Heritage Denied: Ticket Pricing

Today it was announced that the Palace of Westminster would not, after all, be making an entry charge to the Clock Tower to visit Big Ben. Not until 2015, in any case. The House of Commons Commission seemingly backed down after protests from a group of MPs. The suggested ticket price was £15. Yes one-five [...]

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Style Guides

Every few years or so, I sense that my writing has been deteriorating, and I return to a good style guide for a thorough detox. So highly do I rate these self-help books, that I have none in the house. The reason for this is that at some time I have lent my copies to [...]

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(Heart) London

A little while ago, a friend of mine – Ealing man and London Historian member Rian Hughes – made a logo for London, taking his lead from the I [heart] NY idea Stateside. I think it is the perfect symbol for the riot aftermath. Rian is one of our leading designers and illustrators and a [...]

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Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

This is a venerable pub in Fleet Street. Built in 1667, it was a popular watering hole of Johnson, Boswell and countless writers and journalists down the centuries. It hasn’t been spoiled, that is to say, modernised. No piped music, fruit machines, televisions. The restaurant is well-run, food is good and reasonably priced and as [...]

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Royal Weddings – Emily’s Book

Emily is far too modest to use this space to publicise her recently-published book: Royal Weddings. It examines the history of some notable regal nuptials. Available from Amazon and all good bookshops. And maybe some bad ones too, who knows. It is clearly selling strongly, quite right too.

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Ugly Clock

Update: A reader has quite rightly pointed out (via Facebook) that the design is based on Harry Beck’s tube diagram, using Piccadilly and District Line colours, both of which service Hammersmith. This partially redeems it, I suppose, but I still say it’s ugly. Beck eschewed curves (except little ones at corners) and I think possibly [...]

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Dulcet Tones

I didn’t mention it at the time because it hadn’t been posted, but when I visited St Sepulchre last week, I was interviewed by the excellent Mr N Quentin Woolf for his Londonist Out Loud series. I have to say I was nervous as all hell, never having done this before, but I suppose I [...]

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Touristy Pics 01

If you’re lucky enough to have a break in the cloud at sunset on an Autumn afternoon, you get gorgeous light for photographs. I was lucky yesterday, and the day before.

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Back in the Day

when an Englishman could still enjoy tobacco in his favourite hostelry unmolested by the Law, I used to meet my good friends Dave and Will every Friday evening after a hard day’s toil. This was our routine for probably as long as ten years. Ten years of quality sneering at politicians, telly, religion, celebrity and [...]

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YouTube Time Machine

@MyHeritage tweeted this, and it’s both fun and excellent. It’s called YTTM. http://yttm.tv/ You choose a year, filter appropriately (eg Movies, TV, Sport, Current Events), and it’ll give you a selection of YouTube clips from that year. But beware, serious consumer of your time.

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