If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet

I've had a friend visiting from overseas these last few days, which always provides a great excuse to go and do the touristy stuff you otherwise don't get around to.

We did a lot of walking, and took advantage of several of the free things that London has to offer - museums, galleries, the events of the always fabulous Greenwich and Docklands Festival - but also decided to splash out on a couple of the pay-for tourist sights.

We had a lot of fun, and in the process I tripped over an unexpected bonus.

Both of the 'big ticket' sites we chose to spend our money on - the Tower of London and York Minster - ask that, if you're a British tax payer you gift-aid your entry fee so that they can claim back about 25% of the money from the Government. (I think, technically, you're making a donation of the same amount as, but in lieu of, the entrance fee...) As I am a British tax payer, and I'm very happy for both these historic buildings to get some extra cash, I paid for both me and my guest, and both times got a pleasant surprise - I now have a years worth of free entry into both buildings!

We certainly felt like we got our money's worth out of both buildings on the single days we were at each one, but the fact that I can now pop into the Tower to take a few photos and wander away again, or when I'm next in York, I can go into the Minster with a local friend* without either of us having to pay, is just a really nice extra.



* (Both the local councils have residents schemes, which make entrance either £1 or free, but I don't qualify for them at either site, despite the fact I walk past the Tower several times a week.)

In which Stephen Fry has very sensible things to say about the future of the BBC:

In a sense the nature of the BBC as it is, ‘gives permission’ to all
kinds of people to watch programmes they otherwise might not.
What is the alternative, a ghettoised, balkanised electronic
bookshop of the home, no stations, no network, just a narrowcast
provider spitting out content on channels that fulfil some ghastly and
wholly insulting demographic profile: soccer mum, trailer trash,
teenager, gay, black music lover, Essex girl, sports fan, bored
housewife, programmes made specifically for them with ads targeting them. Is that
what we mean by inclusivity? Is that what we mean by plurality? God
help us, I do hope not.

But it’s glorious, loveable, eccentric, magnificent - and ours!*

It's June, which means the free festival circuit is really getting going.

This coming weekend will see me trying to fit in events from the Greenwich and Docklands Festival (free dance - hurray!) and West End Live (free musical theatre - hurray!) and not making it to any of the Spitalfields Festival events after all...

Next week there's a couple of films I want to catch at The Scoop

I've just been booking ahead for some of the events happening under the London Lit Plus, an open literary festival that's running from July 5th from the 19th, and by dint of realising that the Liars’ League event next month clashes with a gig and digging a little further, I'm already thinking about the August performance - as they put it : Writers write. Actors read. Audience listens. Everybody Wins.

Also in July, free music at The Scoop, and The Big Dance, which is always a packed week of goodies.

Whilst I'm quite angry about Mayor Boris' decision to remove Rise's anti-racism tag line, it still promises to be a fantastic event - loads of good free music on the 13th July.

The following weekend, for a total change of pace, there's the Lambeth Country Show.

Further ahead still, The Scoop's free theatre offerings this year are a Ted Hughes version of Lorca's Blood Wedding and a New Orleans musical version of Little Red Riding hood, and I'm going to do my best to catch both.

***********

* from a poem currently being used to advertise cider,

The Great British Summer

Music festival-ing
Mixed mud wrestling
Fourteen degrees
Knobbly knees
Catching the rays
The big squeeze
Traffic jams
Hand-held fans
The hottest day since records began
Yes we’ll complain it’s too hot
We’ll moan when there’s showers
But it’s glorious, loveable, eccentric, magnificent -
And ours!

we're a star above stars

London short films - ITV London Tonight' 'viewers choice' award has six short films up on their site to be voted on as part of the Film London festival, all focussing on different parts and moods of London.

(The website works best in IE, rather than being properly cross-compatible,
but even so, the content's worth putting up with it, I think.)

So, which is your favourite?

we walk these city streets

I spent Sunday having a Proper Wander with a good friend of mine - London Bridge to Greenwich (mostly) along the Thames Path. You can see the resultant photo set here - there's not a lot of either the London Bridge to Tower Bridge leg, or the Greenwich end, as they're more familiar to me than the bit in the middle.

The BBC have a good illustrated guide to a chunk of the middle of our route, including the part we missed, around the Pumphouse Museum, by following a park and loosing the Thames Path. Still - free range navigation on the principle 'that looks kind of interesting' got us to the city farm via Stave Hill so all was well. Compared to the central London stretches the path is less well signposted, and less, well, Thames-based, than you might assume, but still perfectly followable, and we had fun exploring odd corners and dead ends.

We were most taken by the semi-derelict Chambers Wharf and Cold Stores, which is slated for imminent re-development, but at the moment is beautifully and eerily deserted. The contrast on the river front with the turbo-posh flats next door was far more marked than I managed to capture.

We also collected several lesser-known bits of public statuary - Antony Donaldson's 'Waterfall' off Shad Thames; Doctor Salter's Daydream by Diane Corvin, which I found, frankly, creepy (the cat's the least creepy thing about it - the style just does nothing for me); the almost equally creepy animals advertising the City Farm; and Chemiakin's pleasingly whimsical Peter the Great group. (And I finally took a photo of the Navigators in Hays Galleria that I don't hate.)

There's about a hundred pubs and cafes along the way, although we mostly sat at various points on the river admiring the view and swigging from our water bottles, and Greenwich isn't short on places for dinner at the end of the walk, so, all in all, a good way to have spent the day.