Where is Phil now?

Edinburgh

Monday 09 September 2013 – Edinburgh.

One of my key regrets from when I lived in London in the mid 1980s was not seeing much of the greater UK, and this is something I really want to address now I am living here again. Scotland has always been on my must visit list and this weekend El and I took an introductory trip over the border and visited Edinburgh. I have to caveat this by mentioning that El has been here many times before, it is only me that has been slack.

We took the train from Kings Cross station on Saturday morning, the journey takes four and a bit hours and passes through a number of places I want to visit in England – York, Durham and Newcastle, before crossing the border at Berwick. It was a pretty cool journey, and so cool to be heading into the unknown and a new adventure.

We had a room in the Travel Lodge near the station and were very fortunate to be on the top floor, which was pretty much the only floor with a view…. And the view was over towards the castle and the Royal Mile – fabulous.

Fortunately the room was available though we were a couple of hours early for check in and we were able to drop our bags off before heading out for a first explore of the city – after a monstrous lunch in a small touristy noodle bar. My first impressions of a rainy downtown Edinburgh were WOW! The ‘old’ part of the city has been so well preserved, it is quite busy, with a lot of tourists and and I imagine a fair number of Edinburgh locals shopping in the posh shops in the area as well. I am a sucker for a town with steep cobbled streets, steps, small alley ways and hidden views that pop out at you if you keep your eyes open as you walk past. Sadly the weather didn’t really play ball and we had a few showers as we walked down past Cow Gate and along the Royal Mile to the centre of Scottish Government at Holyrood.

When the showers took a wee respite we decided to take a quick trip up the old volcanic mound of Arthur’s Seat, which was our planned objective for the afternoon. The views over Edinburgh were spectacular and when the sun was out it was quite warm up there.

Calton Hill

The Edinburgh Tattoo had just finished at the castle so sadly the view was partially blocked by all the temporary seating.

It was looking like rain so we took a hurried trip back down and slipped the rough path and twisted a knee which ended up in a very sore back on the final day, thankfully not serious but it did mean for a slow day on the Monday.

It started raining quite heavily as we walked back up the Royal Mile so we ended up taking a break from the rain in a little pub and talking whisky with a couple of Danish men, one who comes to Scotland every year to sample and buy whisky. Surprisingly we only had one whisky each the entire weekend – actually that should probably read ‘shockingly we had only one whisky all weekend!’

Once the rain had stopped we walked back to the hotel and I shot a few photos out of the window before we went out that most traditional of Scottish meals – a curry…

Arthur’s Seat.

More of the back of the Royal Mile.

Sunday was bright and sunny and we were out the door fairly promptly and on the hunt of coffee and food. We passed the Scot Monument before the climb to the top was open.

We walked back up towards the Royal Mile again anticipating that the heavily touristed areas would be the best location to find breakfast and we soon found a nice cafe (which we returned to on Monday) for breakfast.

After breakfast we walked up the Royal Mile towards Edinburgh Castle and I found the first of many “Rebus” locations. Fleshmarket Close. I am huge fan of Ian Rankin’s John Rebus novels, most of which are set in Edinburgh and it was interesting to see so many places from the novels.

There were lots of other alleys to explore off the side of the Royal Mile as well.

The Edinburgh Festival is centred in this lovely old church, whose name I did not write down !

Out first stop for the day was the Camera Obscura up near the castle (in the top of the white tower) the camera was installed in the building in the 1850’s . The view from the top was fantastic and the camera obscura was really cool.

We were going to visit the castle, thinking that mid-morning would still be too early for the bulk of the other tourists, but the queue for tickets was massive – and there was not one single person waiting for the pre-booked tickets so we decided to flag the castle today and book tickets for tomorrow. I think a wise decision.

We wandered down the side of the castle down towards the Grassmarket where I found the best record shop in the world. They had coffee and records and posters and places to sit and enjoy music. Fantastic, a pity the staff had no interest in us as customers – and we were the only ones. Coffee was good though !

Grassmarket is a very cool area of shops and cafes, sort of hip on the fringes, but open and tidy and nice old buildings. I liked it.

We wandered up a side street looking for Greyfriars Bobby. The story has it that Bobby spent 14 years guarding his late owner, the night watchman, John Gray’s grave in Greyfriars Church yard after he died in 1858. True or not it is a cool story and has made the church very popular with tourists…

Even though it was a last resting place for plague victims.

The highlight of a very packed and pleasure filled Saturday was lunch at The Witchery, one of Edinburgh’s top eateries and being very smart El had booked us a table when we first decided to visit the town. The lunch was hugely enjoyable, food was good, wine was great and the company perfect.

After lunch we wobbled – with full bellies, not drunken legs ! Back down the valley for a wee afternoon rest in the hotel. We passed by this trio outside the art gallery and for a change I actually did not hate the sound of the pipes, maybe my ears were a little drunk… anyway, these guys actually sounded pretty good.

I took a few more photos out of the window, though the massive blue skies we had in the morning had given way again to clouds.

In the evening we took a walk up Calton Hill and it’s famous Grecian style national monument.

We had a walk around all the weird and wonderful collection of monuments and were about to settle in to look at the view when the rain came down and we huddled under a tree while we waited for the shower to pass. El had of course wisely brought a rain coat while I had looked at the clouds, though they looked like rain and did nothing about it. Luckily she shared. Yes, there is a weird colour cast in these shots – and no I cannot be bothered editing them out – sorry!

After the rain we wandered down from the hill, past the old parliament building.

We were going to visit the Robert Burns memorial but it was closed so we turned round and headed back into town.

We found this cake, left by the rubbish bins behind a hotel – I guess it may have a sad story behind it (it says ‘well done Grant and Steff’).

We popped into a supermarket and bought some cheese and fruit to munch on for a light tea and went back to our room to watch bad telly. It was a good day !

On Monday morning El woke with a really sore back and by the time we packed and checked out was in a bit of pain. We decided to visit the castle anyway as we had purchased tickets, though we did go via the same cafe as yesterday and I lingered over a good sized breakfast 🙂

We walked up to the castle again and again there was a massive queue for tickets but no-one at the pre-purchased ticket machine, so we were inside pretty quickly. I did not really enjoy the castle, El was in pain and there were a lot of people about, it was very pretty and the views were great, but I just wasn’t feeling it. We saw most places but did not linger too long and after a hellish queue to see the Scottish crown jewels we wandered off again.

El had really seized up by now so we decided to see if we could find an early train back to London. We were booked on the overnight sleeper with El going straight to the office the next day, but that was not going to be a good option and thankfully we were able to get seats on an earlier train.
One of the main reasons we were going to Edinburgh was to meet my friend Alex and his partner who were here from NZ as part of a larger trip. We had arranged to meet them for dinner that night, but really sadly I had to cancel it and head home.

I (we) really enjoyed Edinburgh, it is a cool little city and one I am already looking forward to re-visiting!

A day trip to Brighton

Thursday 29 August 2013 – Brighton.

Wow, another month has almost gone and I am still unemployed in London. I have had one interview since last writing though in the end this did turn into a job – oh well, such is life and all that. Just to let you know, I am actually doing OK with this. I have my moments of doubt that I will ever get a job, but I did know it was going to be tough and take some time. I am pretty happy though, so no need to worry.

Not working does mean I get to get out and about when I am asked and today was my first trip out of London for a couple of weeks. Photographer buddy Steve had a few days off work so we decided to head down to Brighton and have a wander around, sample a couple of ales and take some photos.

I liked Brighton, this time I saw a bit more of it than when I was down there last September. The main downtown area is very orientated to tourism, with some cool markets with some interesting shops.

There is quite a few big murals around the market area and I have put most of these on a separate street art post on my Photos by Phil blog. But I had to include one or two, and these cassettes are just everywhere.

Just behind the shops I found this small scooter chained to the side of a house – weird…

The light was savage so I did not end up taking too many photos, plus I had visited the pier last time I was down so though it was of the key sights in Brighton we decided not to visit it.

We did take a walk along the beach.

And walked around the outside of the totally bizarre Pavilion. It was built in the early 1800’s and has to be one of the more unusual buildings in the UK.

Back into town again we walked down some of the narrow alley ways that run through the old part of town, before stopping for a cooling ale or two before catching the train back up to London.

Though we did not visit this pub with its cool mural up near the station.

It was another good day out, but sadly I was not feeling particularly photographically inspired so ended up taking less than I should have. It is only an hour by train.

This weekend El and I are off to Edinburgh, I hoping I get some photo mojo back then as I have been really looking forward to this trip !

Brighton

I have started a second blog

Friday 23 August 2013 – London.

As I have stopped travelling for a while and my sight seeing of London and the UK is a bit sporadic I have decided to start a second blog that I can use to document my interest in street art and the other bits and pieces of modern London that I see that are really outside the original purpose of Wheres Phil.

The blog is called Photos By Phil and its address is photosbyphilplatt.wordpress.com. Someone else has the photosbyphil address but disappointingly has not done anything with it ! It is linked off somewhere to your right.

So, from now on this blog will focus back on all my sight seeing and travelling and that sort of thing.

Cheers

Phil

A quick trip to Cambridge.

Wednesday 14 August 2013 – Cambridge.

One of the good things about not working is that I do get to go and visit place like Cambridge during the week, and while it was still busy it was not stupid busy. For me this is a very good thing. Seeing as I have touched on the subject of employment I may as well provide a status update. No change. Still no job….

Back to more interesting things. I had arranged to meet up with Sanjeev in his new home town of Cambridge for a wee tour before catching up with another Africa trip colleague, Jackie later in the afternoon.

I took the direct train from Kings Cross and it was only a 45 minute trip, fast, smooth and very on time.

Sanjeev met me at the station and we walked into the centre of Cambridge, as Sanjeev had a bike I decided I would rent one as well and we could ride out of town and visit Madingley Hall, just because it looked nice !

The bike I rented was the smoothest riding push bike I have ever rented, it rode like a dream. Madingley Hall is about five miles out of town and it was a nice country ride on roads that were not too busy.

The hall is now owned by the Universities of Cambridge and there was a function inside so we could not go in which was a shame, the oldest part of the building was started in 1543. It was pretty cool.

Weirdly there was a Buddha figure outside, cool.

Along with this grotesque- which I thought was quite cool too.

It was a lovely spot, very peaceful and calm, one of the pleasures of not being in London !

We rode back into town and down the far side of the River Cam to the town, past the ‘backs’, which is the name given to the backs of the famous colleges on the other side of the river. There were of course a bunch of punts out on the river.

St Johns College (I think, stupidly I did not write the names down!)

Kings College

The Mathematical Bridge

We had a bit of time to kill before we met up with Jackie so we visited the Round Church.

We met Jackie and had a bit of walk around the main streets, we were going to visit Kings College Chapel but there was a 7pound fee and we didn’t have the time to make it worthwhile.

So we did what all true English people do and went to the pub! The Eagle is one of the oldest pubs in Cambridge, dating back to the 1300’s. In far more modern time Watson and Crick used to drink here while unravelling the mysteries of DNA. I guess most places in the old part of Cambridge have an interesting history.

I had to leave after a pint and did not get to catch up with Vaishali who arrived just after I left. It was great to catch up with Sanjeev and Jackie again and I am really looking forward to a bigger Africa reunion in October.

I caught the train back to London and had a panicked time preparing my first tapas for dinner with El in front of the England V Scotland football match.

It was a good day and I am really looking forward to exploring Cambridge again soon.

Columbia Rd flower market.

Sunday 11 August 2013 – Columbia Rd Market.

Sunday was another good walking day and as El had never walked the Lee Navigation tow path that I ran on Wednesday night we decided that today was a good day to do it. El also wanted to visit a market so we decided to add to the walk and start in Shoreditch and visit Columbia Rd flower market on the way.

We up and out fairly early and discovered that the train we were on was not stopping at Bethnal Green station as it cruised on through and kept going all the way to Liverpool St. This made for a slightly longer walk than planned, and I managed to resist any urges to disappear up side streets to snap any street art on the way.

Columbia Rd flower market is incredibly popular and gets really crowded, with both locals buyin flowers and plants and tourists there to see the flowers, stalls and shops and to listen to the rival stall holders with their Cockney accented voices calling “Come on love – 2 for a fiver, lovely peonies “. It is definitely worth experiencing.

Of course as this is the east end and in between Shoreditch and Hackney Rd, there is a wee bit of street art that is just unavoidable ! I did like this sign.

An Alo right next to the market.

After one of the best coffees I have had in London we started the walk up Hackney Rd to the Regents Canal towpath and on back to Walthamstow. Another lovely piece by C215 on Hackney Rd.

It was a long walk and we stopped off for a pint at one of the few canal side pubs on the way. We thought about lunch but food was really expensive, more so than in Highgate yesterday. I am sure the food was delicious, but 6:50 pounds for a burger in a pub on Lea Bridge Rd is a bit steep, even if it was riverside !

Getting up after the pint was a painful experience as both of us suffered from seized up knees and it took a wee while to loosen up again as we walked. Though we did stop for a pretty good roast lunch at The Chequers; a recently renovated pub in Walthamstow market. Apparently Reggie and Ronnie Cray hung out here while they were in hiding from the police back in the 60s.

It was another good, though tiring, day out, a four walk and a couple of pints with El. I definitely cannot complain at that.

No Future – a visit to Highgate Cemetery.

Saturday 10 August 2013 – Ham and High.

The gorgeous weather from earlier in the week continued into the weekend, with mixed cloudy and clear skies and a nice early autumn cool temperature providing the perfect excuse to go outside and do stuff. We have had Highgate Cemetery on the list of things to do for ages and today was the day we finally went and did it.

We took the train to Gospel Oak station and walked up from there, the further north west we ventured from Gospel Oak the posher the surrounding houses became and we were soon walking through the small village near the cemetery entrance and I was eyeing up places to visit for lunch later on… It was all jolly nice as the English would say.

The entrance to the cemetery is up a surprisingly long hill, and I only mean this by London standards, definitely not Auckland standards ! London is just so damn flat any hill is exciting. I may have found a new place to go and run as I really do miss hills, especially a long slow climb. Yes, it is weird…

Highgate Cemetery has two sides, east and west wing, the west wing is only accessible via a 12 pound guided tour so we decided to skip that and just view the east wing which was 4 pound and had the Karl Marx grave – which was its key attraction I guess. I will do a visit to the west wing another day, maybe when it is covered in snow.

The cemetery was initially started in 1839 and expanded over to the east side in 1860. Unlike the majority of cemeteries that are religious based this was purely a commercial entity – and open to all. It was closed in the 1970s when it was no longer profitable and lay in decay for many for years. It is now run by a trust, hence the fee. It is still open for people to be buried there, but there is not much space so I imagine it is not easy. Though there are some well known people here there are also a lot of ‘new’ gravestones of names I do not recognise at all. Some of the more interesting new residents are;

The wonderful author Douglas Adam, who passed away so young in 2001.

And Malcolm McLaren.

The artist Patrick Caufield had the best modern gravestone I have seen.

As I mentioned earlier one of the big ‘attractions’ of Highgate is the grave site of Karl Marx, who has a large memorial on one of the big paths near the entrance.

This is actually a new plot for Karl as further into the cemetery there is an old grave stone and I do wonder why he was moved ? Perhaps to allow for some of his family to be interred with him ? I really hope it wasn’t because the first site was not a big enough memorial.

In the main the cemetery is very overgrown, some areas have been tidied and others are just buried in a tangled mass of weed, ivy and trees. This is one of the key reasons people come here and I would love to revisit in the snow for another look.

We walked back down the hill, past some of the old houses here and then stopped for lunch in the village. The food was not cheap, but it was very very nice !

We decided to walk go home via Hampstead Heath station so popped into the park near Parliament Hill, I definitely will try for a run here sometime soon, a very nice little hill and I can run on the grass as well ! It has a great view of the city of London and there were a lot of people on the top of the hill taking photos and picnicking, we stopped and I took a couple of photos as well.

We carried on down through a small section of the heath, past the ponds and their background of large homes.

Eventually we were out in Hampstead itself, we walked past St Johns Church, finally heading home after a wine in one of the local pubs.

It was another really good day out 🙂

A run too far?

Wednesday 07 August 2013 – London

With Saturdays reasonably successful run in the back of my mind when the weather took a turn for the cooler this week I decided I would check out if I could run from my place in London Bridge up to El’s place in Walthamstow, and meet her when she got home from work.

While we walking around Hackney Wick on Sunday I had looked at some of the maps and found that the canal and River Lee Navigation towpaths (not the River Lea !) were more extensive than I thought and it looked like it was possible to travel from Shoreditch all the way to Walthamstow via the towpaths. I consulted the oracle for all things Google Maps and realised that though it looks an awful long way it is actually only about fifteen kilometres. It was on !

While it seemed like a good idea at the time, looking back on it it was probably not the best idea to do two ‘long’* runs in four days after not having done any running at all for weeks. Conventional training wisdom advises to not increase a run distance or a week’s running total by more than ten percent. Meh – Convention shmention.

I loaded up my pack with a change of clothes, dumped some new music on the MP3 player and headed out the door late in the afternoon, with the intention of arriving at El’s place after an hour and half or so, I mean it was ‘only’ fifteen klicks.

I started off Ok, kept it slow across London Bridge and then up through the city and was in Shoreditch and heading up Bethnal Green Rd after twenty minutes or so and not feeling too bad at all. I had planned to take a few snaps on the way and discovered the one negative on my new bag so far, there is no external pocket for a cellphone – a definite design flaw in my book. When I saw this new Craniowhich was not there on Monday, I had to stop and take a quick shot 🙂

At the end of Bethnall Green Rd I ran up Mares Rd until it hit the Regents Canal towpath, all territory I had roamed before. If you have to run on the seal, then the tow paths are a great place to run – no cars, not too many people – though lots of bikes and a few other runners.

From the towpath I cut through Victoria Park and was into unknown territory, I had a quick consult of one of the many maps thoughtfully provided by the council and made a minor adjustment to the direction I was going (about 90 degrees : ) ) and was soon running on a dirt track beside the roadway in the park. A relief from the constant pounding on tarmac.

Popping out the far side of the park I found the Hertford Union Canal towpath and was soon on my way towards Hackney Wick. This was about halfway and I was starting to struggle a bit, my left hip was playing up, which is not uncommon and I imagine I was limping a little bit as I carried on at a very slow jog.

The Hertford Union Canal makes up one side of Fish Island and the River Lee Navigation another side, I turned left here and was soon into uncharted territory. The river is bordered on one side by Hackney Marshes and on the other side by housing estates. I was tempted to nip off into the playing fields of the ‘marshes’ and run on a softer surface, but really did not want to get lost at this stage.

At one stage the path crosses the river and was a little concerned as my pre-look on Google Maps didn’t show this and I didn’t want to end up on the wrong side of the river, though I did stop to take a photo of a barge moving slowly northwards. Not quite as slowly as I was moving at this stage though!

I had no choice but to carry on and luckily path soon crossed back over the river again and then I was back to familiar territory and into Walthamstow marshes.

My left ankle has long been a problem for me when I run after not running for a while and it started to join my hip in giving me some grief as I worked my way up the side of the canal through the marshes. Fortunately I knew there was only a couple of kilometres left once I left the marshes so I knew I could put up with the pain for a wee while. El and I had been here a few weeks before and I was happy I sort of knew the way, luckily it was actually more straight forward than I thought, though the kilometre or so of very gentle gradient up through the market was pretty bloody awful. I was glad when I finally arrived at my destination, red faced and sweaty – a real sight.

That fifteen km took me almost two hours. The slowest fifteen km on record. I was sore, hot and tired and sort of regretted making the over-eager decision to do it. However, after a shower, food and a couple of pints I was feeling as perky as normal and even better, I had no pain at all the following day. Something good I guess.

I will wait a week before doing it again !

Well maybe a shorter run wont hurt in between…

* OK, I know for some of you two hours is what you do on the way to a long run, but it has been a while !

Yep, Shoreditch again !

Tuesday 06 August 2013 – Shoreditch, London.

Another week, another street art walk in Shoreditch. With the ever changing nature of street art it is always worth checking out what is happening around the streets of Shoreditch. With the street art blogosphere full of stories of new works being painted over the weekend Darryl and I agreed to meet up at Liverpool St and take a lunch time stroll.

I was really keen to check out four new panels from Alex Senna that went up while I was away last week. However, I was already too late, with all four panels blanked out and a new commissioned advert was being painted in their place, damnit. I love street art for its temporariness, but hate it for the same reason!

Darryl and I walked around for a couple of hour, checking out a few of the new pieces as I discovered a few works I had not seen before.

This new work from Vinie and ReaOne is really cool, I really liked the hair made out of their names.

On Blackall St I found a rarely closed shutter with an old Dscreet owl and some Sweet Toof teeth.

And a new mashup from phonebox artist D7606 collaborating with Ben Murphy.

I was really looking forward to seeing this wonderful work from Otto Schade.

Brazillian artist Cranio is back in town and has been pretty prolific, fixing up some old pieces as well as adding a few new ones.

Shok-1 has done a couple of his ‘x-ray’ style pieces, this is definitely my favourite, I would really like to watch one if these being painted as I am intruiged as to how he does it.

As you will know I am a big fan of the work of Jana and JS and had not seen these small stickers before, I have seen larger copies of both of these around Shoreditch and the kneeling Jana is one of my favourite pieces of all.

The more I look around the alleys and doorways of Shoreditch the more work by French artist C215 I find, often these are small pieces tucked out of the way, but they are always worth stopping to look at.

It was a good couple of hours out, I was bummed to have not see the Alex Senna panels, but I have read about some more of is work being completed over the past week so maybe I will get a chance to find some next time.

this was cool !

I have uploaded a bunch more to my Flickr stream.

Street art – Southbank and Leake St

Monday 05 August 2013 – Waterloo.

The weekend just gone saw the Urban Culture Festival at the Southbank Centre, I had other plans so was unable to turn up on the Saturday and Sunday, though I did go for a quick peek on Friday afternoon, though nothing was happening then. Among other activities there was some street art going on so I arranged to meet fellow appreciator Darryl there today.

I got there a bit early and went to have a look at the skate park to see if there was anything happening, but it was dead. I did find a new painting though.

Darryl and I started off at the Southbank Centre and a big new work by Stik. Part of the programme at the weekend was Stik giving a street art class, so after he had finished his painting a bunch of people coloured in the figures. It was pretty cool !

There was some tape art by Ben Murphy.

Around the back of the centre there was work by a few artists, sadly there was a whole load of work going on there when we arrived and it was really hard to get shots on most of the work and impossible for the large Dr Zadok and Spore mural as it was completely fenced off, with a large truck in front to add to the blockage. We did get to full see this 3Dom piece.

But the mural by Captain Kris, Spzero76 and Si Mitchell was hard to photograph in its entirety with the Spzero76 section marred by a large open door.

Dan Kitchener.

Just like in the Dan Kitchener mural it started to rain as we headed over towards the Leake St tunnel by Waterloo station, thankfully it stopped as we got out onto the road side, though it hammered down later on and I was stuck at Southbank for 30 minutes as I waited for it stop enough to run for a bus.

Leake St tunnel was totally different to last time I was there, and the Lost Souls Crew of Captain Kris, Spzero76 and Si Mitchell had been busy there as well.

Dr Zadok and Spore had a mural at the end of the tunnel.

And I also liked these pieces by some artists unknown to me, I am assuming handles.

Core247

Kaes

R5T

It was good to catch up with Darryl and see some new work and we arranged to meet up again tomorrow to see a couple of new works up in Shoreditch – before they were gone…