At Home with John and Debbie

Yesterday, Gary, Paul, Gav and I went down to London for a trade exhibition. Afterwards, we had a bit of a jolly around the big city - from Earl’s Court to Brick Lane via The City, the South Bank and Canary Wharf.

We met Ajay, too.

We used a wide variety of transport methods: train, tube, taxi, boat, feet and um.. escalator.

Along the way we went to some very interesting pubs:

• The Prince of Teck, Earl’s Court - very acceptable pub with food. A vending machine in the gents sold porn DVDs!
• Waxy O’Connors, Piccadilly - famous for having a tree “growing” through the middle of the pub. As Paul pointed out, this would seem really cool anywhere else, but in the middle of tourist trap Piccadilly, it just seems a bit Disneyland.
• The Punch and Judy, Covent Garden - this has a balcony bar overlooking the market. I’m told it has more character when it’s busier. One of the barmaids was nice…
• Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Fleet Street - Now we’re talking: a really old pub, rebuilt in the 1600s. It should have had a cheery ruddy faced cockney landlord, but instead had fresh faced Australians like everywhere else does.
• The Blackfriar, Blackfriars - This one was my choice, after we stumbled upon it with Chris and Rae once upon a time. The art-deco monks and the extensive marble really make it for me. What’s more it’s gone no-smoking. Great.
• The Cat and Canary, Canary Wharf - a Whetherspoons-esque barn of a pub, but we got to sit outside on the waterside, and watch the business types leaving their offices.
• Brodie’s, Canary Wharf - another nondescript pub for Canary Wharf office workers. It was too cold to sit outside by now.
• The Tooke Arms, Tower Hamlets - This isn’t where we intended to go. We meant to go to the North Pole, but it had closed down. The Tooke is a prefab estate pub. We watched a bit of the football, finished our drinks and got a taxi to Brick Lane.
• The Big Chill Bar, Shoreditch - We didn’t have time for a curry before the last train home, so we went here instead, and I had some adequate falafels. Paul likes The Big Chill; I wasn’t convinced. It all seemed a bit spartan to me. Sixth form common room-y in the same way as Kelsey’s is in Leamington. They did play some old acid house, which was pleasant in a nostalgic sort of way.

The last train home got us home for a little past 1am, so today I am tired.

Pictures

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