All of a Hither

Over a year ago I wrote about the delightful little corner of London that I call home - Hither Green in the borough of Lewisham. It's become one of my most-read posts, with people apparently stumbling across it when researching the area as a possible place to live (not that any of my posts are massively well-read - and none are as popular as the one I wrote about the chap who wears a pyramid on his head, but I'll save that ongoing story for another time). So I thought I'd write a bit of an update to that post to share some other cool things that are popping up in the area.

Manor House Gardens. OK, not strictly speaking Hither Green, but very very close

The main news: Hither Green now has its very own supper club! I went along to the inaugural Wattleseed supper club last weekend, and can't recommend it highly enough. The food was delicious, the hosts - Freya and Trace - were so welcoming and friendly, and it was fantastic to get to know other people in the area; plenty of local tips were shared and lots of gossip about the area was exchanged. There are two more nights lined up for May and June, and I'd urge anyone to go along if they're up for a laugh (lots of laughter, in fact) and would like to meet some fellow Hither Greeners.

Sticking to the food theme, myself and friends have taken to hitting the Hither Green streets once in a while to check out some nearby eateries. So far we've been to Spice of Life on Lee High Road, and the fantastic Villa Moura on Lee Road (yes, imaginatively-named roads in these parts).

These local jaunts have helped me to discover some great new places in the area, so earlier this month I volunteered to write a blog post for the (excellent) Londonist site, who had called out for Londoners to share ten of the best places to go and things to do in their local boroughs. I quickly volunteered for Lewisham, and very much enjoyed writing about my ten favourite places which I have discovered in the two and a half years that I've lived here. 

What many people rightly pointed out to me once the article went live is that there's a lot more to Lewisham than, errr, Lewisham, Lee and Hither Green. Indeed, had someone from, say, Brockley, written the piece instead and had focused on ten places in their locality I, too, would have jumped in and passionately defended my local hotspots. But what's great about the article is that there are now loads of other suggestions for places in the borough to eat, drink and be merry in the article itself and in the comments, so I think - despite my obvious bias to my immediate vicinity, it all worked out OK in the end. 

I like it here.

Matthew Herbert: newsical genius

Every so often something happens which makes me pinch myself, and wonder how the hell I got to where I am today. Last night was one of those occasions, as I went to one of the best musical performances I've ever seen as a result of my job. 

A couple of months ago composer Matthew Herbert approached the Guardian as he wanted to create a concert inspired by a single copy of the Guardian. We agreed....as we're kinda cool like that....and the results were performed last night at the Royal Festival Hall by the London Sinfonietta as part of the London Jazz Festival.

My my, it was an absolute hoot. As the audience arrived to take their seats, we were all handed copies of the Guardian from Saturday 25 September 2010, which was the edition he had used to draw inspiration from. As the performance got underway with a piece based around the sounds of the Guardian printing presses, we were told which sections of the paper had influenced which compositions. 

What lay at every audience member's feet at the end of the night

When I initially heard about the project I had presumed that he would be using some of the big news stories to provoke his pieces, but instead he tended to focus on little random stories in the various sections, which made it even more quirky.

One piece was prompted by a small, wry article in the business section about a forthcoming auction for a Lehman Brothers sign. Herbert had bid for the item online hoping that the Sinfonietta's percussionest would then be able to 'play' the sign as part of the performance, but this hope was dashed when it sold for a whopping £23,000! Instead, a piece of music was created around the sound of the auction itself which Herbert had recorded, with the audience being instructed by the conductor to rub two credit cards together at certain points. A fantastic composition critiquing money and consumerism was the result.

Another section of the concert was based around the paper's various articles and features about food. There was even a chef on the stage cooking the recipes which had appeared in the Weekend mag that day, with the smells wafting across the audience throughout the entire evening. As a foley artist created the sounds of mould growing (to match a video being shown which had been mentioned in the paper, of-course), we were told to make paper aeroplanes out of the recipe pages to represent food airmiles. The sight of hundreds of paper aeroplanes whizzing around the RFH was magical.

The most poignant piece was prompted by a poem which had been printed in the Review section about a dying mother. Herbert set the poem to music, which was sung by Eska. It was simply beautiful.

Less beautiful, but more fun, was a composition based solely on footage from a football match that took place that day - Oxford United v Crewe Alexandra to be precise. Herbert cleverly selected a section in the match which contained very little football and lots of schoolboy altercations, with the orchestra providing the sound effects for every shove, whistle and bounce of the ball.

Wow, I could go on and on about this but I'm aware I've already written too much. Other highlights included a cover version of a Status Quo song, volunteers rhythmically building a house on stage with bricks to reflect the property articles (during which the audience jangled their house keys) and a pianist whose birthday was mentioned in the paper that day playing the intro to one of the songs. We were also encouraged to try and complete the cryptic crossword during the course of the evening, with the first to do so winning a bottle of wine.

However, I think my favourite piece in terms of the actual music was one based around a recording of an interview between Ed Pilkington and Jonathan Frantzen (the resulting feature appeared in the paper on the 25 September). Herbert spliced and remixed their conversation live on stage while the orchestra 'played' copies of Frantzen's latest book, which he was promoting in the interview. It sounded bloody awesome and deliciously trippy.

The climax of the concert was a mass audience participation piece, where each section of the audience had to use their copy of the Guardian to make various sounds, through rolling it up and tapping, ripping the pages or even blowing through it. Very enjoyable, though it meant that the venue looked like absolute carnage afterwards, with torn up Guardians cluttering every aisle. 

I cannot express enough how much I enjoyed the entire concert - it was performed with such humour and intelligence, even including when the performers bowed at the very end to reveal Rupert Murdoch's face adorning the top of everyone's heads. But I'll let you all make your own minds up about what Herbert was trying to imply with this...

A tale of two tunnels

One of the things that fascinates me most about London is its tunnels. I've previously written about my adventures in Tunnel 228 and the Kingsway Tram Tunnel, and I'm pleased to report that the last few weeks have provided me with two more opportunities to explore the city's secret labyrinths. 

First up was a tour of the abandoned Aldwych tube station on the Strand. You may have heard about this as it got a lot of news coverage when the tour opened, and I felt lucky to get my hands on a pair of highly sought-after tickets from the London Transport Museum, which organised the event.

Aldwych station closed in 1994, but during the London Blitz 70 years ago, thousands of Londoners sheltered there to escape the bombings from the German Luftwaffe. The aim of these particular tours was to give visitors an idea of what it was like to take refuge in a tube tunnel while the bombs rained down from the skies.

Walking down the emergency staircase to reach the platform (the lifts no longer work, obviously) genuinely gave me goosebumps as I imagined what it must have been like back in 1940, leaving your home and possessions behind and spending the night with hundreds of strangers. But sadly I wasn't overly impressed with the tour; there simply wasn't enough information given to us about the history of the tube station itself, and it relied too much on special effects and the cockney role-playing enthusiasm of a few actors.

Don't get me wrong, the tour was impeccably organised and it was entertaining - especially for the kids who were there with their parents - but I wasn't looking for theatrics, I was thirsty for information. It was great that there was an old tube train that we could explore, but surely if they wanted to give us a true indication of what sheltering in the tunnel was like during the Blitz then there shouldn't have been a train on the tracks or fancy lighting and sound effects? I simply wanted to be shown around and told about what people had to go through, but instead I learned more from health and safety talk which was given in the ticket hall before the formal tour began.

I was still glad that I got the opportunity to explore Aldwych station, but I'm not convinced it was worth £8.50.

My second tunnel adventure took place last weekend at the Old Vic Tunnels underneath Waterloo station. Indeed, these are the same tunnels that were used by Punchdrunk for their Tunnel 228 project I went to last year. This time the exhibition was called Hell's Half Acre, and consisted of a series of installation artworks by various artists, inspired by Dante's Inferno and curated by the Lazarides Gallery.

I must say I was utterly blown away by this exhibition. As usual, I couldn't tell you what it all meant, and having never read 'Inferno' I couldn't place the works within any kind of context whatsoever, but I can honestly say that around every corner there was an installation that made me gasp, coo with awe or grimace with a strange sense of admiring unease.

Humans in cling-film cocoons, a ball of pigeons, magnified maggots, a hypnotic perpetually-changing projection reflected in a pool of water, random etchings on layered plates of glass that formed a perfect image if you stood in the right place....I could go on.

Unfortunately the exhibition - which was free though you had to pre-book - is finished now, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more Lazarides / Old Vic Tunnels projects.

Speaking of keeping an eye out for things, I must give a shout out to the IanVisits blog, as this is without doubt the best source of information for tunnel-related events in London.

All conked out

So autumn is well and truly upon us, and nothing could have demonstrated this more acutely than what I got up to yesterday: I played conkers. But not for fun, no. I took part in a proper conkers tournament in a drizzly beer garden upon a mushy carpet of fallen leaves and twigs. I'm not sure you can get more autumnal than that.

Despite going on conker collecting sprees as a child (I recall my entrepreneurial brother planting them in pots and selling them to his friends - to be fair, one such conker is now an impressive tree in my Grampy's garden), I can't remember having played conkers before. However, the prospect of going to a pub in Dulwich, drinking hot chocolate, raising cash for charity and potentially winning a trophy wasn't too hard for me to resist.

  The tournament in question is called D.I.C.K; a childishly amusing acronym which stands for the Dulwich International Conkers Knockout. It turns out that conkers is an extremely fun game to play, and to watch, especially when it's a simple knockout process. Sadly the knockout nature of the competition meant that my professional conkering career was extremely short-lived. It's fair to say that my hand-eye coordination isn't the best in the world (with the odd exception of drumming) so I wasn't holding out much hope for victory, despite my ever-present conkpetitive spirit. So it was no surprise when I got knocked out in the first round. Though, to be fair, my opponent was a previous 'conkerer' from a couple of years ago, and his aim and power were undeniably good.

The rules for the tournament were nice and simple; each player has three attempts at striking their opponent's conker, and they each take it in turns. If both conkers are still on the string after four minutes of this it goes to sudden death, where each conkpetitor has nine attempts to simply make contact with - and not necessarily destroy - their challenger's conker as many times as possible. Whoever makes the most contacts wins, so it's about accuracy rather than power. The one exception to these simple rules is the 'snag clause', which was apparently introduced for the first time last year. This basically means that if you 'snag' your conker with your rival's (i.e. your conker gets all tangled up with theirs when you're attempting to hit it) three times in one match, you're out.

 

People were knocked out of the tournament in all manner of fashions; mine was a traditional exit in that my conker was swiftly destroyed as a result of my opponent's brilliance (he's laughing because I was so rubbish); other people were disqualified via the snag clause; others accidentally destroyed their own conkers by making an unfortunate contact with their adversary's target. One chap even appeared to conkpromise his horse chestnut's durability by wearing a shinpad on his forearm; a good way to protect your limb from bruising as a result of the speedy follow-though action, but it undoubtedly weakened his conker since it was constantly being buffeted by the hard protective surface.

The trophy for the winner was impressive:

I will most definitely be going back next year for another chance to claim it as my own. Let's be honest, though, that's never going to happen.

The tracks of my beards

So the long-awaited East London Line is now officially up and running, meaning that the trendy streets of east London are now much more accessible to us SE London residents. Hmmm, why does this not excite me very much? Oh yeah, because in and around places like 'Hoxton' and 'Shoreditch' I stick out like a sore, unfashionable thumb. Everyone's just so bloody stylish and hip. And tall. How *do* they fit into those jeans?

So when I discovered that Kev - the guitarist in my band Witness To The Beard - had booked us in to a recording studio just off Brick Lane for a day I was excited that I now had a genuine reason to hop on a shiny ELL train for my short journey north. The train was indeed very shiny, and I loved the fact that you can see from one end of the train to the other because of the lack of divisions between the carriages. I arrived at Shoreditch High Station in no time.

The studio we'd booked was the Soup Studio on Hanbury Street, which is underneath the Duke of Uke shop. We'd booked the studio out for the whole day for a bargainous £150, which included a sound engineer. The engineer in question was a lovely chap called Giles, and he was an absolute star. Between the three of us in the band we had very little recording experience, and Giles put us all at ease straight away, and was very patient when we cocked up. He was also extremely diplomatic with his comments and advice, when he could have simply said 'nah, that sounded crap'. 

We recorded our tracks live for the most part, with Giles doing a few clever tweaks and edits before the final mix. We somehow managed to record nine tracks in one day and you can listen to the results here if you're of a rough-and-ready rock disposition (to hear how it's done properly you can listen to Giles's band Tiger Cats here, which was recorded in the same studio).

It was such a fun day, and I'm really chuffed that I've now got something to show from 'the days when I was vaguely cool and in a band'. I'd massively recommend Soup Studio to anyone looking for somewhere affordable to record some tracks; they do analogue and digital recording and are really flexible and helpful. It's not the biggest studio in the world, but for us it was perfect. Oh, and I am now the proud owner of a ukulele which I purchased from the shop upstairs. I have named it 'Uku-Hayley'...

Gastronoweek

Food rocks, doesn't it? I love eating and trying new things but, that said, I'd never describe myself as a 'foodie', mainly because I'm not big on cooking. It's not that I can't cook, it's just that there are other things I would rather be doing than spending my time slaving away in the kitchen, especially when you're cooking for one (get the violins out!). Basically, I'm lazy.

However, my attitude towards grub may be about to change after the week I've just had, during which fantastic food was the common thread which tied it all together in one big, tasty, blogworthy package.

First up on Tuesday night was one of the best events I've ever been to. The wonderful people over at Qype* organised a secret supper club, where a bunch of forty or so lucky Qypers got to meet the legendary Jim Haynes from that After Eight advert (yes, he's real, and every word he says is true!). 

Jim has been hosting epic dinner parties at his Paris apartment for decades and reckons that, all in all, he's had around 130,000 round to his place for dinner. Now that's a lot of washing up! Meeting Jim was brilliant; he was a total charmer and he kissed my hand like a proper gent, but what was possibly even more special about the evening was the stuff we got to put in our bellies. 

You see, this was no ordinary evening. To celebrate the presence of the undisputed King of supper clubs, it appropriately took place at the wonderful underground restaurant Fernandez & Leluu. And when I say restaurant, what I actually mean is this lovely couple's living room! Unlike Jim's decades of experience, Simon (Fernandez) and Uyen (Leluu) have only been hosting their supper club in their Hackney abode since last autumn, yet their culinary skills and hospitality has so far generated high praise indeed and now I can't wait to go along to one of their regular sit-down dinners.

I won't even try and describe the brilliance of the food because I'm not a food blogger and I could never do it justice. But I will say that it was all exquisite, including a platter of starters (with the yummiest prawn cocktail dip I've ever tasted), the most tender slices of beef carpaccio, and a sinful pot of posh bread and butter pudding made with criossants. The food is described in delicious detail at Feast on Scraps with some wonderful images on the LondonEater blog. The cocktails were shaken and stirred to boozy perfection, and are summarised with applaudable precision over at Billy's Booze Blog. There are some more great write-ups at One Million Gold Stars, Domestic Sluttery and, of-course, Qype. Yes the bloggers really were out in force at this one! High praise indeed must be given to the clever After Eight PR people, Sian and all the others at Qype, Simon and Uyen and, of-course, Sir Jim, for putting on such a wonderful evening of food, hospitality and good company. And, to top off my Qype love, they even made me Qyper of the Week - chuffed!

My week of gastrono-joy was completed yesterday, when I slipped into a summery dress and headed to the swanky Sanderson hotel for a girly afternoon with a crazy twist; a Mad Hatter's Afternoon Tea! Although the hotel resembles a concrete lump from the outside, inside it's sleek and stylish and we were seated in the hotel's pretty courtyard garden. I'd never 'done' afternoon tea in my life, so had no idea what to expect, but when the waiter brought out our individual vintage cake stands stacked with multicoloured sandwiches, scones, cakes and lollipops, I couldn't help but squeal with childish joy.

There was no requirement for an 'eat me' label, as I tucked in straight away. The sandwiches were delicate, yet packed with flavour. The scones were light and seductively crumbly (although sadly we missed out on the clotted cream as they'd temporarily run out, and the butter substitute was too firm for the delicate scones). The cakes were really exciting to eat, with pink foam oozing from the 'Queen of Hearts' teacake, and crackle crystals making us giggle on the chocolate and raspberry cupcake. We finished our sugar fest with, errr, more sugar, this time in the form of a pineapple candy (it claimed to turn your mouth from hot to cold but I didn't experience this) and, finally, a chocolate a peppermint lolly which burst in your mouth (some great photos here). All this, with an unlimited supply of tea, for twenty quid! 

The hotel had only intended to run the Mad Hatter's Afternoon Tea for a month or so to capitalise on the hype surrounding Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film, but the popularity of it (it was full when we left) means that it is remaining a permanent fixture at the Sanderson. In which case, I can definitely see myself going back.

*If you've never heard of Qype I'd urge you to check it out. Not only does the site give you access to squillions of user-generated (and very well written) reviews so you can see what other people think of local restaurants, bars and shops, but they also organise loads of cool events for regular reviewers to go along to. So it's like a review website and a social network all rolled into one.

In a non-league of their own

The woman sat in front of me trained her digital SLR camera on the number 10 player. Every few seconds she would take a shot, hoping to capture him doing some fancy footballing move. It's a shame she didn't happen to take a photo of (presumably) her son dramatically diving following a legitimate tackle from an opposing player, prompting the ref to mistakenly show a second yellow card to the Tooting & Mitcham tackler. When her boy was substituted shortly afterwards the home crowd booed and hollered. Unsurprisingly his mum didn't take a photo of this moment either. But she was obviously still proud of her son as she resolutely applauded, and this was nice to behold.

 Dramatic skies over Imperial Fields (good old iPhone)

It was a freezing cold day yesterday, but that didn't stop me from going along to watch Tooting & Mitcham United versus Sutton United at T&M's smart little ground, Imperial Fields. The two teams play in the Ryman Football League Premier Division. I went to the match with legendary Two Footed Tackle podcasters Gary Andrews and Chris Nee, Gary's friend Rob and a chap off Twitter who turned out to be a fellow Gashead! It was a tenner to get in, which I thought was a little steep until I realised we had access to a stand with seats, and very nice seats they were too.

It was an enjoyable match for a neutral such as myself, although I was perhaps slightly biased towards Tooting since I used to live there. The quality of the football (and refereeing) certainly wasn't the best I've seen, and there were a number of amusing moments, including the strangest corner I've ever witnessed (I'm sure the odd move probably worked in training). Tooting went 1-0 up in the first half, undeservedly in my humble view, but Sutton pulled one back after the break. Tooting did well to hold on playing with only 10 men in the second half, and overall I think the draw was a fair result. 

One of the things I like most about going to football matches - especially the lower league ones - is the characters on the terraces. It took me quite a way into the second half to realise that the home and away fans behind each goal had swapped ends during half time to cheer on their teams from behind the appropriate goal mouths. There were quite a lot of Sutton fans mingled in with us in the stand with us as well, something you simply don't see in the football league. 

One Sutton fan in front of me was a very vocal gentleman, who seemed preoccupied with hollering at Tooting's manager rather than focusing on the actual football. At one point someone (who I later discovered to be Tooting's captain who wasn't playing yesterday) turned around and shouted to him "you should be locked up in a cage!" Another Sutton fan sat behind us was probably the least knowledgeable football fan ever, but still insisted on imparting his incredibly biased take on the game at every given opportunity, and VERY LOUDLY. 

After the match I travelled on the London Tramlink for the first time. This, combined with a Bovril AND a hot chocolate at the ground, nearly pushed me over the edge with excitement (you think I jest, but just ask Gary).

Come hither

Call me oversensitive, but after spotting a couple of negative tweets about Hither Green recently I feel compelled to defend the little corner of London that I call home.

When I tell people where I live (to clarify: I don't run up to strangers and tell them where I live, I mean when I'm answering a question), most have never heard of it. Well, for those of you who have never heard of it, Hither Green is a little suburb in south east London which nestles cosily between Blackheath and Lewisham in Zone 3.

I moved here just over a year ago because house prices here are bloody reasonable and the transport links are, for the most part, ace. Despite the lack of tube, there are trains to central London every ten minutes or so; more frequently during rush hour. The trains even run later than a tube would anyway, with the last train from London Bridge departing just before 1am. Sure, during the recent snowy conditions the trains buckled somewhat, but Lewisham DLR station is a only 15 minute walk away, and the DLR is ALWAYS running.

It's by no means the most exciting place in the world to live, but it's got a lot going for it, such as:

• Crazy golf. Yes, you heard me right. Rumour has it that Hither Green is to become the London's crazy golf hotspot, with an indoor course taking shape as I type. My dream of becoming crazy golf world champion lives on!
• Manor House Gardens. One of the prettiest little parks I've ever come across in London, and I'm lucky enough to have it on my doorstep. There's a lake with a fountain, a 'beetle loggery', tennis courts, a cute cafe, and there's a farmers' market the first Saturday of every month (pictured above - Flickr photo from basswulf). There are lots of other parks within walking distance too.
  
• The best library ever. Ok, maybe not the best, but it's a beautiful building (I've blogged about the library before, here)
• A fab curry house. I'd very much recommend Bengal Brasserie's banquet deal on Mondays and Tuesdays.
• Shops: Hither Green itself isn't exactly brimming with retail outlets, although the lovely independent furniture shop on Hither Green Lane is great (I bought my coffee table and living room mirror there) and an amazing interiors shop on Lee Road called Objet D'Art. For groceries there's a big Sainsbury's. But Blackheath is so close for a bigger selection of boutique-y type places, and don't dismiss Lewisham either - it's even got an H&M!!!!...
• A creative vibe: The Old Firemaster Building is now rented out room by room to creative types, such as artists, singers and musicians, and a gym may be opening there soon. Witness To The Beard (my band) have practised there a few times, and it's also where I have my guitar lessons.
• Live music: The Station Pub runs an acoustic music night every Thursday evening called The Icarus Club.
• Cute cafe: Just outside the train station there's a coffee shop / bakery / florist / gift shop called You Don't Bring Me Flowers. It's a little gem of a place, with kitsch decor, shabby chic charm and a secret room upstairs where you can nibble on cakes and drink tea from fab mis-matched china. 

Ok, and here's some more negative points for the sake of transparency:

• Hither Green is sadly most famous for a nasty train crash which happened here in the 1967. Lots of people died.
• Although transport links to central London are great, transport links to anywhere else are pretty poor, and it's often just easier to walk to places like Blackheath or Greenwich. But it is a lovely walk, and the view from the Greenwich Observatory is worth it (about a 40 minute walk from my flat).
  
• Lack of watering holes. Hither Green was originally based around the Corbett Estate, which was built by the Scottish Presbyterian Archibald Corbett. Pubs weren't allowed back then, and sadly that theme lives on. There's really only one pub in Hither Green, and that's The Station.
  

Useful websites about the area:

The Original Hither Green Website

Message-board based site which is useful if you're new to the area or looking for general information.

Max Calò's blog

Lib Dem candidate for the council election for Lewisham Central, who's got his finger firmly on the Hither Green pulse.

Walking Hither Green

Hasn't been updated for a while, but still gives you a good feel for the place.

Wikipedia

Some more historical info, including rumours that Jude Law apparently grew up here.
The Blackheath Bugle
Blackheath's only up the road...
Greenwich.co.uk
And Greenwich is only a bit further...

Here's what Time Out and the Guardian have got to say about Hither Green.

This blog post has taken me a lot longer to write than I thought it would, which is testament to all the great stuff there is here, and proves how much I like living in the area. It's not - and never will be - the most happening spot in London, but after a hard day in the office, it's just so nice to be able to hop on a train to this quiet and safe area where I can relax and get an undisturbed night's sleep, yet only ever be 30 minutes away from the bright lights of the West End.

Two-eight Two-eight Two-Snow

Before I begin, let me quickly point out that the title of this blog post is a reference to my age as of Wednesday, combined with the snowy weather conditions, combined with the once-famous advert with the telephone number that sounded like an owl.

Now my shameful pun explanation is out of the way, I would like to firstly say that I've had a brilliant week. I remember when the white stuff descended in February last year and transport here in south east London was well and truly borked, with no buses, no trains, no DLR, and the snow was really too thick to walk through. This time I think both the snow hasn't been quite as severe (albeit it's more persistent), or TFL have pulled their socks up somewhat, or a little of both, as despite various transport cock-ups I have managed to get into town and home again every day. Yes, it's taken me a little longer than normal, but the DLR really has come to the rescue.

I'm very glad it did, because the last thing I wanted was to be stranded on my own on my birthday and for my planned celebrations to be a 'white off'. So I made it to the office after a rather epic effort, had a lovely birthday lunch with colleagues (three out of five of us have our birthdays within a week of each other; obviously Capricorns make good newspaper PR people) then went to a local bar for 'Birth-hay drinks'. I was absolutely chuffed to bits with the turnout as I thought the weather would have put more people off. My friends who live in Abu Dhabi were in London this week, so they made it along, as did lots of other good friends. A huge thank you to all who came (but absolutely 'snow flurries' if you couldn't make it).

I then had a couple of days off work, during which I was out and about quite a lot, catching up with the aforementioned Abu Dhabi pals before they flew back, and tonight I went to watch The Snow Queen ballet at The Coliseum. A fantastic production and some of the dancing actually made me gasp. I have a new-found appreciation for ballet after stumbling (apt for me) across a fabulous BBC4 drama about Margot Fonteyn last week.

In all honesty I know I've been lucky this week as during the latter half when the weather really deteriorated I haven't had to battle through rush hour crowds to get into town and back again. But I must say that - when I have needed to travel - I've been mightily impressed with how smooth my journeys have been. Yeah, it's taken a little longer and my wellies (above) have probably worn down a few millimetres with all the extra walking, but it proves that if you don't want to be sat at home on your own when the sky shakes out its dandruff, you really don't have to be.

And finally, here are some [girly] 'when it snows, anything goes' observations from the last week:

• You can walk in the middle of the road
• You can wear wellies in The Coliseum (well, I did and no one told me off)
  
• You can wear a hat without even considering what your hair will look like when you take it off because NOT wearing one simply isn't an option
• You can leave the heating on at night (cos, you know, you might freeze otherwise...)
• You can wear uber-cosy clothes to work
• You can build a snowman ANYWHERE. I saw one yesterday on the roof of a car...which was being driven along the road. Classic. Shame it wasn't on top of a van as it could have been a SNOWVAN.
  

Drumming fingers

Wow, a whole new decade hath landeth, and it's that weird time of year during which I seem to sit around and wait for the cycle to begin once more. 2009 ended in an uncharacteristically disorganised fashion as me and Dunlop Junior desperately tried to battle the crowds and cross the Thames for our planned parental rendezvous, but I now realise how naive we were to try and even attempt such a feat a mere hour before the fireworks began. Despite having alighted at Embankment armed with the reasonable plan of hopping on a quick train from Charing Cross to meet the folks at Waterloo, we had no physical choice but to be herded like Lemmings east along the Strand all the way to Blackfriars Bridge. To be fair we did have a partial view of the fireworks from there, but nothing like this:

The silver lining was that we somehow managed to bump into our parents at London Bridge on the way home for a little family reunion. I'm sure they're glad they made the trip from Bristol for that... (sorry mum and dad!).

But before the decade was out, I returned to London to discover a package from my London Blogger Secret Santa, which was all very exciting. It was a nifty little finger drum kit. I have no idea who sent it to me, but it's nice to know that they took the time to send me something so appropriate. The festive geekery was a concept developed by Melinda, who I know through the London Bloggers Meet-up Group, and I thought it was a great idea. I just hope my giftee liked my present as much as I like mine. Oh, I just googled 'drumming fingers' and look what I found! Blimey.

I don't do new year's resolutions, but I've been involved with some exciting work stuff over the last few days so hopefully that's an indication of how 2010 may pan out. I'm curious to see what the next 12 months will throw up, but I guess my main aim is that I keep smiling both in and out of work, and that I continue to meet new people, but also spend as much time as possible with the awesome people I already know. Oh, and I must *try* and write in my diary more frequently (I'm still out of the habit). Speaking of which, I have a new one sitting on my bedside table right now, patiently waiting to be written in, so I will save my Dr Who sorrow for there (for now).

London on the cheap: Striking a Chord

I'll always possess a Bristolian soul, but having a few days off in London has reminded me how much I love this city. When I first moved here in 2007 I was concerned that everything would be so expensive that I would never have two pennies to rub together (interestingly, if you do rub two pennies together between your thumb and forefinger, it looks a bit like three pennies), but that really couldn't be any further from the truth. Sure, if you want to go out to expensive restaurants every night and shop on Bond Street then you can, but if you look in the right places there are so many things to do here for free.

Take the last few days, for example. On Tuesday the London Bloggers Meetup was a completely free event. Granted, not everyone is interested in blogging and online networking type things, but it really is such a nice crowd of people. Then on Thursday evening the play I went to was through the brilliant Audience Club. You pay £50 a year for membership to the club (I purchased my membership jointly with a friend, so a bargainous £25 each), and it entitles you to go along to fringe and West End shows and concerts all over the capital for two quid a pop. Over the years I've been to see Bon Jovi, an amazing ventriloquism show, comedy acts and tons of plays - from West End hits to back-room-of-a-pub dramas. I'd implore everyone in London to sign up, or buy membership for a theatre lover as an ace Christmas present (oh, and if you do, mention me as they'll whack on another couple of free months to my membership...!).

This weekend was another freebie special. On Saturday I went along to an incredible art installation in the Kingsway Tram Tunnel. The installation was a piece called 'Chord' by the artist Conrad Shawcross, and although you had to pre-book, it was free admission. The art itself is a rather funky piece of engineering brilliance, which is somehow automatically winding a multi-coloured piece of rope along a track. Sounds weird, and that's because it kind of is; in a good way, though. I do like these strange arty things, especially tunnel-based ones. For a more eloquent description of what it all means, here's the official site. Or take a look at the cool photos on Londonist (mine came out pretty rubbish as it was too dark, plus we weren't really allowed).

Although the art itself was impressive, personally I was more in awe of the tunnel itself. The subway - which is mainly used for storage by Camden Council these days - was last used for trams in 1952. More recently, the tunnel has been used for a number of films (Hidden City, The Avengers, Bhowani Junction and The Escapist), and some of the props from these films still remain, such as the rather spooky fake underground map, which I did manage to successfully snap:

I would absolutely love to visit some old, abandoned tube stations in London if possible, so if anyone hears of such an opportunity, please do let me know, as I find it fascinating.

The final freebie came in the form of some wonderful fireworks on Blackheath on Saturday night. Firework displays always astound me, and this one ticked all the boxes, those boxes being: a) availability of mulled wine b) duration of display c) fireworks I had never seen before (my favourite new one resembled a broccoli floret) and d) a suitably awe-inspiring and climactic finale.

So there you have it; proof that life in London can be easy on your wallet. I had intended to go to a free cinema screening this morning as well, but after weighing it up I opted for the lie-in. I do have to go back to work tomorrow, after all. 

Have I got queues for you

Back in the good old Bristol sixth-form days, my media studies class went on a glamorous trip to London. We paid a visit to the now-closed Museum Of The Moving Image, then had some spare time to roam around the city before heading to a television studio to watch some Mr & Mrs-esque show being recorded, presented by Dale Winton*

Now, my media studies class were a bit of a rebellious bunch, and during the 'spare time' element of the day, everyone (apart from me and my clan of fellow geeks who ended up in Sega World or somewhere like that) got smashed in the pub and was pretty pissed by the time we got to the recording studio, to the extent that one guy even ended up gatecrashing the studio next door where a Clive James show was being recorded and being removed from the building.

It was a fun trip, and although seeing a programme being recorded was an enjoyable novelty, the show itself wasn't exactly enthralling. But I'm happy to report that since then my TV recording experiences have improved vastly with no drunken teenagers in sight. I've been to see 'TV Burp', 'QI', 'The Big Fat Quiz of the Year' and 'Bremner Bird & Fortune', and last night I was lucky enough to watch 'Have I Got News For You'.

We had amazing seats - right at the front next to Ian Hislop - as a result of priority tickets and my well-honed queue skills. Unlike some shows, this one is a really good one to be in the audience for, as it's recorded as-live and they simply edit it down for broadcast the following day. It was all over and done with in a laughter-filled couple of hours and I was home in time to watch THAT episode of 'Question Time'. The guest presenter David Mitchell was his usual quick-witted self, and the guests were top-notch. You can watch the episode in question here.

One observation from before the recording began was that Paul Merton is obviously quite fussy about ensuring he has the same chair every week. Before I took the above photo there was a little sticker on his chair with 'Paul' written on it, so they can obviously distinguish between his chairs and the others when they dress the set.

But one of my highlights of the evening took place before the recording of the show had even begun. We were shivering away at the front of the queue, when a frazzled researcher / runner from the Graham Norton Show came bursting out of the studio building and breathlessly asked the waiting mob 'are you fans of Michael Buble?'. The silence that greeted her as she asked the same question to the queue of current affairs fans was deafening - and hilarious. Goodness knows why she was so desperate to find Michael Buble fans; I can only presume that he was one of Graham's guests last night, and I very much hope that the poor girl managed to find at least one Buble fan somewhere on the Southbank for whatever purpose she had in mind.

*I cannot find a single online reference to this programme - not even on Dale Winton's Wikipedia or IMDB listing. But basically it was a Saturday night show which involved someone trying to work our who was the genuine partner / spouse of another contestant, with lots of bluffing etc. And Dale had an annoying catchphrase which involved a chaise longue...any ideas anyone??

I love my postcode (thanks @qypelondon!)

Woop! Just found out I've won a Qype competition, simply for telling them about the favourite place in my postcode (SE13). I e-mailed them saying my local library - Manor House Library in Hither Green - was top of the SE13 list for me. I absolutely love this place and find myself popping in nearly every weekend to exchange my books, browse through the weekend papers and generally marvel at the absolute beauty of this place, and how lucky I am to have it on my doorstep.

The library is a beautifully-refurbished Georgian manor house, and only opened to the public a few months ago. When I moved to Hither Green this time last year I presumed they were converting the building into flats. My delight when I found out it was going to be a library was huge, and my enthusiasm only ballooned once I'd paid my first visit; the books are all BRAND NEW! And the staff are great, too. Ok, the selection isn't huge, but I can also get books out from loads of other libraries in the Lewisham area, and it's honestly the loveliest little library I've ever been in.

For my prize, I get to choose an I love my postcode t-shirt. Think I'll go for this one.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Design gufflaw

As part of a humongous walk around London yesterday with my brother and our 17-year-old cousin, we walked past the Design Council on Bow Street. In the window they were showcasing an example of what they deem to be 'good design'. In this instance, a lightweight, uber-ergonomic horse saddle. As I walked up to the window to take a closer look, I stubbed my foot on an awkward step up to the window. "Now that's poor design," I said. I then proceeded to shamelessly laugh at my own quip for about ten minutes. Just wanted to share my joke with the world...

Unleashing the Beard

I'm not usually the type of person who makes New Year's resolutions, but at the start of 2009 I had the urge to tick off one of my life's ambitions at some point over the next 12 months. I can now happily declare that I have achieved that aim - to play a live gig.

I've been drumming for a couple of years, just as a random hobby really. I've written before about how this may seem an odd choice of instrument for someone who is usually pretty clumsy and uncoordinated, but it somehow seems to work! My band - Witness To The Beard* - has been together for just under a year, and although we try and get together to practice once a week, work commitments have meant that our gatherings are more infrequent than we would prefer. So the prospect of actually getting up on stage and playing our songs (well, to be fair, their songs, as I just drum along) was pretty terrifying. But I reckon sometimes you have to challenge yourself and put yourself in unfamiliar situations simply for the experience.

I'm thrilled to report that our first gig was an amazing experience. Yeah, our performance was by no means perfect, but we got up there, played a set of mostly our own material, and even got paid for the privilege! We hadn't realised when we signed up to play a 30-minute slot at the Comedy Pub near Leicester Square that we'd get a quid for everyone who turned up to see us, so we were thrilled to get over a tenner each.

The 30+ people who were there to specifically watch up absolutely blew me away with their support and enthusiasm on the night. The chants of "Witness!Witness!Witness!Witness!" were inspired, and exactly the type of light-hearted vibe that we all thrive under. On this occasion I personally decided not to tell too many people about our debut performance, just in case it all went horribly wrong. But since it went pretty well, expect to see much more shameless self-promotion from now on! It would be great to see lots of familiar faces at one of our future performances, and I'd be really interested to get your feedback on our beardy antics!

*My dad grew a beard. Someone didn't believe me. Someone else said: "It's true. I was witness to the beard." Simple as. The beard is still in existence today, and we proudly represent those facial follicles through the medium of rock.

Tunnel 228 = blimin great

A couple of weeks ago I was browsing my ever-informative Twitter feed when the Londonist mentioned something called 'Tunnel 228'. Intrigued, I clicked on the link to discover a rather garish website that seemingly belonged to a train tunnel cleaning company. At first I thought that the url was wrong, but upon further investigation I discovered that most of the links on the website were inactive, apart from one rather inconspicuous link at the foot of the page, which opened up a whole new window, urging me to 'book tickets'. But 'book tickets for what?', I wondered. A quick Google search informed me that Tunnel 228 was an experimental theatre / art project, produced jointly by the Old Vic (Kevin Spacey being the man at the creative helm) and one of the UK's most innovative performance companies, Punchdrunk, along with the input of loads of urban artists.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the urban art Cans Festival last year, which took place just round the corner (in the tunnels beneath Waterloo station), Tunnel 228 looked just up my street, so I booked a couple of tickets on the spot. Lucky I did, because once word spread about the project - which was only going to be open to the public for 15 days - the (free) tickets were all gone by the end of that day.

My slot to step through the door into the maze of underground tunnels was yesterday afternoon, and I wasn't disappointed. The space was vast, the atmosphere spooky and surreal, and there was so much to take in. After wandering around for a few minutes, I began to notice that there was some kind of almost ritualistic performance taking place, with the Punchdrunk performers working meticulously on various mechanisms and machines to ensure the safe voyage of a silver ball around the tunnels.

The show is loosely based on Fritz Lang's classic film Metropolis, but having never seen the film I chose to draw my own conclusions about what it all meant. So my interpretation was that the ball represented money, and the performers repeating the same monotonous tasks over and over reflected the thankless routines of the working classes. This was reinforced by the fact that we were all 'ordered' to wear surgical face masks at all times (removing our sense of individuality) and we were only allowed to speak in whispers. In fact, at one point one of the performers reprimanded me for speaking too loudly, and although I wasn't intimidated by the in-my-face 'sssshhhh' that I received, it really added to the idea that we had entered a dark and oppressive underground world, despite the fact that the sun was shining brightly just a few feet away outside. I was also a bit miffed as I was told to shut up just as I was making an amusing joke about having to always queue for the ladies loos as we waited in line to peak through the door to witness one of the other mini-performances.

One of my favourite moments was when I spotted a piece by the artist Slinkachu, who has gained notoriety for placing amusing miniature scenes around the streets of London. I was chuffed to bits to spot four of his tiny installations in Tunnel 228, but I'm intrigued to know whether I missed any.

By the time I'd taken everything in I was rather surprised to discover that I'd been wandering around the performance space for well over an hour. If you're lucky enough to have tickets for this then you're in for a treat, but if not, there are rumours that the show could re-surface later this year, so keep your ear to the ground. And you get a free surgical mask to boot (no swine flu for me!).

Jog save the McQueen

What are the chances?! After mentioning 2008 Apprentice champ Lee McQueen in my first blog post in yonks yesterday, I only happen to see him running the London Marathon today! I screeched at him as he ran past, which coincidentally sounded a bit like a baby reverse pterodactyl.

It was a gorgeous day for watching the race, although I can imagine it was too hot for the runners. Sadly I am now sporting a rather strange tan (burn) line on my neck as, today of all days, I decided to wear a tie thing round my neck. Blimin typical. The atmosphere around the course was fab, and every year that I go along to watch I must admit that I am in awe of the sheer fitness of the athletes, and total dedication of the charity runners. It almost makes me want to do it myself...

I really need to get myself some regular exercise, but lack of motivation and time are my major downfalls. Sadly the time thing is easily addressed by my new employers, who organise various lunch hour exercise classes. So it really boils down to my laziness. I can use my sprained ankle excuse for now (tip: don't sprint for a train through central London in heels whilst trying to dodge innumerable hen/stag parties. Extra tip: if you sustain an injury but still manage to hobble to the station in time for said train as a result of pain-induced adrenaline, MAKE SURE YOU GET ON THE RIGHT ONE) but annoyingly it seems to be getting better. Yoga / boxing here I come...

Shrove boozeday

Pancakes pancakes pancakes. I love them. Can't make them to save my life, but nom nom nom. So, imagine my delight when I found out that Ed's Diner in Soho was giving away free pancakes yesterday, courtesy of The Kindness Offensive!

Luckily for me I got there shortly after the giveaway started at 8am (there were massive queues later), so I got a seat at the counter and was even filmed whilst filling my gob with syrupy yumminess. Sadly the person interviewing me didn't quite understand any of my Masterchef references when I described the quality of the food, but never mind.

I also got a free coffee, which was possibly a mistake since I only normally drink coffee about once every six months when I have a life-or-death requirement for it, and because I was feeling quite perky yesterday anyway, the caffeine in my bloodstream meant that I was talking at about a million miles an hour - AND VERY LOUDLY - all morning.

After a couple of post-work drinkies and a very pleasant, girly dinner with Shell, I went to the February London Bloggers Meetup event at Verve Bar in Covent Garden. This time it was sponsored by Bacardi, promoting their new range of 100 Calorie Bacardi Breezers. And very tasty they were too. So even though the day started off with lots of pancake-related calories, at least I sort of made up for it later on.....yeah right.

Kicking about town

Nice and cheap evening in London after work yesterday. It started off in the uber-trendy area of Hoxton, where I had been invited along to a swanky launch party for the new range of Kickers shoes. Yummy free cocktails were flowing, and I also got to see a cool Kickers-inspired stop-frame video (made by Lovebite) for a CSS remix of the Chromeo track 'Fancy Footwork'.

Next year they're launching a new shoe that you can colour in yourself, which is a pretty neat idea, although I never could stay inside the lines.

After having our fill of complimentary nibbles, we headed sarf to Brixton where we watched Biffy Clyro absolutely rock it up with an immaculate set, culminating in millions of sparkly ticker tape bits floating onto the crowd, and singer Simon Neil literally launching himself head first into the mosh pit for the crescendo of their closing song. Sod the drums - I now have a new career goal: rock violinist.

Wombling free

Ok, so it wasn't actually free to get in, but I happily parted with a tenner today to watch AFC Wimbledon play Maidenhead United in Kingston. Having not been to a football match in ages it was great to be back on the terraces.

Little bit of back history...AFC Wimbledon was formed in 2002 by a bunch of Wimbledon FC supporters who were rightly disgusted by the fact that the FA gave permission for their beloved team to relocate to Milton Keynes. The vast majority of fans severed all links with the club, and consequently, soon after moving, Wimbledon went bust and became MK Dons.

Interestingly, the 'AFC' bit doesn't officially stand for 'association football club', or anything in particular, although some argue it should stand for 'a fan's club'. This would make sense - for a non-league club to attract over 3,000 supporters to each match is no mean feat and they are currently top of the Conference South division after a 3-1 victory today. And I very much liked their cool Womble mascot...