two weeks in london, what's a boy to do

i'll be predominantly in london but i'll be in leeds on the 27th seeing epic45 and i'm considering a glasgow jaunt..

take at least one day to do a walk out of the city. here's a guidebook - i like the walk to stonehenge, forget exactly where it starts though.

yes walk from london to stonehenge

I'm sure a FAP can be arranged.

Gareth seems to be your man to ask on decent, affordable places to stay in London.

FAP FAP FAP!

Um, do some walking tours. Or ride about on the top of a double decker bus - particularly the 19. This is the best way to see London.

I would love to FAP in the week beginning 30th July. So far Mon-Thursday are clear for me. In fact I was going to propose one anyway.

i will cheerfully FAP, just tell me when and where to be!

In a pub, in London, on Wednesday 1st August.

Perhaps the Glasshouse Stores?

Oh, I can never FAP the 1st of any month. Monthend and all that. Please can it be the 31st or at least the 2nd (or 3rd)?

Unless of course you don't want to FAP with me in which case, have it on the 1st, I'll understand. :-(

i would vote for not the 3rd as i fly out that day :)

will do the bus tour and walking thing. if i run out of things to do i will consider rjg's idea

(trust us, you don't really want to do that!)

Sorry, forgot that detail, ha ha. What I was trying to say was that before monthend is easier for me than the first couple days of the month.

We haven't FAPped at Glasshouse Stores in ages! I feel vaugely nostalgic.

Don't do one of those "hop on hop off" bus tours. Expensive and not worth it. Get an all day bus pass (they only cost like £3.50 or something?) and just ride around, you will get a much better feel for the city. Just don't do it at rush hour!

I work right by the Glasshouse Stores so I'll pop in if it's there. Unless it's on the 2nd, cos that's my wife's birthday!

31st is good.

Oh, I can never FAP the 1st of any month. Monthend and all that.

i know i know, but that's still LOL

esp followed by Please can it be the 31st

THIS WORLD IS BACKWARDS

you can definitely walk from london to stonehenge in two weeks

This is accounting monthend. Not actual time-based monthend. It is an entity, not a time period.

http://www.timeout.com/london/search.php?search=1&category_id=7&date=Days%207-14

ooh

timeout online < timeout the paper version. pick up a copy when you get here (it's out on wednesday). it'll list everything going on that week.

(i think rose melburg and harvey williams are playing a fortuna pop night sometime soon. have a feeling it's after you leave though. yes, the 10th)

I can vouch for electricsound's good self in person, so FAP and then some (which I can only attend in spirit).

Are you a planner? If you're a planner, have fourteen themed days:

1. Gentleman's day: St James's Park, Green Park, St. James. Visit an art dealer, buy a persian carpet, tea in Fortum & Mason.
2. Posho day: Sloane Street, Knightsbridge. Wear cords, get yourself a girlfriend who shows her gums a lot, call yourself Hugo.
3. Trainspotting day: Clapham Junction station. All day, 'til the milk train has gone.
4. Barley day: Hoxton Square, Shoreditch High Street. Play pool, do ironic graffiti, work on your start-up.
5. River day. Walk by the Thames anywhere between Canary Wharf and Hampton Court. Imagine yourself as Dickens or William Blake.
6. Animals day. Feed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. In fact, go to Regent's park and visit the zoo. Then walk beside the canal.
7. Cross-country day: walk from Wimbledon to Richmond through the parks. Enjoy the fresh air and the views.
8. Get out of London day. Windsor & Eton, Cambridge, Canterbury, or somewhere else nice. Stonehenge even. Not Luton.
9. What British high streets were like twenty-odd years ago day. Kentish Town Road. Visit the greasy spoons, bric-a-brac and ironmongers that mysteriously survive here, having been forced out by chain stores everywhere else.
10. Liberal day: start at Highgate and walk across the heath to Hampstead. Lie for a while on parliament hill and read Zadie Smith. Think about property prices. Feel smug.
11. City day. Wander about the City, poking into all the odd nooks. It's really excellent.
12. Suburbia day. Get off the Metropolitan line anywhere north of Wembley Park and wander around.
13. Real day. Do the same at Stockwell.
14. Tourist day. Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, the gates of Buckingham Palace. Get ripped off everywhere, feel disorientated, eat dreadfully. Just so you don't want to come back.

If you're not a planner, buy a bus pass or oyster card, go everywhere and get on and off anywhere. Do things, look at stuff. Don't repeat yourself.

Whoa, I live in London and I'd like to do that.

Me too! Apart from feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square, cos that's, like, illegal or something.

ha 'Real day'

good list tho

if you were to do a get out of London day tho i'd head for the coast - Brighton or Leigh-On-Sea perhaps

The full boat trip down the Thames is still lovely, if you start at Westminster Pier and go either east to Greenwich or west to Kew. Totally different experience depending on which direction you're going in.

31st aug fap thirded/fourthed/whatever

also, that list is ace!

lol leigh on sea

amazing

TRY SS9 MORE

Glasgow jaunt would be good, and I might even break my "don't go to Mono" rule for you, since I think you'd be mightily taken with Monorail. Who wouldn't want to be served by Stephen Pastel in a record shop in a pub, eh? Unless you want to be sold records by Stephen Pastel and then go to a better pub.

great stuff guys, many thanks indeed

which street is the black books shopfront in??

Leigh Street, near(ish) to Russell Square, I think.

31st aug fap thirded/fourthed/whatever

31st July!

I kinda wish I could come with you now Jim! Keep ye company and such!

TS: FAP vs Company summer party

aka TS: paying for booze but hanging out with ILX0rs vs free booze hanging out with workmates

Argh.

Also Trayce should have come with :)

what time for 31st shindig

typically these things run from about the time people leave work (6 ish?) to kicking out time (11 ish) with people. glasshouse stores is about 2 minutes from piccadilly circus.

btw: tate modern. british museum. science museum. all free, all worth a visit. the walk from tate britain, along the rive, through westminster, to, say, trafalgar square is also great.

oh, and this, maybe: http://www.indietracks.co.uk/

Black Books shop on Leigh Street opposite Norfolk Arms (which pre-Spanish refurb also featured in first BB episode). Good second hand bookshops in the area: Skoob and Judd St Books. Also v. near British Library which has a good exhibition on at the moment and Russell Square has the British Museum too. All free.

The norfolk arms is well worth eating and drinking in as well.

There is a great second hand/antiquarian bookshop opposite the hospital entrance on great ormond st as as well. Nice owner and if you buy four books the cheapest is free.

oh bollocks i have 3 gigs booked on the 31st :/ i am 1x idiot

New Rough Trade store!

is that open yet, the brick lane megastore?

think it opened last week, aye.

i will be in brick lane today, will have 1 x look

didn't get to brick lane as i passed out in the tower hill tube station and split my chin open ;_;

dude!

harsh...

so pub next tuesday then? cool, that is my new payday.

also, Col Poo:

aka TS: paying for booze but hanging out with ILX0rs vs free booze hanging out with workmates

it's a sam smiths pub, it's as close to free booze as you can get...

Oh that dilemma's already been solved - I got shitfaced after work last Friday and my wife's banned me from drinking! So I will be coming to FAP but I'm on the wagon. Free soft drinks hanging out with workmates much less appealing.

two nights.. i'd consider some drinkage tomorrow evening, i shall confirm with my gracious host kate b.

Still on for tomorrow everybody? I am up for this!

bump

yep will be late

HI DERE!

I wonder if Jim survived Glasgow?

I will most likely be there around 6ish. If no-one else is there that early I'll probably just stroll up to Berwick St or something. I'm really tired today so hopefully I'll get some kip tonight :( I was sleeping in a leaky tent after a 12 hour drinking session on Saturday which might have something to do with it.

I may be there at 6, but I'd say it will be more like 6.30 - 7.

Anyone up for bar billiards?

I've never played it but I'll give it a go!

I am happy to challenge you Dr C. And lose as per usual.

Yay! I haven't played for ages, so will be crap I should think.

Wow. GHS, bar billiards, Dr C, this is a proper old-skool visitor's FAP like they used to make.

i'd consider some drinkage tomorrow evening

-- electricsound, Saturday, July 28

gah, fuck. this isn't good. what happened? i never believed all those rumours about how bad glasgow as at organising fappage until i, er, became part of the whole totally-unable-to-organise-a-fucking-FAP thing.

anyway. sorry to have missed you, dude. bugger.

What happened was it was on a London thread, not a Glasgow thread, so it was probably only me that knew. And, yes, bugger. Sorry. Should've been more proactive.

drinkage?

old skool

hello yes i survived glasgow, mostly intact. sorry ailsa & grimly, after all that i didn't really get time to have drinks anyway (also i can't stomach alcohol well right now anyway, so it will most likely be cola for me this evening).. doh!

What, did you get Montezuma's Revenge in Glasgow?

nar i haven't been able to drink on the trip at all. i tried to have beer in glasgow but couldn't stomach any.

Cannot handle our manly British beer? It'll put hair on yr chest! Even the girls.

Seriously, hope you're OK, and not too ill. Sucks to be sick on your holidays.

i'll survive i've no doubt. maybe i'll have an adventurous red wine or vodka squash.

Personally I'd recommend a medicinal D. It stands for diet because it's actually really light on the palate and the stomach. Like drinking fizzy water but alcoholic.

sounds lovely!

ok well i'm offline for today so i will see all of you round 6 in soho

Do not believe any of this lot! Seriously.

do they even still make D? i thought it went in the Great Lager Purge of 2005?

WTF is D?

the b@stard strength lager sam smiths used to make, viz:

aingerbrau < prinz < D

now they do:

taddy lager < alpine lager < pure brewed organic

i think...

also my pint of OB in the white horse was ONE POUND SEVENTY EIGHT last night, shocking, it'll be two quid before we know it!

ah-ah. I once had a fairly heavy session on aingerbrau pils (which I think was different and stronger than normal aingerbrau) after a univ rugby match which culminated in me falling down a roadworks hole near Holborn tube. My flatmate puked up volcanically about half an hour later, on the tube just outside Leytonstone.

There'll be none of that tonight of course, that was 20 years ago :)

See you all later.

I would fap tonight but have to deal with my computer which had a coronary last night. I'm going to cut that bitch open and tinker with it's ticker. have fun all.

I thought this was wonderful! So nice to meet Jim!

NON BOOZE WATCH: Lime and soda is still 40p at the Glasshouse.

BAR BILLIARDS WATCH: Pete 0, Me 1!!

That was fun. Old skool FAP.

cheers for coming out guys, save for getting the 38 in the WRONG DIRECTION at the end of the night i had a top time!

apparently you look like me, esoj - you lucky bastard.

haha that's high praise!! i always thought you were very dashing

2007 - THE YEAR THE MONGRELS WENT TO LONDONG

is there anything especially excellent one should think of doing during daytimes in the next few weeks? and any likelihood of a FAP happening (is there a poptimism on or suchlike)?

er and to be sadder than jim:
which street is the black books shopfront in??

does anyone know if the street frontage of the Winchester Club from Minder still exists (and where)? :(

Its on Portland Road in Notting Hill. Not sure what it looks like now.

Next Poptimism is on the 3rd November. Too late?

my last Saturday night! ace, I'll make sure to pop back in here and see if anyone wants to do pubbing beforehand closer to then.

and thanks for address!

http://www.minder.org/locations/winchester.htm

:D

probably doesn't really look enough like it now to warrant a photo though...

people! recommend me your favourite Brick Lane curry houses, for the eating of dinners therein.

Most of the curry houses on Brick Lane are awful but the Standard Balti House and Brick Lane Brasserie are pretty good.

Really though if you're in the area you should forget about Brick Lane altogether and go to Tayyabs, just off Whitchapel Road. (Warning though, is halal so you'll need to bring your own booze).

Highly scruptuous! OK, if I can't sway today's dinner from Brick Lane, I'll definitely pencil that for later. Thanks for the other two: I assumed most were rubbish but figured there must be some worthwhile ones...

BTW, if Andrew F. sees this, the mercenary impulse subsided and we should be right for spare Carter ticket - k!tbra5h at gmail.

BTW if Andrew F doesn't want it, I will happily buy that Carter ticket off you! I'm not paying Ebay prices but I'd love to go...

I bought two off ebay aaages ago, only a few quid above the already ridiculous price. Didn't pay the guy, forgot all about it. Emailed him the other day saying do we still have a deal, what's yr paypal etc. He took ages to reply then was a bit of an arse, saying "I may have some leftovers but am considering relisting due to non-payment at the time. I have 15 pairs going out this week, a huge amount". Looking at his listings he's obviously a full-time tout and therefore a cunt, so I ain't giving him my money any more. But I still wanna go. ;_;

oops, shouldn't have said anything.

But! does anyone know if the Groke's going? I'd love to make sure he does. someone bung me an email address that he checks?

I've asked Tom - I think he might be, I know Carsmile and others are.

(Also forgive the rudeness but who are you? I can't keep track of who's who any more).

I've emailed you as well :-)

no worries about rudeness, I used to be Ki† Brash but didn't know we wouldn't be able to change display names etc etc, have never been very ILE-y anyway.

hi ailsa!