london – Page 11 – Where is Phil now?

Temples of Mammon

Thursday 03 January 2013 – London.

It was another reasonably fine day so it was a day to get out and explore a bit more of London. I decided to visit Canary Wharf; firstly as I thought it would be quieter on New Years week and secondly it is the centre for a lot of big business and a potential place of any future employment . So it seemed a good time to check it out, plus I have never been on the Docklands Light Railway!

I was completely wrong with “it would be quieter” ! Maybe not completely wrong, but the mall area where the lunch bars are located was just heaving with prople and as chaotic as any mall with New Year sales on. Ugly ! I did have a very nice laksa for lunch at Eat. I have lunched at three different Eats in the past couple of weeks and had three different types of international soup and they have all been pretty good value and very nice indeed. I think I will have a go at making laksa in the next few days.

Canary Wharf is a relatively new development, by that I mean it was built in the last twenty-thirty years and houses a lot of the big banks in its glass towers. From a distance it looks pretty good and it was not too bad close up either. What I like about it the most is rather than stick a whole bunch of modern high rises in the lovely low rise centre of London they have built it a few kilometres away and left the centre with its mainly old stone buildings alone. Wonderful forethought in central planning, something that Auckland City Council totally suck at !

One of the other council initiatives I like is “Boris’s Bikes”, Boris Johnson is the current mayor of London, love him or hate him, but he is into bicycles and was instrumental in the setting up of a hire bike system in London, which is loudly sponsored by Barclays Bank. There are bike racks everywhere and the bikes are cheap(ish) to rent. This is the first time I have seen a full rack.

I had a good walk around the area for an hour or so, it is not large, but it has been well designed and there is plenty of space between the towers and it is surrounded by water, from the Thames and canals. I could work there.

The temples of Mammon !

Back to the Tate Modern !

Wednesday 02 January 2013, London.

Wow, two posts in a row in a supposed period when not much was happening. Not that I did anything particularly post worthy, though I did leave the house with the trusty Canon in my bag and that is always a good start.

I wandered along the South Bank for a bit.

Found one piece of street art, not the most likely place for it, so a pleasant surprise.

And this very cool sculpture called “under the baobab tree”.

Of course a walk along the South Bank has to include a visit to the Tate Modern, and I was pleased to see some things I had missed last time I visited, or the permanent collection had changed a bit.

There are a few nice Picasso’s here and I particularly liked “Bowl of fruit, violin and bottle”.

And “nude woman with necklace”.

While I really enjoy all the carvings and sculptures I have seen in temples and cathedrals I have never been a fan of sculpture in a museum setting. However I did really like this Matisse, I am wondering if it is because of the Picasso influence on my tastes ?

Sadly the weather had turned when I left and I had a damp walk across the Millennium Bridge over the Thames in search of soup for lunch and a train home.

It was another good day !

A new year street art hunt

Tuesday 01 January 2013, London

Posting will be really sporadic for a while, I will only post when I have taken some photos or done anything that is even remotely interesting.

I guess the rolling over of another year, especially the successful rolling over of another year when the world was supposed to end, is worth recording.

New years eve was not exactly riveting, not that the last few have been either! I had been pondering walking down to one of the bridges over the Thames to watch the fireworks, but lost interest as it got closer to midnight and the thought of a forty five minute walk there and back in the cold just was not tempting enough. So I spent the night in as usual, though I did make it to midnight and watched the spectacular ten minute fireworks display on TV.

So, it is another new year, what does it hold for me ? at this stage who knows !

The first day of 2013 was by English winter standards, lovely, clear skies and not too cold – to start with anyway. I decided I had to go out and do something so caught the tube up to central London to watch the London New Year parade. I managed to get an OK spot, though the guy next to me kept up a non-stop inane monologue to his family that finally drove me to leave – and I had headphones on, he was loud too ! As it turned out virtually all my photos were crap, I was shooting at far too low a speed to get anything good and I deleted most of them as soon as I got home. A beginners mistake and I should have known better.

I loved this wee steam truck.

On my way out of the parades route and away from the supposed 500,000 people who came to see it, I came across this marching band getting ready to merge in, they played a more funky style of music to the traditional English style and were quite good.

I had decided to walk home via Portobello Rd.

I had visited there on a rainy Boxing Day to try and find the Rough Trade record store that is a feature in a book I bought myself with some money from my mum (thanks mum 🙂 ), however it had moved. So I did the smart thing and looked up the address this time and found it easily. Unfortunately it was closed !

The second reason I visited the area was to try and find some street art, as the west of London is slowly being gentrified the street art is slowly disappearing and is quite rare. I knew there were a couple of pieces around so was keen to find them, and I found more than I expected, including this lovely wall at Notting Hill, I do not know who the artist is but I loved it.

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Up Portobello Rd I found

A Banksy, yay 🙂

A CODE FC

An Alec Monopoly

A couple of Paul Don Smiths

This one commemorating the slaying of two police women last year.

And some others.

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I enjoyed the hunt, and seeing some of these pieces as I am sure they will not be there for long !

December, well most of it anyway.

27 December 2012 – Kensington, London, England

I have not achieved a lot or taken too many photographs since I arrived in England so I am just going to summarise the whole last three and a bit weeks in one, probably too long, post.

One year ago today I left New Zealand to start my travels, I cannot believe a year has gone so quickly – or that I lasted so long, largely outside my comfort zone. I remember telling people I would blog my travels, but to be perfectly honest I never actually expected to be writing, almost daily, twelve months later.

Until I get back onto the road again, my posting will definitely become more sporadic, unless I do or see something worth recording. I have now accepted that if there is nothing to say then I may as well not say it.

Right where was I…. Oh yep, back at the start of the month.

I had an opportunity to stay in Africa for a bit longer but I wanted to come back to England to see my daughter before she and her boyfriend went to India for three months, just in case I decided to go back to New Zealand while they away and I missed her. They left England on the sixth so I had arranged to meet them in Swindon on the fifth. I was up early on the day and looked out the window and there was snow on the ground – not a lot, but definitely snow, I was very excited !

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Though less so when I got to Dartford train station and had to wait for a train : )

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The trip to Swindon went without a hitch and I met Mel and Dickie at the station. We had lunch in a pub and then went and saw Skyfall, the new James Bond movie, which we all really enjoyed. After the movie Dickie went to a family dinner and Mel and I went to a couple of pubs and had a drink or three and some more food. It was very very nice to see her again and I am so glad I came back in time to catch them before they left. Stupidly I lugged my camera around, but did not take any photos.

The following day I met up with my friends Phil and Kevin. I am moving into Phils room in his flat in Kensington while they are in Sri Lanka until the end of January – taking a long break away from the cold – I don’t blame them. We went for a full day breakfast lunch, I soooooo miss a proper greasy spoon full English, I even ate the black pudding- which was a first!

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The next day I moved into the flat. I have a great large room, with a good working desk, as it is a basement flat I have a garden outside my window which is lovely. I also have a decent spec laptop with a keyboard I can type on, nice to not be using my little travel netbook, though it has been a faithful and fabulous travel companion, plus it had Lightroom on it, and it looks like I was editing photos from the Mono gig !

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Location wise, it is perfect – two hundred metres from Shepherds Bush tube station and an hour stroll into Trafalgar Square. Conveniently it is also close to some friends of mine as well.
I worked out a great little run up Kensington High Street, through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park and back down through Notting Hill. Such famous places ! I am feeling incredibly unfit at the moment, the food, drink and sitting in a truck round Africa has certainly let me get a bit soft round the middle and the runs have been a real struggle. I can barely do an hour, and to think three months ago I did fifty five kilometres…

I have taken a few trips around London, I caught the train up to Camden markets as I needed to get a couple of bits of clothing, but nothing appealed to me there and I left a bit disappointed – mainly in myself as I suck at shopping. I loved the brothel creepers but would never where them. I ended up in the mall near where I live…

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But mainly I walk as much as I can, London is easy to walk around and I need the exercise and want to spend as little as I can. The first week was bitterly cold and a walk up through the royal parks was beautiful but frosty !

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Visited Wellington and his boots.

I wandered up past Buckingham Palace – that place is huge…

Along Whitehall

Past the Institute of Contemporary Arts (it was closed).

And into the National Portrait Gallery, where I visited a really good photography exhibition. I am not normally a fan of portraits, but some of these were excellent. The gallery is just off Trafalgar Square. There are plinths with statues on each of the four corners of the square, the fourth plinth has an ever changing piece on it – and I really liked it !

I have also finally managed to drag myself into New Zealand House to get a certified copy of my passport so I can send all the forms off to NZ to get a replacement to the drivers licence I lost in Laos way back in May! NZ house is possibly the ugliest building in historic central London.

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I also visited Piccadilly circus while I was there.

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I quite often walk up to High St. Kensington, there is an organic coffee shop that I quite like there – and one day I was sitting at a table next to Jimmy Page, the Led Zeppelin guitarist. I should have said hello! I also love the old buildings around Kensington – as well as the rest of London of course.

I love that Denton have been making hats since 1703 !!!

I have also visited the Natural History Museum which was holding an exhibition of the Wildlife Photographer of the year winners works. WOW !! I really did feel inadequate when I saw the work on display. A lot of the pictures were taken on Canon 5d MK2s so maybe it is simple as an upgrade from my MK1 – I wish!
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There was no photography allowed of course, which was cool, but you are allowed to take photos in the rest of the museum. I didn’t really enjoy it that much, lots of dead versions of things I had recently seen running around in the wild, so it was all a bit sterile. I did like the Dodo…

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And dead things in jars.

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And it was good to see an original print of Charles Darwins “The origin of Species”, and of course there was a statue of the great man himself.

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I went to the dinosaur exhibit but it was packed of children and adults wielding prams as dangerous weapons so I got frustrated and left!

I guess time passes this guy quite slowly.

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On the walk back home I passed the Royal Albert Hall.

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And I liked this house with its old and new cars.

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There are so many contrasts around here, old and new, rich and not so rich, English and foreign all mixed up in a big mess that seems to work just fine. I do love it here. When I came to England I really wanted to avoid getting stuck in London again, and damn it I think I will be, I have stopped looking for jobs outside already. This is such a magnetic city.

I was lucky to have some friends from New Zealand here playing tourist for a few days, great to see old friends after time on the road and David is one of my oldest. We went to see Madness at the 02 Arena. It was huge ! I go to lots of gigs but always in small venues, I think this was the biggest place I have been to since I saw U2 at Wembley stadium in 1986 !

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I also haven’t seen Madness since they came to NZ in the very early 1980’s so it was a lot of fun, and they really did put on a good show, marred by appalling sound where we were sitting right up the back.

Apart from seeing Mono – which I will write about separately, I have not done a lot else with my camera. The last couple of weeks have seen leaden grey skies with showers and rain so do not venture to far. I have been trying to get into some sort of working routine with getting up early and sitting at the desk working on the computer, it hasn’t always been successful of course. But it does save me money.

I have applied for seven jobs and not heard a thing from any of the recruiters, it was expected but still disappointing. I am yet to be disheartened though, I will save that for mid-January ! there is not a lot happening on the job front now until after the new year when I will hit it with renewed vigour. I have given myself until I move out of here to find a job and will then re-assess the situation then.

I was going to spend Christmas with family up in Brentwood in Essex, not too far away, but too far when there is no public transport, which is the case on Christmas Day. I was very fortunate to get invited to share Christmas with Pip and Lyall and some other Christmas “orphans” at Pip’s sister place in Chiswick. I used to work with Pip a few years ago and they live about a fifteen minute walk from me. It was a great Christmas and I naturally ate way too much food and enjoyed the red wine a lot as well.

And that pretty much wraps up the last few weeks, and almost 2012 as well.

A wee stroll in the sun – in London !

Day 262, Saturday 22 September 2012 – London

A much better sleep was had last night and I took the opportunity to doze for a little bit before having breakie in bed and a session on Skype with a friend back in NZ.

It is a lovely day today and with rain forecasted for the rest of the week ahead I took the opportunity to head out for the day with the intention to see some of London’s parks and meet Elias, an old friend from my Richmond days in the mid-eighties.

I walked down to Dartford town centre, past the local – I will try it out before I leave 🙂

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And then strolled through the market, it was busy but uninspiring – maybe an unfair call on Dartford market as markets are not my thing anymore – I have seen too many! The highlight, which I did not take a photograph of, was a stall blasting out and selling reggae CD’s, in a seemingly white middle aged suburb it was rather incongruous – good luck to them!

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I took the train into London, I was going to pick up a tube to Tottenham Court Rd and check out some of the camera shops for some pricing for future reference. However, the line was closed from Charing Cross so I alighted there and went straight to Trafalgar Square – which was on the plan for the day anyway.

What wasn’t on the plan was the National Gallery – it should have been ! I really enjoyed my time walking though the gallery – sadly no photos allowed, but I did sneak a quickie of Leonardo De Vinci’s “The virgin and child with St Anne and St John the Baptist” from 1500.

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Wow ! I have never been a De Vinci as an “artist” fan (ignorance ), much preferring art from the turn of the 20th century. However this drawing blew me away, the detail was stunning and I just loved it. Definitely my favourite piece from the gallery; a massive call given some of the works there. Another big call is – I enjoyed this more than the Louvre, it is smaller and simpler, but it does have a different focus so unfair to compare I guess.

What did I like? Seurat’s “Bathers at Asniers” – I love that painting, awesome to see it in the flesh. It was also great to see some nice Signac, Pissaro and Monet. My favourite Manet – “Execution of Maximilian” was here along with Renoirs “Umbrellas”. I am not a huge Renoir fan, but really like Umbrellas’. It is the same with Van Gogh, I have never been overly excited by his art, I do like “Van Gogh’s Chair” and Flowers is here as well, though that painting is all a bit ho hum IMHO.

I had an unexpected good time at the gallery – and it was a 4 pound donation, rather than a massive entry fee- good on you London!

This chewed up a chunk of my wandering around time, so I stopped for a sandwich and coffee in the sun on Trafalgar Square than walked through Admiralty Arch.

Past the stature of James Cook.

Round to the back of Horseguards Parade.

Past Downing Street.

And on to Waterloo station to meet my old friend Elias. It was great to catch up with him, haven’t seen him since 1987 when I left England. We walked along the South Bank of the Thames for a couple of hours and chatted about our lives in the past 25 years. We headed over to Embankment and had a drink before wandering back to Waterloo so Elias could make his next appointment. I strolled back over the Thames.

And got the train back to Dartford.

It was a really good day, the gallery was fabulous, the walk refreshing and enjoyable and it was great to catch up with Elias, we will meet again when I return from Africa for sure.

Back to London

Days 258/260, Tuesday – Thursday 18-20 September 2012 – London and Dartford.

I was a wee bit jaded when I got up on Tuesday morning, another early start as I wanted to say goodbye to Mel and Richard before they went to work and I was on the 9:30 bus to London again. I did enjoy the coffee and bacon sandwich at the bus station before though and, as always, uneventful journey into Victoria bus station.

The good news is I am not feeling any ill effects from my run, I do not have any aches and pains and apart from running out of puff halfway up stairs with my pack on my back I almost feel like I could nip out for a run. I was expecting day two or three to be quite sore as it is usually the case after a decent run. It must be a sign I should have gone harder!

For the next two nights I am staying with a friend near London Bridge station in Borough – about two hundred metres from the Shard, the latest tallest building in London. I met Kevin at Dan and Van’s wedding in Da Nang, Vietnam way back in April, Kevin is an old friend of Dan’s and has been living in London for many years. I arranged to meet him at McDonalds which gave me a good excuse to trough a couple of chicken cheese burgers!

Kevin lives on the twelfth floor of a twenty storey tower block and the views over Tower Bridge are stunning, especially at night.

Kevin and I spent the afternoon catching up and then went round the corner to a local pub for a pint or three, it was quite cool out of the sun, but a glorious day to be sitting in a garden bar. This area of London has really gone up-market since I worked around here in the mid-1980’s, lots of young white collar workers striding home from work, young hipsters with beards on single speed bikes, in the pub there was an actor who I have seen recently on TV or in movie, but I could not place his name damnit!

Early evening Kevin and I caught the tube to his partner Phil’s place in Kensington. Kari, a young Norwegian woman they met in India a while back is staying the night and cooking dinner. It was a good night, Kari cooked a good risotto and talked almost non-stop the entire time, it was very hard to get a word in, a very passionate woman.

On Wednesday, after a monster lie in and a massive breakfast Kevin cooked, I went for a walk out along the Thames for a bit. I had intended to walk down to Greenwich and back up again, but did start to notice the effects of the run, no soreness – just tired legs. I also planned on going to visit the Tower of London, which is one of my favourite places in London so needed to save some leg for that as there can be a bit of walking involved.

So, that was what I did next. The new quarter between London and Tower Bridges is quite stunning, all new glass and chrome buildings, but tasteful and heaps of open space. I really liked it, plus of course they left the access to the river bank.

It cost 20 pounds to get into the Tower, outrageously expensive IMHO, but it is a great place to visit if you are into castles and the old English history of kings and queens and battles and plots, which of course I am.

I visited the white tower and its massive collection of arms and armour – I have fond childhood memories of walking round the armour.

And then the crown jewels, my memory of this is massive crowds – not so bad today!

And a general walk around the site for a couple of hours.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed the afternoon, though I was disturbed by the amount of people who voted yes to this!

After the Tower I took a slow walk back along the bank of the Thames and snapped a few shots of the Shard – I just cannot help it, it does dominate, but it is a stunning building.

I had dinner with Kevin and Phil in the flat and for a change watched a bit of TV.

Thursday was a not quite so long lie, but I still didn’t rush out of bed. Today was shot day and I was off to the London Travel Clinic, for what turned out to be two rather than one shot. I was expecting Yellow Fever but I also need a booster for hep A and B, those along with 100 anti-malaria tabs meant it was an expensive morning. But better than being really ill in Zambia I expect.

I took a short walk around Borough market before heading back to Kevin’s and saying my farewells before heading off to my uncle Jim’s house in Dartford. It was great to catch up with Kevin and Phil again, I will probably stay there again the night before I fly out to Africa as well.

Dartford is 35 minutes away by train, conveniently from London Bridge station so no faffing about catching tubes between stations. Both my parents are from Dartford and I have visited numerous times over the years and have pleasant memories of Jim’s. Jim lives in the house he was raised in and I haven’t been here since my nana passed away many years ago. All my stuff had been moved there from my other uncle and aunts house so I spent the afternoon and evening chatting to Jim and sorting my stuff – there is more than I remember!

A visit to London

Day 156, Friday 8 June 2012, Brentwood

I had a pretty good sleep last night, I think I am pretty much adjusted to English time now.
Today was my first day of adventuring into the big smoke and I bought myself a ticket that allowed me to get to Liverpool St station in London, use the underground all day and then return to Shenfield station near where I am living. I was pretty stunned to find that even the off-peak fare was almost twenty pounds, things have gone up since the eighties !

I seemed to have picked up a blister on the back of my foot from my new sneakers, so stopped at a chemist on the way to the station and picked up some blister plasters, these worked for a bit but four days later it is still pretty bad and giving my grief in all sorts of shoes. I had to buy a new packet during my walks in London as it got pretty painful.

I met my old friend Trudi and her niece Kate at Liverpool St station at 10:00 and from there we took the underground towards the NZ Embassy.

It was very cool walking down Regent St, seeing all the double decker buses and black cabs and the flags from the queens jubilee last weekend. Even though it was a wee bit rainy I was still very happy to walking out there.

The advertising material in London phone boxes hasnt changed though.

I wanted to get someone to certify a copy of my NZ passport as I need to replace my drivers licence which was in the wallet I lost in Laos. Apparently you have to make an appointment to see someone and it costs 20 quid ! Bollocks. I got soaked walking down Haymarket in the pouring rain for that.

We then took the underground over to Borough Market, though there was a bit of construction work going on around there, as there is all over as London prepares for the Olympic games next month. The market specialises in food and there was some awesome stuff around, not cheap either, I loved these big wheels of parmesan, yummy…

We stopped for a pub lunch and I had my first English pint, Brakspear’s Oxford Gold ale – not bad ! The first of a million different types of beer to try, I aim to not repeat a pint, though I am sure I will forget, there are so many options.

Trudi and I went for a walk around the borough station area for a couple of hour, past the almost complete Shard.

Love this – Auckland could do with some…

Finally ending up at the Tate Modern gallery.

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Entry was free which was pretty cool, though the Damian Hurst exhibition was fifteen pounds – so we flagged it. We did get to see the diamond encrusted skull though, no photos but still cool to see it.

I mostly enjoyed the gallery, a lot of modern art is beyond me, for instance, the three white panels on the wall behind me… Though I did like a few pieces. crazy eyes !

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The outdoor eating area where the only guests are pigeons

From the Tate we wandered across the millennium bridge over the Thames and up to St Pauls.

St Pauls and Borough, were both areas I worked in when I was a van driver for DHL back in 1987, i recognised the odd part, but a lot of London has changed since then, not so much in that area, but the skyline has certainly changed, with the Shard and the Gerkin dominating.

I am using the 16-35mm lens, to get the shots I want without too many poles and trees, shooting at 16mm is probably not the best for buildings ! I am loving the lens though 🙂 The front of St Pauls.

We met up with Kate and her partner David at St Pauls and then nipped down to a local pub to watch the opening game of the Euro 2012 football competition. (One all draw between Poland and Greece)

After a couple of drinks it was off to a local Asian restaurant for some dinner and then I caught the tube back to Liverpool St and the train back home just before dark.

The train stops at Stratford where the Olympic games venues are, there is still a bit of work going on around there, but the site looks pretty good !

It was very enjoyable to beout on the streets of London with a camera, I will be back, by myself so I am not so annoying to those who do not want to stop every ten feet while I take another picture. Thanks Trudi, Kate and David – I had another great day.

Not long to CoastPath Run !

http://www.coastpathrun.co.uk/