This is our little collection of recommended places to go, things to do and people to meet … based on very little professional expertise - though I was once Travel Editor of GQ Magazine, if that counts. This exhaustive research has taken countless late nights, several max-ed out credit cards and a whole load of fun ... Just click on the images below for sectional information on our favourite things to see and do around London…
THE LONDON GUIDE
“
Oh, I love London Society! It is entirely composed these days of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be.
”
— Oscar Wilde
Nine Things
You might be surprised to see around town (click for an explanation)
Why are there 1000's of bright green Asian parakeets dive bombing tourists for fun? You won't miss them. Everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Humphrey Bogart has been blamed ...
Power boating on the Thames. Who knew! These clever people have brought a taste of New Zealand's white water rafting scene to London's previously tranquil little river....
Our iconic Red Phone Box's are falling into disuse (mobiles!) so BT has a scheme whereby you can adopt one for £1 to turn into a mini library or a bar or anything really - brilliant!
If you should get stuck in a traffic jam on the A40, Vanguard Storage love to entertain with their roof top displays; here is a WW1 tank called Edwin, they've also had Doctor Who's Tardis, and a Spitfire from WW2
One nice touch in the post-Covid apocalypse is that the National Trust is going on a cherry blossom-planting bonanza. This is good because there are a lot of them already...
We Londoners love a pint in the Boozer (slang for pub). This is a favourite, but as the name suggests we must leave you with a little investigating to do (or just click on the image!) ....
One of the strangest museums in London is the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons at Lincoln's Inn Fields - it features an extraordinary (and slightly macabre) collection of anatomical and surgical exhibits dating back to the early days of human anatomy - hunterianmuseum.org
The oldest man-made object in London? Yep, you guessed it - it's Cleopatra's Needle on the River Thames at Embankment. It is 3,500 years old, given to London by Egypt after two military defeats of Napoleon in 1878. It's twin is in Central Park in New York
On your wanderings you may see these strange green huts that look like they have been dropped from outer space. They are old Cabman's Shelters, built for cabbies for when it was raining. There are 13 still in operation, you must be a taxi driver to sit inside ... but they do takeaways for the public!
“The person who can dominate a London dinner table can dominate the world.”
— Oscar Wilde (again!)
Get in your car and drive…
Scenes from the bucolic English countryside
