Angel Canal Festival 2018 – Sunday September 2nd

Wow! How can it be almost September already?
Angel Canal Festival is upon us again.
This colourful one-day event happens on and around City Road Lock and Basin with lots to see and do. Sunday September 2nd, 11am–5pm.

Find these lovely mosaics adjacent to City Rd Lock. They were created by the children at Hanover Primary School working with Carina Wyatt and Cathy Ludlow in partnership with Cally Arts and Islington local2global project. They celebrate the journey of people and goods into Islington and the way we use the canal today.
Top: The Working Canal and The Layered City. Bottom: Tools and Trades and The Living Canal. there are also some benches in the shape of fish.

Find me at my stall (see right) on Danbury Street bridge above the canal selling cards and prints, made from my photographs of local places and signs, and clay pipe jewellery, all as seen in the photo, right.
Discounts for my walking tours will also be on offer – approx 10% off – vouchers can be allocated at a later date – lots of walks to choose from – see here.
What's not to like?!!
See here for more info.

To find out more about Regents Canal, why not come on guided tour on a narrowboat – see my previous post.

Ocean Liners: Speed and Style at the V&A

Last Friday evening I meet my friend and fellow CIGA guide at the V&A to see the exhibiton about the golden age of sea travel.
Oooh!
Gorgeous!
Beautiful!
Wow!
That's on a boat!
Heaven, I'm in heaven...

Check out the compact tea set, a leather clutch bag shaped like a liner, and some gorgeous fabric – the wonderful typographic pattern on a silk blouse and a late-1960s blue suit deemed unconventional/'unsuitable'.

I love the V&A (well, apart from this) – there is always something new to see and, more often than not, it's been there for decades and I just never noticed before.
The V&A is open late on Fridays. That's great for people who can't get there during the day and don't like having to fight with school groups or weekend families. But not so great is the type of music that's played there which seems to pull in a new crowd of bar-goers who hang around the reception desk at the Brompton Rd entrance in front of huge speakers on sticks which blare out bass-heavy rhythms. I reckon most of them don't even wander further than the gift shop. Or perhaps that's the point.
We found the sound levels offensive and hard to dodge as the only way in and out is past that desk (or it was by the time we were leaving). It was a horrible contrast to the swooning tunes of the 1930s.
The type of sound is just wrong for the environment – boom boom boom! It reverberates and resonates with nasty low-level frequencies around the curves of this beautiful building like some kind of migraine. Music is great but, please V&A, keep it acoustic next time. Guitars, strings, pianos, even brass – but not anything amplified. Thanks for listening!
And before anyone starts calling me old and grumpy – I would've said all that when I was 20.

Come and see some Art Deco architecture in North London on my guided walks

What is Whitebait? Read Roger Williams's book and find out more

Whitebait – a tasty fishstarter?
Or evil selective fishing?
And what exactly is a whitebait anyway?

Find out more in this wonderfully informative and absorbing little book by the marvellous Roger Williams.
Available here and here.
Roger's other books include The Temples of London, London's Lost Global Giant: in search of the East India Company, Father Thames and The Fisherman of Halicarnassus.

Also see Hugh's Fish Fight

Rotherhithe and Bermondsey

Following on from a post earlier this year about Surrey Docks, here are some more of my photos taken along the riverside near Rotherhithe and Bermondsey.

Boats, old signs, river views... even cormorants and stalactites. 

How to make a cup of tea

We are awash with branded coffee shops offering all sorts of different types from skinny latte decaf to double espresso. Yet the staff in these shops, who have managed to master the complexity of the barista machine, seem to lack simple tea-making know-how.
Often I have have purchased a much-needed cuppa only to lift the lid and discover a pale milky concoction with a teabag festering at the bottom; the tea having been made by adding the milk (often way too much of it for my liking) almost immediately after the hot water, therefore making the tea-brewing process redundant. It's barely possible to get more tea flavour out of a bag once the milk has been added. You wouldn't add milk into a teapot, so why put it in the cup?
And for this service they charge at least £1.50. It's so disappointing. And a rip off to boot!
To make tea – add boiling water to tea bag, let it rest/brew or squish the bag a bit, and then add milk if so desired. Satisfyingly simple!

Tea-related things in London

Canalway Cavalcade at Little Venice

A great event takes place this Bank Holiday weekend in and around the canal junction of Little Venice.
From Saturday 3rd until Monday 5th May you will find all sorts of attractions on the water and the surrounding roads and towpaths. These include pageants, entertainment, boat trips, foods, stalls, music and dance.
Find out more here.

 Some of my London canal photos, from Limehouse Basin to Little Venice

Chelsea Harbour and Imperial Wharf

On Saturday I went down to the Chelsea waterfront to check out access points for a future foreshore forage*.
God, it's dull down there. Back in the late 90s /early 00s, I had the misfortune to occasionally freelance at an office within the Chelsea Harbour development. I found it devoid of any life and it made me feel trapped and alienated. It was just expensive furnishing emporiums, expensive boxy apartments, expensive boats and one or two places where you could get some over-priced snacks and drinks. I would breathe a sigh of relief when I reconnected with reality every evening.
I hoped things might have improved over the years and it would now be more of a go-to area vis-a-vis St Katharine Docks etc. But no.
I was in the vicinity for just over an hour and apart from a street cleaner, two people getting into a car, another two looking hungry, one man on one of the many apartment balconies with a river view, one lady with a cute little dog and one jogger, that was it.

Chelsea Harbour still looks like something the props department made for Howards Way. It's accessed via Lots Road, an area now standing mostly empty or derelict, waiting to be transformed into the next set of glass boxes for people who occasionally need a London pad. 

The Thames Path leads west from the harbour, via Imperial Wharf, under the beautiful brick-built Wandsworth Railway Bridge, and on to Wandsworth [road] Bridge. I only walked about three quarters of it before I turned back again.
Despite what Imperial Wharf's website says, nothing is happening there. This 'sought-after location' is dull dull dull. Or perhaps people who can afford £1000 a week rent money are also dull.
Along the path there are a few dockers' mistresses and metal ladders preserved within recesses in a modern fence designed to resemble an ocean liner indicating that this was once a lively and commercial stretch of the river. On the other side of the path there are overly-landscaped and manicured gardens in front of Imperial Wharf's imposing apartment blocks. It certainly doesn't look like a park to relax in. I very much doubt you can kick a ball about there. Ooh, sorry, just remembered I also saw two people sitting in the park, so that's a total of ten.
Next to a identikit riverfront pub there is a restaurant called the Blue Elephant; I think White Elephant might be a better name.
I also spotted near the harbour a few lamp stands with dragons on them and, moored at the river taxi jetty (closed), there was a gilded barge. Who owns this? Is it Royal?
A sign on the old power station gates reads: Chelsea Waterfront – Quintessentially London. Eh? Discuss.

*Sorry, fellow foragers, but there are no easy steps available, so this area won't be an area we'll be visiting in the future.

A lovely day Greenwich

On Monday morning I went to Greenwich to display some of my clay pipe jewellery in Bullfrogs shop window in Church Street.
A friend came to meet me there and we went for lunch in a nearby restaurant where I bumped into another friend's daughter who, unbeknownst to me, is studying at Greenwich Univerisity. Lucky girl to be in such a great location, and what a nice surprise to see her, as I don't think I'd set eyes on her since she was about 15.
It was a glorious day so after lunch I went for a wander...

In the park I admired the construction of a labyrinth of metal poles that will become the controversial Olympic equestrian venue. Outside the Royal Maritime Museum I spotted the oversized ship in a bottle that was previously on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square. I went inside the museum and was a bit disappointed. I was engrossed in the gallery with the pics of the then and now stretches of Wapping and Bermondsey, but leaving that room I couldn't find anything else to inspire me. Did I miss a trick somewhere? If so, the signage is appalling. And I had hoped there would be more and larger maps and charts for sale in the shop... but I digress; this is supposed to be about nice things...
A raspberry ripple ice cream and then to The Painted Hall, 'the finest dining hall in Europe', no less. I had been there before for a Christmas do a few years back (actually, it was the company my lunch friend works for) but, although we all had that 'wow' moment when we entered the room, we then became preoccupied with all the food and drink. But mainly the drink. The hall is like an OTT set for a bizarre film; you feel as if you are actually in a painting. Every inch is covered with fantastic images and trompe l'oiel.
Then I popped into the beautiful Old Royal Naval College Chapel and admired its repetitive yet soothing interior. There was just time to pop into the ORNC museum. I just love the big relief map in the centre of the main room. In fact the whole of that room is jam-packed with so many interesting and interactive and informative things. It was closing in ten minutes; that's the third time that's happened to me!
So to the Cutty Sark. I like what they've done. I like the way the glass surround evokes the sea. I like the reflections it creates. It was closed so I couldn't go inside but I notice that the roof of the shop area is practically the same as the new roof at the Kings Cross Station, which is almost the same as The Great Court at the British Museum. couldn't they have designed something different?
I admired the view across to The Isle of Dogs and thought about walking through the foot tunnel. I noticed that the tide was low and I could see shingle on the other side beckoning me, but I had the wrong shoes on. So I got on the DLR and headed home instead.
What a nice day.

Titanic Titanic Titanic... stop stop stop!

Is it just me? Or is anyone else sick of hearing about The Titanic? I only recently fell in (ha ha) that all this media interest is because it's 100 years since it sank and that's what all the fuss is about.
Plenty of other boats have sunk too you know. Well, none quite as big, and none have had a cringingly bad film made about them (you can't include the The Poseidon Adventure, starring the wonderfully named Red Buttons cos that wasn't real).
Over the years there have been maritime disasters with greater loss of life, so why has the Titanic become so famous?
The 3D version of James Cameron's 'Titanic' is in the cinemas at the moment. Don't bother. Just watch this better, shorter version; Adam & Joe's 'Toytanic' – genius!
There's a Titanic drama series on TV which I have so far managed to avoid, and people are going on ironically ill-fated Titanic memorial cruises. I noticed earlier this week that the Titanic Cafe in Holloway Road was putting up banners promoting some kind of special offer. Prices going down perhaps?! The business going under?! All hands on deck!!!
I have always more interested in IKB's final amazing engineering feat that was the SS Great Eastern which was launched just over 150 years ago, yet I don't recall much fuss about that except a couple of programmes on BBCs 2&4 a few years ago.

Update 
A friend sent me this from today's
The Guardian:

Below are some photos of boats/ships in London:
Find them all here.