Category Archives: A window on My World

A window on My World, Puppydog tails

The London Grill: Charley Harrison

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We challenge our contributors to reply to ten devilishly probing questions about their London and we don’t take “Sorry Gov” for an answer. Everyone sitting in the hot seat they will face the same questions ranging from their favourite way to spend a day out in the capital to their most hated building on London’s skyline to find out what Londoners really think about their city. The questions are the same but the answers vary wildly.

 

Charley is a London tour guide, life-long Londoner and founder of Totally Tailored – an award-winning private tour company providing premium experiences in the UK (and soon the rest of Europe!). Once a week she Live-streams a tour from the top of a different London public bus. To keep up to date with this, join the private Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/livefromalondonbus

What’s your secret London tip?

Get to know London’s public buses – the best way to see the city is from the top deck.

What’s your secret London place?

Octavia’s Hill’s garden (Redcross Gardens in Borough).

What’s your biggest gripe about London?

That so many people have to work such long hours to live here.

What’s your favourite building?

The Tower of London – 1,000 years of history and still standing!

What’s your most hated building?

Strata Tower, Elephant and Castle. The three wind turbines at the top were intended to power the building. However, due to a fault (too noisy), they have never been switched on. An example of Green-washing (green credentials that are just for show and do nothing to help).

What’s the best view in London?

From the Duck and Waffle Restaurant, Heron Tower at night.

What’s your personal London landmark?

I have a favourite piece of Ben Wilson’s chewing gum art on Millenium Bridge. It’s St Pauls’ and the bridge in miniature.

What’s London’s best film, book or documentary?

Craig Taylor’s Londoners each chapter is from the perspective of a different Londoner, from a dominatrix to an Oligarch. It really sums up the diverse people that make this city.

What’s your favourite bar, pub or restaurant?

Jumi – Iraqi food stall, now do seated evening meals within Borough Market. Great people, great food, great atmosphere.

How would you spend your ideal day off in London?

Cycling to a new cafe to people-watching in a residential area I’ve not been to before. Jumping on a friend’s canal boat from Camden, doing a few locks, jumping off a local park to feed the birds (parroquets if we’re lucky). Posh dinner at Annabel’s or the Duck and Waffle before a film at an independent cinema like Notting Hill’s Electric or Bermondsey’s Kino. Cycle home via my local pub for a swift hello and pint.

 

A window on My World

All About You Podcast

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According to Diamond Geezer, blogging is endangered and outdated, because what’s the point of reading something when you could be listening to it instead?

Taking his advice I’ve made a podcast (well, strictly speaking, I just talked about myself, Sheila actually made the recording); All About You: Everyone has a story.

So instead of reading about a London cabbie and any eclectic capital centric subject that’s taken his fancy, how much better to simply sit back, press play and let my words wash all over you in handy audible chunks.

No longer will you need to find your reading glasses or pinch your smartphone screen so that the text appears in a legible size before you can read about The Knowledge. Instead, just press play and absorb my journey as a cabbie without expending any effort whatsoever.

Listen on your morning commute assuming you still have one, use it as your jogging soundtrack, mull it over during your afternoon tea break or use it as an aid to drift off to sleep. You can rewind should you want to further absorb my dulcet tones, or fast forward past any points you’ve already heard spoken by every London cabbie.

Although it may not be so great for you, because you have to invest half an hour of your day to listen to everything I have to say about London. At least with text you can read the first bit and skim down to get the general gist, or decide you don’t want to read any of the rest and go off and do something more productive. You’ll spend far less time reading something I wrote than I spent writing it, whereas with a podcast the time penalty is identical. Normally I spend hours writing text, cropping photos, checking references and adding links, but absolutely none of that is necessary to create an audio file. Instead, I simply talk for half an hour and Sheila edited and embed the file, which was brilliant.

I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast as much as I’ve enjoyed making it. What I particularly liked was that the podcast only took half an hour to make, well it would have if my laptop hadn’t sounded like a train, necessitating a second recording using my iPhone.

And if that’s not enough of me, the inner workings of my brain (but not my brain’s size) are discussed in detail on the Every Little Thing Podcast.

 

A window on My World

A calm before the storm

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Ihave a pretty good idea what my father and grandfather were doing almost exactly 83 years ago.


On Thursday 2nd June 1938, the children’s zoo at London Zoo was opened by Robert and Ted Kennedy, two sons of United States ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.

Six-year-old Teddy (Edward) Kennedy (later Senator Edward Kennedy), was given the task of cutting a ribbon to open a new children’s playground and pets corner. Twelve-year-old Bobby (Robert) Kennedy (later Attorney General and Senator Robert Kennedy) stood beside his brother while younger sister Kathleen, as a girl, clearly couldn’t be trusted with a pair of scissors as she stands in the background with her father.

The future 45th President of the United States didn’t accompany his siblings, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), who had celebrated his 21st birthday that Monday and was in all probability still nursing a hangover.

A Pathé Pictorial film shows penguins, ponies, a baby goat and a baby wallaby being petted by the children.

In all probability, my 28-year-old father and his father who were both zookeepers were there in attendance.

This happy scene precluded events that were to take place in Europe. Just a year later my father married, my parents spent their honeymoon in Germany and within the decade my father had been called up.

Featured image: Honeymoon picture