Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: London

  • London – Hammersmith and Fulham (Borough of) – Holiday Inn Express Hammersmith

    London – Hammersmith and Fulham (Borough of) – Holiday Inn Express Hammersmith

    This is my second visit to this hotel (it seems I couldn’t be bothered to write up the first visit) although it’s the first now that lockdown has come to some sort of end. Located next to the Plough & Harrow pub which is operated by JD Wetherspoon, it’s about a six minute walk or so to either Hammersmith station or to Ravenscourt Park station. I got this night courtesy of IHG’s reward scheme, which has been rather generous this year.

    The room, all brand standard, clean and tidy. I’m not entirely convinced that desks that size are entirely ideal, but it suffices and there are plenty of power points around the room.

    The view from my window, a bit of a construction site, but there was no noise from it. There were more internal noise problems of doors slamming, something which wasn’t entirely ideal.

    Well, it has been known…..

    The welcome drink and the choice of beers was adequate, but I’m content with this Goose Island option. I’m not sure for what reason this drink seems to now be so commonplace in IHG and Accor hotels, but I’m not disappointed that it is.

    Some of the breakfast selection, all of which is included in the room rate.

    And the rest of it. All back to self-service, as last time I visited there were just bacon and sausage rolls which had to be taken back to the room.

    The breakfast area is large, clean and modern, being use as a bar and restaurant in the evening. Plenty of power points dotted around here as well. I was perfectly content with the bacon, which was crispy and slightly burnt (which is how I think it should always be served) and the other breakfast ingredients. They’re not hugely decadent, but it’s a free breakfast offering and there’s a limit to what’s viable here. I went down at around 07:00 and it wasn’t busy, with the signs around the hotel saying that breakfast only really gets busy after 09:00.

    I had a look at the reviews of the hotel, and they’re adequate, nothing overly positive, but nothing particularly concerning either although they’re oddly much more complimentary on TripAdvisor. It seems that they had a debacle last month, judging by a heap of negativity, with a fire alarm being set off overnight by a drunk guest. The negativity seems to relate to that the staff didn’t know what to do, which really is not an ideal situation and that would have annoyed me too. Otherwise though, I didn’t find any reviews that amused me, which was a little disappointing.

    The staff at the hotel were professional, friendly and helpful, so there was nothing wrong with the welcome. The hotel is quite reasonably priced for reward nights, so I’ll likely return here again, as well as being relatively close to central London and also not inconvenient for Heathrow as it’s near to the Piccadilly line.

  • National Express : Hull to London Victoria Coach Station

    National Express : Hull to London Victoria Coach Station

    I left the hotel before 07:00 to get back to London which wasn’t ideal, but a nice sunrise.

    The beginning of the near six hour coach journey, the moderately beautiful Hull Interchange bus and railway station.

    The signage in the bus station was bloody dreadful and it was no surprise there were passengers seeking help from others. It seems to me completely idiotic for this to be the only sign for National Express, which doesn’t even have the correct bus number for the journey I was taking anyway. The overheard screens were displaying incorrect information, just to add to the confusion. If anyone misses the coach, they’d be within their rights to complain to National Express for this in my (rather random) view….

    Having had years of practice at finding the right place to wait for coaches/trains/buses/ferries/planes/etc, I was sitting in the right place for the coach.

    I was able to get my favourite emergency exit row seat. I accept it’s not as exciting as getting the exit row on an aircraft, but it still offers more leg room so I was happy. I was slightly humoured at the elderly couple who were determined to get on first and were edging their luggage closer to the door in the coach station. They then realised that their luggage was setting off the automatic doors so they were getting cold, with the husband then moving it all about again, but carefully blocking anyone else for daring to get in front of them. I’m unsure why they did that, since they sat in a random place midway down the coach, but whatever makes them happy.

    The USB charger on my side didn’t work, but fortunately the coach was never that busy and so there was no-one next to me. The bus stopped at Lincoln and Nottingham and I had expected it to get busy at the latter stop, but the coach wasn’t ever more than half-full.

    I tried to take a photo going over the Humber Bridge, but I don’t think I’ll be entering it into any artistic or photographic competitions.

    And there’s the coach having arrived into London Victoria coach station, around ten minutes ahead of schedule. This was another efficient service and a bargain at £7.60 compared to how much a rail journey would have been. There were no issues en route, other than for what appeared to be a drugged up passenger shouting and swearing down the phone to someone, but all that adds to the excitement for me, so that was handy.

    Anyway, other than for the usual poor signage from National Express, all very efficient and the drivers were polite and helpful.

  • National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Hull

    National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Hull

    After the delights of a weekend in London, there was then the thought of the slightly less delightful six hour coach journey to Hull. The waiting area at Victoria Coach Station was packed when I got there, which wasn’t entirely ideal as I noted to myself just how hot it was.

    Fortunately, a seat became available soon enough and that fan at the back (only one, the other was broken) helped slightly. This coach station facility is hopelessly inadequate for the number of passengers, but there’s no obvious way that they can improve the situation. There has been talk about moving it to a new location, but its site near London Victoria is quite handy. That section off the left was once the Megabus customer service desk, but they’ve moved to a slightly bigger bit at the rear of this photo and I note that more Flixbus services are emerging here now. I suspect that the coach market will become quite a competitive one in the years ahead.

    The service before mine was going to Norwich and the driver came over to do a final check to see if there were any more passengers for his coach, but there weren’t. The driver said to a member of customer service staff that “I doubt that anyone here has even heard of Thetford”, but I decided not to get involved with that…

    I was the first to board the National Express Thunderbolt service to Hull, which was stopping off at Nottingham and Lincoln en route.

    The lovely clean coach. Everything seems to be pretty much in order, although the power points weren’t working.

    I got my usual emergency exit row seat, slightly desirable as it has more legroom. The coach was nearly full to Nottingham, but nearly empty after it. The passenger next to me had been to Chelsea Flower Show for the day, spending £85 to get in. I had no idea that there was so much cost to see flowers….. I didn’t envy her getting up at 2am to get the morning service into London, just to go back in the afternoon. She mentioned to me that the driver had run a couple of red lights, but I hadn’t been paying attention (and it wouldn’t matter if I had, there’s a limited amount that can be seen from the back of the coach) and so that might not have been true.

    And a few minutes early, here we are into Hull. The driver was friendly and the service was efficient and very keenly priced, costing me £9 which was entirely reasonable as far as I was concerned. Odd little quirks aside, the National Express service is definitely improving and I like that they’ve scrapped the £1 ticketing charge for those who have signed up to a free account with them. I’d rather get the train as it’s quicker, but in terms of the cost, this was an excellent service.

  • London – Westminster (Borough of) – Oxford Street – Hard Rock Cafe (2nd Visit)

    London – Westminster (Borough of) – Oxford Street – Hard Rock Cafe (2nd Visit)

    This is another venue that I’ve been to before, but The Fork gave me £20 promotional credit to spend and this is an ideal place to spend that as there aren’t that many options.

    I was less than excited to discover that there was a live band on (no disrespect to them, I’m sure they were marvellous, it’s just not entirely my thing) and I noticed that the three sets of customers in front of me all asked to be seated away from it in an area that was closed. The Hard Rock staff are endlessly professional and managed to work that situation out for all of those customers. It’s a reminder perhaps that you can’t really mix a band and people eating nearly next to them, even in a Hard Rock cafe. Fortunately, they stopped banging about shortly after I was seated, there was some technical issue or something. Back to the service, it’s impeccable, but that’s within the brand standard and I wasn’t surprised at the high level of engagement.

    The beer option I went for had run out, but the staff member offered some recommendations. I went for the acceptable Camdens Hells lager which is drinkable. I noticed that half pints were nowhere near half the price of a full pint, which does slightly annoy me (it’s a rare situation now) and CAMRA campaign against that. However, it’s fair to note that Hard Rock Cafe aren’t really aiming to be listed in the Good Beer Guide, so that situation is unlikely to change. They really should be doing a better selection of craft beer though, that’s within their brand remit I’d have thought.

    The chicken tenders, all nicely done and there seems little more for me to add about this as it’s hardly high end cuisine. However, I needed to get to my hotel, so something simple worked for me. The dining environment is very comfortable and Hard Rock Cafe have plenty of musically related things on the walls to look at. The customer base was quite formal, but they seemed to mostly be hotel customers and the prices to stay here aren’t cheap.

    Anyway, the meal cost me £2 which was the automatic tip, so that worked out as far as I was concerned. And The Fork have sent me more promotional credit (which is very kind of them) which means I’ll likely be back within the next few weeks. I’d recommend going here, and book using The Fork does give 50% off eating here most of the time, which makes the prices entirely reasonable.

  • London – Westminster (Borough of) – Brewdog Paddington (2nd Visit)

    London – Westminster (Borough of) – Brewdog Paddington (2nd Visit)

    I’ve visited this Brewdog before, but I thought that it seemed an ideal place to spend a couple of hours before readying myself for a near six hour long coach journey to Hull. I’m not thrilled at the thought of the coach journey, although the price was entirely agreeable which is why I opted for it over the more decadently priced train.

    The bar was nearly empty, which meant that I had a choice of seats around the venue, but there’s usually more drama being located near to the bar. There were also power points and a nice chill from the air conditioning, so that location was perfect for me. I ordered via the app to save the long walk to the bar…..

    As an aside and since it was so good, I went for a third of the Dessert in a Can – Mocha Ice Cream Fudge Cake from the brilliant Amundsen Brewery. It’s on draft and isn’t in a can here so the name is slightly confusing (although there is a canned version which obviously makes more sense) and it was beautifully decadent and rich. I didn’t need to buy anything else during my near two hours in the pub (stretching a third to last that long isn’t ideal, but it wasn’t cheap, so I felt that balanced out fine) as sipping that and getting on with other bits of work worked out nicely. The drink was rich, quite sweet and the taste of fudge was certainly there, definitely a liquid pudding in a glass. Pleasant flavour which wasn’t too strong and a long aftertaste which didn’t readily dissipate.

    For anyone who wants a relaxing and relatively peaceful afternoon in Paddington, I can think of far worse places…..

  • London – Hounslow (Borough of) – Ibis Budget Hounslow

    London – Hounslow (Borough of) – Ibis Budget Hounslow

    I’ve been in London this weekend to have a rather lovely time seeing Liam and his wonderful two boys, a really nice day on the cable cars, the ArcelorMittal Orbit (which we have to go back to as their slide was a bit jammed yesterday), Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, M&Ms World, the Lego Store, the London Transport Museum and about 62 trains. There weren’t many cheap accommodation options, so the best value that I could find was the Ibis Budget in Hounslow.

    The usual basic room, which seems to be the older design, judging by the lovely new set-up at hotels such as Ibis Budget Whitechapel. It was very clean, no issues there. The hotel also isn’t currently offering daily cleaning of the rooms and they’re claiming Covid-19 restrictions, but that is now becoming rarer in hotels within Accor and other chains and is perhaps not entirely believeable now. If they’re short of staff or saving money, I’d personally rather that they were honest about that.

    The main public area on the ground floor, with the staff being friendly and engaging, which seems to often be the case at Ibis Budget hotels. There are no free hot drinks in the rooms at this Accor brand, but there is free tea at reception and there’s chargeable coffee.

    The breakfast buffet arrangement, which only costs a few pounds and I find really quite good value. There’s cereals, jams, Nutella, ham, cheese, yoghurts, orange juice, coffees, porridge and so on, basic but perfectly acceptable quality.

    I was very brave and used the toast machine, although I’m always slightly nervous I’ll set the hotel on fire. All went well actually with the whole breakfast arrangement and I didn’t break anything which is always a positive way to start the day. It was quite quiet in the breakfast area, but I did go down early on both days.

    The breakfast arrangement I went for, or at least, part of it. The coffee was of an unusually high standard, I very much liked that.

    The reviews of the hotel are mixed, although the staff and location are well reviewed. It’s rated a lot better for solo travellers than it is was friends and families, which is entirely understandable. One guest left a negative review, but I liked the hotel’s reply of:

    “I believed that the fact that you kept extending your stay on numerous occasions meant you were satisfied with the hotel”. It’s a fair point from the management……

    I had expected a weekend at Ibis Budget to be a little louder than it was, but there was no internal noise or disturbances at all. Being under the flightpath of London Heathrow was more annoying at 06:00 though, my sympathies to the local residents as the aircraft do indeed make one hell of a noise. I liked this hotel, it’s a short walk away from Hounslow Central underground station and the staff were friendly. I’d happily stay here again if it was competitively priced.

  • National Express : Bradford to London Victoria Coach Station

    National Express : Bradford to London Victoria Coach Station

    Time to return to London and although I would have preferred to get the train, the National Express fare was only £5 from Bradford into the centre of London, so I went with that for a journey that was estimated to take 5 hours 20 minutes. Above is the bus section of Bradford Interchange and the signage is, if I’m being honest, organised by an idiot. The data sent to Google Maps is wrong on where National Express coaches depart from and the signage is terrible. However, National Express have put on their web-site that their coaches depart from Stands T, U and V, although not on the tickets themselves.

    For those who didn’t search the National Express web-site, here’s the ultra clear signage stuck on a window. Anyway, my muttering about the lack of signage aside, the coach turned up ten minutes early and at Stand T, so I was ready and waiting for it. Until 2019, there was a National Express ticket office at the bus station, but that and the National Express customer service staff have now gone.

    The coach did get much busier, although not until Leeds which is when more customers got on.

    I had the emergency exit seat, with the luxury of having both seats to myself for the entire journey.

    The only real excitement during the journey was when the driver said on the tannoy that the National Express control room had contacted him and said that the company had accidentally left someone at a service station on the M1. There must be a very interesting back story to that which unfortunately we weren’t told, but it meant that we had to stop off Tibshelf Services to pick her up and drop her off in Milton Keynes. It delay the coach, but not badly.

    The driver also said that he intended to miss out the stops of Golders Green and Marble Arch in London so that the coach could arrive on time. He urged anyone who needed to get off at those stops to go and talk to him. There was then a little procession of customers tripping down the aisle of a fast moving coach going to tell the driver that they had planned to get off at those stops. The conclusion of that was that we stopped at Golders Green and Marble Arch…..

    This is really nicely written signage, I liked it.

    As for the coach, it was easy to make my seat area nice and cold, with the seats being clean and well presented. The cleaners hadn’t cleaned the seat trays, so I decided against using those, but the toilet was clean. There were USB connections which worked well, so my phone remained fully charged.

    And safely into Victoria Coach Station in London, only twenty minutes late.

    For the fare charged, this really was excellent value for money, a clean and comfortable coach which arrived sort of on time and with a friendly and engaging driver. All very nice, even though it’s not a train.

  • National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Leicester

    National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Leicester

    I’ve had a mixed selection of journeys with National Express, sometimes they can be excellent and other times they’re a bit more challenging. However, the fare to get from London Victoria coach station to Leicester was just £4.20, so I worked on the basis that even if the journey was bloody awful, then it was still cheap. There’s a logic there I think, sort of….

    I was going from Gate 2 and this was clearly indicated an hour before the journey. I like clarity and there was lots of it here, all very organised and there was seating whilst I waited. There’s also a Greggs and Pret nearby for those who like such things, and I popped to Pret for a drink….

    I liked this, an old image at Victoria coach station of how it used to look. Today, the coach station is quite cramped and old fashioned, really needing more space and a renovation. There has been talk of moving the site, but I think it’s staying here for the foreseeable future.

    The driver came and made clear announcements that passengers going to locations on the route that weren’t Leicester should board the National Express branded coach on the left. Those wanting to go to Leicester could get on this service operated by Roberts on behalf of National Express. I was a bit puzzled as to how this worked, as there are multiple stops that the coach was meant to take along the route, but maybe no-one had booked to go from, say Golders Green to Leicester. The driver was helpful though and everything was clear.

    This was a clean and comfortable coach, and I spotted that seat on the left was free. It’s near the toilets, but it also has no-one in front, so it remains my go-to seat. Yes, I accept I need to get out more since I’ve now got a favourite seat on coaches…..

    The service wasn’t very busy. Earlier on in the day I looked to see how many seats were left on the coach by doing a dummy booking, but it was showing as entirely full. That meant that I was expecting a packed coach (which wouldn’t have been ideal from a comfort point of view), but the dual operation meant that there was lots of space. This pleased me greatly.

    As for the driver, Tony, he was exceptional. Warm, personable, engaging and with a sense of humour, I thought his customer service was excellent. He added positively to the journey and his driving was professional throughout. An absolute credit to National Express.

    Safely in Leicester, arriving 50 minutes early which was a bit of a result.

    I assume that National Express are getting new facilities here, unless they’ve moved to a little Portakabin for fun.

    Anyway, this was a first class journey representing excellent value for money. A clean coach, friendly driver, professional driving, a cheap fare and lots of space, absolutely impeccable. I’m back to perhaps trusting National Express again and I would use them a lot more if I could expect this sort of service every time.

  • London – Extinction Rebellion

    London – Extinction Rebellion

    Just photos in this post of the Extinction Rebellion protest outside Downing Street in London this morning. I won’t get involved in politics on my little blog (I’m very pro-rail, which is a tricky subject), but it was a friendly protest although some car drivers shouted abuse at the protesters. The police were very professional and were being engaging and helpful, so at least it was well-mannered and cars weren’t overly delayed.

  • British Airways (Glasgow to Heathrow T5)

    British Airways (Glasgow to Heathrow T5)

    This is the return flight, I went from Heathrow T5 to Glasgow last week. To my considerable annoyance, this journey wasn’t available for anywhere near the same price using the rail network, I try to avoid using aircraft for domestic flights.

    I started from the Travelodge at Glasgow Airport and was pleased to note that they’ve made it easy to walk to the terminal by providing clear signage.

    And the terminal at around 6am.

    The list of departures, mine is the 08:15 flight. Note that I arrived only 2 hours 15 minutes before the flight, which was cutting it very fine indeed as far as I was concerned.

    There’s already a JD Wetherspoons landside, so it seems that there will soon be one airside as well. It was at this point that I popped into the British Airways lounge.

    I liked the artwork here, some interesting Scottish scenes.

    And some information about it, a really lovely idea to help promote the work of an airport security officer, Christopher Marr.

    The minor problem with air bridges is that I can’t photograph the aircraft, this was the nearest that I could get, but the back of it is pointing out at least. It’s aircraft registration G-EUUI, which I haven’t flown on before (I don’t remember the aircraft I fly on, I have to search my own blog, although that’s good for the access numbers….) but has been in the British Airways fleet since 2002. The aircraft went to Dubrovnik after it landed at Heathrow, I must admit to being slightly jealous of it….

    Lots of people in boarding groups 1 to 3, a lot more than my flight to Glasgow last week. The boarding gate staff were helpful and cheerful, which I thought was impressive for an early Tuesday morning. The cabin crew were equally engaging, so first impressions were all very positive again. The pilot sounded chirpy and happy as well with his announcements during the flight, so my general impressions remained positive.

    The view from the window, although I was more engaged in watching some customers in the aisle trying to put their bags into the overhead lockers. Children often have a toy where they try and fit a shape through a hole, I suspect some of these customers didn’t have that game when they were younger. They will try and fit a bag that clearly doesn’t go in the space provided and look endlessly surprised.

    I had an exit row seat by the window, but the aircraft was full and I didn’t see any empty seats at all on the flight. The aircraft felt very clean, but everyone was handed a cleansing wipe if they wished to do a bit more cleaning.

    Flying over Glasgow and what I assume is the River Clyde.

    The free food and drink was a bottle of water and a Nutri-Grain bar, entirely sufficient for an hour long flight. The newspaper was free at the airport, I’m not into paying for them.

    The aircraft arrived 29 minutes early at the airport, but arrived at the gate one minute later than anticipated, with a half hour wait on the runway for a gate to become available causing that delay. The pilot made regular announcements, so it all felt professionally managed and I wasn’t in a rush anyway. Customers seemed content (no-one was tutting or grumbling anyway) and the disembarkation process was well managed, with five rows being called to leave the aircraft at a time.

    And this is where the domestic passengers are tipped out, right down the end of the terminal.

    13 minutes?!?!?! This Piccadilly service back into central London was every ten minutes a couple of years ago, apparently now reduced to every 20 minutes. For most parts of the country a 13 minute wait would be normal for public transport, but in London it stands out as feeling a long time.

    Anyway, this was another perfectly operated flight from British Airways, I remain entirely pleased at their service. All rather lovely.