp, my boss commutes from Coventry atm

currently searching for a flat to rent with my brother. demoralising. sometimes it feels like something could extend indefinitely and to so little reward that it could easily become a permanent activity or enforced recreation. going around looking at expensive small places you don't want to live in, and decoding estate agents' kaleidoscopes of lies.

This is starting to sound like a dystopian novel of the near future. Instead of "The Trial" it shall be "The Flat Hunt".

Yes, a part-furnished labyrinth of chambers in unheard of places, gumtree breadcrumbs, circus mirror photos - one small bedroom, one large bedroom, one small bedroom, one large bedroom. Might suit those with a yen for folly and traipsing around on rainy evenings. also, because everything is available NOW and is snapped up IMMEDIATELY, unless you are lucky you or have the spare cash to overlap two rents at once, you have to hand in your notice on your previous place before you've found somewhere you're moving into. So there's a wonderful jump into the void and a period of suspended nausea.

Oh! Email from brother:

'But no bedroom photos on one of them'

and another!

'Holloway property looks shit.'

Well, that's all sorted then.

you're welcome to look at my flat. I've got to go and live with my bride-to-be sooner or later.

Christ, thanks, woof. Certainly will include that in our currently ineffectual investigations. will be in touch.

isn't that down SE way?

yes - in Camberwell - going to Hither Green to be nearer my beloved/my beloved a205.

Congrats woof!

Having this thread in mind I looked at proposals for 'evil' crossrail and I am guessing areas that have not been exploited enough yet...the abbey wood/erith/belvedere 'triangle' does look ripe enough.

Also looks as if North Kent might join London, which makes a corner of my heart grey and sad.

Yay, Woof!

(But also yay to the idea of Fizzles moving to Sarf London for purely selfish reasons of ease of inflicting pints and book exchanges upon him.)

lol 'inflicting' pints and books. how will i cope. but yes, regardless of the ins and outs of arranging the move, sarf london is clearly where it's at. brother currently lives in Herne Hill, which is expensive, and apart from Brockwell Park, is a bit nothingy (prepared to listen to Herne Hill defenders if you're around). Oh, and it has 'Herne' there.

I am an endless defender of Herne Hill! The park! Herne the Hunter! The weekend market on the pedestrianised street outside the charming Victorian rail station! The fantastic little bookshop on the lane! Shoegaze gigs at the Half Moon (though I'm not sure that they have those much any more.) There's also lots and lots of really beautiful Victorian architecture around those parts - the Historical Society does walking tours which I highly recommend.

If it were not so expensive, I would live there, rather than here. Alas, it *is* very expensive (and all for a blip of a zone change).

nothingy status: rescinded. (i've never been in that bookshop, which is certainly an oversight.)

Truefact: The current book hostage you are holding comes from that very bookshop!

(I should probably attempt to get it back from you before you move and it disappears into boxed-up limbo, eh.)

i'm p good with keeping that sort of thing separate (i have a 'not my books don't take to indian restaurant' pile). i have finished it tho, so happy to do mid-frozen cold war forest hostage swap at any point.

herne hill is quite nice if I ever want to live in south london probably there. no tube though, obv.

Yes, the bookshop in Herne Hill is nice, and there is also an excellent oxfam bookshop on half moon lane. The half moon pub isn't going to open until the summer after the big flood. The Florence now has a creche. West Norwood FTW.

herne hill has a very lazy feel that i like, especially so close to the nonstop insanity of brixton

but yeah, it's been gentrified long before brixton went down that road, no?

yeah, no? no, yeah?

I found Herne Hill increasingly unbearably smug towards the end of living there, although this was probably due to the best pub, the Half moon, being closed for last 6 months, with the alternatives not being much cop and full of 4 years olds running around. Living within cycling distance of Brockwell Park has proved to be a good compromise personally, and I now live in a place twice the size of the old one. Also better connected now in comparison, although it's all buses and trains (as opposed to the Brixton tube).

I think the gentrification is a recent thing. My girlfriend thinks it's been within the last 5 years, and remembers her football team being thrown out of The Regent (for dancing on tables!) when it was an old spit and sawdust irish pub, and squats along Railton Road. Rent prices have certainly skyrocketed in the the 2 and a half years we were there.

My brother moved to Herne Hill in the mid-80s (he was a student and managed to get short life housing in one of the big houses up on Herne Hill itself, his room cost a princely £6 per week!) and the impression I have is that over that period HH started more (lower-)middle class than Brixton but the gentrification which has happened to HH has been Brixton led.

Quite how I've managed to pick up that impression I'm not sure; HH, as far as I can tell, never went through an edgy hipster phase, and I think Brixton's edgy hipster phase* surely started before Herne Hill had changed very much - I always thought it managed to appeal to people who liked the edgy-hipster element of Brixton but didn't necessarily want to live in the middle of it.

*think we still called them trustafarians in those days; I guess they were a bit different but probably performed the same shock-troops-of-gentrification purpose

edgy-hipster gentrification and yummy-mummy gentrification are pretty distinct things and i get the impression the latter is what's happening to herne hill? (also lower clapton)

herne hill as the stoke newington to brixton's dalston, or something

Yes, it's Yummy-Mummy Gentrification as opposed to Edgy-Hipster Gentrification, but, also, lesbians.

just like stoke newington!!

ehh there probably is a dalston-stokey causality given that we're nigh on 20 years of edgy east ldn

(I set 'em up, you nail the joke.)

x-post to Lex

Yes, Yummy Mummification nails it for Herne Hill, hence creches in the Florence etc. Although halfway up Railton Road (where the squats were based) sort of turns into Brixton anyway. If Herne Hill ever had an edge, it was based around the Half Moon pub. I guess the pedestriansiation of the square (in 2012) around the train station helped, turning it from little more than a fairly depressing junction to a place where you can do stuff. Sunday markets, outdoor films and the like.

stoke newington-dalston
herne hill-brixton
brockley-new cross

same thing? discuss

I dunno, when I moved here Stoke Newington had a rep for being (um, what was it called back then?) alternative, the cliche was the cider swilling end of the anarchist spectrum, right? There was never a great deal of that in Herne Hill, and what there was amounted to Brixton overspill as far as I could tell. Stoke Newington went through its own edgy -> yummy gentrification process, which seemed to me largely independent of what happened to Dalston (though it may have been partially responsble for what happened to Dalston, I guess?).

("When I moved here": here = London, not Stoke Newington, I'm firmly SE15/SE22 with a short sojourn all the way over in SE16; when = 1998.)

i feel like all these little micro-histories, growing patiently like moss and lichen - with the occasional kudzu vine bolting startlingly through the branches - have just been bush hogged, the whole thing plowed under. shitty fourth-floor council flats going for £385K in stamford hill and bow just makes a nonsense of this stuff.

I think that makes it more important to *remember* the micro-histories.

and to not buy shitty council flats in stamford hill for $385k

Remember though, Dalston and Stoke Newington were where people who couldn't afford Islington always wound up buying.

That's certainly been true for the last 10-15 years but Stoke Newington's position as somewhere with a bohemian, middle class reputation probably predates the rise of Islington as a particularly desirable neighbourhood.

Like Islington, it has always had huge pockets of deprivation and crime, though. I'm not sure it ever went through a phase of having an 'edgy' reputation as a whole, it's more like two separate places (one rough, one leafy and middle class) layered on top of each other.

When I first moved back to London (1998) right through the CTCL/beginning of Plan B years, Stoke Newington was a place of squat raves, edgey youngperson houseshares, free jazz basements and, yes, lesbians. There was a kind of leafy bit around Church St and the park, but that was Islington overspill, I guess, rather than the edgey gentrification that was coming up the A10 from edgey youngpersons priced out of Hoxditch.

Odd how so many views of different bits of London can coexist in people's minds.

aye, t'were nothing but fields when i moved here one score and four months ago.

i hear there was a bit around lordship road that was/is a red light district

xp, To me, the identity that people associate with Stoke Newington (the middle-class, leftist, gay one) is inseparable from its history as a place where a lot of liberal, secular Jewish people settled in the 70s. I think that's distinct from Islington in a lot of ways. That might be more around Church Street and Stamford Hill, rather than the High Street, though.

And yes, there's a red light district around Brownswood Road (iirc) near Lordship Lane.

See, this, to me, is more reason for remembering all the micro-histories, because without them, areas with a rich heritage end up just being associated with "whatever people you knew there/whatever things you did there."

Totally! The Islington overspill thing started in the '70s and basically went anyplace in the Borough of Hackney where flat-fronted Georgians and other old, pretty houses were available eg. Clissold Park, Mildmay Park and de Beauvoir. The 'trendy Jewish people of N16' thing makes sense, too - explains a few friends who are 10 years younger than me, who grew up there.

When I first came to London, Stokey *was* very crusty/lesbian; we called it Stoic Newington.

and to not buy shitty council flats in stamford hill for $385k

Stamford Hill or on top of Old Stokey as my friend David used to quip... and talking of Old Stokey

Dalston and Stoke Newington were where people who couldn't afford Islington always wound up buying.

And now Walthamstow has become the destination for people priced out of Stoke Newington

xp Love that egg stores sign

xp indeed, I am one of those ex-Stokey people now in Walthamstow.

we called it Stoic Newington.

idgi

better transport links in walthamstow than stokey

xxpost

xxxp Quite a common journey over the years, i believe. A lot of the suburban areas surrounding Walthamstow were populated by people moving out of Hackney and Haringey. I think of my London family as being from Waltham Forest but have lots of great aunts, etc, buried in Abney Park and am reliably informed that my great-great-grandfather used to sell carbonated drinks on Hackney Marshes in the 1870s.

hah that's great! I lived in Lower Clapton until I was 2, which seems to be the point around which I have gravitated for the last 7 years or so...

Herne Hill's gentrification is mostly due to being right next to DULWICH, it's nothing to do with Brixton. See also the pretty much complete gentrification of East Dulwich over the last 20 years, in which it's gone from being Peckham-with-nicer-houses to Stoke Newington South-of-the-River. But yeah, it's all yummy mummification, although a lot of them will be ex-hipsters now comfortably in their 30s.

Haha, Waltham Forest is getting way, way, way too close to where I grew up. Is there even still a forest there?

And that actually makes more sense, of Herne Hill being Dulwich overspill rather than Brixton overspill, that's actually kinda more its vibe. (Though things like the Lambeth Country Fair being in Brockwell Park make it Brixton-ish. Brockwell Park is a Brixton park.) I no longer understand Dulwich, though I'm not sure I ever did, as the "East" and "North" anexes of it don't correspond to geographical directions, but to train stations? It's so confusing.

Waltham Forest was the old name for Epping Forest which is still there.

edgy-hipster gentrification and yummy-mummy gentrification are pretty distinct things and i get the impression the latter is what's happening to herne hill? (also lower clapton)

Really it's the difference between people moving for cheap rents + cool places to go out and people buying up housing stock. Having a park nearby helps with the latter as well.

OK, these are childhood (under the age of 9) memories, so very unreliable. There's definitely a forest in Epping, and I was born in the borough of Epping, it says so on my birth certificate. Also I have been to Epping Forest lots, recently.

But there's another ancient woods near Waltham Cross/Cheshunt area (might be as far out as Cuffley?) which I think I might have decided was the actual Waltham Forest in my child-head? We used to walk there a lot. I've no idea what it was called now.

ayo, what's a good wood in SE? Done Nunhead reservoir/One Tree Hill to death.

I only know remnants of the Great North Wood stretched between Crystal Palace and Tooting. Some of that is love, but very small. Would be happy to know of other South woods accessible by TFL.

I've been looking at maps. Oh, England, I love you. There is no forest in the London borough of Waltham Forest. The woods are several miles north, in Waltham Abbey. That makes so much sense! Not.

weirdly google maps labels this bit as walthamstow forest
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=waltham+forest&ll=51.599854,0.006523&spn=0.008623,0.016522&hnear=London+Borough+of+Waltham+Forest,+Greater+London,+United+Kingdom&gl=uk&t=h&z=16

That's not actually true btw. There is a bit of Epping forest that for some reason wasn't built over, from Hollow Pond by the hospital in the south east of the borough going up north to Chingford.

xpost to BB

Yes, yes, but that's Epping Forest. It's just funny that Waltham Forest is not actually in Waltham Forest. Come on, that's just.. typical.

Waltham Forest was the old name for Epping Forest which is still there.

Dude, there is another Waltham Forest. In Waltham Abbey. Go and look at the map! My 9-year-old memories were better than I give them credit for!

does your map say walthamstow forest

Totally! The Islington overspill thing started in the '70s and basically went anyplace in the Borough of Hackney where flat-fronted Georgians and other old, pretty houses were available eg. Clissold Park, Mildmay Park and de Beauvoir. The 'trendy Jewish people of N16' thing makes sense, too - explains a few friends who are 10 years younger than me, who grew up there.

When I first came to London, Stokey *was* very crusty/lesbian; we called it Stoic Newington.

― baked beings on toast (suzy), Wednesday, January 15, 2014 6:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Interesting reading/seeing reference to Mildmay Park and seeing it as a bus destination cos the Mildmay pub was a place I used to go as a teen to go to a mod disco there. Not really remembering how parts of that area of LOndon fit together beyond going there on a 55 from Whipps Cross or Bakers Arms.
Interesting to walk around Dalston or wherever that was on the way to the Shacklewell Arms over Xmas too. Seeing that the market there doesn't seem to have changed from previous times I've walked through there which could be over a 20 year stretch or something.
Also wondering what hope a low wage earning person in London now has to get onto the rental circus if they lose their place in it through bad fortune as appears to be happening to somebody I know. Person who has said for years taht they can't see how a person could afford to even pay for a deposit in town.

Matt - how do you know that Herne Hill's gentrification is Dulwich-related rather than Brixton-related? I'm not arguing that you're wrong, it's just I had managed to pick up the opposite view (mostly I guess from the people I knew who'd moved to HH). I'm more interested in how we get these impressions than I am in the "true" answer esp when the true answer is probably "a bit of both".

Agree with you about cool-things-to-do against housing stock.

Interesting seeing taht about Waltham Forest since it was the borough I lived in from the age of 1 until I left the UK. Wonder when what was designated Eppng Forest was designated. Is it a designation that was agreed on bureaucratically and missed part of what was being redesignated from Waltham Forest, which judging from what is being said here may have been a pretty large area.
I missed seeing Waltham Abbey over Xmas cos I was in bed coughing and sneezing phlegm while my mum, brother and his girlfriend went out there for a walk. Subsequently not sure how far out Waltham Abbey is but am thinking its upwards of 20 miles away from Walthamstow. I never have understood what the inter-relationship between various Walthams in roughly the same area is. Is it a historic thing connected to a baronry or something?

I do know how far out Epping is roughly which is quite a distance. But I still wouldn't know exactly, so calling everything in that large area Epping Forest outside of it having to do with who was looking after it seems a bit vague. Again I should probably know what the history is since I grew up in that area, I was in Woodford Green before moving to Walthamstow. Educated from pre-school in that area.

The gentrification of Herne Hill seems to have preceded that of Brixton by several years, so I'm going on that really. But the Brixton thing has probably accelerated it.

ayo, what's a good wood in SE? Done Nunhead reservoir/One Tree Hill to death

Dulwich and Sydenham Hill woods are fairly small but you can get lost in them and there are some awesome views over London and some fun things hidden away in them, like this folly:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ZGrx2SwpQ4Q/TLtd0THYMhI/AAAAAAAAB-s/-ShCkE5mI7I/s1600/sydenham.jpg

Oxleas Wood, up past Blackheath, is fantastic as well, plus it has Severndroog Castle in it.

I am trying to remember what -stowe means as a place name suffix, but my memory is so befuddled! I think this is the key on which this hinges.

Wikipedia has it that Walthamstow is nothing to do with Waltham at all, but was Welcome-stow, and was corrupted by drift into the name of the nearby forest.

Epping Forest used to be much, much larger than it is presently; it covered much of Essex and bits of Hertfordshire, IIRC.

Waltham is from the Saxon Weald-ham (Weald, as in Kent, meaning deep woods or wild land) so all the bits of Waltham are so named because of their proximinity to the great hunting forest of Epping - ham (village) by the weald (woods). Which is why all the Walthams are so removed from one another; a massive great royal hunting forest used to be in the way.

Still not sure about Walthamstow - ah, but here. Stow in old English placenames = "place of assembly" or "holy place." Can't see how it would be the "holy place" with the Abbey being the holy centre of the district. Perhaps the outside-the-forest assembly place for the hundred associated with the forest?

Actually no, I've got the place name lookup server online again and it's Welcome's Stow. Naught to do with Waltham originally at all:

http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Essex/Walthamstow

x-post that folly is in the remains of the Great North Wood! I've been there!

Cheers Matt, might amble down Rye Lane and down to Dulwich woods on saturday and then use the Pizza Express gift card Father Christmas got me on Saturday, then do Oxleas on Sunday. Perfect weekend.

queries: why is finsbury park so far away from finsbury?

what about tottenham court road?

and are forest hill and forest gate so named for the sole purpose of getting people to go to the wrong ends of london by mistake for laughs?

see also Shooters Hill and Shoot Up Hill.

The gentrification of Herne Hill seems to have preceded that of Brixton by several years, so I'm going on that really.

Ah OK, don't think I agree with that, but I've been through that upthread.

I think "stow" just meant "place" in middle English.

http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/ml2hpZwbnZc4a7-dFnQXWaw.jpg

Thing I hadn't really taken into account is Brixton being on the Tube, which is almost certainly a factor.

...and the FCC direct to St Pancras, as far as HH is concerned. The residents of the HH forum were having nervous breakdowns when they thought they were going to lose it.

See, that's what makes me think HH is Dulwich overspill, because they are on the overground lines (I'm not sure the same line, or connect via Tulse Hill? I'm almost certain I have got to Dulwich from Herne Hill though I couldn't tell you how). Brixton is for people who get the bends if they go off the tube system.

Oh! And Ken, the whole thing with double names in central/outer London such as Finsbury/Finsbury Park, Tottenham/Tottenham Court Road, Bedford Square/Bedfordshire - usually when that happens it's because both patches of land were owned by the same Lord of the Manor - one would have been his townhouse in London, the other a country estate at remove of a day's ride. When they were sold or developed, both would end up with the same name, whether it was the patronymic or the family seat's name.

Forests and Shooters/ups and Mansion House/Manor House were done because the Saxons had a bastard sense of humour and were trying to confuse the Normans into besieging the wrong part of town. Clearly.

...subsequently not sure how far out Waltham Abbey is but am thinking its upwards of 20 miles away from Walthamstow...I do know how far out Epping is roughly which is quite a distance

Crazy talk. Waltham Abbey / Waltham Cross / Epping are all about 10 or 11 miles from Walthamstow. I know because I regularly cycle from Walthamstow out through the forest to Essex. Even Harlow is less than 20 miles away.

I don't think the Normans were basing their siege plans on the tube map.

Xpost

Hush, Earl of Clerkenwell!

I think I'm now of the Thornbury Marches, although quite frankly the prestonian hordes can come right in, it's too hot to raise the drawbridge.

Avast with thee to the SheepfuX0rs, you are of our parish no more! ;-)

what do people make of plaistow? west ham?

I like going there for Green Street market, which feels like Brick Lane/Whitechapel before white hipsters happened to either. If you're looking for a home, try to find one as near Wanstead Flats as you can go, because you're used to having a decent park nearby and perhaps not used to East Ham supporters all over the place.

On a similar theme, are Hainault / Fairlop nice? Looks like a lot of open, green space but possibly not much else going on.

suzy would you say forest gate could be good too? that seems nearer wanstead flats.

there's something hilarious to me about the fact that there's a train station around there called "maryland"

Try to find somewhere near to the Piccadilly or Central Line - I've been recommending Leyton/stone because a lot of artists and writers w/kids have gone there from Hackney, and I've been recommending Turnpike Lane/Manor House/South Tottenham/Seven Sisters because it's not too far into Zone 3. There's also an area in upper Leyton called Bushwood which has a Wanstead postcode, where a lot of people seem to be trying to buy, too.

The worst thing about E6/E7/E12 is having to use the fucking District Line. If you fancy a walk around there at the weekend to check it out, give me a shout because any excuse for a trip to Green Street market...

haha re forest hill/gate further upthread i forgot there's a DLR station called "Abbey Road" that is nowhere near Fab four.

it seems ridiculous but my sister and i once went down to stratford, london and perplex as to why Shakespeare has to do with a crappy shopping centre (this was before olympics when it became a slightly bigger crappy shopping centre)

were perplexed

Am currently kind of obsessed with Pollard's Hill.

If I found that park in Wilshire or somewhere, I would say that was an iron age hillfort, with a motte and bailey constructed on top of it. But no, it is a strange park in suburban South London.

anybody have opinions on higham hill? south chingford?

am caught in frantic scrabble for someplace affordable to live

Higham Hill is Walthamstow, so good luck with that - it's all open houses and guide prices around there.

How much time have you got to find someplace?

Higham Hill is pretty unremarkable too, though nicer on the Lloyd Park/Chingford Rd side as opposed to the Blackhorse Rd end.

Lloyd Park is nice but it's got ludicrously expensive round there.

Why did all these bastards find out about Walthamstow before I could buy a place :(

rent 4 lyfe

I love Chingford. Highams Park is a really nice area. Good school too.

he local MP would be a deal-breaker, surely? ;-)

Whenever I read people talking about where to get property in London, I thank God we were in a position to buy in the mid-90s. We've got a three bedroom house in Kentish Town. If we were starting out now, I think we'd have to be looking at somewhere in the very outer suburbs to get that space.

Xp

The local MP is apparently surprisingly affable in person. He's one of the few Tory big guns who comes across like he doesn't really enjoy the destruction, even though he thinks it's necessary.

A colleague was living in the flat upstairs from the local MP and said that he and his kids were polite, but MP was a nocturnal creature who could be heard muttering into a telephone/yelling into same and loudly typing stuff well into the small hours.

East Ham supporters all over the place

Those poor guys, wandering around without a match for ages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Ham_United_F.C.

anybody have opinions on higham hill? south chingford?

Higham Hill is the north-west corner of Walthamstow, stuck out in isolation because it's hemmed in by marshes and reservoirs. The further north-west you go, the more non-descript it becomes. If you start off in the Lloyd Park area it's all nice-ish red-brick Victorian/Edwardian terraces, but as you head north-west it gets a bit scruffier and has less character, lots of boring suburban semis. Over by Blackhorse Road it's just a big industrial estate.

Confusingly, Highams Park is a totally different place in south-eastern Chingford. This seems quite nice (I've got a colleague* who lives there), but I've always assumed it's expensive (not that I've checked).

*who does not have nice things to say about the MP, fwiw

It's pretty expensive now. Lots of nice houses going for four or five times what they were bought for in 2000 or thereabouts.

i've been visiting estate agents and getting v, v depressed about my future in london

had i started looking 4 years ago, or even 2 years ago, i'd probably be able to live in a neighbourhood i liked, or had at least visited before

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jan/28/eastenders-revamp-gentrified-east-london

do hipsters go to wine bars?

http://www.sagerandwilde.com/

i see no hipsters

Fifteen years ago, people wondered where the Asians, Turkish people and the artists were.

That is a hipster wine bar, for sure. As such, it's something of a rarity in London though.

Peckham Refreshment Rooms might be another, I think. But there aren't many as far as I know.

MY BANK IS NOW A TRENDY WINE BAR.

But now I really freaking miss The Foundry. Even the trendy wine bars have been knocked down for expensive investment flats.

i thought that was a pub

Not a pub.

The local MP is apparently surprisingly affable in person. He's one of the few Tory big guns who comes across like he doesn't really enjoy the destruction, even though he thinks it's necessary.

idgi, the local mp is Iain Duncan Smith isn't it?

Even the trendy wine bars have been knocked down for expensive investment flats.

^

can't say I miss the foundry though, fucking stank in there.

I was actually quite fond of the particular *smell* of the Foundry, especially on a wet Saturday night. It smelled like a rave afterparty that had been going on for ten years.

(But, it was my local, and so many of the "important" events of my life happened there so it's not really objective.)

Ha, yes, good description. I mean, I never liked it in there so can't say I miss it specifically, but it's still shit that it's been replaced by speculator flats.

They're ruining everything, even the crap things.

I want to know where the Worm Lady reads her poetry now. :-/

Never liked the Foundry much but I will love them forever for hosting this exhibition, the poster hangs proudly on my wall to this day.

http://www.atlaspress.co.uk/theLIP/img/dora3.jpg

Transport issues aside, how is Thamesmead these days?

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/06/hackney-house-price-bubble

that fucking creperie

I was about to wonder how people in their late 20s can even be in the market for buying a house, but I realise that neither I nor most of the people (anyone?) I know have really made the best career choices for accumulating wealth.

That's a good article. Completely OTM in my experience.

Everyone I know who bought in their 20s was pretty driven about it; e.g. living at home with parents (as a couple) for a year after university and saving all their income for a deposit, or doing something similar while renting a very small cheap room somewhere (which is what my sister did). Or working in the city, of course.

Am still somewhat amazed that we bought a one bedroom flat in Clerkenwell for under 300k last year. Haven't been looking at the prices since, but all these Hackney prices articles make me suspect that there aren't many left at that price now.

It's less the deposit, more the idea that young people are in the market for flats that will demand mortgage payments of £2500 - £3000 every month and more if rates rise. A few years ago I'd have assumed that was solely finance ppl territory but it doesn't seem that way. Again, my strategies for the accumulation of wealth haven't been great though.

I mean, it says something about the perceived buoyancy of the London economy when a mortgage broker sits down with a 28 year old couple 'in marketing' or 'in publishing' and everyone agrees that they are going to have an uninterrupted six-figure household income for the next twenty five years. I'd be completely terrified.

I was about to wonder how people in their late 20s can even be in the market for buying a house, but I realise that neither I nor most of the people (anyone?) I know have really made the best career choices for accumulating wealth.

― Merdeyeux, Friday, February 7, 2014 12:47 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seriously!

but even taking the various freelancers, artists, permanent students and so on out of the equation...even most of the people i know with good, successful, respectable late 20s/early 30s jobs can't even think about buying a house. i mean things like "head of department at private school" and "editor of national magazine". by any normal measure, people whose careers are going well. probably 99% of people i know who have bought/are buying are either finance people or had parental help.

that said, that article made me wonder why anyone would want to buy a house - the urge to own property is so strong that you'd consider some of those shitholes described? it's baffling to me. though this is probably my own rationalisation of the fact that i'll never own a house speaking (plus the non-desire to have children which seems more and more like a blessing every day)

f ucking finance people

that article made me wonder why anyone would want to buy a house

a mortgage is usually cheaper than rent in london, so then couple that with the fact you end up with something tangible you can sell then it's a pretty simple equation. maybe not so much if you fancy moving to a new city, being a bit rootless - owning a house can put a damper on those things. but it doesn't have to. i know a few couples who have just upped sticks, put stuff in storage and rented their place out indefinitely.

the word that keeps jumping out at me in this coversation is 'couples'

well yeah, pooling resources is pretty key

although i know a dude who bought a house with his best friend a few years ago near seven sisters

although e.g.

If I live to see, Seven Sisters
I'll make a path to the rainbow's end
I'll never live to mash potato again

Just depressing how 15 years ago, £10k deposit and a steady 'professional' job meant you could buy something nice in an up-and-coming part of Zone 2 (or a fixer-upper somewhere posh, or a nice ex-council flat in Z1). Now you'd be lucky to get 350 square feet for £350K in my neighbourhood.

It's less the deposit, more the idea that young people are in the market for flats that will demand mortgage payments of £2500 - £3000 every month and more if rates rise.

That's pushing it a bit, surely? At current rates that would be a 750-900k property, and I don't think prices have got quite that bad yet. I suspect people aren't thinking too much about what happens when rates rise, though.

Certainly our mortgage payments are 2/3 of what our rent on the same property was, and we were paying under the market rent, so I can see the logic from a pure cost savings pov, unless you are worried about rising interest rates. But how anyone in their twenties could come up with a 25% deposit without parental help is beyond me - but maybe things have relaxed again and 10% down is possible, anyway?

Possibly. I was working from a mortgage of half a million at 4 per cent but I guess there are cheaper rates out there. Help To Buy rates tend to be a little higher than average though.

Ah yeah I'd forgotten about help to buy. I guess I was working off 2ish teaser rates (well, just scaling my own mortgage payments, really, possibly inaccurately).

couples in 20s could probably get a longer term than the usual 25 years also. would make monthly payments cheaper.

Toby, so you guys got to buy the flat you'd been renting? Another couple I know bought from their landlord and it actually wound up at least ten per cent cheaper than the open market.

Yeah, we got various estate agents to give quotes, and agreed a price based on them (with a discount for not having agents fees), discounting the highest and lowest couple - which was good as e.g. Foxtons were suggesting 50k more than we actually paid.

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/shortcuts/2014/feb/18/meet-the-cling-ons-stressed-middle-class

hideous and desperate.

So. Fracking in London: is this a real thing?

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/ban-fracking-in-lambeth-1

I have got to the point where I can no longer tell what are actual Tory plans and what are these fiendish cartoon fantasies of What Tories Might Do. There is no difference at this point.

that link should be on Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

if they manage to find a site in lambeth to stick fracking gear in I say go for it.

Hands up, so who's getting a fifteen metre BOREHOLE drilled outside their bedroom window for the next few weeks.

Oh, just me, then?

Man with the badge has sworn blind it's to control flooding, not for fracking, but do I trust Thames Water? No, I do not.

Can't wait for the Boring Machine to get here. zzzzzzzzz

You need to go to the Thames Water site and see if there's an explanation for the works (which may or may not be translatable into English from corporate BS).

Nah, I've already spoken to the site manager, who spoke plain English. It is for sewer control. He assures me there will be no Boring before 8am. Better not be!

(Thanks for the tip on the website, tho, will go and look at what the hilarious corporate BS for "boring a 15 metre hole outside your bedroom window" is)

The person who invents a humorous app to translate neoliberal corporate BS ----> English will make a well-deserved fortune. Get on it, nerds of ILX.

How many different ways are there to translate "you're fucked"?

Surprisingly many, in my experience.

Hmmm:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/25/just-jam-barbican-cancelled-police?CMP=twt_gu

Barbican ppl I know are furious.

That is bizarre (and shit, obv) - not the main issue but how does a Barbican gig featuring Omar Souleyman/Mt Kimbie/Sophie/RP Boo code as black/dangerous/underage drinking?

good ol' undemocratic, tax avoiding, medieval-guild-run City of London and their racist police

seandalai, p sure they just saw jme & went in, wld be surprised if they know who the rest are. barbican saying they weren't told why... - http://www.thewire.co.uk/news/29413/barbican-cancels-just-jam-event-with-rp-boo_omar-souleyman_loefah_jme-and-others - ...could they just reverse their decision & force the police to do/say something?

Would be tough for a venue owned by the City Of London to defy the 'advice' given by the City Of London police, I think. The whole thing is bizarre.

ah, I was imagining some "we will work w/ the police to address their concerns" ish to get them to try & unpack their prejudice in public, but the ownership makes it less likely

disgusting.

so fucked. those sound like justifications that could be applied to a billion everyday things

one comment on guardian likened this to apartheid

http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/why-did-the-city-of-london-police-can-the-just-jam-event-at-the-barbican

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10744997/Cool-London-is-dead-and-the-rich-kids-are-to-blame.html

lol this guy

They are the kind of people who might buy a Damien Hirst, but would never discover the next Damien Hirst.

Best point yet made in favour of social cleansing.

Someone needs to point out to this trust fund cretin that Peckham is actually closer to the centre of town than Hampstead.

I do enjoy a good whine about the trendification of London from people whose idea of London doesn't extend beyond six postcodes though, it's always good to know your enemy.

astonishing that anyone could so spectacularly miss the open goal of writing about this subject

This starts w/Paris but from this piece Paris doesn't occupy the same space that London does for the UK.

Why you should buy a sports car
Why it's better to be in your 40s than 20s
Why I swapped London for the glorious sticks
We've become a nation of hyper-consumers
Was 1963 the best year to be a man?

the weird specificity of his columns kinda makes him seem like a britisher version of the onion cartoonist

Why you should buy a sports car
Why it's better to be in your 40s than 20s
Why I swapped London for the glorious sticks
We've become a nation of hyper-consumers
Was 1963 the best year to be a man?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?

Hey Londoners, anyone know anything about cheap zone 6 places to live that are close to Slough? Uxbridge/ Hillingdon area? I'm asking for a Canadian beginning teacher who's taken a job in Slough. She's been told to avoid West Drayton and Hayes. I know zilch about west London.

I'd say I'm familiar. I lived in those parts up until around 2006. Is being close to public transport and London important? You mention zone 6 but that area isn't served by the tube. I lived in West Drayton for five years. Although it wasn't the smartest place it's cheap and relatively convenient for public transport having a train station that covers Slough in 10 mins and Paddington in 25 mins. If you drive or you are happy to live slightly outside it will open up a few more areas.

Sorry, Uxbridge and Hillingdon are on the tube but these don't connect with Slough very well using public transport. Uxbridge is okay. What sort of factors are important?

Not the answer you're looking for: but I'd personally get a place nearish to Paddington and do the 20 minute commute.

Thanks! I think the three most important factors are 1. feeling safe 2. easy to get to Slough (getting to London easily less important as it'll only be once a week or so) 3. cheap, which is probably why the Paddington to Slough commute has been ruled out.

It might be worth considering Windsor or even Maidenhead. Accommodation might be more expensive than Slough, Langley, West Drayton and the like but certainly less than London. I think if I'd come over from Canada and lived in some of those places I would be a bit disappointed. At least with Windsor (5 minute train journey to Slough) you would have something to do in the evenings and weekends and when friends or family visit. All the places mentioned have a relatively low crime rate in most areas, it's commuter belt with not a great deal to offer. If you want a further breakdown I could give one place by place.

mmmm, if you have time to do that I know she would really appreciate it!

I should add that I left these areas and now live in east London!

- West Drayton / Yiewsley - reputation for being a 'rough area'. The best thing about living there is it's train station. I didn't have any problems with crime when I lived there. Working class. Close to Uxbridge.
- Iver - Small village with a train station connecting to Slough. Quiet commuter belt. Would be safe. 10 mins / 3 miles from Slough.
- Langley - a Slough suburb. Nothing of note there really. Sasha Baron Cohen picked up some of his ideas for Ali G here. Dull but close to Slough.
- Slough. Town centre looked pretty depressing when I went there a couple of months back.
- Maidenhead - smallish town, 10 mins or a few miles from Slough. Nice enough. A bit smarter, close to nice river walks - Cookham, Henley, Hurley. Nice place to live.
- Windsor - has a large Castle! lots of tourists! A bit more character. On the river, nice walks. Restaurants and pubs you would actually go in!

All of these are on train lines into Slough. There are buses too but these aren't London buses so a lot less reliable.

Brilliant, I will pass this on. Thank you!

No problem! My general message is you are probably better off thinking along the lines of living in east Berkshire rather than on the edges of west London / zone 6. It's the same travel time to central London and it's generally more pleasant.

I'm giving more serious consideration to buying somewhere now, possibly around Ilford. Is there anywhere near there to particularly avoid?

Kingsway fire is still going twenty hours later. The road is still shut and half the Strand has its power out while they try to make it safe enough to put water on it.

massive power cut in east london twenty minutes into my five a side game last night. what i learned: ootball is an incredibly dangerous game to play in the dark.

Ootball is dangerous in any conditions

In the not too distant future
Wars will no longer exist
But there will be Ootball

Do you know that abroad they call it occer?

i say move to ilford

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ilford,+Greater+London,+UK/@51.557311,0.044935,3a,75y,83.46h,75.86t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sDUJn8xE9FQUidoHw8fxumg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x47d8a1494a4cce5b:0xd4405940c0cf45ab

Should we go to St. Albans or Windsor today?

I went to Windsor Castle last month (for the first time ever) with my daughter - not a bad way to spend what's going to be a cold, wet afternoon.

Save them for a sunny day. Go to Trinity Buoy Wharf and look at the lighthouse instead.

when i was about three or four i apparently climbed halfway up windsor castle walls. was there with my nan, who only realised when she tirned to see what the commotion was behind her (i believe we were having a picnic and I'd gone off to "play").

it seems i was going great guns exactly up until the point my nan called out to stay exactly where i was and then *slowly* make my way back down. this was altogether a different proposition and it took an age of people calling out where to put my foot for the best hold etc. warm brace and applause at the bottom apparently. "I never did tell your mother" was how the story ended. i feel i have a very dim recollection of it but it's v hard to say. maybe i shd go back and relive it.

Do it

you're right. putting it in the diary.

http://i.imgur.com/aijwWRb.jpg

Windsor next time! We left it a little late in the end.

Thanks for the tip, Matt! It's very close to where we live and getting the cable car across the Thames is a delight. Trinity Buoy Wharf itself was like a crazy steampunk microcosm of art and parkour hidden amongst expanses of grand industrial development. The little singing bowl longplayer in the lighthouse was very sweet and equally chilling. A lovely time.

Is Longplayer still there?

haha xp

Haha it certainly is. Still haunting away and surrounded by the skeletons of old iMacs.

The best best best bit was scoring front seat of the DLR on the way back to Woolwich. The highlight of any right-thinking person's week. I am five.

To a ticket inspector: "I won't need to show you. I'm the driver!"

I only went for the first time a couple of weeks ago - I had no idea there was even a lighthouse in London. Trinity Buoy Wharf is a place so obscure there isn't a single mention of it on ILX prior to today but it's totally magical and weird and of course Longplayer is an astonishing endeavour. Feels miles away from everything.

Yeah, it was a truly bizarre little colony, both hypermodern and weirdly antiquated. It has two cafes and they are both containers, and a museum in a small shed. Very much worth a visit, even if you find the idea of a Parkour Academy hilarious. Cheers Matt!

Went to a big Warp Records party there back in 2000, with Aphex, Autechre, BoC and the rest. Have been back a couple of times since - were the mechanical sculptures out on display?

That sounds incredible. Regretfully I have not been to a gig in a lighthouse. The sculptures (a man and a woman being fragmented on turning cogs?) were in the courtyard, just outside the 'container town'.

I used to enjoy the Green Chain Walk when I was living in Plumstead and Woolwich in the 90's. It wasn't an adequate substitute for genuine greenbelt walks where all you can see is nature, but I spent some pleasant summer Sundays wandering along it.

Xp I went there on a kind of open day and they seemed to have a resident mad inventor who makes the sculptures, he was going round in a steampunk walking contraption and there were quite a few others on show.

Here's some of his sculptures in action, although it doesn't have the walking thing I saw which iirc was a bit like a motorcycle sidecar with legs. My favourite is towards the end, a device for automatically carving out of wood a copy of a cast iron sculpted torso.
https://vimeo.com/34806774

The bit of the Green Chain that leads from Beckenham out to Chislehurst is a bit like that if only because so much of it is in Elmstead Woods.

If you carry a bit further around towards Sidcup you find Scadbury Park Nature Reserve, which in summer must be one of the loveliest spots I've been to inside the M25.

All the sculptures at TBW were steampunk as hell, maybe I might post a picture in a bit

I never knew about Longplayer before and it is fascinating and I am listening to a livestream of it now. Thank you ILX.

I go to London in July! First time. Only four nights and want to make the most of it because I don't imagine I'll get there again for a very long time.

Let's pretend price is no object. What neighborhood/hotel would you choose? Killer restaurant? Too many choices and I don't know where to start, really.

I love gardens, so garden recs also welcome!

London! I go to it!

Aaaa, great! When? I'll be there late July but not sure exactly when yet.

Top-end London extends from 'seems like too much even for London' on up into the stratosphere. What would be a realistic '£X and not a penny more' budget ceiling for a hotel?

Kew Gardens is not a very original garden recommendation (though I like it a lot). Others might know smaller, maybe more central places better than I do.

Holland Park is probably my favourite of London's major parks. It's a little out of the way so is rarely overflowing with people. Blossoms, giant chess etc. Gordon Square always lovely for a Central London lunch.

Other than parks and gardens what do you want to do? That has a pretty big impact on where you should stay.

If you love gardens then it would be remiss NOT to go to Kew. Approaching it by boat from Central London is by far the best way to get there and will give you really good overview of how the city changes in that direction (fwiw the parts around the river are the only good bits of West London).

Actually, would recommend a walk up Portobello Road north of Talbot Road (Rough Trade's 'original' store is on that corner) stopping for the following:

Clothes market beside Portobello Road in the shadow of the Westway bridge, combination of vintage and new designers (and a pretty good tights and socks stall). There's a great Malaysian restaurant called Makan there, which is inexpensive and has been there for ages.
Ignore the food trucks on your right and carry on up Portobello Road - it turns into cheaper old-clothes stalls and shops, and on the left is a massive old Spanish convent/school.
At the corner of Portobello Road and Golborne Road, there is a tapas restaurant called Galicia that's very reliable and good value. Grizzled old Spanish guys work there and it meets with the approval of my friend C's picky Spanish mum.
Turn right (east) into Golborne Road - antiques on the road and in shops, lots of cafés - Moroccan, Lebanese, one new and chi-chi Danish one. There are tons of chairs and tables around food trucks on the north side of the road; I call them Fake Morocco.
Stella McCartney's corporate HQ is on Golborne Road roughly opposite the Portuguese bakery/café Lisboa - there's nothing nicer than to sit at an outside table there or at Oporto opposite, drinking a galao and having a pasteis de nata in the sun.
That huge brutalist apartment building looming over the road is Trellick Tower, designed by Erno Goldfinger.
Just off Golborne Road by the Trellick Tower is a very expensive and fashiony vintage store, Rellik It's always worth a look.

Ooooooh thank you for these recs!

Hotel: Price-wise we can swing up to £350/night. Someplace old and cozy with a good bar for nightcaps would be ace. Would like to be in a good walking and eating neighborhood (who doesn't?), but I'm not wedded to any particular spot. I don't know the first thing about London, really! Where are would you choose for yourselves with that budget?

I will definitely do Kew, my mother (a master gardener) would kill me if I didn't. Suzy, that walk sound right up my alley! Holland Park and Gordon Square duly noted.