london – Page 2 – Fooyah

June 25 2015February 20 2025

Burnt Sticks 2612W

At the end of May Sally and I went to stay in London for a couple of nights. I now give you a run down of those days including various comments and things I remember.

We arrived on a Sunday evening. After parking the car we walked to our apartment block, carrying enough kit to survive for two nights and days. We stayed in the Pan Peninsula West Tower on the 26th floor. The décor was interesting. The apartment was mostly black walls and floor along with no bedrooms (studio flat) and built in appliances. Many thanks to Mazza.

Once in the apartment we settled and spent time on the balcony overlooking the docks and most of London. We drank champagne and watched the sun set over most of London. The champagne sunset contributed to a partial completion of a promise I made a while back. I intend to complete the promise fully later in the year.

Once the sun had set we tried to find somewhere to eat food. The problem was that most places were shut, it being around 21:30 on a Sunday. I ended up downloading an app, signing up and getting kebab delivered to the apartment! Classy.

On Monday we made sure to get breakfast at a Café Nero in the Canary Wharf shopping complex. Now, I will admit that I really struggled with the layout of this shopping area. It seemed there were three or four main shopping halls, all on different levels and all connected by strange walkways. The map seemed a fanciful sci-fi work of art to me and walking around stressed me intensely. Sally seemed to work out the map and so I relied on her to find our way.

A flight on the Emirates Air Line was next, taking a cable car from south of the river near the O2 Arena to the north side of the river near the Excel Arena. One shocking thing was that the price of a tube return from Canary Wharf to the O2, which is one stop, was £9-60 because it crosses a “zone line”, how pathetic! The cable car journey was much smoother than I expected, it was most enjoyable.

We then wandered around towards the Excel Arena before heading back to the O2 and looking at the Emirates display thing. They had a Lego model of a Rolls Royce Trent engine. This made me very excited.

Our lunch was in a Brazilian themed restaurant within the O2 complex. There were lots of different eateries there but the Brazilian tempted us most.

The cocktails were very nice, as was the food.

After lunch we wandered (by Tube) into the centre of London. A short visit to the M&M shop in Swiss Corner was completed. The whole shop smelt of chocolate, which was nice at first but sickly afterwards. Also, the people were just annoying. It was a shop that sold tat. M&M branded tat. It was full of shit. We purchased some M&Ms though, it would have been rude not to.

Next up was drinks at The Chandos, always a great place to go for a cheeky pint when near Trafalgar Square. We had lager and a short with mixer for me.

Poured into a chilled glass. o/ pic.twitter.com/cDmklQnrUD

— trusmoov (@trusmoov) May 25, 2015

The Shard beckoned. You can feel this beast looming over London. The Eye Of Sauron is missing though, they need to create that and insert it at the top, then perhaps we could steal some tourists heading for New Zealand.

I think you’ll find that the Shard is really a Star Destroyer waiting to be launched.

The observation deck of the Shard is on Level 69. I kid you not. This made me giggle a lot. I am sure there is an architect somewhere who wakes up every day with a wry smile at this.

The view from the top is just stunning. We had a glass of champagne while walking the perimeter of the glass just staring out at London and its surrounds. We could see the QE2 Bridge, which is a bit of a Kent/Essex landmark and well known to anyone who uses the M25. Many of the buildings nearby were highlighted in electronic viewfinders so you could find out about them. Here’s a picture of Canary Wharf and the apartment block we stayed in.

Although it was murky and not very bright we could see a long way. At one point a helicopter flew by at eye level. I liked this. Dinner that night was at a GBK somewhere in the freaky Canary Wharf shopping complex. The next day was the end of our London adventure. We packed and drove out by City Airport to head to the Midlands.

The last thing I need to say on this matter is what were the burnt sticks in the apartment? Why would you have them? Why?

August 18 2014August 22 2014

Aesthetic Perfection – Electrowerkz

So, Alt-Fest got cancelled. Rather gutted about that. I was looking forward to a weekend seeing some favourite bands and also discovering new music and bands along the way. I guess a number of bands had already organised travel to the UK as a (much) smaller festival turned up at Electrowerkz in Angel.

The SOS Festival played over this weekend and many of the bands who were booked to appear at Alt-Fest played here instead. One of my favourite bands played on Sunday 17 August and I travelled there to see them. I also took my niece as I was going to take her to Alt Fest for her birthday.

Here’s the timings sheet from the front door of the entrance. It’s blurry because I took it in a hurry.

This bothered me slightly! The last train home was at 23:43 from St Pancras, just over a mile from the venue. It wouldn’t be worth it to leave early, or to get the tube, the quickest method to get to the mainline would be to run. We decided that was what we would do.

Jared Louch and Mark Plastic were good fun. Mark Plastic was a guitarist and he played along to a backing track while Jared Louch sang. The songs were reasonable but it was the segways what were great. Jared Louch was an older man of rock and didn’t care. He was funny.

Next up were Global Citizen. As a band they were good but the music didn’t do a great deal for me. There were two keyboardists, a drummer and the singer. The structure of the songs didn’t really have any bass lines. The bass sounds were created using a chord progression on the keyboards with a choral sound. It just didn’t work for me.

XP8 were playing their last ever gig. This is a shame as they were really good. According to Wikipedia they are from Rome, which surprised me somewhat as they sounded perfectly English, but then, what do I know? There songs had pumping bass lines and a good fast and hard dance beat over the top. They had a video show in the background to which I didn’t really pay attention. Their songs were interesting, well structured and both of them seemed to be having a really good time. A minor thing is that the not-singer seemed to look a lot like Greg Wallace from Masterchef and this was a little off-putting, although more my problem than his. I’m not sure what they are going to do now, but I was pretty impressed with their set. They did over-run by about 20 minutes!

Finally Aesthetic Perfection were on. This was causing me slight problems as they were due to do a seventy minute set and they were late. I didn’t want to miss any AP but then again, I didn’t want to spend the night in St Pancras station waiting for the first train home [I’d done that plenty as a teenager].

Aesthetic Perfection were excellent. All of their songs were good and they had great energy. I do have a problem with their live sound. This is the second time I have seen them and some of the best bits of their songs are the high pitched “twiddly” bits. When playing live these seem incredibly quiet in the mix. A lot of the timings in the songs come from these sections and I feel that something is a little lacking. This *could* be my problem, maybe my ears are too old, but my niece also couldn’t really hear those bits. She had a great time, and even got to hold the singer’s hand.

There was slight confusion on stage as they played a song and then announced that it was their last one. I’m pretty sure the club has a curfew and so the band had to finish. I was starting to get worried that we wouldn’t see all of the AP set. They had about ten minutes before we had to leave. AP left the stage, we called for an encore and then they played two more songs.

After the last song, which conveniently was “Spit It Out”, I say conveniently because I think it’s their standard set finisher, my niece and I ran out the door, down the steps and then the mile and a bit to St Pancras station. We got there with just enough time to buy a bottle of water and get on the train before we departed.

Here’s how far we moved over the entire day:

May 26 2014

LDN

I decided late on Saturday that I would go to London for the day on Sunday 25th May. The weather was forecast to be good and I had a rail voucher from my disastrous return journey from seeing Therapy?. Essentially this was a free trip to see some stuff. I planned to spend some time at the British Museum and see what’s there. A few years ago I had listened to a podcast series about the history of the world in 100 objects and it was fascinating. One day, I’d like to take the time to listen to it all again and actually see all the objects.

I got the train from Ebbsfleet International as it is really the easiest way for me to get into London, and the British Museum is in the area of St Pancras [kind of]. I got into town and then took the Northern Line to Russell Square and then walked across the square, with fountain, to the museum. It was OK but didn’t knock my socks off. I think another trip another time, sans children, will help me appreciate it more.

A short walk then followed to get to a golden arches restaurant and decisions about what to do with the afternoon. Perhaps I’d try a river cruise? The weather was nice and it’s a good way to take in the history of out major city. Tube time it was, on my own I would have walked, and this was the route we took:

Central Line from Tottenham Court Road to Bond Street but Bond street was closed and so I changed to the Piccadilly line at Oxford Circus.
Oxford Circus to Green Park to change to the Jubilee Line.
Green Park to Westminster.

The seat of our government looked lovely in the sun and the sound of Big Ben calling out the hours was a delight. The queues for tickets for the sightseeing cruises were massive. Really not worth trying. I had an ice cream as I pondered where to walk, Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden maybe. Fortuitously, once the ice cream was finished the queues for one of the ticket offices was quite short and there was a sailing in twenty minutes. Tickets were bought and I got a third off because I had a travel card. Quite impressed.

My current view. pic.twitter.com/tTHACPq4mv

— Ian Parish (@iparish) May 25, 2014

The commentary was acceptable and I enjoyed the cruise although I was worried about getting sunburnt on top of my head [I long ago lost any natural protection]. London really is a rather special place, even when there are so many tourists around. For some reason I don’t consider myself a tourist although I last lived in London in 1996!

The return trip was about two hours. My personal highlights were all the pubs along the river shore and the houses of famous people that were pointed out: Sir Ian McKellan, Dame Helen Mirren, Michael Crawford. It was really pleasant.

The journey home was simplified slightly by not needing to get to Tottenham Court Road. It was still a pain, I hate having to change lines on the underground.

Westminster to Green Park.
Green Park to King’s Cross and St Pancras.

The super fast train from St Pancras takes 18 [yes, eighteen] minutes to get to Ebbsfleet and so I can be from home door to walking outside of St Pancras is just under an hour. It is far better than using the line through Maidstone.

A really pleasant day overall. I don’t miss living in London, although I am glad that I have and at a time in my life when I could get out and about and see things easily. Mind you, when you live there it doesn’t seem as special as when you visit. I really like my current sweeping views over the Kent countryside living now in [or very close to] and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.