Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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  • London – Brewdog Seven Dials

    London – Brewdog Seven Dials

    I’m slowly working my way around the Brewdogs of the world, only nearly all of them to go (but I’ actively working on this)…. This one is in Covent Garden, named after the Seven Dials road junction.

    This Brewdog feels more pub-like than some of their other outlets, not least because it was a pub when they purchased it, the Marquis Of Granby and before that the Ape & Bird.

    The downstairs bar, which wasn’t in use, which has a step near to the base of the stairs down to it just to add some excitement to the proceedings. I managed to trip on it, but I put that down to me being an idiot, before noting four other reviews by others saying they’ve tripped. Someone will likely take action against Brewdog at some point about that step, but that’s a matter for them…… The ground floor was busier, indeed pretty full, although the first floor wasn’t in use either.

    The beer list and although the Big Joe by Overtone sounded exciting it came in at £6.50 for just a third of a pint, so I was more moderate and opted for Brewdog’s own Pineapple Coconut Crumb that I haven’t had before. I wish more pubs offered a beer list like this, or perhaps had a stab at just managing not to stock every bland IPA they can possibly find on their beer list. Looking at Greene King pubs here…. And Marstons….

    And here it is, a rather glorious beer with a welcome surfeit of pineapple and a taste of coconut to go along with it. A very summery drink, smooth and at the appropriate temperature (that was there for Nathan who noticed I keep using that phrase….).

    And the Cluck Norris burger, a chicken burger in buttermilk with avocado at the base and cajun mayo at the top. I do like avocado (I accept it’s a junk food compared to my usual diet of heavily processed, but yet glorious, chicken bakes from Greggs) and there was a generous portion of it and it added a lot to the whole burger, both in taste and texture. The chicken burger, and I’m not sure what part of the bird they’re using here, had a bit of a crunch to the outside and had the sufficient flavours that I was hoping for. The fries were moreish, fluffy on the interior and firm on the exterior, all served as a perfectly sufficient portion. Usually, this would be £14, but the Government’s eat out to help out reduced the price to £7, which is much more reasonable.

    The service was beautifully polite as ever, although it wasn’t the smoothest. I struggled to get a fork and my tap water never arrived at all, although I remembered I had my own water bottle in my bag. I decided to use my water bottle to advertise the LDWA to anyone who happened to be walking past the table, not that anyone bloody noticed. Anyway, I digress.

    I dread to think how much rent Brewdog must be paying for these premises, but the reviews of the bar are high and hopefully they’re getting it all back comfortably. The range of beers here was quite frabjous, to quote Lewis Carroll, so I’m prepared to forgive the lack of fork as otherwise the customer service was spot-on and the drinks range was better than any Fullers pub than I’ve ever been in…..

  • British Airways – G-CIVD and the Retirement of the 747-400s

    British Airways – G-CIVD and the Retirement of the 747-400s

    The photo above is from the press office of British Airways and is of G-CIVD today, on its last flight from London Heathrow. It’s the first of the 747-400 fleet that British Airways are retiring early due to the current aviation crisis. G-CIVD was delivered to British Airways on 14 December 1994 and the airline think that it has flown for 115,276.8 hours on 13,364 flights.

    It’s a shame that I don’t know anyone with a sufficiently big garden, otherwise I’d like the idea of buying one and parking it up …..

  • London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Poppy)

    London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Poppy)

    On display in the Imperial War Museum, this is one of the first remembrance poppies designed to raise money for veterans and their dependents. The idea was thought up by Madame Guérin and then taken on by the British Legion, who opened a factory in Richmond, Surrey, staffed by ex-service personnel. Guérin’s persistence with the British Legion was fortunate, as they were initially sceptical and she had to pay for the first batch of poppies herself before she was reimbursed. Today, over 35 million poppies are produced in Richmond and distributed for sale across England and Wales, one of the major fund-raisers for the Royal British Legion.

  • London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Old Plan)

    London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Old Plan)

    This plan (© IWM Q 60569) of the galleries of the Imperial War Museum dates to 1936 and would have been when they moved to their current site at the former Bethlem Royal Hospital. And, I have to say, I like this kind of layout for a museum, there’s a clear narrative to the story and it seems appealing to me looking at the map. This is probably why I’m not finding some current museum layouts to my taste, since it appears I’m getting on for a century out of date…..

  • London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum

    London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum

    I last went to the Imperial War Museum before it closed for a substantial refurbishment in early 2013 and the opportunity to visit now when it was quiet seemed quite appealing. It remains free of charge, provided with substantial funding from the Government, whilst it makes the rest from its commercial activities.

    The museum first opened in 1920 and it had become essential to tell the story of the First World War and other conflicts that the British had become involved with. This first museum was located at the Crystal Palace, before a new site being found in South Kensington in 1924 and then, finally, the museum moved to its current site in 1936, at what was previously the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Southwark.

    The entrance hall is impressive, with various military vehicles and planes visible. There are, broadly, four main exhibition halls which cover the First World War, the Second World War, the Holocaust and the Lord Ashcroft Gallery.

    The First World War gallery is perhaps the museum’s best, although I found it drifting all over the place and it didn’t present a clear narrative. The Second World War gallery was, in my limited view, hard to follow and again lacked any clear direction. There were lots of facts presented in a random manner and I’m not sure that I discovered anything new about the Second World War. It is a country mile behind the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, although it might be unfair to compare it to this Polish institution, which is I think one of the best museums in the world.

    I’m not entirely sure why the Holocaust exhibition has been shoved into the Imperial War Museum, although it has been given the size and status that it deserves within the building. The UK needs a Holocaust Museum that isn’t just part of another institution, but the Imperial War Museum is currently working on a new set of displays that are meant to complement the controversial Holocaust memorial being built by the Palace of Westminster. The Holocaust displays are excellent, although very powerful, perhaps too powerful. They have some graphic images of nudity and videos of people about to be hanged, I’m always uneasy that someone who suffered in the Second World War should be further humiliated in this way. But, this was a sizeable display and it was laid out clearly and with a central narrative. Ideally, I’d have liked the Imperial War Museum to operate a Holocaust Museum on another site (preferably nearby) where it could have more space and more funding.

    This is the top of the building, I’m not sure what it’s usually used for.

    The Lord Ashcroft Gallery was, I think, designed for children and it has the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses. I struggled to engage with this gallery, I wanted them to pull out interesting stories of some of the individuals who had been awarded military honours, but there were just a few words about many individuals and the most confusing mixed usage of fonts, media and display methods that I think I can recall. I think I’m getting old and grumpy, but I did see lots of children reading the displays and that’s perhaps the most important thing, that they engage with the history.

    All told, I think I preferred the more traditional nature of the old museum displays, rather than the pared back current building. I often come to that conclusion though, but the Imperial War Museum is well-reviewed and is clearly doing something which appeals to the majority of visitors. But, the staff were all helpful and engaging, with visitors seeming to be enjoying their experiences. I think I wanted something with more narrative and I would have liked more exhibits and more stories about individuals. It was a perfectly pleasant way to spend a couple of hours though and more people should come here.

    And, as an aside, I have discovered that the Imperial War Museum has placed part of their vast photographic archive on-line, which is very exciting as there are over 350,000 photos on their web-site. That’s an impressive effort, but they have 11 million photos so the size of this archive will be incredible when they’ve finished making it all available.

  • Sudbury – Grover & Allen

    Sudbury – Grover & Allen

    Our weekend mostly consisted of visiting pubs in the Good Beer Guide, but there was a quick visit I thought I’d make, which was to the only JD Wetherspoon outlet in Norfolk and Suffolk that I haven’t been to. I accept that I need to get out more, but this also proved to be a handy breakfast spot.

    It’s not the most inspirational of buildings and it takes its name from the grocers who traded on this site between the 1870s and the early 1900s. They, as can be imagined, had a rather more beautiful and glamorous building, with the site taken over by the Co-op during the twentieth century, until it became a Wetherspoons.

    The breakfast which was perfectly adequate other than the egg was over-cooked. But, this isn’t an expensive breakfast, so I managed to cope with what was served. Someone appears to have pinched the pub’s milk jug though, as they didn’t have one and I was invited to just pour it from the 4-pint plastic containers that the pub had behind the bar.

    The reviews on TripAdvisor for this pub are pretty dreadful for a JD Wetherspoon outlet, mainly about cleanliness. I have to say, when we visited, it could have all been cleaner. Everything was keenly priced though and so there was little to complain about, but equally, there was nothing particularly exceptional. Anyway, that at least means I’ve visited every JD Wetherspoon in Suffolk.

  • Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

    Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

    So back off to London, on another £10 fare from Norwich with Greater Anglia and there’s a high availability of this price when travelling off-peak. Unlike my trip last week, the barrier staff are back at Norwich railway station, although most of the food outlets on the concourse are still closed.

    The outbound 10.30 train was the inbound 10.27 train, which meant that there was no time to properly clean it down, although a cleaner came through to collect rubbish. But, the carriages all looked clean and well maintained, but there’s not exactly a huge passenger load on them at the moment.

    The train pulling up onto platform 2 at Norwich railway station. The journey was uneventful as everything worked well and the train arrived at Colchester railway station a few minutes early. It wasn’t a particularly busy service, a handful of customers in each carriage and every customer I noticed was wearing a mask.

    The guards aren’t walking up and down the train due to the current health issue, but there was an announcement mid-way through telling a passenger with a grey t-shirt to get their feet off the seats. I liked that the guards were clearly looking at CCTV, it’s reassuring from a general safety point of view, as well as helping to ensure that the train stays clean and presentable.

    And safely in London Liverpool Street, all on time. It still seems a shame that these new trains are sweeping up and down the country with so few passengers on them, but at least it made for a comfortable journey for me.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 151

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 151

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

    Helter Skelter

    This phrase is normally used today when referring to an amusement park ride, but its definition in the late eighteenth-century dictionary was “to run helter skelter, hand over head, in defiance of order”. The exact word origins for this phrase have long been lost as it has been used since at least the early sixteenth century and Shakespeare also used the term. ‘Skelten’ in Middle English meant to hasten, so it’s likely linked to that, with the ‘helter’ bit added later for extra emphasis.

    Despite the reusing of the word in the early twentieth century as a ride, the phrase had remained in relatively constant use during the nineteenth century. There was a small uptick in usage during the 1960s, but this is likely due to the Beatles issuing a song entitled, well, Helter Skelter.

  • Colchester – St. Botolph’s Priory (Vault of William Hawkins)

    Colchester – St. Botolph’s Priory (Vault of William Hawkins)

    I don’t know who William Hawkins is, but he must have been relatively powerful or influential to have had a vault here at St. Botolph’s Church. The vault would have been here since before the fire at the church in 1648, and perhaps before the Dissolution of the Monasteries just over a century before. It’s perhaps not an ideal situation for your vault, which was deliberated designed to be inside, to be left out in the open. However, it’s also interesting that the site has been marked and not left to be forgotten over the centuries.

  • London – Kensington – Churchill Arms

    London – Kensington – Churchill Arms

    It’s hard to deny that this pub obviously has character, even before walking in that’s evident. Although it wasn’t originally named after Winston Churchill, it is now at least a little themed around him and the pub’s web-site notes that his grandparents drank there.

    The interior of the pub was no less quirky. The staff in the pub were friendly, with the operation of track and trace being handled professionally and everything seemed clean. Just as my view, the beer selection was weak with no dark options, limited to London Pride (and I know many people like London Pride, but its appeal is a little lost on me) and Honey Dew, both from Fuller’s Brewery, who operate the pub. The pricing was some of the most expensive that I’ve seen, over £6 for a pint of real ale which tops the prices of nearly every central London pub I’ve visited. I was rather pleased that I only ordered half. The drink was, well, metallic in flavour with some sweetness. Lovely if you like Metal Mickey I suppose.

    The Honey Dew taste and price was enough for me to abort my plans to eat food, which was awkward as the staff member seemed moderately confused as why I hadn’t ordered after I said I was planning to. This was quite a surprise even to myself, as it was half price day for food as part of the Eat Out to Help Out, and the Thai kitchen menu items seemed intriguing and tempting. The reviews suggest that the food is excellent (and I could hear the number of phone calls coming in asking for reservations, but they were full), but there is something I didn’t like about any pub, even in Kensington, topping £6 for a pint of real ale, so I resisted the temptation of the Jungle Curry.

    But, the pub is clearly a local favourite and it has a long tradition with a friendly welcome. It wasn’t for me though, but I’d have probably been more of a fan of the whole experience if they’d stocked Fuller’s Porter. Incidentally, although the Thai cuisine perhaps seems a little mismatched for the British theme of the pub, it clearly works as they’ve been doing it since the early 1990s. Besides, any pub which has its own page on Wikipedia is likely worth a visit.