Two weeks ago I popped over to Amsterdam for a work trip to a Booking.com partner event with my colleague, Lee. Lee is the ideal travelling companion because he will generously offer to arrange all of the flights / hotel / dinner reservations for the trip, and although I was probably pushing my luck by recruiting him as my emergency personal shopper at Gatwick Airport (“Lee, I’m not sure I own enough shirts…”) he rose to the occasion with aplomb.
Amsterdam is such a inviting city to walk around, and although we didn’t have time for any sightseeing we did manage to get dinner at Moeders (Mothers) restaurant, a Dutch comfort food institution in which the walls are covered from top to bottom in photos of mothers provided by previous guests. (Sorry, mum, I should have planned ahead.) Rest assured that I also secured a healthy number of mini-stroopwafels during the trip.
Back in the UK, last weekend I was feeling a bit restless so Randi and I had a skim through those “lists of things to do in London” written for tourists and decided (helped by the free entrance) to give the Tate Modern a whirl. I haven’t been to the Tate Modern in either (a) a very long time, (b) ever – I am genuinely not sure – and I am really not in their target demographic. But we had fun browsing through several galleries before admiring the latest Turbine Hall exhibition from a safe distance. Currently this is Lubaina Himid’s Dream Buildings in which families can work together to build their own play area out of wood, and it’s actually really cool and uplifting to see relatively young children working with real saws and hammers to construct their own world. Kudos to whatever team shepherded this idea through what I can only imagine were inordinate risk assessment procedures.
In contrast, no impromptu museum visits were required this weekend as we already had a packed agenda – starting with a very special Friday night to celebrate Randi’s final day at her current workplace! (For this we picked Two Spoons, an incredible slice of New Orleans in Honor Oak which we were both very excited about.)
The next afternoon we headed up to Norwich to join Oliver, Abi, Kat, Helen and Jason for dinner followed by a production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in which Oliver’s dad, John, played Professor Kirke (my favourite character) and Father Christmas, amongst others. I’ve known Oliver’s parents for years but this was the first time I’ve ever actually seen John on stage, so I was really excited about finally correcting this after such a long time.
The production itself – which was part musical! – was wonderful, and it’s especially great to be in an audience which includes children becoming enraptured in theatre for maybe the first time. And the Narnia stories don’t pull their punches. One of the reasons C.S. Lewis will always be high on my fantasy dinner party list is because he had serious things to say, and I respect the fact that, in amongst the fun and fauns, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is ultimately a story where the child protagonists bear witness to the humiliation and murder of Aslan, the Christ-figure. This is a religious allegory which cuts to the core of Christianity, not a twee morality tale.
But precisely because it’s serious stuff, Narnia has always aroused strong emotions in me and they all came flooding back last night. It’s a massive cliché that atheists are all secretly angry at god, and it’s not true. But since Aslan undoubtedly ‘exists’ within the world of Narnia, I think it’s reasonable for me to admit that I really, really can’t stand Aslan. The White Witch has been ruling Narnia for one hundred years. If Aslan is the ‘true ruler’ of Narnia, what has he been doing for all that time? Does Aslan have responsibility for Narnia or not? If he does, it’s hard to think of a greater abdication of leadership, especially if you are all-powerful. This isn’t an argument about ‘free will’. The White Witch isn’t a regrettably-successful populist. She’s a tyrant who uses magic to turn people into stone. Aslan has the power to free them in a moment, and for a century he chooses not to, and nobody ever asks him why.
Obviously this reaction makes me sound completely mad when we’re all standing around afterwards enjoying some post-show ice-cream, but so be it. (Nobody went for the Turkish Delight flavour, which was a missed opportunity.) Then, since Helen and Jason had very kindly agreed to host us all overnight, we went back to their place and stayed up talking until 2 in the morning in a lovely re-run of Oliver and Abi’s wedding. They are one of my favourite groups to stay up and chat with, even though I only get the opportunity once every few years.
The next morning, Randi continued her campaign from the last time we were in Norwich of convincing me that Norwich’s buses are actually pretty good, and we rode back into town for an incredibly fun breakfast with her former colleague Rachel. And then we meandered our way back along the rails to London, hop-scotching around some engineering work but still arriving back with plenty of time to enjoy a sunny Sunday afternoon in the city. No endless winter for us yet 😉
Next week Randi’s parents are arriving in town, and together we have some more travels planned!
You knew this post was coming: 15 walking sections later, we are now Capital Ring complete! Starting and finishing in Woolwich, the route took us around the city on a circular journey which included full Englishes in Oxleas Wood, the dinosaurs of Crystal Palace, the magical telescope of Richmond Park, the ghostly abandoned platforms of Crouch End railway station and the Olympic Park at Stratford.
For our final outing we combined the relatively short Sections 13, 14 and 15 into one triple-bill walk, powered by breakfast bagels in Stoke Newington and finishing at the very same café where we first set out back in May last year. (Dear Woolwich First Choice Cafe & Restaurant: your full-throated commitment to melted cheese on a jacket potato is beyond comparison.) Just as with the London Loop, the official start/end points in East London are certainly not the most spectacularly green portions of the route. But it was interesting to walk through the University of East London campus (on an Offer Holder Day, no less) and emerge right at the river, as well as passing by hitherto-mysterious DLR stations (Royal Albert? Cyprus?) for the first time.
In non-walking news, after finishing The West Wing Randi and I were in the very, very rare position of being in the market for something new to watch and I’m delighted that we took Tash’s advice and picked Succession. We’re now far into the first season and I am really enjoying this corporate/family drama of warring psychopaths which everyone else enjoyed back in 2018.
Meanwhile, on St Patrick’s Day (albeit without remembering it was St Patrick’s Day) I had a really lovely evening with Simon, during which I think we might have regressed quite a bit in age. It started legitimately enough, swapping work stories over several pints by the river, but by the end we had migrated – via Honest Burgers – to (delicious) milkshakes at Five Guys. No regrets, though.
Other recent “hurray, we’re Covid-free!” outings included a final farewell visit to our old office with a group of colleagues, followed by a quick tour of our new shared workspace in Clerkenwell and then drinks at The Slaughtered Lamb nearby. As always, it is totally delightful to see many of the people I work with in person, and I’m torn between wanting more of that and the reality that commuting to an office in order to go on video calls with people who mostly aren’t in the office (because, say, they aren’t based in London) just doesn’t feel like a very productive use of time anymore.
On Thursday night, the London Supper Club gathered at my mum’s for celebrity guest/cook Katie – making a special appearance from Scotland – and as usual we ate extremely well. But I wanted to end this post with extra special thanks to my mum for our outing on the Sunday beforehand to see Oxide Ghosts at The Gate cinema in Notting Hill. This is a never-to-be-released 60 minute compilation of deleted scenes, bloopers and bonus material from Chris Morris’s spoof Brass Eye documentary series, put together by the original director – Michael Cumming – from his personal collection of raw VHS tapes from the making of the show in the 1990s.
I was slightly too young for Brass Eye when it first aired on Channel 4 but discovered it on DVD as a teenager and (predictably) loved it, as did many of my Sixth Form friends. It only ran for a single season (plus the notorious 2001 special) so if you’d have told me then that many years later I’d be sitting in a cinema to enjoy a whole extra hour of Brass Eye I’d have thought it was the greatest thing ever in the world. Even the Q&A with the director afterwards – moderated at our screening by David Walliams – was less annoying than most Q&As when certain people in the audience feel compelled to ask their question-which-is-actually-more-of-a-comment, and the two of them reflected in interesting ways that while the show certainly stands up today it’s also incredibly of its time, mainly because Chris Morris’s central target of scorn was television itself and television is just far, far less central to culture today then it was back then. It is true that, even by the 1990s, “getting on TV” somehow was still a big thing for most people, even if it was just local news. It feels like an age ago now.
London Walking Routes Blog Index May 2019: Started London Loop October 2020: Completed London Loop May 2021: Started Capital Ring March 2022: Completed Capital Ring TfL Guides London Loop Capital Ring Other Promising Entries In The Series Thames Path? Always a reliable choice. Green Chain? Although we've walked most of it by accident already! Lea Valley? The bits by the Lea on the Capital Ring were lovely...
It’s been a strange couple of weeks, and not in a good way. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has directly affected the lives of people I’m close to and care a lot about. They aren’t on the frontline, but they are affected all the time. At the same time, Randi and I finally caught Covid, although in my case I’ve had (almost) no symptoms at all other than a certain quiet satisfaction that, yes, at least I have been administering these lateral flow tests on myself properly all this time. Unfortunately Randi didn’t get off quite as lightly, although she is OK and is now fully on the mend. But the coincidence of these two things has resulted in a weird atmosphere of being stuck inside, worrying about people over WhatsApp and watching news reports of advancing armies and bombed-out cities.
Away from the war itself, I do recommend the documentary F@ck This Job, available in the UK on BBC iPlayer as Tango With Putin, as another angle into modern Russia. It’s the story of independent TV channel Dozhd (or TV Rain) which you may remember from the clip of its staff walking off set together as the station was shut down at the beginning of March. Its founder, Natalya Sindeyeva, is a fascinating leader and the documentary is worth watching for her alone.
We had planned to visit Katie in Glasgow – a city which I’ve still never visited – but for obvious reasons this was postponed. Instead, we have at least been escaping to Victorian London by getting into a nice habit of reading Sherlock Holmes aloud in the evenings. It’s extremely comforting when a character from the nineteenth century rides a familiar train from Norwood to London Bridge.
Before this current phase of isolation, we did have a few lovely get-togethers to write about. Abbi visited us two weeks ago for a Friday night sleepover, followed by a Saturday morning run with Randi and then breakfast together at the Lazy Chef. The next day, we travelled up to Golders Green for the triple delights of brunch with Josh, Anna and Cora at Soyo, a wander around Golders Hill Park and – of course – a trip to Carmelli Bakery to stock up on challah. I also had a much-needed night out in a pub with Clark and Matt, where we only spent some of the time talking about nuclear weapons, and even very briefly went back to the office (!) to link up with Jill and Lee on some work-related visits. (No no, don’t try and amateur track-and-trace this paragraph. I definitely got my Covid from Randi…😇)
Last night, my mum treated Tash, Cormac, Randi and me to a delayed Christmas outing to see The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage at the Bridge Theatre. This was exciting on many levels, not least because – discounting our immersive Time Fracture experience at Christmas – this was my first time back at a theatre since Covid began. But going much further back, I can still picture the library in the attic of my primary school where I first laid eyes on Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights, and there’s something special about being part of an audience with equally long memories of Lyra and Pan gallivanting around Jordan College. This production itself was also excellent, with Samuel Creasey giving an especially good performance as the bright, confused, hungry and heroic 11 year-old Malcom Polstead who protects the life of baby Lyra in his canoe during a great flood.
It’s much harder to imagine the second book in the trilogy, The Secret Commonwealth, being staged with the same uplifting energy given how much sadder and more melancholy it is. We shall see!
The last few weeks haven’t been that busy, but a few weeks ago we did gain a civic participation brownie point by attending a (virtual) Perry Vale community meeting. Ostensibly the purpose was to discuss the allocation of a pot of funding between a long list of worthy-sounding community projects, but – in a familiar problem – there’s no way I’m actually in a position to have an informed opinion about which projects are worthier than others. So we skipped this part, and joined instead for a presentation from Lewisham’s directly-elected mayor, Damien Egan, on the council’s overall budget and objectives. There are pros and cons to directly-elected mayors, of course, but at a basic level it is satisfying to have ‘a leader’ who can articulate in one voice what the council is doing. (Obligatory snarky comment about London boroughs: just maybe not 32 of them.)
At the other end of the democracy spectrum, Randi and I finally finished watching The West Wing after setting out on this adventure in (*checks blog history*) July 2017. Hey, that’s still faster than watching two Presidential terms unfold in real time! There’s a lot to love about The West Wing, and a lot to roll your eyes about, either because it’s based on completely false premises or (more prosaically) because whole characters and story arcs have a habit of vanishing into thin air. But I miss it now it’s gone. The other night, while Randi was out, I filled the gap by watching a few classic episodes of The Simpsons which I haven’t seen for years and years and was pleasantly surprised at how they can still make me laugh out loud, even something as simple as Homer making a phone call to Japan. (If you want to feel old, read the YouTube comments where the concept of an expensive long-distance telephone call has to be explained. )
We also hosted Kirsty and Roger at ours for a lovely evening of arguments about politics and culture, followed by a great Sunday afternoon at Matt and Laura’s in which I tried to suppress my envy that Cress still gets to have Calpol when she’s sick. Meanwhile our new tradition of Friday night food exploration has included sharing plates in Peckham (from a baseline recommendation of 4-6, we ordered 8), an amazing Georgian restaurant in East Dulwich and – as a reward for persevering through hail the night of Storm Eunice – The Herne Tavern. (Yes, obviously we stayed indoors for the red weather warning bit. Our fence, on the other hand, mounted an invasion attempt into the neighbour’s garden and is now a high-priority item to fix.) Last, but not least, we also tucked into an amazing pastry-crusted fish pie at mum’s at the latest London Supper Brunch Club.
And, yes, obviously we’ve kept walking the Capital Ring too. Recent sections have taken us via muddy Fryent Country Park (is it ever not muddy?) to Barn Hill – where my dad used to take us as kids all the time – and the Welsh Harp (much lovelier than Mr Birch’s secondary school assemblies about murder made it out to be) and later Highgate Wood (delightful, although Tash has since reminded me that this is where the worst dogs of our childhood appeared) and the wonderful Parkland Walk south to Finsbury Park. In case you can’t tell, I’m enjoying all of these North London bits, but the last one was especially exciting for being an old railway route, with the tracks now lifted, but which would be part of the Tube’s Northern line today had the Second World War not intervened.
December blogs are frantic while January blogs are chilled: that’s just the way of the world. We haven’t had any dramatic adventures so far this month, but 2022 did get off to a really lovely start when we hit the Capital Ring on New Year’s Day for fresh air, muddy trails and the familiar Grand Union Canal. That evening we settled down for Doctor Who’s Eve of the Daleks– romantic comedy plus time loops plus Aisling Bea plus Daleks, of course – which instantly became one of my favourite Jodie Whittaker episodes of all time and certainly one of the show’s most satisfying festive specials.
Otherwise we’ve mostly been staying warm and cosy indoors, watching the new series of Would I Lie To You?, cracking open the Dominion: Adventures board game expansion, making tremendous progress with the final season of The West Wing (the end is in sight!) and enjoying David Attenborough’s home videos of plants The Green Planet, albeit without entirely accepting the premise that time-lapse photography of aggressive water lilies can ever quite match footage of animal interactions. We’ve also continued to expand our repertoire of local food places which we love and cherish: from The Lazy Chef by Forest Hill station to Malaysian food near Crofton Park and (slightly further afield) sharing platters at Tupi in Peckham. It might sound obvious, but it’s funny to realise that the owners of the restaurants and cafés in Forest Hill all know each other, and London really is a huge collection of urban villages after all.
Last weekend, we also went over to Erin’s extraordinary time-portal flat by Hampstead Heath for mimosas and a delicious shakshuka brunch – courtesy of Antonis – before an invigorating walk around the Heath with the two of them plus Erin’s dog Diva, who it was a pleasure to finally meet. Even after we had collectively put the world to rights Randi and I still weren’t done with the walking, so we headed to Charing Cross on foot before finally catching a train home. It’s fascinating to be reminded, or perhaps discover for the first time, how the areas of London I’ve always known (Hampstead Heath, Camden, Euston, Oxford Street) actually link up together.
Finally, last night we attended Caroline’s ‘leaving party’ (basically just an excuse for a party, without any long-term ‘leaving’ actually taking place) which was lovely, and – in a way which feels like a novelty now! – an actual party where you quickly find yourself in a crowd of people you’ve never met before. Personal highlight: being momentarily taken aback when a guy leaned over and confessed, somewhat conspiratorially, that he was also a Labour party member. I’m not sure this has happened to me at any of Caroline’s events before.
Jeff DuBowe on Haarlem globetrotters: “One of our favorite spots. Super walking city. I think we were the ones who told your In-Laws about it…” Oct 14, 15:15
