An Elephant with a very long trunk – Guinness advertising in Camden

Here's a thing. I was recently wandering around the Lismore Circus area prior to my Elephants Escape guided tour just looking at buildings, wandering down side streets, etc. As I headed up Southampton Road, approaching the railway line I looked across at the painted walls that surround the railways. This is from google streetview, looking north, the direction I was walking:

As I approached the bus stop on the western side I happened to noticed that the mural to my left included a Guinness bottle. Up close it was hard to make out so I stepped back to the kerb to get a wider view and saw that there was the word Guinness next to the bottle, rendered in a sort of blobby black letterform. 

And then I noticed that the letters are either birds, like an Ostrich making the 'G' pouring Guinness from a bottle into the U and the two black swans at the end depicting 'SS', or the letters created by warped pints of Guinness like the letter 'e'. 

How jolly marvellous. I followed it along and found lots more references to those classic Guinness ads of old. This has to be the best bit of Guinness advertising I have ever seen. 

The legs of a walking female wearing wedge sandals, carrying a bottle and, to her right, what I think is the base of a pint of Guinness

A sealion with four pints of Guinness in front of him, possibly on plates

I think this might be a pale pink bird, possibly a crane with a long beak and spiky head feathers 

And then, there are lots of yellow circles and a pale grey arc coming in from the right...

... which turns out to be the very long trunk of an elephant reaching past the Guinness harp motif and blowing bubbles, no doubt Guinness bubbles. Hard to get a good shot of this section being as the bus shelter is in the way.

The tusks look more like those on a woolly mammoth.

And it appears he's singing a song, as depicted by those musical notes, although they might be depicting trumpeting sounds!

The far end of the wall is rather faded. But his front legs clearly show that he is running, keen to get to that Guinness!

The strange thing is, I can't spot anything resembling a toucan which was Guinness's most commonly used bird. And, having googled and searched for images of this mural to see how it looked when it was first installed, I have found absolutely nothing at all. In fact the Google streetview from 2009, below, shows the wall has been looking the same for at least 15 years. 

I am also wondering, considering that many things depicted here seem to be decapitated, if an extension to the brick wall was in place when the mural was painted, such as a 2ft strip of wood running the full length.

It's amazing that it's still here at all, especially as the walls on the other side of the road have been overpainted a few times, as shown by the retrospective Google streetview facility which shows that the LISMORE mural was still there, albeit rather faded, until at least April 2019. 

If anyone has any information or can date this please do get in touch. Similarly, if you have any photos of this it when it was all bright and shiny, I'd love to see them – email me at janeslondon@gmail.com

Unusual and endangered animals at the Natural History Museum

I was out and about two Sundays ago and it was really biting cold out there so, rather than go home and wait for the house to warm up, I headed for Museumland because I wanted to see an exhibit within the NatHistMuseum about the loss of the Great White Rhino due to poaching them for their horns. I just cannot fathom how some human beings still believe that magic remedies can be obtained from what is basically the same as our fingernails. 

The museum was really busy. Lots of visitors. Mainly foreign families. And after finding the CGI exhibit I really enjoyed wandering the mammal galleries, something I haven't done in a while. 

I read every information panel and pressed every button and found it quite endearing how so many of the interactive pieces in those rooms have voiceovers that sound like TV programmes from my childhood – very clipped Queen's English pronunciation. Well, I say. How jolly marvellous.

I took some square format snaps of some of my favourite animals, some of which have already made their way into my Instagram feed @janeslondon – I'd never realised before how so many of these beasts are toothless and from South America. What's that all about? 

And it had never occurred to me that 'glutton' is another name for a wolverine. makes sense really.

I am also intrigued by some of the fishy oddities on this planet – who needs sci-fi books and movies when we already have multi-toothed weirdness like this?!

Every day is a new learning experience.

Finsbury Park elephants

Wandering from Highbury Fields to Crouch Hill last month I thought I'd take a couple of detours to check on the elephants.

Ambler/Romilly March 2020

In August last year, there was a piece in the Gazette about these elephants providing a hiding place for druggies. The following week it was reported that the hedge had been damaged – one elephant had lost its head in a car accident. Hmmm. Seems a bit odd to me how a driver managed to lose control in a backstreet within a borough that already had a 20mph speed limit.
It's worth noting that just up the road at the next junction there is another excellent example of hedgemanship where a swathe of dense foliage offers far better cover for illicit proceedings. A long row of castelltions curves around the corner:

Longer, deeper, wider, thicker

I continued my stroll past Finsbury Park station, up Stroud Green Road then right at The Dairy where the old Hovis ghostsign is now mostly scrubbed away due to graffiti removal, past the flippin' flipped letters on the gates into Mount Pleasant Crescent... and... damn, a van was in the way, but the elephant is intact.

Jumbotastic

See the street here.
And re the ther things mentioned above:

The Old Dairy – HOVIS ghostsign 2008 and 2020

Gates in the Japan Crescent area – letters attached incorrectly. I am flipped out!

Endangered Species by Barry Baldwin on Grand Buildings

Blimey!  How did I not notice this until last year?
Trafalgar Square is a busy junction that I usually walk through or round quickly as I play 'dodge the tourists' but last summer I stopped in my tracks when I noticed something for the first time that's been there hiding in plain view since Feb 1991 – the entrance between Prezzo and Waterstone's at 31-32 Northumberland Avenue is absolutely slathered in marvellous details. 

Around this arch there are panels containing Adam and Eve surronded by seventy different animals from all around the globe such as a gorilla, an owl, a lizard, a bear, a zebra, various birds and sea creatures. And, as you can see from above, there are flowers, plants a trellis and a factory too. A hand at the apex of this arch appears to hold a horn of fruit. And there is watch on its wrist which I told is showing 'the eleventh hour'.

Three pics stuck together here

I hunted for an artist's mark but all I could find was a foundation stone for the building showing that Grand Buildings is a Land Securites development by architects Sidell Gibson Partneship, constructed by Higgs and Hill on the site of The Northumberland Hotel.
The archways continue to the beginning of The Strand and each one has a different carved head at the top. Some are winking, some are gurning, one wears a tie, another has a spotty scarf, all are rather strange. I am at aloss as to who these people are supposed to be.

I always like to end with a link for more information. Well, blow me down if my mate Peter Bertoud has also written about this and begins his piece with practically the same opening line!

Barry Baldwin
Barry Baldwin's Facebook page

Freightliners Farm

It never ceases to amaze me how many people who live in Holloway don't know that this is here.

I am here only showing images of the lovely tiled panels on the exterior wall but the other side of the wall is a marvellous surprise. Being a farm, it is more of a hands-on experience and to hard to capture in photos.
This "community space in the heart of Islington" has lots to see and experience for all ages. And a fab café too.
Go find out for yourself or come and discover it on one of my walking tours and find out about many more green places and things in the area.

Info: Freightliners Farm.

I see dead things – Not for the squeamish !!!

Crossing Dickenson Road on Crouch Hill last week I noticed two dead frogs/toads about a metre apart in the road. I took some photos (like you do when you are an amateur animal forensics nutter) and then stood there contemplating how they'd met their sorry end.
It all looked pretty fresh. Had they been crossing the road en-masse and these two got unlucky? If so, where were they all headed to? This is the top of a hill. Hmmmm. I decided no, not that, because they didn't appear to be squished enough (no complaints please, I did warn this was not for the squeamish at the start!).
Perhaps they were dropped from above? But both of them? At the same time? From the same source?
And then I recalled that on Saturday 4th March I was standing with a friend in the road behind Sadler's Wells Theatre and we heard something hit the pavement next to us and turned to see a blackbird just lying there shaking. This continued whilst we faffed about wondering if we should do something and after two minutes the bird was motionless. We looked up and couldn't see where it could have fallen from. Did it die of exhaustion? Or did a larger predatory bird drop it? We intended to return to the scene later but, er, that didn't happen.

Blackbird is not my pic – plenty like this available online (weird). The spider used to live in my bathroom. I came home one day at it was dead like this in the middle of the floor.  

Last May I happened upon two dead chicks on a path in Highgate. There were thin trees above, but no nests in them and these birds as you can see hadn't finished sprouting feathers yet. So I deduced a predator had stolen them then dropped them. I don't know what species these birds are, perhaps someone can tell me.

Really sad. though I am fascinated to see how the feathers evolve.

About ten metres from this macabre scene someone had put a soft toy animal on a fence. I assume his owner had dropped him and someone had been picked him up in the hope that he might be rescued. No such hope for the baby birds.

Ghostsign – Hinton and Gunner, two Wembley pork and beef butchers

In a narrow alley on the side of Paddy Power, Ealing Road, Wembley Central Central station there is a lovely multi-layered painted sign, see here.  

It's impossible to get a straight-on shot of this sign so I have transformed it using Photoshop to make it more legible

As you can clearly see, there have been at least two butchers trading at this location – it's evident that one has been painted over the other. However they offered mainly the same thing:The earlier blue/green lettering is for R. Gunner whose name is shown in italicised script that runs diagonally up and across the whole panel. Also in the same colour, at top left: DAIRY FED PORK, and at bottom right: ENGLISH & SCOTCH MEAT ONLY – the information imparted succinctly and clearly

The subsequent black lettering for HINTON is now fading fast. It is more descriptive of the products available (/ = line break and [xxx] indicates where I cannot decipher some words):
PURVEYORS / OF / SCOTCH BRITSH BEEF / GRASS FED [xxx] / DAIRY FED [xxx] / VARIETY OF COOKED MEATS / Families [xxx] / or [xxx].
Hints of a later third sign are also evident though no discernible letterforms remain.
I'd love to see pics of how this sign would have looked in the past. If anyone has any archive images of this location, please do contact me via email or add links in the comments section below.

The Fabric of Smithfield

The area has changed so much and so quickly. I recall going to a venue on Charterhouse Street for a friend's birthday party one Saturday evening in 1996. I can't remember the name of the place – I went there quite a few times – it had a restaurant and bar on ground floor and a dance floor in the basement. We used to enjoy being in an area of London so close to so many things yet quiet and unknown by so many – it felt like we were in on something only the locals and the market traders knew anything about. But that soon changed with the arrival of Fabric in 1999 and very quickly the buildings around the market changed to cater for the change in clientele and the shift in the meat market trade.
There are still some lovely old buildings in the area. Look up and around you – there's lots to see.

Charterhouse Street – Top: Cold Storage, a Fabric lion and a ram at 79-83 with more from that building on the second row. 

Just along from the Italianate Cold Storage building on Charterhouse Street and next door to Fabric is the 1930s Meat Inspector's Office built in Portland stone with lovely reliefs of cattle and sheep with rams heads at street level.

Lindsey Street and Long Lane. Both buildings demolished for Crossrail.

Crossrail has demolished all the buildings in Lindsey Street along the Western side of the market. Nothing Crossrail erects here will ever compare to the charm of the exterior of Edmund Martin's tripe shop or the Art Deco exuberance of Saville House that used to sit on the corner of Long Lane. It's criminal that this could not have been incorporated into Crossrail's designs.
Moving round into Long Lane itself, the deco building at 51-52 (first pic below) is still there but at the time of writing is covered in scaffold and nettings.

Evans & Witt are still trade at No.58 (phew!). The Barley Mow at No.50 ceased trading as a pub in 2006 though the building and the old pub name at the top still remains.

The pics above were taken in Sept2016 of the Farringdon end of Charterhouse Street. The poultry market looking as if it's actually being used, though the caging/fencing belies that. Hart's still had it sign up for last Christmas' auction. I had assumed that this had been the last one and the sign had just been there ever since as a sad reminder. However, I just checked and can report they had the auction as usual last month. So all is not lost. The PLA building still stands as imposing as the day it was built there to keep an eye on imports and exports to/from the market.
For info on Smithfield Market and the immediate area click here.

I wrote a few months ago about the closure of two pubs in the Smithfield area. I also noticed that in a fond piece written by Giles Coren about A. A. Gill in the Saturday Times magazine a week after Gill died he was pictured in The Hope, one of the pubs mentioned above. It seemed a strange ironic choice of image to me.

Jane's Advent Calendar – 3rd December

The Three Greyhounds public house, Old Compton Street, W1

The name of this pub is a reference to the hunting dogs that were used to chase hares in this area of London when it was a royal hunting ground.

A walk along Kings Road (part 3) – A convoluted statue and Wright's Dairy

This continues on from here

Has anyone ever really taken a good look at that bizarre bit of street sculpture outside French Connection on the corner of Markham Square in Kings Road? I looked for an info plaque when I was there but couldn't find anything. 

This is what I see: A woman sitting back on one foot with one knee raised, with some kind of fish-shaped thing on her lap and a strange inverted L-shaped instrument over her right shoulder. Hmmm... let's think... is she playing a cello or some kind of musical instrument? 

I am stumped.  

I tried for 40 minutes to find some information about it, searching online using words such as sculpture, street art, public, French Connection, Kings Road, bronze, woman, kneeling, Markham Square, etc., and I have come up with nothing. If I knew the artist it might help. Other people are also intrigued.
UPDATE: I asked for ideas and thanks to some feedback in the comments section below I now know it to be 'Bronze man and Eagle' by Richard Bently Claughton, commissioned by Barclays Bank and unveiled in April 1966.

Diagonally opposite is the old Wright's Dairy building with its magnificent terracotta cow's head on the angled third floor corner. Archive pics* show that the Wrights were "cow keepers and dairy farmers" and "Acknowledged to be the Finest Dairy in the District". Nothing like a bit of self promo eh; they may well have been the only dairy in the area!

Old Church Street, Google Streetview, 20th July 2015.
Note also the painted tiles with rural depictions

But I think these pics show their extensive premises further west, in what is now Old Church Street where a subsequent owner used to keep 50 cows. The same cow's head can be seen on the front of the building (see pic right) and there is another one on the front of another building that faces the end of the alley where the red car is parked.
So, back to the building at the Sloane Street end of Kings Road shown in the pics above... having just spent the a further fruitless 25 minutes on this second research mission, I am again stumped. Without access to archive business listings for the street, and/or until someone tells me otherwise, I am going to make an educated guess and say that it was a shop selling the milk and dairy products that were produced at Wright's farm a mile way to the west in [Old] Church Street.
What do you think?
All feedback welcome.

*Credt archive pics: Exciting Postcards 

The Royal Menagerie animals at The Tower of London

Did you know they used to keep animals at The Tower of London?
As you queue to pay at the kiosks you will notice animal stickers on the glass.
Then as you go toward the entrance gate there are three lions made from chicken wire by Kendra Haste. There are more or her animals inside, all cleverly located.

Over the centuries, lions, an elephant, a polar bear and apes have been kept at the zoo.
An exhibition about the animals at the Royal Menagerie includes an image of Pompey the lion who looks like a pussy cat, and a clay pipe-smoking Dog-Faced Baboon.

More animals... On the lower floor of the White Tower there is a room containing cannons. In there I spotted a few crazy lions.  

Birthday fun at London Zoo (ZSL)

I share my birthday with many people including Princess Anne, Ben Affleck, Oscar Peterson and Napoloeon Bonaparte but, best of all, with my friends' lovely daughter Dorothy.
This year she turned six and I began another in my prime and we spent the afternoon with Dot's parents at London Zoo (ZSL).
What a great day – giraffes, reptiles, penguins, lemurs, gorillas, pigmy hippos, hunting dogs and more.

I always thought Peter Gabriel sang "Dotty plays with Jane". But having just checked, it's Lotte. The song then goes on to say that Jane played with someone else and is happy again. Fnar.

Accentuate the positive – three rather nice places to get off the No.19 bus

Fancy a pint?

Theobalds Road

 St John Street

Highbury and Islington

Three nice things – a series by Jane's London

Squid Beaks and The Cephalopod Molluscs at The Grant Museum of Zoology

This is one of London's charming hidden gems – step back in time to a room packed full of interesting and intriguing specimens.
The museum is free to visit and can be found at the top end of Gower Street opposite University College. More info here.
The title of this post comes from some info cards I noticed in one of the cabinets (shown second pic bottom row) – a great name for a band and a marvellous venue for the first gig...

The Year of the Sheep

Today is the start of the Chinese year of the sheep.
Sheep? I could've sworn it used to be a goat.
But what do I know; I am a tiger.
Here are some London goats, sheep, rams and lambs.

Sing little foxy, Sing For Your Life

As you know I am a keen recycler and I hate to see waste. So a taxidermy roadkill musical sits right up my proverbial alley.

Some non-singing archtectural foxy London things

"If you go down to the woods today you’re sure of a big surprise. 
If you go down to the woods today the road kill has arrived. 
For every beast you ever did know is about to perform in a cabaret show. 
Today’s the day the animals come alive.” 

I didn't write that – I don't think it scans properly on the 2nd and 4th lines – as you know, I am a pefectionist, as is evident in everything what I do ;-)
So here is the promo (not sure I can get there myself, but I'd like to); The puppets in Sing For Your Life have been created by taxidermy artist and vegan (!!) Charlie Tuesday Gates using roadkill and dead dogs bought from online shopping sites.
There'll be songs, silliness and some gruesome surprises.
The Vaults, Leake Street, SE1, 4th–8th March 9.30pm every day, plus matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 5pm
More info, pics and booking here.

Jane's Connect. What links these pics?

Here's a little quiz for Christmas, though unlike these cards it has got nothing to do with the time of year or Christmas at all.
All of the above are in central London and are linked in some way. Can you identify the link?

12 clues; some quickly identifiable, others a bit tougher (but you only get four clues on Only Connect).

St George's, Bloomsbury

I hadn't noticed until April this year that the lamps at the foot of the front steps to this gorgeous church echo the design on the spire.
But if you look closely and compare these little metal designs to the larger edifice on the roof there are few differences.
If you look closely you can see that the lamps feature George looking more llike a toddler, the lions standing wearing crowns and the unicorns also on all fours but with no horns.
Perhaps the lamps are from earlier designs.

The six images on the left show the roof, and other six to the right show the lamps.

A non-skating reindeer

In Primrose Street, just off Bishopsgate, at the foot of the steps that lead up to Exchange Square, there is a very big reindeer made out of Christmas lights.
He is rather impressive.
But his feet are protected by squares of barriers covered with banners advertising 'Skate In The City' at Broadgate Square.
Poor reindeer – looks like Santa gave him the worst ice skates ever – they are even concrete-lined.

Dangerous dogs

Dangerous dogs and what to do about them is in the news again lately.
"They" are discussing the problem of mauled babies, aggressive curs, dogs bred for fighting etc. Microchipping and owner registration come high on the list of solutions.

Dog-related pics taken in, around and above London

Today's dogs don't want to be aggressive, but some have been specifically bred to be so. It seems to me that the problem of aggressive dogs comes down to ownership in the first instance.  

I have just come back from another holiday in Turkey where there are many lovely street dogs of all shapes and sizes. In all the years I have been going there I have never seen any aggressive behaviour from them. Most pet dogs are also allowed to go out on their own to mix with the other dogs. It's really lovely to see such calm friendly, relaxed animals, hanging out with their mates, or running off somewhere doggily important, coming home later for their dinner. Mostly they fall asleep under chairs or in the middle of the road! 

They have managed over the years to 'train' themselves to get what they want from humans (food and companionship) without the need for leashes or lessons. If another dog they don't like comes near, there is a raising of hackles, a bit of a staring competition and some low growling, then one backs down and wanders off.
The only mildly-aggressive behavior I have seen concerning Turkish dogs is when owners have their dog on a lead and another dog wanders over to say hello and have a friendly sniff... the owner of the leashed dog starts pulling their dog back thus sending out messages that the owner is scared and needs protecting from this invader. It's a vicious circle. The leashed dog usually barks and strains at the lead whilst the free dog stands looking confused, then wanders off to find some dog better to play with.
I watched this exact situation happen last week when a man with a beautiful big, soppy 6-month old dog sat down for coffee at a seafront café but he "had to leave" because she was "badly behaved" and was "never any good near other dogs". A good example of how an aggressive animal can be created. I tried to talk to the man to explain that his tugging on the lead was sending out the wrong messages to the dog, but he didn't want to hear me, preferring to wallow in the perverse idea that he had a difficult animal to contend with and was some kind of super hero having to deal with her. I found it so sad. Especially for the dog, who was just a big puppy and was missing out on doing dog stuff.
I have also not noticed any dog faeces on the pavements in Turkey. Nor in the roads or on the beaches. This is probably because dogs much prefer to leave their messages in special corners where other dogs will find them. Sort of canine letterboxes. The dogs who only get taken out on a lead once or twice a day have been holding onto their payload for hours and must be busting by the time it's walkies. Having had no other dogs around to learn from, they often drop it at the first sniff of fresh air which, unfortunately, might be in the middle of a pavement (don't get me started about those cruel and insensitive owners who then drag their dog along whilst the poor animal is performing an act of nature).
I like dogs.