London

the walk from finsbury park up to alexandra palace is great

Absolutely. Ally Pally to Hampstead Heath via Highgate Wood is excellent as well.

more good walking to be had along the regents canal, pretty much any stretch between limehouse and little venice has got interesting things to look at and goes past lots of nice parks, pubs, etc.

i always feel weird walking along this stretch cuz it used to be my run. when i walk along it i'm like, why is it taking so long to get from one place to another? why am i going so slowly?

i may try to see some theatre while i'm there too? has anyone seen anything good lately? do people still do that?

yup there's always something good on! would recommend the fringe listings as well as the main west end ones. too many good theatres to list.

gah that reminds me, i am meant to be organising a theatre trip, i said i'd email people, um, 2 weeks ago

s1ocki the current issue of Time Out is all about how great London theatre is at the moment

i'd check out what's on at the Donmar Warehouse, Young Vic, Arcola, the National Theatre, etc etc

awesome!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Xngs4VuoU

listening to this in anticipaysh

this is gonna sound weird but do time out london actually post their articles to their site? http://www.timeout.com/london/ seems to be just listings?

ledge is wise upthread, don't bother with the battersea -> vauxhall bit

if you find yourself around buckingham palace, head over towards big ben, cross the river, then walk east along the river making your way towards tower bridge. you'll pass loads of galleries, museums and the areas around waterloo / london bridge stations are really good for finding good food, places like borough market, lower marsh.

go to richmond park, it's v posh & pretty. if you're here on the 2nd, go to 'boat-ting' and hang out with improv legends on a boat. on the 3rd it's 'first thursdays' where the galleries open late in east london. walking the canals around east london isn't particularly nice but i really enjoy it for it's griminess. we once started in old street at the 'wenlock arms' which has good ale selection then walked along the canal passing through hoxton, shoreditch, dalston, london fields and then ended up at the nice bit around victoria park. if you're feeling really brave and fancy it you can carry on to the olympic park, passing through all the hackney wick warehouse area, which is also horrible, but i like all that stuff

okay i'm going to stop now because it's just depressing that i don't have the time/money to do these things myself!!

i will be there through may 4th so looks like i could do those things on the 2nd and 3rd, though i am not QUITE sure what "hang out with improv legends on a boat" means?? comedy improv? or musical improv?

http://www.boat-ting.co.uk/

always good :)

Cor, Veryan Weston! Don't think I've ever seen him play and I shd see some improv this year. Might need to go.

Also Cafe Oto is gd for music, as w/Boat-ting depends on your taste:

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/programme.shtm

For more evening thingies: tricycle and riverside are always good for a mix of theatre/cinema/dance. Told v nice things re: rich mix. Check their programme and there might be something you'd want to go along to.

Late Apr at the BFI looks gd: David Holzman's Diary is a pick, but there's some good things in their 'studio' room that opened about 2-3 years ago I think (L'Atalante ws screened there in a shiny new print but I missed it)

Oops you said May 4th so scrap the BFI pick. Always click on their site on the 1st day of the month to check.

i looked at some BFI offerings while i'm there (after an amazing experiencing watching l'atalante there, did i mention that in this thread?) and there's some interesting stuff incl THIEF OF BAGHDAD

Yes you did, hence why I mentioned the new print.

Thief of Baghdad = also good.

that would be a fun one to see on the big screen!

Other daytrip possibilities I would recommend: Whitstable (fishing town with lovely old buildings, pebble beach), Rye (similar but set on a hill above a salt marsh which gives it a very isolated atmosphere, with Camber Sands and Dungeness nearby- Dungeness is a weird headland with a nuclear power plant and lots of beach shacks dotted around a pebble beach which is a bit like a moonscape); Lewes (near Brighton, great big castle, a large tourable brewery, interesting shops, good pubs & restaurants); Warwick Castle (another huge castle). Oxford & Cambridge also recommended.

You could also go to another big city for a daytrip- Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Liverpool and Sheffield are all just about doable (each c. 2hrs on the train), but if you do that definitely book in advance.

all of those sound like great places to take pictures and stare into the distance and think about wg sebald and scribble stuff in my notebook i wont be able to make out later.

is there any great travel book re: london or any of these day trips any of yall know about?

Derek Jarman had a cottage in Dungeness, innit?

Kent is really good for a day trip in spring/summer (of course its utterly depressing at most other times). xp

Yeah, Dungeness was Jarman territory.

Whitstable & Rye definitely Sebald-esque, but you could go to the Suffolk coast for the real thing- Rings of Saturn is set round there IIRC, but I don't know that part of the world at all. Dunwich, the town now under the sea, was on that part of the coast.

Re. guides: Time Out London city guide is good. I have one called "London by Pub", which is basically a load of pub crawls plus some incidental stuff about architecture.

This obviously is no use for travel plans, but 20 degrees! http://static2.bigstockphoto.com/thumbs/8/9/2/large2/298016.jpg

ooh here's another daytrip suggestion: Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, nr. Oxford. Gigantic Vanbrugh country house, with Capability Brown grounds. Proper Hanoverian Ascendancy architecture-as-power stuff.

unlucky s1ocki, we're having summer in march this year

Also, you can get to the middle of Paris in like 2 hours.

i would love to visit paris again (lived there for a little bit), is the train affordable at all?

we're kind of having summer in march over here too, it's a bit weird!

again booking in advance is advisable- if you do so you could get tix for £90 return. On the day would be £200+.

cheapest return from london is £69 iirc

that's not terrible.

what are your thoughts on mega-cheap airlines?

do those still exist?

xpost and s1ocki if you make it out to whitstable you should eat something here imo. it is fucking great

ooh lala!!!

any and all food suggestions are welcome to, i am a food writer and i love to eat so 'foodie' stuff is definitely on my agenda

the cheap airlines still exist! i think the thing is just that the train is so much easier, you go from the centre of london to the centre of paris.

right, the cheap airlines don't let you bring bags and you're not allowed to pee and you have to bring food for the cabin crew right?

xp and so much nicer, you sit on a train

any and all food suggestions are welcome to, i am a food writer and i love to eat so 'foodie' stuff is definitely on my agenda

oooohh london restaurants are some of my favourite things. you want to know more about high end stuff or cheap local ethnic food (which is often just as good)?

there's a london restaurants thread which should be a good starting point if you can bear the occasional smug tone, also of late it's just devolved into burger talk because there's an inexplicable and apparently unending burger obsession going on right now. ignore all that.

lol but also otm

haha lex, i want to hear about both and i would be happy to grab a bite with you if you have free time!

i might even pitch an article about 'em in which case we may eat on whatever publication i can coerce into publishing me's dime!

burgers in london, i can probably do without.

i would be happy to eat with you too, that would be awesome! god i don't even know where to START recommending though, i have all my local and regular favourites but i still feel like i've barely scratched the surface, and my favourite thing is checking out places i haven't been.

a while ago some friends of mine were gonna do a project which involved eating out in london to represent every country in the world. it never got finished cuz the girl organising it got deported (to canada, lol) but i still kind of want to steal her idea and finish it sometime.

maybe i can show you how to cook (JOKES)

but yeah, think on it, i would love to hear any and all suggestions.

this is gonna sound weird but do time out london actually post their articles to their site? http://www.timeout.com/london/ seems to be just listings?

― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Thursday, March 22, 2012 12:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

does anyone know about this? would love to read that london theater scene article tracer mentioned

i don't know, their website is super confusing.

i think if you go to the 'theatre' page there's something called 'theatre features' that might contain the article Tracer mentioned but as i haven't read the article tracer mentioned i can't really confirm.

thank u good idea.

Xxpost

Let's start 202 meals again, sure M&A won't mind if it means someone else is doing the organising.

A friend and I have been doing the all-nations food thing too, though because neither of us actually live in London it's going quite slowly. Last month we ticked off "Cockney".

u bought some crisps?

Pie/mash/eel bonanza

o eely

id forgot abt eelpienmash

First off we went to Manze's which was fun (provided you like jellied eel), then later on we tried F. Cooke's in Shoreditch, which was empty, cold and a bit grim overall.