Celebrity Spotting

My colleagues and I like to play a game of trying to spot famous celebrities, generally whilst travelling. My friend Dan likes to bend the rules slightly by calling out the names of famous actors he's mingled with after theatre productions in the West End, but, whilst there's no denying that spotting Dame Helen Mirren has major kudos, if you spend time with thesps in theatre land, you're quite likely to bump into a major board-treader.

Mike and I have a more purist view of the game: they have to be people spotted in an airport, on a plane or in an airport lounge. Mike's most recent spot was Sarah Ferguson. Mine was Noel Gallagher. My previous spots have included Richard Bacon and Sue Perkins. It's a mildly diverting game.

Outside of travelling, I have seen two major Hollywood celebrities on the street. The first was Kiefer Sutherland, who I saw at approximately 8.30 in the morning wandering through a deserted Covent Garden, dressed in a blue suit, wearing sunglasses, smoking a cigarette and bearing a facial expression that said 'Yes, it's me, and yes, I am way too cool for school.' My family and I had come down to London after our flight to Portugal had been cancelled thanks to that Icelandic ash cloud back in 2010; he, I would later discover from reading a newspaper, was stranded in London for the same reason, only whereas we had spent a civilised night in our Canary Wharf hotel, he had spent the night partying, and evidently whilst we were on our way out to breakfast, he was on his way home.

My personal favourite spot, and the one that prompted this piece, was last May while we were on holiday in New York. This was our second family trip to the Big Apple, and the third for M. and I. Whenever we head to NY I think we're going to be bumping into celebrities on every block, but of course we never do. They hide, evidently.

So it was our first night in Manhattan and we'd gone for a major wander to re-orient ourselves. Our aim was to find a branch of Whole Foods somewhere downtown, but we ended up getting thoroughly lost, and instead found ourselves in Greenwich Village - arguably the most confusing part of the island thanks to its London-esque jumble of streets - and popped into a D'Agostino on Greenwich Street for over-priced supplies.

When we came out, sixty-odd dollars lighter, it had started to drizzle. On the street we saw a big man riding a bike. He looked reasonably familiar, but it was only when he got off the bike and chained it to a lamppost that I realised it was Philip Seymour Hoffman. I think I probably whispered 'Look, that's you-know-who!' to M. in that vaguely star-struck too-loud voice you inevitably use on such occasions, which unintentionally caught his attention.

In response, he just nodded sagely, raised a hand and offered a small, slightly embarrassed smile. Later we found out he lived in that part of town and that he'd just come out of a spell in rehab. In the celeb spotting stakes, an Oscar winner riding a bike after time kicking drugs was up there with the best.

Less than a year later he was dead from a suspected overdose.

Rest in peace PSH.

In The Early Morning Security Queue, Heathrow

Source: Wikipedia

It's just after five in the morning and I'm fourth in line at the fast track security search queue at Heathrow's Terminal 5. Immediately in front of me is a young girl who is dressed as if she's about to head off to a jungle somewhere - sturdy boots, practical clothes, heavily-laden rucksack. In front of her are two large African-American women with big handbags and scarves and hats.

The security guard is a brusque, efficient, unsmiling Australian woman who has a facial expression that suggests she resents having to work at this early hour. The trays on the conveyor passing through the x-ray are backed up and nothing is moving.

The first African-American lady puts her items into one of the large grey plastic trays when a gap in the conveyor appears and wanders off through the metal detector, swiftly followed by the second woman, only the second woman is wearing what might be boots, but as they're tucked beneath her jeans, it's hard to tell. The Australian guard calls the woman back and asks her, not unpolitely but certainly firmly, if she's wearing boots. The woman grunts something that I can't make out and hands her boots to the guard and then huffs off toward the gate again.

The Australian guard could easily have let it pass, but chooses not to, and says something officious back about rules and regulations that clearly winds the woman up further. She turns back, makes a complaint about why she should even have to take her boots off anyway, just at the point where the guard is lowering the boots into one of the woman's two trays, this one holding her coat. Still complaining, the woman grabs the boots and thrusts them into her other tray, the one containing her ridiculously over-sized handbag, presumably affronted at the way the guard could have dirtied her coat by placing her boots there.

It's clear that the Australian guard is not going to take this lying down and offers a perfunctory retort, bereft of any hesitation or pause for breath.

'Madam if you object to having to take your boots off I suggest you avoid travelling in the future.' It's a perfectly barbed response, but it's evident that this response has no real purpose whatsoever; it's just designed to antagonise, and that's exactly what it does.

The woman responds with some low growl or other and the Australian looks momentarily shocked. I honestly thought she was going to get a burly security guard over and have the woman denied the opportunity to fly, but instead she just responds with a defensive 'My God, it's not even six in the morning and you want to argue,' as if there is an official start time from which one is allowed to enter into disagreements with one another. The woman waddles off through the metal detector and the young girl in front of me mutely and compliantly removes her sturdy boots and places then in a tray.

The Australian guard is evidently not finished with the African-American woman and what she does next is both passive-aggressive and final proof that she absolutely maintains the upper hand in this whole business. I watch as she calmly wanders down to the guards at the other end of the belt, whispers something out of the side of her mouth to one of them and goes back to her station. I may have imagined a small smile on her face as she did so.

Soon, I'm on the other side of the metal detector, waiting for my own tray to descend down the rollers toward me. The jungle trek girl and the two African-American are next to me, and the two women are evidently moaning about what just happened. The first woman's tray emerges from the x-ray and teeters slowly down the rollers toward where she's waiting. When the other woman's bag emerges, it pauses momentarily before being mechanically shoved over onto a separate set of rollers, meaning that the bag is now only accessible to the security guards at this end of the belt.

'Why is my bag that side?' pleads the woman.

The guard responds blankly that it needs to be opened and the contents completely emptied and checked thoroughly. He glances back at the Australian guard who is beaming innocently. It's clear that the woman poses no major terrorist threat and that they'll find nothing remotely unacceptable in her bag, but in thinking she's got the upper hand when dealing with the authorities, she's misplaced where she sits in the pecking order of things, and now she's paying the price.

I wander off to the lounge to get some breakfast, wondering if they'll cart her off to a room nearby for a more comprehensive search for no other reason than to teach her a lesson. I wonder if she'll think twice before answering back next time.

My First New York (Ecco, 2010) / A Return To The Bryant Park Hotel, New York

My First New York (Ecco, 2010)

My First New York compiles fifty-six bite-sized recollections of artists, models, film-makers, journalists, actors and writers, all detailing their first impressions of the city upon arriving as residents. The articles were first published in New York Magazine as part of a series.

The personal history of each of the contributors is, in a way, secondary to a sort of fragmented history of New York and what has made its appeal so great. Stories of immigrants like film-maker Jonas Mekas, arriving through Ellis Island from oppression in Eastern Europe, recount the sheer awe of arriving in the new world, Manhattan's southern topography being the first view of New York many arriving by boat would see. There are recollections of those constantly-shifting immigrant communities, illegal sub-lets, parties, coincidences, success and above all, an idefinable sense of what makes living in New York such a major aspiration for many people (despite being, as one person recounts, roughly five times as expensive as anywhere else).

Arriving in New York as a tourist brings with it a thrill of suddenly being forced into a giant movie set, the architecture familiar from countless uncredited cameo appearances. My First New York perfectly illustrates the magnetic pull of Manhattan that makes people want to go and live there, as well as the economic realities (the cost of a small apartment in most cases is frightening) and the challenges and risks - one depiction of hard drug deals being conducted on every corner in the outlaw yuppie Eighties is one especially vivid tale.

For anyone ruing their life's journey ensuring that they will only ever be a mere tourist in the city, My First New York allows you to see, through others' experiences, what it might have been like to live there, while also providing a fascinating compact history of the city over the past hundred odd years.

A Return To The Bryant Park Hotel, New York

The Bryant Park Hotel. Source: MJA Smith

It depends on personal choice - some people like the idea of always staying somewhere they've not been to before; others prefer the familiarity of somewhere they've previously stayed. As a generally risk-averse kind of guy, I know I definitely fall into the latter category. So when we got back to the UK after a week's stay at the Bryant Park Hotel in April 2012, we more or less straight away decided that we'd stay there again when we returned to New York in May of this year.

My review of the hotel from last year is somewhere else amongst the plethora of positive comments about this excellent hotel. At the time I regarded it as the best hotel I'd ever stayed at. That view was based on not only the accommodation (smart, minimal, great views across Bryant Park from the suite we had) but also, critically, the people working there. A crucial factor in being so impressed by the people working at the hotel was, first and foremost, their friendliness. I don't honestly know how many rooms there are at the Bryant Park, but to always have a smiling 'Good morning Mr Smith' as you walked past the lobby does make you feel right at home, and like your stay matters to them. The staff also went out of their way to make our two young daughters feel every bit as special and welcome as we were made to feel, something that I frankly wasn't expecting in a hotel that outwardly seems so trendy.

Two of the staff that made our 2012 stay so special - Chase and Sarah - were still working at the hotel when we returned to the hotel this year. Getting a personal, familiar welcome after goodness knows how many guests have passed by that reception desk was a really nice touch, and it set the tone for what turned out - predictably, I might stress - another great stay at the hotel. Sarah, who the girls had struck up a friendship with last year, went out of her way to make them feel special, going out to the Crumbs bakeshop just across Bryant Park to bring them balloons and cupcakes while we were getting unpacked in the room, for which she was rewarded with copious drawings and thank you notes on Bryant Park stationary from the room.

I don't intend to go into detail this time around as I think my previous review covered that just fine. However, suffice to say that the hotel truly felt like a home from home, our Bryant Park Suite on the sixteenth floor was perfect, the service from everyone was faultless, everything about our stay was spot on, and we've already come to the conclusion that come what may, we have to go back and stay here again next year; I can't honestly bring myself to contemplate a year where we don't stay at this very, very special hotel.

A big thanks again to everyone at the hotel who made the stay this year so memorable. Home suite home indeed.

This post originally appeared on TripAdvisor on 09.06.2013

Žižkov Television Tower

Talk of the festive season, Christmas markets and the sharp drop in temperatures always makes me think of Prague. In our relatively carefree, childless days, Mrs S and our friends Tina and Steve took a trip to Prague just before Christmas in 2003 and it was everything that I hoped it would be, and more; that city has subsequently become indivisible from my thoughts of the Christmas season.

I soaked up the festive atmosphere, the Gothic architecture and the quintessentially Eastern European modernist design of the subway platforms with unbridled enthusiasm. So what if we also had to spend a night in the airport when heavy snowfall – initially beautifully and silently draped across the city – later brought everything unexpectedly to a standstill, including all fights; so what if the tensions of queuing all night for replacement flights meant I got into a spat with a similarly-disgruntled Latvian in the early hours of the morning; so what if it was the holiday where I may or may not have drunkenly pissed in a dustbin in the hotel toilets (after taking the opportunity to gorge on the free drinks in the executive lounge all the details thereafter became a little sketchy, though I still maintain it was someone else).

The point is that whenever I think of Christmas, I think of the wintry chill and icy splendour of Prague. Whenever I visit an ersatz Christmas market in this country I think of the infinitely more authentic market we visited in Staré Město; whenever the biting cold in late December makes me crave hot chocolate, I think of the small café we four huddled in on the other side of the Charles Bridge (Karlův most) at the base of the steps leading up to the majestic Hradčany palace complex. I understand that Prague is beautiful in the summer, but that wouldn't be the Prague I would want to remember.

Much as I loved the impressive antediluvian squares, bridges, spires and buildings, my favourite structure in Prague lies some way out from the main tourist centre. Taking the subway out to Žižkov, a mostly residential area not frequented by mainstream tourist footfall and certainly not gentrified like other areas of the city; well at least it wasn't in 2003. The central reason for visiting this relatively unassuming urban area, apart from seeing rusty old Ladas and run-down apartment buildings is the Žižkov Television Tower.

The Žižkov Television Tower has a simplistic design that evokes classic Communist post-War attempts at some sort of futuristic modernity; all told, with its double layer of curved-edge rectangular pods in the top third of the main tower, and its trio of cylindrical legs (one containing the tiny lift that takes visitors to the top), it looks like something that Hanna-Barbera would have conceived for The Jetsons. Of course it looks dated now, like it no doubt did at the time of its construction between 1985 and 1992, and it certainly wasn't at all popular with Prague purists when it opened, given its imposing, high position above the city and the fact that they built the tower on an old Jewish cemetery. I like to think of it as being a bit like our dear old BT Tower, just a whole lot funkier.

The views from certain angles in the viewing galleries afford, in many senses, the best views of Prague. Tourists may well elect to view the city at close quarters from, say, the Malá Strana bridge tower or Old Town Hall in Staré Město, but for me the Žižkov Television Tower gives a greater context and long-range perspective on this city.

If you recall the Saturday evening British TV sci-fi series The Tripods, you'd be forgiven for getting a slightly fearful sensation at the sight of the external profile of the building, a feeling which is altogether heightened by David Černý's permanent Miminka art installation from 2001 – ascending upward on the legs of the tower are several statues of crawling babies. It's quirky and not altogether right, but once you transcend the oddness (and recollections of a certain withdrawal scene from Trainspotting) it's fun.

As I've said here before, tall buildings are divisive, much more so in a city where the only other tall buildings are sacred and centuries-old religious structures, but whichever way you look at it, the Žižkov Television Tower is delightfully contrarian and wonderfully strange; a perverse thing of otherworldly elegance in a city with abundant charm already.

Euston Platforms & Big Issue Salesman

Source: geograph.org.uk

I have never become sick of commuting by train from my home to London. I complain about the cost whenever it comes to renewing my season ticket, but I don't really feel that I should gripe too much as it's effectively my choice to spend almost three hours just travelling to and from work. That season ticket has literally been my passport to London's wonders for the best part of a decade and, though expensive, it feels like money well spent. It's really only when power lines fail or someone tops themselves on the line (always at Harrow and Wealdstone) that I moan about commuting.

But there is one aspect which is starting to grate, and that's the terrible layout of platforms 8 to 11 at Euston, specifically platforms 10 and 11 for a period of two minutes after my train pulls in.

The 06.34 train from Milton Keynes Central generally arrives, nice and prompt, into platform 11 at 07.20. I'll then join my fellow passengers in racing to the ticket barriers as quick as possible, because, at around 07.21 a London Overground train will arrive at platform 10, decanting its cargo of passengers onto the already-full platform. Most days the gap between the trains is sufficient enough for me to already be at the barriers when the squeal of the Overground train's brakes gets louder and I'll be well up the incline to the main concourse as the doors are opening. However, just lately my train and the Overground train have arrived at precisely the same time, the effect being several hundred extra commuters hitting the platform together, thus ensuring complete gridlock, pushing, crushing and an unnecessarily unpleasant start to the day as the throng of people tries to squeeze through a tiny bottleneck into the barriers.

Still, it's an annoyance that will be alleviated by the redevelopment work being undertaking to widen the exit, and mercifully it usually only lasts two minutes, after which I'm forced out of the crowd and through the exit barrier like a cork from a champagne bottle. And it's an irritation quickly forgotten when I head past Eduardo Paolozzi's lumpen Piscator sculpture and down the path leading to Euston Road. For somewhere between that sculpture and Euston Square Underground station, rain or shine, wind or frost, will be a person who cheers me up without fail each and every morning.

He sells the Big Issue and is probably the single most upbeat individual you're ever likely to see that early in the morning; animated and unfeasibly effervescent, engaging enthusiastically with the hordes of focussed commuters trudging past him, encouraging them to part with the £1.75 that a copy of the Issue costs these days.

He's rarely without a smile, never tetchy when people blank him and gushingly grateful when you buy a copy from him.

His welcome infiltration of my morning introspection is another reason why I'll never tire of commuting to London.

Trois: Luxembourg City

Source: Go Ten website

I visited Luxembourg City for work last week. Although much-maligned, it's a place worth exploring, as I found myself doing during a rare period of down-time. Here are three places that caught my attention.

1. Restaurant Pizzerie Bacchus
I took visiting Luxembourg City seriously, and bought just about the only dedicated guidebook that exists. Finding myself with an evening to spare and thinking that the hotel's in-room selections a bit limited (five types of omelette, five types of sandwich, expensive fish dishes), I flicked open the Bradt guide, found the 'cheap eats' section (I am a responsible corporate citizen when travelling on expenses; plus our nightly dinner allowance is of the McDonald's Happy Meal side of punitive) and settled on Restaurant Pizzerie Bacchus.

This is a great pizzeria serving beautiful pizzas baked in an authentic wood-fired oven. The staff are friendly (expect a heartly farewell and a handshake from the manager) and the restaurant itself is superb. I elected to sit on the covered terrace (which could do with some repairs) and enjoyed a quiet romana pizza and a glass of a bitter orange drink which could only be described as being how I'd expect Campari and Irn Bru to taste like.

For €15 it was a steal, and probably the best pizza I've had since John's Pizzeria in Greenwich Village.

32, rue du Marché-aux-Herbes

2. Go Ten
There is a bit of a online furore about the lack of a Starbucks branch in Luxembourg City, which is something of a surprise given how many expats there are here. This isn't in any way a bad thing as it encourages you down the non-chain route. Walking back to my hotel I chanced upon this trendy, sleek, dark bar-cum-noodle restaurant with a pulsing electronic soundtrack and pretty waitresses.

Avoiding mid-afternoon cocktails on the basis of principal I elected for a coffee and a chance to chill out in the funky surroundings. I would have stayed there all afternoon if it wasn't for the small inconvenience of my flight home.

10, rue du Marché-aux-Herbes
www.goten.lu

3. CD Buttek Beim Palais
This tiny, cramped shop caught my eye after I'd left Bacchus for an evening wander around the city. More specifically, the Neu! boxset in the window caught my eye, so after Go Ten I made a point of popping in before I left for the airport. I'd describe it as being like a record fair stall inside a shop.

The shop had good jazz and ambient / electronica sections and middle racks stacked to the rafters with vinyl from every genre imaginable. I settled for a Pete Shelley 7" before temptation got the better of me.

16, rue du Marché-aux-Herbes
cdbuttek.oyla.de

Source: MJA Smith

Ten: Brighton

Source: MJA Smith

1. Hotel Seattle, Brighton Marina
Okay, so it's not in the heart of the city (it's around a 30 minute walk – or see below), but it's a beautiful, modern hotel right in the heart of the Marina and thus escapes two major issues common to hotels in the city centre – noise (unless you dislike the sound of boat masts clacking) and lack of parking (there's a free carpark nearby). More info at my TripAdvisor review.

2. Volk's Railway
This small electric railway runs from Black Rock next to the Marina all the way to the aquarium – 1.5 miles in all. The 1883 concept of Magnus Volk, an inventor not dissimilar to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Caractacus Potts, the journey is a fun, kid-friendly way to get from the Marina to the main city attractions.

3. The Pavilion
Brighton's Indian-styled stucco-smothered pavilion was the folly of the Prince Regent and has become a major tourist attraction and landmark. Behind the Pavilion is a buzzing park and café, where a jazz trio was playing the day we sat on the grass for a picnic. Cool sounds in cool grounds.

4. Resident
So you're in Brighton and you want to buy some records; you usually shop at Rough Trade in East London and you want somewhere with the same aesthetics. Where do you head? The answer is Resident. Situated in the North Laine network of narrow streets and wonderfully unique independent shops, Resident could be the Brighton outpost of the aforementioned RT with its eclectic jazz / alt.rock / electronica focus. Brighton also has a rich supply of good second-hand record shops, if looking through racks of old vinyl is more your thing.

5. Lick
It's the seaside, so ice cream is de rigueur, right? Well, Lick (also in the North Laine) sells ice cream, naturally, but the main draw is its frozen yoghurt. Out-of-this-world-delicious is an understatement.

6. Zoing Image
'It's my boyfriend's shop,' she explained, carefully applying initials to the mounts that would soon frame a range of monochrome photos for sale in the shop. 'He started out selling pictures in the street. From that to this.' Zoing Image sells prints, small canvasses and various photo products including magnets and coasters, mostly comprising photos of Brighton, as well as Lomo cameras, books and photo-related miscellanea.

7. Eco Logic Cool
Want cufflinks made of circuit boards? Or coasters made from recycled coffee cups? Then point your environmentally-friendly compass here. And don't miss the fish in the tank underneath the till – a cheap alternative to Brighton's tedious (though structurally beautiful) aquarium.

8. The West Pier
The tragically dismembered West Pier has, over the years lost out more than once to the nearby Palace – now Brighton – Pier, first in terms of popularity, and then in terms of its very corporeality. Eerily bleak, the most tragic sight is the retrieved posts stacked up in a metal mass grave beneath the surviving pier buildings shore-side.

9. The World Famous Pump Rooms
Just east of the West Pier is this popular beach-side café, selling ice creams and locally-made coffee. Expect convivial chatter, Italian accents and great coffee. You'll feel like buying a Vespa and getting all Quadrophenic.

10. Architecture
Fans of Regency stucco-faced splendour will not be disappointed by Brighton, and its sense of preservation of these monuments to the Victorian era of UK holiday-making is impressive. Occasional civic planning inconsistencies aside (most notably Richard 'Centre Point' Seifert's Sussex Heights, a 24-storey, horizon-changing tower), Brighton's elegant cliff-top promenade is the place to head for building fans.

A Farewell to Stratford-upon-Avon

Source: MJA Smith

I was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon and I called it home until I was nineteen, though I didn’t realise until three years later that I’d actually moved away forever. I left the quaint market town in Warwickshire for the concrete topography of the University of Essex in Colchester, not fully aware that I wouldn’t be moving back to the town of my birth once my degree had finished.

But that’s exactly what happened. I met a girl, got a job on a bank's management trainee scheme that needed me to based somewhere that wasn’t either Stratford or Colchester and quietly, almost without me realising, I moved out of the family home. It’s probably only in the last few years, with the introduction of children and the putting down of definite roots, that I’ve finally stopped calling Stratford ‘home‘. It’s only taken 14 years.

A home, of sorts, it remained until recently, upon the occasion of my parents selling up the house they moved into in 1983, the house where I lived out my pre-teens and teenage years and all the essential experiences and rites of passage that coming of age brings. I know for them it was an emotional departure, as it would have been for me also were it not for the fact that they have moved to Milton Keynes and are consequently just a few minutes’ drive away from us (as is pretty much everyone and everything in Milton Keynes come to think of it).

We went to Stratford last at the end of their residency, toward the end of September last year, and it was a predictably moving experience. Wandering slowly round the town, all of a sudden I grasped how little detail I had actually taken in over the years. All of a sudden the buildings I thought I knew had features I'd never before recognised and buildings that I'd never even taken any notice of before jumped out at me for the first time and seemed to scream for my attention. The feeling was dismaying, almost as if the town itself was telling me that I'd neglected its nuances my entire life.

I came away from the town perplexed at how I could have been so blind to Stratford's subtleties all those years. I'd never visited any of the principal tourist haunts, with the notable exception of Holy Trinity Church, out of principle. Like many residents, I'd elected to ignore the things so obviously important to the town's fabric but so crassly touristy, if not forever then certainly until an unspecified point in the future. Now I have no idea when I might visit those places. It's now, at nine months, the longest I've ever gone without visiting the town of my birth.

Like most towns, Stratford is undergoing changes, some of which remove some of the things I remember from childhood, forcing those memories to become like a sepia-tinted dream. The most significant of these is the remodelling of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre on Waterside, a building which seemed unassailable, far too precious and historic – despite being, at less than one hundred years' old, one of the town's more modern structures – to be tampered with. The new design, retaining features from Elizabeth Scott's original Art Deco design with new elements was intended to appease actors who find the theatre's backstage area cramped and dated, but also to offer a more appealing vision to tourists. One can only imagine how divisive the 1930s design was at the time. Improved it may well come to be, but it's not the theatre I will remember.


Source: MJA Smith

Another change which caught me off-guard in September was the conversion of the Island Café at the junction of the Birmingham Road, Henley Street and Windsor Street. The café was empty for the entire time I lived in Stratford, falling slowly into a greater and greater sense of disrepair. Its prime location at the main entry point for coaches of tourists entering the town should have made it opportune premises for any business looking to cream foreign visitor spending, but in spite of this, one day the owners locked the doors and it stayed closed, with movement occasionally visible behind the grime-encrusted windows with their crumbling frames and moth-eaten curtains. (In one of the short stories I began writing for a creative writing class, I imagined the interior of the café from the perspective of a dusty old glass left behind on one of the cafe's shelves; perhaps I'll get around to completing that some time.)

The last time we were there I was amazed to see that the café was no longer in a dilapidated state but that it had been renovated and converted into a smart restaurant called Bernadette's. All my life I'd wanted to see inside that building; I'd even had a teenage daydream where I tried to buy it with my sister and converted it into a swish vegetarian eatery where I'd also DJ an eclectic mix into the small hours. And yet here, on my last trip to Stratford was a completed altered Island Café. I was gob-smacked. I went inside, ostensibly to collect a business card, but also just to say I'd been inside. I think a small part of me rather preferred the ruined state it was in before having seen such a seismic change in a relatively short space of time. I just hope Bernadette's stays open long enough in these straitened times for me to get to visit properly, whenever that might turn out to be.

I did finally get to the bottom of one Stratford puzzle that had bothered me for years – the purpose of the building, pictured at the start of this post, sandwiched between the library and what is now the abomination on Henley Street that is Subway. For years I've walked past this building, a slender Victorian construction done out, in keeping with much of restored Stratford, in a mock-Tudor, half-timbered style. The solid, imposing wooden door to this building was perpetually closed and the diagonally-leaded windows were cloudy and revealed nothing of what secrets might be behind.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'd spent a long time imagining what this building might be, but suffice to say that thanks to a childhood diet of reading wizard-and-goblin fantasy books I became convinced it must be a shady meeting place for a secret Masonic guild in the town, possibly dating back to Shakespearian times or even further still. Something about the antiquated door and lack of signage or numbering seemed to lend itself to the remote, and slightly sinister, possibility. The air of dark mystery I'd afforded this reasonably inconsequential, comparatively hidden building over the years has made it my favourite building in the entire town.

Sadly, as is often the case with the truth, the reality was far more mundane. Thanks to the support of the Stratford Society (of which I am a paid-up member), I was put in touch with town historian Robert Bearman, whose book Stratford-upon-Avon: A History Of Its Streets And Buildings had sat, unread, on my shelves for about two years. The answer was squirrelled away in his text all along. It transpires that the building was designed by Arthur Flowers – of the local Flowers' Brewery family – as a technical college with the very laudable aim of providing Stratford boys with vocational skills to help their employment prospects. The college later moved premises, finally settling on the Alcester Road, adjacent to what used to be my High School, itself having since been demolished and replaced. I'm just glad I finally found out what it was originally for. The building is now nothing more than part of the library next door, but in my imagination still the place of illicit guild meetings.

Stratford's historic nature means that it is considerably better preserved than other towns in this country, and the scope for needless and excessive modernisation can thus, hopefully, be avoided. That said, in a town not renowned for changing – because of its historical heart – any small change is therefore likely to feel much larger than it might otherwise be elsewhere. I only hope I recognise the place when I go back, whenever that might be.

Staycation (Part 2)

In part one of this post I documented our family's trip to London following the cancellation of our foreign holiday owing to the volcanic ash cloud that disrupted flights in mid-April. This post documents the second leg of our staycation, in Worcestershire.


Source: Google Images search

I always thought of Worcestershire as being something of a 'non-county', with little to recommend it. As a child growing up in Stratford-upon-Avon, we occasionally crossed the county border into Worcestershire, but generally to somewhere like Redditch, which as an urban sprawl has few reasons to visit beyond an ugly covered shopping centre. That said, we also very occasionally visited the Malvern Hills, which are of course beautiful – more on that later – or Broadway, tucked just inside the Cotswolds, but generally my over-riding impression of the county was of being unimpressed.

So it was with this mentality that when Mrs S gave me a choice between Von Essen's hotels in Suffolk and Worcestershire, I elected to choose the former. Suffolk I knew from my time at university in nearby Colchester, and my over-riding memory of that county was one of tranquil beauty. I forget now how it was that Suffolk was nudged into second place, but looking back I'm glad that it was thus.

Von Essen are an upmarket hotel chain who own a number of beautiful properties, including the historically-important Cliveden. What's pleasant about the chain is that they have a dedicated sub-collection, Luxury Family Hotels, which are just that – family-friendly hotels which appeal to those seeking the luxurious bells and whistles that often get eschewed in normal child-friendly hotels. Why should you not enjoy high standards, the theory goes, just because you have a couple of kids in tow?

We arrived at The Elms Hotel in blazing sunshine, the sort of weather we had become accustomed to that week. Driving from the M5 passed places like Chateau Impney near Droitwich Spa and the mysterious, imposing Abberley clock tower sat within the rolling Worcestershire hills and woods, I began to feel my youthful impressions of the county recede into embarassed silence. 'This county is beautiful,' I mused to myself.

Source: Andrew Mawby (Flickr)

And so was the hotel. The Elms was originally built in 1710 and rebuilt following a fire in 1927 which left only the front walls of the house standing. It is a magnificently grand, stone property with a imposing central staircase and domed stained-glass skylight. With the room not ready for a few hours and our two girls fast asleep in the car, we ditched the cases and decided to take a drive to Worcester, about ten miles away.

Source: MJA Smith

Going to Worcester was a big disappointment. In spite of the bright sunshine, which in most cases can render even the most ugly topography positively, the town has an absence of character. There are some nice buildings, most notably the Guildhall (whose architect, Thomas White, a Wren pupil, also designed The Elms), and the cathedral has an obvious draw, but the main streets are filled with the usual high street names as well as poor quality independents; there is also an abundance of buildings of unsympathetic and dated design, which to my mind have destroyed the basic character of what should be a pretty county town. After a thoroughly depressing lunch in Marks & Spencer where all the patrons seemed to just want to moan and gripe about illness and the poor state of everything, we decided to leave before we too started feeling miserable. We chanced upon a shop called New England Country Store on which was filled with cute home-ware products from the likes of Cath Kidston and Poppy Treffry, spent a small fortune, and decided to head back to The Elms.

Whether it was the disappointment of spending time in Worcester or a residual disappointment that we should have, at that time, been sat round a pool in Quinta do Lago in Portugal, but when we reached our room we weren't terribly impressed. We had selected an 'executive' room, as this was what was described as being most suitable for two adults and two children. The practicalities of the space, however, made movement around the room nigh on impossible. Daughter#2's travel cot only had one possible home, which was in front of the wardrobe, making it difficult to open, while Daughter#1's camp bed lay along the width of our bed, further reducing the space which was pretty limited to start with. The other thing, which is completely out of the control of the hotel, is that the furnishings are befitting of a period property; given that we favour, and are accustomed to, modernity, it took a while to adjust to this form of 'luxury'. All of this said, we swiftly climbed out of this funk and I can honestly say it was the only low point in that whole week.

One of the reasons was because The Elms has a superb, modern kids' club called the Bears' Den; I've always been quite reticent about putting our girls into these types of places, and Daughter#2 – at two – is generally too young for most crèches like this. Not at The Elms, where Ewa, Vicky and Sue had the pleasure of our children's company while we took a lovely afternoon tea (with the hotel's own delicious Abberley tea blend) each of the three days we were there. The girls loved the Bears' Den and were crushed when they had to leave.

Also modern is the Aquae Sulis spa, which has no restrictions on the times kids can use the pool, so the girls loved that. Mrs S took herself off for a massage one day, while I sat in the sun on the terrace doing some writing. I found the whole set-up really conducive to relaxing and unwinding, which I duly did. The gardens at The Elms are lovely also, and unlike other grand houses, aren't off limits for curious kids. In addition to a large sloping lawn, there's a secret garden, play area and tennis courts.

Service wise, across the stay we did receive some little inconsistencies from one day to the next, most of which were just minor irritations more than anything else. Getting peas with the kids' fish and chips meal one day and not getting them the next; having a slice of cucumber in my Hendricks and tonic one day and not the next; getting talked through the breakfast buffet and egg options each of the three days, by the same waiter, in a hotel with fewer than 30 rooms even though he recognised us and acknowledged me by name; signing for our meal in the Pear Terrace on the last night and realising that we hadn't signed for anything else the entire time we were there. That sort of thing. Whilst nothing individually disastrous, they were basics we expected a £300 per night hotel to get right without making us even notice them.

On the Friday we took a drive to Great Malvern, with the intention of walking into the hills. That didn't happen, mainly because we spent so much time wandering, slack-jawed, around the town itself, marvelling at how well preserved the town is, and also at how well it has maintained – mostly – a focus on independent retailers (Worcester take note). Even a high street chain like WHSmith has been here, in the same spot, for decades and retains features from yesterday such as the mosaic picture below. We bought bits and pieces for the house from Ipaetus Gallery and had a picnic in the serene Rose Bank gardens, marvelling at the views across the Midlands and the cascading town tiered below us. I think it's fair to say that I did rather fall for Malvern in a big way that day.


Source: MJA Smith

The following day we headed for the Cotswolds, an area I seldom visited enough as a child but where I have had many, many happy times with Mrs S since. We started our mini-tour at Broadway, spending far too much time and money at Cotswold Trading until the pull of having a cup of tea in the sunshine outside The Broadway Hotel was too great. From there we drove through the countryside to Bourton-on-the-Water (cheating slightly here as it's in Gloucestershire), possibly unwise given its status as a tourist hotspot; we were also running out of time, so literally stopped there for lunch at The Croft, where we sat on their sun-drenched terrace and observed the combination of arty types and foreign holidaymakers passing by. The Croft has a really good, simple menu, and also offers good, healthy choices for kids.

The following day, after checking out, we drove along the road to Witley Court, a ruined house and lakeside garden destroyed by fire in the 1920s (was burning down the house a past-time on this stretch of road in the early part of the last Century I wonder?). Managed by English Heritage, I found the sight of an historic property gutted by flames strangely moving, while the girls loved the adventure of exploring the hollowed-out rooms, spotting the fireplaces halfway up walls where formerly the upper storeys would have been. To add insult to the house's injury, prior to the fire, all of the major fittings and fixtures were stripped and sold by the then owners.


Source: Google Images search

One of the core attractions of Witley Court is its fountains. To complete this sad tale of a mournful building, the piping used to pump water to the main fountain was removed during the second World War, presumably to be melted down for weaponry. Since refurbished, the fountain is now in full working order and is demonstrated at set intervals in the day; the central plume of water is capable of shooting a majestic 100ft into the air. No trip to an historic property would be complete without a trip to the tea shop, which is here attached to the remarkably-undamaged church which adjoins the main Witley Court house. Fine home-made cakes and scones ensued before setting off for home.

That completed the second leg of our staycation. It left me feeling like we'd only scratched the surface of Worcestershire's rich spoils, but at least it managed to redefine my – false – impressions of the county. Thank you, Eyjafjallajökull for serendipitously allowing that to happen.

Staycation (Part 1)

Source: Business Week

I was sat at work two days before setting off for Portugal with Mrs S and the girls when a colleague came in and pointed out that we might not be travelling after all thanks to the cloud of volcanic ash drifting toward the UK from the erupting Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. In my usual, news-oblivious way, I hadn't heard anything about it. 'Don't worry,' he said, seeing my look of concern. 'It should be clear by the time you're flying.'

My colleague's news awareness alone was of course not the same as being able to see the future, and by the time our flight to Portugal was scheduled to leave – 8.25 on the Saturday morning – the punitive restrictions on UK airspace had already led to our flights being cancelled, but only after a day of nail-biting concern as to whether we'd have been notified of the cancellation the day before, or whether we would be among the mugs you saw on TV waiting anxiously at the airport for interminable hours anticipating news that wouldn't come; the idea of doing that with two toddlers couldn't have filled me with more dread.

By the end of that Friday evening, Mrs S had already scoured the web and booked alternatives for our break. A day later than we'd been scheduled to depart for the Algarve, we were on our way to Canary Wharf for two nights at the Radisson at New Providence Wharf.

The Radisson New Providence Wharf is a hotel that we've become very familiar with, having stayed here – both with the girls and without – numerous times over the past couple of years. A suite here provides very good value for money for the amount of space you get – a main bedroom, a lounge with fold-out sofa bed for our eldest daughter and plenty of room for a travel cot for our youngest.


Source: MJA Smith

As with any stay in London, the hotel is largely just a base from which to go exploring, and that's exactly how we treated it this time around. Within half an hour of having checked in we were sat in Jubilee Park (above Canary Wharf Tube station), gazing up at the sleek glass curtain walls of the office buildings and eating a picnic in the sunshine. From there, a Tube ride to Baker Street and a wander to Marylebone High Street where we browsed the Conran Shop and Mrs S and Daughter#1 bought bits and pieces from Cath Kidston. A sleeping Daughter#2 and I sat in the Garden Of Rest opposite, a small oasis of tranquillity amidst the clamour of nearby Marylebone Road.

Further down Marylebone High Street Daughter#1 and I bought old postcards of London and a book called Pen Paper Pause by Richard Watkins at a pretty store called Caroline & Friends, before purchasing Lauren Child books in Daunt. Daunt, an independent bookshop, has a beautiful stained glass window on the back wall and a great range of travel books in the gallery upstairs and basement. While Mrs S and Daughter#1 hit the Little White Company shop, I found a rare Inspiral Carpets 12" single in the Oxfam next door. It was an afternoon of turning up such treats.


Source: MJA Smith

From Marylebone High Street to Hyde Park, escaping the touristy clamour of Oxford Street in favour of Wigmore Street, though still finding ourselves crossing Hyde Park Corner along with everybody else. It was no surprise that the park was busy with the obligatory sunbathers and footie-playing lads, given that it was a warm Spring Sunday afternoon. The girls ran about while we had a much-needed rest. Again missing Oxford Street via a walk along Grosvenor Square, we caught the Tube from Bond Street back to Canary Wharf and had a poor Wagamama experience in Jubilee Place, including Daughter#1 barely eating, me throwing food down my t-shirt and after 20 minutes of waiting, the discovery that the waiter had forgotten to order my yasai chilli men; when it finally arrived it was so spicy I fully expected to pass out eating it. But he did deduct it from the bill.

The following morning we walked from the hotel to Canary Wharf and had breakfast in Kruger at Cabot Square; it wasn't cheap and the service was a bit off, but the food was nice. From there we caught the DLR to Island Gardens to pass under the Thames using the Foot Tunnel into Greenwich. The lift was working on the North bank, but not the South, which meant I had to lug our buggy up the stairs – I lost count of how many there were after about forty, but the burly lift operator on the North bank reckoned gruffly there were 'about 'undred'.

We hadn't been to Greenwich before, but it lived up to all the expectations we'd built up from people who had told us about it, and, if we hadn't had plans for the afternoon, I'm sure we'd have stayed there for longer. Instead we made a beeline for the park, had a drink at Cow And Coffee Bean and let the girls have a run around in the kids' play area. As if dragging the buggy up the steps from the Foot Tunnel wasn't exhausting enough, pushing said stroller up the hill to have a picnic at the top very nearly did me in, but it was worth it for the views across Canary Wharf and the City alone.

That afternoon, we took the sleek and graceful Thames Clipper to Bankside Pier and visited the fifth floor of the Tate Modern, figuring that the displays of Cubist, Vorticist and Futurist art would appeal to the imagination of two toddlers, and were proven correct. Daughter#1 loved the Warhols, Ruschas and Lichtensteins, whereas Daughter#2 gravitated worryingly close to the sculptures until a packet of raisins persuaded her back into her stroller.


(c) 1984 Ed Ruscha

We headed back to the hotel via the Cafe Rouge at Hays Galleria, which is a reasonably safe bet for kids' food, and Tower Bridge. Tower Bridge with a stroller from the South Bank requires a lengthy detour along Tooley Street, which is almost as long as the walk across the bridge itself. But it does offer some great views along the length of the bridge.

On the Tuesday we schlepped across to Covent Garden and were there before things really got underway at 10.00. With the sun shining and few people around (compared to normal), such parts of the West End are so much more alluring than they are at busy times, giving you space to appreciate the architecture and elegance of the area without constantly bumping into other people engaged in either the frenetic act of getting somewhere or just ambling about cluelessly.

Source: Fopp website

We passed Kiefer Sutherland on Earlham Street en route to Fopp. Fopp used to be an independent record shop until it went bust and was salvaged by HMV. The Earlham Street store has kept the Fopp branding, and also the more liberal-minded approach to its stock compared to its more universal parent. I bought CDs by Brian Eno and Television; for Mrs S it was Grizzly Bear and Ed Harcourt. For Daughter#1 it was just fun to look at the CD cases and picking out the ones she liked the look of.

A dash back across the Jubilee Footbridge to the London Eye brought us sharply into touristville, but mercifully our pod on the Eye was almost empty. Mrs S and I had been once before, on a cloudy Autumn morning. On this April Tuesday it was bright and sunny – and plane-less, naturally – which allowed for far better views than we'd had before. The experience of seeing the whole of London laid out was only marred by Daughter#2's insistence on tearing around the pod and having a major terrible toddler tantrum; the two combined caused me to experience vertigo for the only time in my life so far.

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Source: unknown

So, that concludes part one of our unexpected staycation in the UK, and a trip to London that included more traditional (child-friendly) tourist haunts than I'd normally elect to go to. Okay, so it wasn't as relaxing as Portugal would have been, but that's to be expected when you go to London.

Travelodge, Hayle

Go to: Audio Journal :: Documentary Evidence :: twitter.com/mjasmith



I don't think I understand the concept of 'no frills'. My understanding was that a no frills service or product retained the usefulness and core functionality of a more expensive equivalent, but did away with any unnecessary add-ons or peripheral additions. Think Ikea furniture versus Habitat – often very similarly-styled items only made of materials that perhaps won't endure quite so long, but in essence designed to fulfil the same principal use.

We stayed at a Travelodge at Hayle in Cornwall when visiting my niece in Penzance at the weekend which has turned my comprehension of a no frills service on its head. I've stayed in a Travelodge near Heathrow once before, and endured a thoroughly miserable night's sleep owing to the comings and goings of noisy travellers along the corridor throughout the night. However, that was pre-credit crunch and the corresponding rise in popularity of brands such as Travelodge and Premier Inn. I figured, mistakenly, that with that rise in popularity had come a rise in standards; more basically, I assumed that the Heathrow experience was just the product of its proximity to the UK's foremost airport, not a damning indictment of the chain per se. This trip wasn't our main holiday, and with a scarcity of accommodation around Penzance catering for families with small children, plus those hotels that did having family room rates of around £120 per night, we decided to go for the Travelodge at Hayle where the total stay for three nights was around £125.

Travelodge's ethos, according to the creased and stained literature in the room, is to make you feel better off, and in this regard they succeeded. And judging by the prevalence of Audis and BMWs in the car park it's a marketing strategy that's paying dividends. Paying for three nights what I'd have paid for one elsewhere was of course a big saving, and I did feel like I could afford to spend more generously elsewhere. I didn't; I decided that I'd do similarly uncharacteristic things like go to McDonald's for breakfast and stopping at a Harvester on the way home. Perhaps that makes me sound like a snob. Perhaps I am.



It's the sheer basicness, if that's a word, of the place that first surprised me. The furniture and set-up was nothing short of utilitarian – a simple desk, some hanging space for clothes, some open shelves and a bed, plus a sofa bed for our eldest daughter and plenty of floor space for our youngest daughter's travel cot. The bathroom, though tiny, had a decent shower. It was clear from the layout and lack of ornament that the room was designed to serve one solitary purpose, and that was for sleeping. You wouldn't – couldn't – choose Travelodge for a romantic break. Sleeping is really all we did there; we'd get back from my sister's house and go to bed, get up, get clean and get out. With only a curiously over-priced to-the-door breakfast available we were out early as well. I wonder if it's still cheap if you work out how much it costs per minute you're actually prepared to be in the room.

Still, so far, no major gripes. We saved money and slept, if not well, then at least enough to be able to start the day with at least a vague sense of feeling refreshed; also, the room seemed clean, but then again the carpet was of such a nauseatingly dense Seventies pattern that you'd have been hard pressed to tell. But there were some things which were beyond basic, and were instead just plain wrong. First, the bed had no support and left Mrs S – who hasn't got the best back at the best of times – feeling all sorts of aches and pains; the duvet cover was literally the same size as the bed, which meant – because of the inadequate storage heater (on all day, off all night) that we spent the night in a perpetually chilly duvet tug of war with one another; the duvet cover itself was open down one side; the mattress cover on the sofa bed was torn and hole-ridden and there were some dubious stains on the mattress itself; the back of the sofa bed literally came apart when I tried to make it up; towels were thin and threadbare; the sink had a crack in it; the room, in spite of being non-smoking, smelled of a combination of decades-old fags and contained a faint whiff of damp dog etc etc. Need I go on? Getting the picture?

It is possible, through staying at a Travelodge, to deduce what the chain must believe to be the 'frills' we can live without, and whether you agree or not that's tough. For example, a lock on the toilet door? No need. Buttons down the side of the duvet cover? Superfluous. Toiletries? Bring your own, cheapskate. Curtain hooks along the full length of the curtain rail? Come on, they close don't they? Quit complaining. You get what you pay for.

The last point is, I suppose, crucial: you get what you pay for. Michael O'Leary of Ryanair is the most prominent exponent of the 'pay peanuts, expect shit' mantra. We paid less than a third of the price for three nights that you'd pay at somewhere like The Soho in London for a single night, a place whose rooms are so stuffed with frills of all shapes and hues that you could be mistaken for thinking you were sleeping in a large doily. But that's really what I want from a hotel. Well, maybe not doilies, but hopefully you get the picture. We all deserve a little luxury when we travel, I say. I don't want to stay somewhere that's less luxurious than my own house. Sorry if that's not the credit crunch spirit.

If I've learned one thing from this stay, it's 'pay more, get more', and that's exactly what I'll be doing next time.

The Roter Ochse, Heidelberg

Go to: Audio Journal :: Documentary Evidence :: twitter.com/mjasmith

Source: Zum Roten Ochsen website

'I really want a proper German meal this evening,' announced Martyn as we boarded the train at Frankfurt Airport headed for a couple of days of meetings in Heidelberg.

Cruising toward Mannheim Hauptbahnhof on the plush and punctual Deutsche Bahn ICE service, ruthlessly efficient as most things German tend to be, I contemplated the prospects of actually finding anything to eat on a menu which to misquote Henry Ford, allows you to have anything you want to eat, so long as it's meat. Perhaps, I thought to myself, I'd suggest just heading downstairs to the Marriott restaurant where I knew the menu would be slightly more accommodating.

At the Marriott Heidelberg reception Martyn asked if the concierge could recommend a good traditional German restaurant in the town. He suggested a place which made Martyn's face light up – a good restaurant that brewed its own lager on the premises. What the hell? I thought. After all, the last time I was in Germany was 1994 and I figured they must have embraced vegetarian dishes by now.

After sitting on our posteriors all day in various planes, trains, taxis and meeting rooms, we decided it would be a nice idea to take a brisk walk to the restaurant, perhaps seeing a bit of Heidelberg while we were there, rather than just ferrying ourselves between hotel and meetings like we'd usually do. The concierge handed us a map, drew the route with a Biro and told us it would probably take about half an hour to walk, so off we strolled food-wards, along a wide boulevard dominated by nineteenth century architecture with subtle Gothic details and interspersed with sleek modern hotels.

Along Hauptstrasse in the old town we commented how well they had integrated modern store fronts with the old buildings and tried to avoid feeling disappointed at the prevalence of brands we'd be used to on high streets in the UK and feeling somewhat surprised to see two brands we regard as defunct (Woolworths and C&A) still open for business.

Further along Hauptstrasse the modern shops were replaced by more classically old German pubs and restaurants, any sleek and trendy places standing out as incongruously as our attempts at pidgin German to ask directions when we acknowledged we didn't have a clue where we were supposed to be heading, the map suddenly offering no clues and the wan glow from the street lamps making it nigh on impossible to read it anyway,

With every seemingly traditional German gasthaus that we passed, and with growing appetites, Martyn would growl 'If this place we're heading to is modern, we're going to that place,' and as we rounded the corner finally into Leyergasse and saw the place we'd been recommended, all bright lights and atmosphere denuded of tradition we backtracked and ducked into the Roter Ochse, whose signage proclaimed that it had been built in 1703.

The signage also said that this was a traditional student pub, which initially brought back uncomfortable memories of the Union bar at university, though this was dispelled almost instantly when we opened the door and the sound of a raucous piano sing-along filled our ears. We took the end of a table, taking in the low ceiling and walls, every inch cluttered with photos, memorabilia and all manner of other ephemera from the pub's past.

Over a couple of local beers we perused the simple printed menu, finding to my horror that acceptance of vegetarians hadn't progressed that much in fifteen years. We ordered some potato soup, and I found the singular meat-free dish on the menu (a rich mushroom stew with a single dumpling and pickled side-salad), both of which were full of rustic flavour. As we talked and put the world to rights, the pianist, Rudi, rested his newly-refreshed steiner on the top of the ancient upright piano and hammered out a combination of familiar German songs and Broadway show tunes, occasionally leading his friends at the front of the pub to engage in rapturous baritone singing. Every time he picked up his beer and headed back toward his friends, one hand signalling very clearly that he was done playing, grunts of dissent made him head back to the stool, grinning, clearly enjoying his moment in the spotlight.

The music and sporadic laughter, combined with a place more full of character than I think I've ever been to before, leant the place a conviviality that I suppose I wasn't expecting when we set of for the town that night. As we left, at a relatively respectable 10.30, we realised that we were the only customers left. Apologising to the landlord, we found ourselves being told about the history of the Roter Ochse. Amazingly in this world where tradition is all too often usurped by commercial ambition and the seductive nature of the profit margin and the bottom line, we discovered from Philipp Spengel that the pub had been in the same family for six generations since it had opened.

The history is well documented on the pub's website, but by way of short précis, the Spengel family ownership of the Roter Ochse began with the purchase of the premises by Albrecht Spengel in September 1839, and became a firm favourite among students under the stewardship of Albrecht's son Carl; later, as other descendants took the reins the guest book was filled by numerous luminaries from the arts world and science disciplines. For us, it was just a great place to eat, drink and talk.

Sated, both in terms of sustenance and ambiance, we headed back to the hotel, pausing briefly to consider getting a cab before agreeing to hit the pavements again instead.

A London Saturday

Go to: Audio Journal / twitter.com/mjasmith


Source: www.all-hotels.com

This post comes to you from the Radisson Edwardian New Providence Wharf Hotel after a long day spent trekking the mad streets of our capital with my wife and two daughters, all three of whom, incidentally, are fast asleep. M has just fallen face-first into today’s Times but I’ve whisked it out from her just in time to prevent newsprint transferring amusingly verbatim to her skin.

The occasion is that M and my eldest daughter are off to see Disney Princesses On Ice at the O2 tomorrow, and we thought we’d make a weekend of it. We’ve stayed at the Radisson Edwardian before, and its location is ideal for the O2 (you can see that squat arachnid-esque form just across the water) and Docklands generally. Plus it’s good value: we’re staying in a suite for no other reason than it gives the girls their own room, and it will set us back a reasonable £199, with breakfast included. Not bad.

My TomTom didn’t think so on the way down. Many a time will I rue being too miserly to upgrade the map software, for the postcode to the couple-of-years old Radisson isn’t in the version I have, and I only found this out to my detriment on the way down. Consequently the journey here involved travelling down both sides of the Blackwall Tunnel and me getting extremely stressed every time the landmark building next door to the hotel receded further into the distance.

We had no sooner dropped our bags in our room than we set off for Canary Wharf whereupon we enjoyed a simple, fussless meal in Café Rouge. Nothing special, but always good for the kids. I had quiche champignons, which was a touch too rich, while M and the girls all had fishcakes which were thirst-inducingly salty.

It’s been a clear, fresh day in the capital today with not a cloud in sight, which made for perfect conditions for inching slowly around the West End along with everyone else. We took the Jubilee Line as far as we could thanks to engineering works, alighted as the train terminated at Waterloo, then took the Golden Jubilee Bridge to Charing Cross, past the skateboard graveyard occupying one of the concrete bridge supports and on to Trafalgar Square, Haymarket and Piccadilly Circus. All major tourist haunts of course, but the girls loved it, and I found the buggy pretty useful for carving my way through the hordes of slow-moving tourists. If anyone reading this was on Regent Street at about 4.00 PM and is nursing a sore ankle from someone ramming their pushchair into your legs, that was my fault, but I’ll stop short of apologising.


Source: Diggers Abroad / Flickr

Just off Regent Street is a small, serene little arcade of individual shops called Quadrant Alley, where right now – and until February – you will find a funky little pop-up shop for all things Marmite. Though we didn’t venture upstairs, it sounds like there is some sort of ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ type exhibition thing going on up there. As we were buying our Warhol-esque Marmite plates, fridge magnets and postcards (such suckers for needless ephemera we are), the cashier asked me if I loved Marmite or hated it. Saying that I liked it, for I do, earned me a big ink stamp on the brown paper bag showing the world my Marmite-loving credentials. She asked the same question of S, my fussy three-year old eldest daughter, and was greeted with the wrinkled nose and sour expression of distaste that toddlers are so often to be found proffering.


Source: http://www.marmite.co.uk/

From there we edged our way to Hamley’s, which we’d built up into a massive thing for the girls, and which – on a busy Saturday on the approach to Christmas – was a waste of time. I waited fifteen minutes for a lift, only to emerge out onto the third floor (girls toys) where I couldn’t actually move. I spent longer trying to get to the floor than I spent looking at toys, and besides, S was too bewildered by the sheer volume of people to actually enjoy it anyway. Far better it seems to eschew the touristy crush of Hamley’s in favour of your local Toys R Us, where you can actually breathe, and where everything is at least 10% cheaper.

Seeking to escape the madness of Regent Street, we ducked into Fouberts Place and thence to Carnaby Street, the two interconnecting homes of the sixties Mod menswear revolution whose mad, hippyish Christmas lights put the staid minimalist grandeur of those on Regent Street to shame. A pavement table at a Starbucks on Great Marlborough Street offered solace, hot chocolate, a chance to rest four pairs of weary feet and a great view of Centre Point and a mural on the side of one of the buildings.


Source: MJA Smith

Taxis often offer the best views of London, and so it was with the cab we caught from Soho to Canary Wharf, whose route treated us to views of some familiar London sights – St. Paul’s, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London – and some of my personal favourite buildings along High Holborn, including the Waterhouse masterpiece Holborn Bars, built as the headquarters of the Prudential.


Source: EZTD / Flickr