The London Grill: Toby Osmond

2 January, 2024 Gibson Square 4 Comments

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 think about their city. The questions are the same but the answers vary wildly.

Toby is an Actor and Scriptwriter who lives in and loves London. He’s appeared in Game of Thrones as the Last Prince of Dorne, Summerland opposite Dame Penelope Wilton and 5* play Diary of a Somebody in Covent Garden. In Spring you can see him in Tennessee Williams’s The Rose Tattoo at The Arcola Theatre, Dalston and he has just completed filming on Moonquake which will be released in 2024. He lives on a boat, roams the canals and rivers of London fighting crime and wearing outrageous coats and in his spare time is a Royal Navy Reservist. You can find him on Instagram at mr.t.osmond.

What’s your secret London tip?

VAULT Festival – a surprising number of Londoners don’t know about this scintillating, months-long extravaganza of comedy, theatre and performance arts. It’s London’s answer to the Edinburgh Festival, and you only need to go to Waterloo station to get there! Even if you don’t watch a show there, the bars are an Alice in Wonderland-esque environment to get lost in and meet a wonderful cross-section of London’s nightlife.

What’s your secret London place?

There’s a chamber in Tottenham Court Road tube station, near the bottom of the escalators along the central line entrance route, with beautiful acoustics. If you ‘Ahhh’ as you walk from the entrance, as soon as you hit the centre of the chamber your Ahhh becomes an AHHH and it’s magnificent.

What’s your biggest gripe about London?

Currently the Canal and River Trust’s campaign to get rid of a lot of the wonderful canal boats. They want to monetise as much of the river as possible, despite having semi-charitable status, and they’re failing in their duties to large sections of the community of boaters as well as their responsibility to maintain our wonderful London treasure that is the canal and river network.

What’s your favourite building?

While BFI and the National Theatre are strong contenders, the Barbican takes it. The brutalist beauty is right up my street and if I’m there I usually see the Royal Shakespeare Company or a visiting company from abroad and I’ve yet to be let down by one of these touring productions. Truly wonderful art on the stage here – and I love it when all of the mechanical doors silently slide shut to usher in the beginning of the play.

What’s your most hated building?

Westfield Stratford. Everything about it.

What’s the best view in London?

Dusk or Dawn on the canals with the mists rising to join the smoke of the multitudinous beautifully unique canal boats while the sun rises or sets. I’d highly recommend walking the towpaths if you haven’t.

What’s your personal London landmark?

While the Canal Aqueduct that goes over the North Circular is a very strong contender (bet you didn’t know about that. I sure didn’t until I went over it!), it has to be the Islington Tunnel for me. This is London’s longest river tunnel and can’t be traversed by land. It feels like a scene in a horror film, like some kind of monster will rear out of the darkness at any moment. It’s 960 yards long, and going through by boat takes a little while. It feels like half an hour but it’s probably a couple of minutes. You can see it from the towpaths in Islington in the East and King’s Cross for the Western entrance. A semi-circle of pure darkness, even on the brightest day.

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

My current favourite is The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitc. My mate John recommended the audiobook and as a born and bred Londoner, I love the descriptions of landmarks, lesser-known places and even the A-roads that go around the area I grew up.

What’s your favourite restaurant?

Oi Vita Pizzeria South of Newington Green. A small and wonderful restaurant where you actually enjoy Limoncello outside of Italy.

How would you spend your ideal day off in London?

A cruise along Walthamstow Marshes followed by a trip to the National Theatre then hitting Soho. The French House for a couple, The Phoenix Arts Club for a show then Gerry’s, the Actors Club to see the end of the night in.

London in Quotations

London in Quotations: Garry Crystal

Quote 1 January, 2024 Gibson Square 2 Comments

You can see the people who thought they could come to London, bend over and pick gold off the streets. They’re all lying on benches in Trafalgar Square with hernias and cans of Special Brew.

Garry Crystal (b1976), Leaving London

London trivia

London Trivia: Jurassic junket

31 December, 2023 Gibson Square 1 Comment

On 31 December 1853 celebrating the installation of life-sized dinosaur models at Sydenham Park. A 20 strong dinner party was held inside the stomach of the partly completed a concrete iguanodon made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins of the Crystal Palace Company. The model was surrounded by a tent decorated with a chandelier and four plaques honouring famous palaeontologists. Guests were served by waiters, what was on the menu is unknown.

On the 31 December 1923 the chimes of Big Ben were first broadcast by the BBC and every evening since are transmitted live via a microphone

On 31 December 1919 the first woman law student was admitted to study at Lincoln’s Inn which had been in existence since at least 1422

Westminster Catholic Cathedral, Victoria Street stands on the foundations of Tothill Fields Prison demolished in 1884

In 1952 pollution was so bad a theatre performance at Sadler’s Wells had to be abandoned as smog crept into the auditorium

The Palace of Westminster has 8 bars, 6 restaurants, 1,000 rooms, 100 staircases, 11 courtyards, a hair salon, and rifle-shooting range

The harrowing battle scenes in the last hour of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket were filmed at Beckton Gas a latticework and appropriate advertising hoardings added make it believable

Russian for railway station ‘vokzal’ derives from Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens as its first track went from St. Petersburg to a pleasure garden

Arsenal are the only football team to have a Tube station named after them, called Gillespie Road it was renamed in 1932 when the team went to Highbury

Heathrow Airport is so named because the land it was built on was once a sleepy hamlet called Heath Row

Cock Lane didn’t get its name due to any association with poultry, but because it was the only street to be licensed for prostitution

Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg who lived off Farringdon Road predicted there would be a special part in heaven reserved for the English

Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.

Previously Posted

Previously Posted: Zil Lanes

30 December, 2023 Gibson Square 2 Comments

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Zil Lanes (28.12.2010)

Today’s post comes with a health warning, before reading further please hold onto something to steady yourself, or better still sit down. It has taken east Londoner Paul Charman two years using the Freedom of Information Act to bring to our attention just what we signed up for when London won the bid for the 2012 Olympics.

Don’t expect to find an available hotel room for the duration of the Games, London has to provide the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”), staff and officials with 40,000 hotel rooms including 1,800 four- and five-star hotel suites, ensuring the Dorchester, Grosvenor House and London Hilton are already booked solid, in addition an Olympic Village for athletes is being built in east London at a cost of £325 million.

Dedicated traffic lanes nicknamed “Zil Lanes” from Soviet Russia will provide 250 miles of traffic free travel, even the Royal Family doesn’t enjoy that privilege, and one lane stretches from London to Weymouth to facilitate access to the sailing events. Using those Zil Lanes (no buses, bikes or taxis allowed) will be 500 air-conditioned limos, complete with uniformed drivers.

All advertising for the duration of the Games can only contain material approved by the IOC, so unless you are a sponsor, to the Games your product may not see the light of day in London. Even spectators may not wear clothing advertising a non-Olympic sponsored brand, so forget wearing your football stripe to east London. Journalists and photographers are not allowed signage of any kind, and so if a photo-journalist used Nikon cameras presumably if Nikon is not on the approved list, tape will have to e placed over the camera’ identity. London police have to be made available to enforce any infringements to these draconian requirements, so for the duration of the 2012 Games most of London will remain a state within a state with many of our right and freedoms subservient to the requirements of the International Olympic Committee.

Every lamppost in the Capital looks to have hung from it what the IOC call pageantry, and because French is the Olympics second language expect the “pageantry” to appear in England and French.

This post can only be a taster for what is expected by the IOC, if you still have the need for more information to what London has signed up for, read the excellent article by Ed Howker and Andrew Gilligan in the Spectator.

A window on My World

December’s monthly musings

29 December, 2023 Gibson Square 5 Comments

🚓 What Cab News

From next January Uber is encouraging London cabbies to join their platform, despite this shameless company spending a decade trying, and failing, to destroy London’s black cab trade. This is the same company that has shown little regard for the well-being of its passengers. This is the company that makes a mockery of the UK tax system. This is a company that has no regard for women’s safety. This is a company that had exploited its drivers until it lost its case in court. This is also the company that has subsidised fares to the tune of billions in an attempt to bankrupt the centuries-old black cab trade. They need us to help grow their market share, and give them some kind of legitimacy. Oh! Did I mention our first court hearing suing them is in January?

🎧 What I’m Listening

London Particular (BBC Sounds) London is not one but many cities, a city of curious anomalies and dark secrets, of hidden portals to other dimensions, a city so vast and varied that the weird and the uncanny blend seamlessly with the ordinary, where the person sitting next to you on the bus, or walking beside you on the pavement, may, in fact, be a visitor from another time.

📖 What I’m Reading

Ten-Second Staircase by Christopher Fowler. I’m now on Book 4 of 20 of his Bryant and May mysteries by this quintessential author of London noir. Diagnosed with a tenacious form of cancer at the very start of lockdown, last year marked a sad premature end to the sparkiest of creative minds.

📺 What I’m watching

I’ve been watching BBC’s Planet Earth III, this beautifully filmed and meticulously researched series that has run for 20 years. What should been an uplifting programme, I’ve found depressing, 30 per cent of species have become extinct since David Attenborough started Series I. I hope my grandson’s generation does a better job than we have.

❓ What else

The Chicken and Frog Bookshop in Brentwood has shifted a few copies of my book. This great local retailer specialises in selling children’s books and teaching youngsters, which might say something about my magnum opus.