london

http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/why-did-the-city-of-london-police-can-the-just-jam-event-at-the-barbican

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10744997/Cool-London-is-dead-and-the-rich-kids-are-to-blame.html

lol this guy

They are the kind of people who might buy a Damien Hirst, but would never discover the next Damien Hirst.

Best point yet made in favour of social cleansing.

Someone needs to point out to this trust fund cretin that Peckham is actually closer to the centre of town than Hampstead.

I do enjoy a good whine about the trendification of London from people whose idea of London doesn't extend beyond six postcodes though, it's always good to know your enemy.

astonishing that anyone could so spectacularly miss the open goal of writing about this subject

This starts w/Paris but from this piece Paris doesn't occupy the same space that London does for the UK.

Why you should buy a sports car
Why it's better to be in your 40s than 20s
Why I swapped London for the glorious sticks
We've become a nation of hyper-consumers
Was 1963 the best year to be a man?

the weird specificity of his columns kinda makes him seem like a britisher version of the onion cartoonist

Why you should buy a sports car
Why it's better to be in your 40s than 20s
Why I swapped London for the glorious sticks
We've become a nation of hyper-consumers
Was 1963 the best year to be a man?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?

Hey Londoners, anyone know anything about cheap zone 6 places to live that are close to Slough? Uxbridge/ Hillingdon area? I'm asking for a Canadian beginning teacher who's taken a job in Slough. She's been told to avoid West Drayton and Hayes. I know zilch about west London.

I'd say I'm familiar. I lived in those parts up until around 2006. Is being close to public transport and London important? You mention zone 6 but that area isn't served by the tube. I lived in West Drayton for five years. Although it wasn't the smartest place it's cheap and relatively convenient for public transport having a train station that covers Slough in 10 mins and Paddington in 25 mins. If you drive or you are happy to live slightly outside it will open up a few more areas.

Sorry, Uxbridge and Hillingdon are on the tube but these don't connect with Slough very well using public transport. Uxbridge is okay. What sort of factors are important?

Not the answer you're looking for: but I'd personally get a place nearish to Paddington and do the 20 minute commute.

Thanks! I think the three most important factors are 1. feeling safe 2. easy to get to Slough (getting to London easily less important as it'll only be once a week or so) 3. cheap, which is probably why the Paddington to Slough commute has been ruled out.

It might be worth considering Windsor or even Maidenhead. Accommodation might be more expensive than Slough, Langley, West Drayton and the like but certainly less than London. I think if I'd come over from Canada and lived in some of those places I would be a bit disappointed. At least with Windsor (5 minute train journey to Slough) you would have something to do in the evenings and weekends and when friends or family visit. All the places mentioned have a relatively low crime rate in most areas, it's commuter belt with not a great deal to offer. If you want a further breakdown I could give one place by place.

mmmm, if you have time to do that I know she would really appreciate it!

I should add that I left these areas and now live in east London!

- West Drayton / Yiewsley - reputation for being a 'rough area'. The best thing about living there is it's train station. I didn't have any problems with crime when I lived there. Working class. Close to Uxbridge.
- Iver - Small village with a train station connecting to Slough. Quiet commuter belt. Would be safe. 10 mins / 3 miles from Slough.
- Langley - a Slough suburb. Nothing of note there really. Sasha Baron Cohen picked up some of his ideas for Ali G here. Dull but close to Slough.
- Slough. Town centre looked pretty depressing when I went there a couple of months back.
- Maidenhead - smallish town, 10 mins or a few miles from Slough. Nice enough. A bit smarter, close to nice river walks - Cookham, Henley, Hurley. Nice place to live.
- Windsor - has a large Castle! lots of tourists! A bit more character. On the river, nice walks. Restaurants and pubs you would actually go in!

All of these are on train lines into Slough. There are buses too but these aren't London buses so a lot less reliable.

Brilliant, I will pass this on. Thank you!

No problem! My general message is you are probably better off thinking along the lines of living in east Berkshire rather than on the edges of west London / zone 6. It's the same travel time to central London and it's generally more pleasant.

I'm giving more serious consideration to buying somewhere now, possibly around Ilford. Is there anywhere near there to particularly avoid?

Kingsway fire is still going twenty hours later. The road is still shut and half the Strand has its power out while they try to make it safe enough to put water on it.

massive power cut in east london twenty minutes into my five a side game last night. what i learned: ootball is an incredibly dangerous game to play in the dark.

Ootball is dangerous in any conditions

In the not too distant future
Wars will no longer exist
But there will be Ootball

Do you know that abroad they call it occer?

i say move to ilford

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ilford,+Greater+London,+UK/@51.557311,0.044935,3a,75y,83.46h,75.86t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sDUJn8xE9FQUidoHw8fxumg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x47d8a1494a4cce5b:0xd4405940c0cf45ab

Should we go to St. Albans or Windsor today?

I went to Windsor Castle last month (for the first time ever) with my daughter - not a bad way to spend what's going to be a cold, wet afternoon.

Save them for a sunny day. Go to Trinity Buoy Wharf and look at the lighthouse instead.

when i was about three or four i apparently climbed halfway up windsor castle walls. was there with my nan, who only realised when she tirned to see what the commotion was behind her (i believe we were having a picnic and I'd gone off to "play").

it seems i was going great guns exactly up until the point my nan called out to stay exactly where i was and then *slowly* make my way back down. this was altogether a different proposition and it took an age of people calling out where to put my foot for the best hold etc. warm brace and applause at the bottom apparently. "I never did tell your mother" was how the story ended. i feel i have a very dim recollection of it but it's v hard to say. maybe i shd go back and relive it.

Do it

you're right. putting it in the diary.

http://i.imgur.com/aijwWRb.jpg

Windsor next time! We left it a little late in the end.

Thanks for the tip, Matt! It's very close to where we live and getting the cable car across the Thames is a delight. Trinity Buoy Wharf itself was like a crazy steampunk microcosm of art and parkour hidden amongst expanses of grand industrial development. The little singing bowl longplayer in the lighthouse was very sweet and equally chilling. A lovely time.

Is Longplayer still there?

haha xp

Haha it certainly is. Still haunting away and surrounded by the skeletons of old iMacs.

The best best best bit was scoring front seat of the DLR on the way back to Woolwich. The highlight of any right-thinking person's week. I am five.

To a ticket inspector: "I won't need to show you. I'm the driver!"

I only went for the first time a couple of weeks ago - I had no idea there was even a lighthouse in London. Trinity Buoy Wharf is a place so obscure there isn't a single mention of it on ILX prior to today but it's totally magical and weird and of course Longplayer is an astonishing endeavour. Feels miles away from everything.

Yeah, it was a truly bizarre little colony, both hypermodern and weirdly antiquated. It has two cafes and they are both containers, and a museum in a small shed. Very much worth a visit, even if you find the idea of a Parkour Academy hilarious. Cheers Matt!

Went to a big Warp Records party there back in 2000, with Aphex, Autechre, BoC and the rest. Have been back a couple of times since - were the mechanical sculptures out on display?

That sounds incredible. Regretfully I have not been to a gig in a lighthouse. The sculptures (a man and a woman being fragmented on turning cogs?) were in the courtyard, just outside the 'container town'.

I used to enjoy the Green Chain Walk when I was living in Plumstead and Woolwich in the 90's. It wasn't an adequate substitute for genuine greenbelt walks where all you can see is nature, but I spent some pleasant summer Sundays wandering along it.

Xp I went there on a kind of open day and they seemed to have a resident mad inventor who makes the sculptures, he was going round in a steampunk walking contraption and there were quite a few others on show.

Here's some of his sculptures in action, although it doesn't have the walking thing I saw which iirc was a bit like a motorcycle sidecar with legs. My favourite is towards the end, a device for automatically carving out of wood a copy of a cast iron sculpted torso.
https://vimeo.com/34806774

The bit of the Green Chain that leads from Beckenham out to Chislehurst is a bit like that if only because so much of it is in Elmstead Woods.

If you carry a bit further around towards Sidcup you find Scadbury Park Nature Reserve, which in summer must be one of the loveliest spots I've been to inside the M25.

All the sculptures at TBW were steampunk as hell, maybe I might post a picture in a bit

I never knew about Longplayer before and it is fascinating and I am listening to a livestream of it now. Thank you ILX.

I go to London in July! First time. Only four nights and want to make the most of it because I don't imagine I'll get there again for a very long time.

Let's pretend price is no object. What neighborhood/hotel would you choose? Killer restaurant? Too many choices and I don't know where to start, really.

I love gardens, so garden recs also welcome!

London! I go to it!