Christmas 2009

Here's my design for this year's Christmas card, though I won't be it getting made up as a printed item this time.

Last year I did my 12 pubs of Christmas and, because I got them printed, I think people didn't realise that I'd made them myself, as in past years I had been more active with the glitter or the sewing machine.

This year each letter here is from a brand name on a ghost sign in London.

Let me know if you recognise any of them.

Joy to the World and all that!

Jane x

Homeward Bound

Here we go again, the Christmas party season is upon us and the streets will be littered with vile drunken bodies and pavement pizzas. Then again, perhaps I might get some good shots of the latter for my Flickr set Textures and Patterns or be able to do an alternative set of these.

Anyway, what I want to say is, please make sure you get home safely. If you can't get a tube, bus, train or official black cab don't be tempted to get into an illegal minicab solicited by someone on the street or accept a lift from a kerb crawler. Only ever get in a mini cab if you or your company ordered it beforehand from a recognised company.

To emphasise my point TFL have released the rather unnerving video (for the over-15s only):

More info about the Cabwise service here.

Happy holidays!!

Top row: Old, now disused, entrance to Highbury and Islington tube station; taxis outside Tate Britain; Bakerloo line seats; taxi lantern, Millbank.

Middle row: Charing Cross connection tunnel; taxi cab hut, Temple; Kings Cross platform; bus stop road markings.

Bottom row: Bus on London Bridge; Holloway Road, Picadilly line tube station; Liverpool Street staion roof; 38 stock tube train, Acton depot.

On reflection

I popped into the Royal Academy courtyard last week to see the Anish Kapoor sculpture, though I haven't been in to see the full show. Anyway, I took some photos (more here) and it got me thinking about all the lovely shiny reflective stuff that has been around this year such as this year's pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery and that Jeff Koons pink thing that was in St James' Square.

So here's a collection of reflected stuff. Yeah, stuff. And things.

Top row: Anish Kapoor; Rising Sun pub, Tottenham Court Road; Albert Bridge; The George & Vulture pub, EC3

Middle row: Rules, Maiden Lane, WC2; Serpentine Gallery pavilion; Ibex building, Minories, EC3; The Hare & Hounds / Albert & Pearl, Upper Street, N1.

Bottom row: Sunlight in Holloway, N7; Sweetings, Queen Victoria Street, EC4; Piccadilly Arcade, Sw1; boot scraper, Great russell Street, WC1

Best London sunset suggestion – Win a 6 month Time Out subscription

There have been some beautiful sunsets of late; Monet skies, Turner clouds, mundane buildings looking all lovely, reflected in pink and gold. Here are few pics I have been lucky to get whilst on my walks, but being in the right time at the right place usually takes some forward planning.

So, apart from The Westway and any of the Thames Bridges, where would you say is the best place in London to view a good sunset?

Write your suggestion in the green comments link at the bottom of this piece and, in order to be entered for the prize, please remember to include your email address. The competition is open to UK residents only and the winner will be drawn at random*.

Top row: Lupus Point, SE1; view from Tower Bridge; Isle of Dogs; Highgate from Holloway; St Katherine's Dock

2nd row: Turnham Green Station; weathervane SE1; Millennium Bridge; Blackfriars Bridge from Waterloo Bridge; The Strand.

*The closing date for entries is midnight on Friday 27th November, 2009. Full terms and conditions can be found here via VoucherCodes.co.uk who have generously provided the prize. Neither Jane's London nor VoucherCodes.co.uk will use your details for anything except this competition.

VoucherCodes.co.uk has some good deals such as Travelodge discount vouchers to help you stay over in London for less.

Branded metal advertising signs

There are plenty of old advertising signs featuring brand names around London. I suspect a lot of them have been put up for tourists' amusement or to make a place look old and interesting; I especially wonder if those ones in Gabriel's Wharf have been put there just for effect.

But there are others around in hard to reach places that look like they have been there for decades. I am still kicking myself that I did not help myself to the old Michelin and Pirelli signs on a tyre shop that closed around the corner from here earlier this year. D'uh!

In areas like Camden and Portobello you can buy facsimiles of some of the old classics in the shops and markets.

Whilst looking through the fab stuff available on Urban Remade I found this modern equivalent which Peter Blake has designed featuring his logo heart. Affix it to your wall and watch it age gracefully.

Palethorpe's Sausages and Pears Soap, Highgate; Craven 'A', Camden; Liptons, Martini and R Whites, Good Year, Kensal Green; Esso Blue, Finsbury Park; Coca Cola, Drayton Park; Ogden's Guinea Gold, Homerton; The Sailor's Society, Limehouse.

Londonist post – Under The (Railway) Bridge

Happy birthday to Londonist – 5 years old!

I have just loaded up another post onto the site about railway bridges – please don't forget to click the 'Like' star underneath the article, if you do indeed like it.

I am now thinking that perhaps I should have made a more topical collection using images of things like cards, candles and cake... isn't hindsight great?!

Blackstock Road signage

This idea came about because my sister, who I keep telling should start a blog of her own to show off her own stuff, is doing a 'project' on shops signs of Holloway Road for her thesis and it occured to me that Blackstock Road is really diverse and interesting too.

So here is my (selected) showcase, but I don't have to write 2,000 words...

Oh and thanks to Yelfy too for further inspiring me with posts like this.

You can find some of these at a larger size here.

Starting at Finsbury Park end...

The wonderful Art Deco signage of Fish and Cook; hand-painted illustrations and lettering of Mix DIY and hardware, and the lovley old Esso Blue enamel sign that hangs outside the door; [an old photo of the] hand-painted ghost sign for 'I Furst, dispensing chemist', now sadly mostly scrubbed away during a recent refurbishment; a date stamp on the building next door (there are also some cute lion cubs above the shops signs on this building).

Callcut decorators hand-painted shop front; pub relief; Faded hand-painted tailor's sign; monochrome Art Deco T Bird sign and windows; recently uncovered hand-painted glass signage at No.157.

The only tiles still existing along the same parade. I expect that when this parade was first built these tiles would have been either side of every shop; TexMex/cactus effect signage, though I think it looks more like toothpaste or garden hose; Silver foil put to good use; Stoke Newington metal boundary marker on the Arsenal Tavern; a lovely blue-tiled builders merchants sign can be seen as you look down Mountgrove Road and I think this might have had neon lettering on it at some time.

On the corner of Gillespie Road this building has some intriguing faded painted shapes on the 'columns' which look a bit like pots or ewers. Perhaps this was a pub once? Any info welcome; No.160 – this pic was taken over a year ago and the shop no longer looks like this at all; it has been stripped of all personality and magnolia'd and, as I write this, it sits waitng for new occupants; look above the graffiti-style graphic on the shutters of the hairdressers and notice the ghost signs for an old travel company; nice modern carved wood signage at No.193.

One continuous piece of cut out wood for the tapas bar; old signage and frontage on the bookshop; a rural scene painted on the Little Angels Day Nursery; an old gold number.

And we finish at the Sunlight ghostsign on the corner of Conewood Road which marks the beginning of Highbury Park.

The Dusk Bar, Somerset House Terrace

Last week, along with 4 other London bloggers, I was invited to Gintelligensia at Dusk, the pop-up bar on the terrace facing the river at Somerset House, for a promotional eve of gin mixology. I had ideas of being a gin-soaked DJ for the evening but it turns out we were there to learn about Bombay Sapphire gin; how it's made etc.

As we sat bouncy on Tom Dixon chairs, Sam Carter, Bombay Sapphire Brand Ambassador, no less(!) took us on a BS historical world tour of the botanicals (spices) that go into the gin, using his globe trolley wotsit, with its fancy plinth (I love that word) and sapphire pins indicating where each of them comes from.

Sam was great but, to be honest, my mind kept wandering. I kept saying to myself "This is his job; how bizarre!", "how much is this costing?", "this isn't my kind of thing*; can I go now?" and, more to the point, "Can I have a Guinness please?". I very quickly got to the point where I felt I'd sniffed and chewed quite enough seeds and bits of dry wood; I didn't really care enough and as for making a cocktail myself, I always think people look really silly shaking their shakers, and spinning the bottles about like Tom Cruise in 'Cocktail'. No. Thank. You. I am a pub girl.

According to Sam's delicate palate, my version of BS Berry Spice (as created by Marcius Dzelzainis of Quo Vadis), was the best of the four. So, seeing as we were each given a goody bag containing a bottle of BS (result!), a cocktail shaker, a strainy thing that looks like a face, a stirrer, soda water, even some little sachets of sugar and a lemon, I will be trying to replicate the taste at home. I may have to keep trying until I get it right....

But the drinks did taste good. And who knows, I may yet become a BS convert. I will ask for it next time I fancy a G&T. I did have a nice time and it was good to see Tom again, and meet Jem and Jennie.

If all this cocktails in a plastic tent sounds like your kind of thing, Sam will be doing these eves up until 18th October – just contact him through the Bombay Sapphire Site.

There you go... promotion over!

*The last thing I was invited to do that wasn't my kind of thing got the one of the longest entries on here too.