Clerkenwell

Sometimes, when I can talk myself into it, I go for a wander around the London streets at lunchtime. When I do go, I always discover loads of new things and have to tear myself away to get back to work in time. It's just that I spend so much time sitting at this desk it's sometimes hard to build up the energy to leave, when I could just eat my lunch right here in front of the computer like a depressing lump.

Anyway, recently I did manage to haul myself up and out, and this time my wanderings took me around Clerkenwell. I work in the Holborn/St Paul's area of London, and when I first started working here, I was disappointed with what seemed to be a heavy traffic area lined with dull, post-war office buildings, Tescos and Subway sandwich shops. This wasn't what I moved to London for! I wanted Victorian architecture, tiny alleys filled with cosy pubs, and history and meaning bursting from every doorway.

After a while I discovered that there are a lot of those things all around this area. I just had to take myself off the main thoroughfares and find them. After a bit of research I realised that I was in one of the oldest parts of London - populated since before it was even called London - the site of the Great Fire of London, close to St Paul's Cathedral and countless churches and cathedrals, St Bartholomew's Hospital (founded in 1123, people!), Postman's Park, the diamond district, The Old Bailey, the Inns of Court, and the list goes on. And even more interestingly, there are countless dark alleys and unexpected lanes that look completely uninviting until you walk down and find a six-hundred year old tavern, and next door a record store, and next to that a shop selling only doorknobs. No Tesco or Topshop in sight.

It also seems to have been the site of a disproportionately large number of London's most notorious jails over the years - if you believe Wikipedia.

Anyway, my trip into Clerkenwell (and bits of Farringdon and Barbican) went well. Some shots are below, and the rest are in the Around London set on flickr.
Legitimately old looking brick buildings


Ever so cool students congregating in the sun outside some college - perhaps the London College of Communication, whatever that is Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Back Hill


Stairs to viaduct (possibly) Rosebery Avenue bridge in Clerkenwell


Queuing for fresh Ghanaian food in Exmouth Market


The absolute highlight was finding somewhere (in Exmouth Market) to buy a flat white. For the un-enlightened, a flat white is an espresso with a moderate to small amount of milk, without foam. It's a cafe standard in Australia but much rarer in latte-obsessed England. I hate the enormous, milky coffees you get from the coffee chains here so finding somewhere that sells a flat white was very exciting. It's about 1.2km from work, so not quite close enough to dash off to every morning, but at least a flat white is no longer entirely out of the question.

It was about time for me to get back to work, and following my newly-cultivated habit of heading down dark alleyways, I headed down here:

And was greeted with this.

Standing in busy Exmouth Market, there is no clue that a peaceful green space is less than 50m away from you. This happens to me all the time in London. It's such a muddle of lanes and building add-ons and overpasses that I'm constantly finding something lovely like a park or courtyard or overgrown cemetery completely by accident. That's something I'll miss when I go back to the familiar grid system in Brisbane.

Chaplin

Early in October we took in some old Charlie Chaplin movies at BFI Southbank cinemas . We saw The Champion, A Night Out and His New Job - all from 1916 during his period with Essanay.

It's strange to watch them now - what was comedic genius then sometimes looks like a bunch of repetitive pratfalls when you're used to all that self-referential wordiness we apparently like in comedies. But there is something special about Chaplin himself, especially in scenes where it's just the camera and Charlie, mesmerising you with his graceful movements and wide-eyed mischief. There was a live piano player providing the music as well, so the whole experience was very pleasant - although the cinema was so warm and comfortable it was hard to stay awake. Too hard, in The Boyfriend's case.

It put me in the mood to watch one of my favourite movies, Chaplin. But I think The Boyfriend declared himself to be Chaplin-ed out and we watched Happy-Go-Lucky instead. I definitely enjoyed it, and am baffled about how Sally Hawkins managed to make her character Poppy so charming, when she was so potentially annoying. I've never met anyone so ceaselessly optimistic and chatty in real life but I suspect I'd find it exhausting at best.

It's also really interesting to watch movies set in London now that I have more of a handle on the geography and can impress myself by recognising landmarks and areas without being specifically informed by the movie where they are. Although (other than noting Regent's Park) the best I could do with Happy-Go-Lucky was identify the area Poppy lived in as "north London". That's a pretty big area.

The movie also involves a driving instructor who goes more than slightly off the rails. This reminded me a little of the time my driving instructor decided that the best time to convert me to born-again Christianity would be the drive home after failing my test for the second time. He must have sensed I was in a moment of vulnerability. After that the driving school sent in their director to see what was wrong with me. I think the only new tip she gave me was to release the handbrake as I engaged it so as not to wear the mechanism out, or something.

Oh lord, won't you buy me a pound of beef mince and some sausages

This story, about a singing butcher under threat from cranky neighbours, really struck a chord with me this morning. As Londonist puts it:

"It would seem that a former resident of the flat above Brian’s Meat Market had complained about the early morning chopping noises and sing-songs. And so Barking and Dagenham council have asked Brian to desist, and to sound-proof his ceiling to stop the sound rising.

We say that a) anyone who moves above a butchers’ shop should expect to move with the larks – night owls should find themselves a flat above a restaurant, and b) what the devilled kidneys is wrong with singing at work? How fantabulous to find someone happy enough in his work to express himself thus!"

I couldn't have described it better myself. Seriously, people who move into accommodation in full knowledge of the characteristics of the area - the downstairs butcher for instance, or many popular (and noisy) music venues like in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley - should not be able to decide that it doesn't suit them after all and they'd like everyone else to change their longstanding behaviour, please. Even worse, the cranky upstairs tenant has apparently moved out anyway.

I would like to know what his repertoire is though. If he's belting out Celine Dion ballads at 6am I might feel differently. I like to think he does jaunty Irish folk songs and maybe the occasional show tune.

Poor old Mr Singing Butcher. I hope he prevails.