Mark from the England Your England short film series tells the story of Mark who spent over a decade behind bars after being convicted for drug dealing. While it has been a difficult road, Mark has managed to find redemption by working as a counsellor for other people from similar backgrounds.
Mark’s chosen charity is User Voice, which is based on the idea that only offenders can stop re-offending. You can learn more about the film from the England Your England website.
Patrick, part of the England Your England short film series, is about 81 year old Patrick who continues to live an independent life in central London and helps those around him. It touches on ageing in the city and the feeling of alienation that sometimes results.
Each film in the series is helping to raise money for charity, with Age UK Camden being the chosen one for this movie. You can learn more about the making of the film and see other stills on the England Your England website.
This post is part of my Randomly London v. The Tube Challenge. Get the latest about challenge updates here. Donate to Bowel Cancer UK here.
My overall impression of the Bakerloo line was not altogether favourable when I visited the stations, and initially, walking it does little to improve this. However, this is due as much to mistakes on my part as anything else.
I’m walking the Bakerloo line from Harrow & Wealdstone in far north-west London to Elephant & Castle in the south-east. It’s a cool, overcast day in October when I begin – the perfect weather for walking. Nevertheless, things begin to go wrong almost immediately.
First of all, I’m sleepy because I stayed out late at a work party the night before, which means I am slightly hungover as well. Far worse is the realisation that the internet on my phone is no longer working. For most experienced and/or prepared walkers this wouldn’t be a problem, but for me it is.
While I don’t have the best phone, it’s perfectly sufficient to run Google Maps. Within a very short period of time, I’ve become wholly dependent on it to navigate London’s streets. Why use an A to Z when you have a map with GPS right in your pocket?
Continue reading Bakerloo Line Walk – From Harrow & Wealdstone to Elephant & Castle
The London Perambulator is a wonderful short documentary about walking in London’s fringes. Although it was made in 2009, I’ve only just come across it. Directed and shot by John Rogers it focuses on Nick Papadimitriou and his walks on the edges of London.
It includes interviews with Will Self, Iain Sinclair and bizarrely Russell Brand. A lot of the discussion focuses on the psychogeography and deep topography of London; two terms I’ve never heard of before, but something I can certainly relate to on my tube walks.
I won’t spoil any more of it here, you’ll just have to watch it.
For more visit The London Perambulator website.
Most of us who live in London know that hotel room prices aren’t cheap. However, since your average Londoner will never stay in a London hotel, most probably couldn’t tell you how much an average one costs per night. At £1,000 a night the following hotels may come as a bit of a shock as they’re probably not what you’d expect:
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Located in Shepherds Bush, the hotel is just a 10 minute walk to the BBC Television Centre – perfect for all your big name celebrities. Features include:
And you better be quick about booking a room, seems there’s only 2 left and one was booked just a minute ago. The hotel gets a solid 6.0/10.0 rating meaning it’s OK. To find out more about the Abbey Hotel Sheperds Bush London please click here.
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Located in Ealing, it’s not too difficult to get to the Earls Court Exhibition Centre and/or Turnham Green. And when you see the amenities I think you’ll agree it’s something special:
Again you better be quick about booking a room as there’s just one left at £1,000 a night. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any reviews of the hotel, but I’m sure you expect top notch service at that price. To find out more about the Annexe Rooms please click here.
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The hotel is located about a 10 minute walk from either West Hampstead Tube station or South Hampstead Railway Station. Features include:
Overall this hotel looks like the nicest of the bunch. However, is it really worth £999 a night? Consider you can stay at the Savoy the same night for only £383? To find out more about the Dawson House Hotel London click here.
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This bed & breakfast is situated within a 10 minute walk from Maryland Railway Station (where?). It includes the following features:
Another feature of the hotel is that London Biggin Hill Airport (BQH) is under a 40-minute drive from the Olympic’s B&B. This is handy if you plan to fly in by private jet. To find out more about the Olympic’s B&B please click here.
First, I just want to make it clear that I’m not criticising any of the hotels listed above. I’m sure they’re lovely places to stay, but realistically the pricing does seem a tad high. Nevertheless, I’m only trying to point out a bizarre pricing error, not have fun at anyone else’s expense.
Your first though may be that I’ve photoshopped the booking pages above. I can assure you I haven’t. If I did try to photoshop the prices it would look something like this:
Instead I assume this is just an algorithm bug, somewhat similar to this one that was discovered on Amazon. This is reinforced by the fact that there are only 1 or 2 rooms left for each of these listings. Moreover, only one provider is listed as offering the rooms.
Really not much to it. I’m always been a little curious about which London hotels are the most expensive. So I used Hotels Combined, my favourite hotel comparison site. It claims to compare the prices of hotels using hundreds of travel sites, but the actual number I’ve seen on any given search is usually much smaller (in the ones above only 1).
However, when I did a search for a one night stay between August 1, 2013 and August 2, 2013 – I got the strange results you see above. I did the search in early morning of January 30, 2013 and I expect the listings may no longer be there by the time you read this. If anyone can shed any more light on what’s going on please leave a comment below.
Disclaimer: The links above to Hotels Combined are affiliate links. This means they will pay me a commission BUT only if you choose to book a room. I figure if anyone is crazy enough to book a £1,000 a night hotel room from here, I want a cut. Bandwidth isn’t free. If you object to this please don’t click the links.
The end of the latest TUBE TUBE series. What will the final outcome be? Watch to find out. To watch all the other TUBE TUBE videos visit this page.
The penultimate episode of the TUBE TUBE series is titled ‘The Civil Servant.’ Who knows what the outcome will be in the growing Back2Work scandal?
Is Xmas Time – A London Time Lapse film from Mattia Bicchi Photography on Vimeo.
Unfortunately, most of us had to go back to work yesterday after a long Christmas holiday. Is Christmas Time (or Is X-mas Time) is an another amazing timelapse film by Mattia Bicchi. I think it helps remind us of how wonderful London looked during the holidays.
While the film includes a few of what we can call standard London timelapse shots (e.g. Thames & London Eye), it also includes some incredible panning/moving/zooming ones. Apparently according to Mattia, he “used a monopod and shot for each step, and then stabilized in post-production.” Watch to see what I mean.
Locations include: The South Bank, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Circus, Regents Street, Natural History Museum, Winter Wonderland (in Hyde Park), and Harrods, among others. Where was your favourite London spot for Christmas 2012?
Well the past year has been nothing short of amazing for Randomly London. Although I registered the domain name back in December 2011, I didn’t get around to writing my first post until March 24, 2012.
In that very short period of time, I’ve played around with a few different content ideas and London related topics. The overall response has been great, especially for my Tube challenge related posts.
Here are just a few numbers that sum up 2012:
Number of posts: 155
Unique Visitors: 7,592
Unique Pageviews: 11,392
So overall a fantastic 2012 and here’s hoping 2013 will be even better. You can expect a whole bunch more tube related posts as I continue my tube challenge along with some other surprises too.
This post is part of my Randomly London v. The Tube Challenge. Get the latest about challenge updates here. Donate to Bowel Cancer UK here.
The Bakerloo line is the third London Underground line I’m tackling as part of my Randomly London V. The Tube Challenge. Heading from south of the Thames at Elephant & Castle to the suburban edges of north-west London up at Harrow & Wealdstone, the line – like almost all Underground lines – connects some very diverse parts of London together.
However, the line feels like the forgotten middle child of the London Underground. It doesn’t go the furthest north or south and it isn’t the newest or oldest, longest or shortest. In fact, it’s the third least used line it terms of total passenger volume, although if you look at passengers per mile of track, it’s actually the fourth most used.
The line even went into massive retreat between 1979 and 1982 when it lost the Stanmore branch to the Jubilee line and had services withdrawn so Stonebridge Park became the line’s northern terminus. Nevertheless, the forgotten middle child of lines has come back a bit since then and has some interesting stations.
Here’s a brief summary of my impressions of each of the 25 stations that currently make up the Bakerloo Line.
Impressions: Elephant & Castle is one of those parts of London that will never look good, no matter what scheme the council, developers or mayor’s office devise. The roundabout is designed only for cars and pedestrians are left as an afterthought.
Once you accept these facts, then the area isn’t so bad. Murals in the subways brighten up what would otherwise be very drab concrete walls. The Strata building is interesting and impressive.
And, the Bakerloo platforms are best accessed through a classic Leslie Green red brick entrance. Thus, if you’re a glass half-full kind of person there are some good points to the area that go at least partly mitigate the glaring negatives.
Random Fact: In 1924, the first recorded birth on the London Underground occurred at Elephant & Castle. There has been only 1 other since then. Tweet This
Tube Nerd Fact: The furthest south of Leslie Green’s Tube stations. Tweet This
Continue reading Bakerloo Line Underground Stations – Facts, Trivia And Impressions