Do you know, 10 Downing Street is just a bit… ordinary. At the same time, though, it’s really very special, and I think it’s the ordinaryness that makes it that way.
Tonight’s event - drinks with the Prime Minister - was smart dress, obviously, but other than that it was very casual. I didn’t wear a [...]
We generally avoid London at the weekend. It’s usually a bit of a disappointment and the journey back is horrible. So this time, as we’d planned a Sunday night out, we decided to do things differently, and booked ourselves a ridiculously cheap hotel for the night. It was £40 between two. It should have been [...]
Emilie joined the rest of us on the older side of 30 this month, so to celebrate we all headed for La Trouvaille on Newburgh Street, perhaps the Frenchest French restaurant in London.
She’s booked out the whole of upstairs where the rooms are airy and light courtesy of some breezy sash windows, whitewashed walls and [...]
So I spent today working from home. Around quarter past seven last night something - and nobody’s yet saying quite what - happened to the new bridge just outside Liverpool Street.
You know - the one that they were working on over the Easter break that they guaranteed would be completed on time, only for it [...]
A sign on some railings just outside the office…
The National Theatre did a special Valentines screening of Brief Encounter last night. It was a chilly outdoor showing, projected onto the wall of the Fly Tower, which looks out over the Thames, to an audience sat about in deck chairs, cocooned in blankets and rugs.
I’d never seen it before (although I thought I had), [...]
It really felt like summer had arrived this weekend. The sun was bright, the skies were clear and it was warm enough to sit outside without a coat.
Yet it was largely spent indoors.
Saturday, we cleared out the loft. It’s ten years since the first items went in, and some of them are fifty or more [...]
Great Court at the British Museum
I used to be a once-a-week regular at the British Museum - so much so that I got bought a coffee there by a couple of BBC researchers after someone to chat with for a programme they were making.
Since travelling to Greece and visiting the Parthenon and Acropolis, though the [...]
Shibboleth at the Tate ModernLike most weekday Londoners, neither Rich nor I has much interest in a weekend commute. However, free tickets to the MPH Show, which would otherwise cost £33, lured us onto the trains and tube for a busy day in the city.The Show was good. It was an hour and a half [...]
People do like a good whinge in this country. I think that’s why we put up with a second-rate train service: it gives us something to complain about.
So it’s not entirely surprising to see that the announcement of Crossrail’s final go-ahead hasn’t been universally acclaimed. The service, which will link Shenfield in the east with [...]
