Day 51/52
(1) Kensington (Olympia)
(2) Kentish Town - Kentish Town West - Kenton - Kew Gardens
(2) Kentish Town - Kentish Town West - Kenton - Kew Gardens
Oh Lordy Me, what an age it's been since I last went a-wombling!
The last blog post was way back at the end of September last year! And though I did go out on a womble in November, albeit to only one station, somehow the actual writing up of the blog never quite seems to have materialised.
The reasons for the protracted delay in visiting any more stations were (and are) many and various, but I must admit that chief among them was the ever-worsening weather which heralded the onset of winter - and which continued relentlessly for most of the time between then and now. It's just no fun trudging round London's highways and byways in the pouring rain - especially with the increasing numbers of Christmas shoppers clogging up the streets in the run up to the festive period, and, in the weeks after it, the hordes of January Sales Bargain-Hunters.
The station I visited in November - Kensington (Olympia) - included a trip to the 'Ideal Home At Christmas' exhibition, and I had hoped to give you a suitably festive post before signing off for a few weeks until the new year.
Then, since that clearly didn't happen, I thought I'd get a trip done in January and combine two blogs in one, as a kind of 'January Sale' of my own. Again - a good intention that led nowhere.
And it's not just Christmas and New Year that have been and gone since my last post. Halloween, Bonfire Night, Twelfth Night, Shrove Tuesday, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day... how on earth have I managed to go through all of those without a single post???
So - time to put things right once and for all!
I've ventured forth once more, and managed to get a good four stations in today. The description of which, together with the visit to Kensington (Olympia) last year, will form the two parts of a great big, special, bumper, festive, celebratory, seasonal, double-issue with additional pull-out glossy sections and gift-vouchers worth a whopping 50% off your next blog post.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride - and in the meantime, let me be the first to wish you all a very merry Hallobonmasyearshrolentinese Day's Night!
The reasons for the protracted delay in visiting any more stations were (and are) many and various, but I must admit that chief among them was the ever-worsening weather which heralded the onset of winter - and which continued relentlessly for most of the time between then and now. It's just no fun trudging round London's highways and byways in the pouring rain - especially with the increasing numbers of Christmas shoppers clogging up the streets in the run up to the festive period, and, in the weeks after it, the hordes of January Sales Bargain-Hunters.
The station I visited in November - Kensington (Olympia) - included a trip to the 'Ideal Home At Christmas' exhibition, and I had hoped to give you a suitably festive post before signing off for a few weeks until the new year.
Then, since that clearly didn't happen, I thought I'd get a trip done in January and combine two blogs in one, as a kind of 'January Sale' of my own. Again - a good intention that led nowhere.
And it's not just Christmas and New Year that have been and gone since my last post. Halloween, Bonfire Night, Twelfth Night, Shrove Tuesday, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day... how on earth have I managed to go through all of those without a single post???
So - time to put things right once and for all!
I've ventured forth once more, and managed to get a good four stations in today. The description of which, together with the visit to Kensington (Olympia) last year, will form the two parts of a great big, special, bumper, festive, celebratory, seasonal, double-issue with additional pull-out glossy sections and gift-vouchers worth a whopping 50% off your next blog post.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride - and in the meantime, let me be the first to wish you all a very merry Hallobonmasyearshrolentinese Day's Night!
***
(1)
(1)
 |
| Kensington (Olympia) |
It's the 27th November 2015 - Christmas is just around the corner, and though I'm only visiting one station today, there is a distinctly festive whiff about it...
The station I'm going to exists solely as a means of visiting the building after which it is (in parenthesis at least) named. The 'Olympia' part of the name refers to the Exhibition Centre, and today's offering is the 'Ideal Home Show at Christmas'.
Yes - it's as awful as it sounds.
The hordes are greeted by the first of several rather grim looking Santas, and are sprayed with fake snow as they pass through the main doors into the huge aircraft hangar-like spaces inside.
 |
| Walking To A Winter Wonderland... |
Here you can find all manner of gaudy tat, with which to festoon your house over the festive season - and if having your name written in tinsel, or being blinded by the combined wattage of several thousand fairy lights doesn't appeal, you can always while away some time watching fading celebrities chatting up the mainly middle-aged and female visitors to the exhibition.
 |
| Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen being smarmy. |
I grit my teeth and do a complete tour of the building, but see very little I could ever contemplate spending my money on. Certainly there's nothing here that is innovative or stylish - in fact it all feels like a typical, if very, very large, Saturday market. I keep expecting to see Del Boy running past clutching a half-open suitcase full of dodgy Taiwanese singing Santas...
 |
| The Centre in full exhibition mode... |
It takes me an hour and a half of pacing up and down between the various stands to visit the whole exhibition, and long before I've completed my perusal, I feel I've seen enough. I'm fully aware that the experience will make for a very short and unedifying blog post, but I just can't bear to stay here any longer. As soon as I can, I fight my way out through the crowds still streaming into the hall, and make my way down-heartedly back home.
The thing is, I love Christmas - I love the traditional, chestnutty, yule-log, Dickensian, mulled-wine-ness of it all. I love the food, the drink, the decorations, the present giving, the carol singing, and the mince-pie-and-a-glass-of-whisky-and-a-stick-of-carrot-for-Rudolph. I love the gathering of friends and the pleasure of time spent with those you love.
Christmas to me is like an old leather armchair tucked in close to the blazing log fire in the corner of a cosy country pub. Whereas this exhibition is like a Milton Keynes night-club full of Jager-Bomb and WKD fuelled lads and ladettes throwing up various fluorescent hues of vomit over each other.
Perhaps I'm getting old.......
Anyway, it's hardly the most exciting end to the year's travels - but we can always hope for a better selection next year, eh?
***
(2)
I begin my long-overdue new year travels by heading north to Kentish Town, where I can at least cross off two stations with relative ease. A good way to get the ball rolling again.
Kentish Town Station is a Leslie Green designed, red-tiled affair sitting at the northern end of Kentish Town Road. The area is busy and cosmopolitan, with a number of actors, comedians and writers making their home here, and there's an obvious artistic bent seen in the decoration of some of the shops and houses.
The main street has, as well as the ubiquitous Costas and McDonalds, enough independent shops, cafés and restaurants to maintain a bit of character. And there's clearly a wide variety of ethnicities living here, judging by the different types of food outlet.
One of the establishments along this road, which at first glance seems to be a fairly run of the mill looking 'health spa', is almost conspicuous in its lack of self-promotion. Yes there are gaudy signs proclaiming it to be 'Rio's Relaxation Spa' - but below these the windows are completely blocked out by attractive but uninformative pictures of sandy beaches, the doors are shut, no glossy photos of healthy and beautiful patrons enjoying its facilities adorn the frontage...
The reason for this apparent modesty is soon discovered when you look at the building on Google Maps, or take a peek at its website. Here the modesty very quickly takes a running jump and all is - quite literally - revealed. It's no ordinary health spa - it's a Naturist spa.
Personally I have nothing against the idea of Naturism, despite its rather seedy 'Carry On Film' connotations (at least in this country). I'm just a little surprised to find it on a busy high street. It's the sort of thing one might expect to find on secluded beaches or select 'holiday camps' - but a North London suburb? Who knew?
And before you ask, no - I didn't go inside. I'm afraid that would be beyond the call of duty. So, in the best traditions of British journalism, I made my excuses and continued my wombling.
Further north up Kentish Town Road and veering off left along Highbury Road, I come to what could almost be described as a kind of musical Mecca - two Meccas in fact.
The first, a pub called the Bull And Gate, is apparently where bands like Blur, Coldplay, Suede, Manic Street Preachers, The Housemartins, The Pogues and others all performed in their early years. Quite a line-up!
And practically next door is the Forum (formerly the Town & Country Club), which was a key venue for the Indie scene in the 80s, featuring bands such as The Pixies, Carter USM and The Wedding Present.
Times have of course changed, and this week's offering from the legendary venue is a BBC hosted show entitled 'Eurovision: You Decide'. And indeed I do - I decide to move on.
Unfortunately, I'm unaware (until I spot it on Google on my return home) that there's a third venue on this stretch of road that I've completely missed. Not a music venue this time, but a cocktail bar. I may, I think be forgiven for missing it, since it is very much disguised as (and indeed used actually to be) a public toilet. One of those subterranean street corner ones where steps lead to separate 'Ladies' and 'Gents' sections.
The 'Ladies And Gentlemen' Cocktail Bar (The sign outside just reads 'Ladies & Gents - with no indication of what sort of establishment it is) was only launched in January 2015, and produces its own gin using a 16 litre copper still.
Shame I walked right past without noticing it really...
***
It's long been a bane of London life for me that so often you can't go from one place to another without the annoying palaver of taking a detour via the centre of town. The Piccadilly, Northern, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines all branch out northwards from the centre, yet getting from one to the other will almost always involve travelling south into Zone 1 first.
However, today I'm childishly pleased to note that I can take an Overground train from Kentish Town West almost all the way to my next destination - Kenton - with only a quick change of trains at Willesden Junction.
I have a specific location (and I use the word advisedly) in mind to visit in Kenton - but first I take a quick stroll up and down the main Kenton Road. Much like Kentish Town, the shops and cafés are mainly independent although in this case that doesn't equate to a cosmopolitan feel - rather, like so many pockets of London, it feels like an area where people have basically given up trying.
"It's not worth making an effort," the shop fronts seem to say, "no-one ever comes here anyway..."
And so I quickly move off the main streets and head off in search of a quiet leafy cul-de-sac tucked away in the back streets.
At first, the corner of Mentmore Close and Lapstone Gardens may not appear in any way exceptional - and, indeed, that's the very reason (in a sense) that it is. It's very ordinariness was the reason it forever became associated with one of the most memorable moments of British television comedy history.
It was here, on a rainy day in 1975 that a desperate and psychotically frustrated John Cleese (in the guise of Basil Fawlty) could be seen venting his fury on an innocent (if slightly unreliable) Austin 1100 car by giving it a 'damn good thrashing' with a convenient bit of the local foliage.
The choosing of film locations has often puzzled me, in a mild way. Given that, at the time of filming, the BBC was still firmly ensconced in the White City area, and had the historic Ealing Studios a mere stone's throw away, it seems peculiar that they sought out this particular corner of North West London for the sake of just a few minutes of film.
Was there something especially Fawlty-esque about this street corner? Was there no equivalent patch of suburbia closer to the studios?
Well, I can answer that - yes there was, and indeed is. For decades I had imagined that it had been in Ealing (on any one of half a dozen similar looking street corners) that the scene had been shot. The fact that I was mistaken only underlines the fact that surely, when the foreground features Basil Fawlty maniacally wielding a branch at a car, one street in the background must be just as good as any other. To go to the trouble of transporting the entire production crew several miles to the north west of where they're based seems a needless expense.
***
It's just gone lunchtime, and since I have a few hours of daylight left today, I decide to add an unscheduled station to my journey - and squeeze in a visit to Kew Gardens.
My decision is encouraged by the fact that, once again, I can avoid the convolutions of going via central London and take the Overground almost directly there - once again simply changing at Willesden Junction.
I really do like the Overground Line.
***
At Kew Gardens Station the heavens open.
What has thus far been a sunny early spring day, has reverted to being a miserable winter one. I sit in a nearby Starbucks (on the very pleasant Station Parade) for a while until the rain passes, and then venture forth again.
Being a resident of West London for over a quarter of a century, I have, not surprisingly, visited the 'Royal Botanic Gardens' at Kew (to give them their full title) several times over the years, and so don't really feel the need to do so again today.
However, I can heartily recommend them as a day out should you find yourself in this neck of the woods. The huge grounds, which include not just the expected greenhouses full of exotic plants, but also the Chinese Pagoda, Treetop Walkway, Japanese Garden, Redwood Grove and acres of open space, are a pleasure to explore.
I'll leave that to you though, as my travels for the day are over, and I make my way finally home.
***
And so, dear reader, we begin 2016.
I hope to be more conscientious with my blogging this year, and with the half-way point in sight (just a few more Ks and a couple of Ls!) I feel a determined effort coming on!
The thing is, I love Christmas - I love the traditional, chestnutty, yule-log, Dickensian, mulled-wine-ness of it all. I love the food, the drink, the decorations, the present giving, the carol singing, and the mince-pie-and-a-glass-of-whisky-and-a-stick-of-carrot-for-Rudolph. I love the gathering of friends and the pleasure of time spent with those you love.
Christmas to me is like an old leather armchair tucked in close to the blazing log fire in the corner of a cosy country pub. Whereas this exhibition is like a Milton Keynes night-club full of Jager-Bomb and WKD fuelled lads and ladettes throwing up various fluorescent hues of vomit over each other.
Perhaps I'm getting old.......
Anyway, it's hardly the most exciting end to the year's travels - but we can always hope for a better selection next year, eh?
***
(2)
I begin my long-overdue new year travels by heading north to Kentish Town, where I can at least cross off two stations with relative ease. A good way to get the ball rolling again.
 |
| Kentish Town |
 |
| Someone had a bit of fun here... |
 |
| A bit more restrained but still a nice splash of colour |
The main street has, as well as the ubiquitous Costas and McDonalds, enough independent shops, cafés and restaurants to maintain a bit of character. And there's clearly a wide variety of ethnicities living here, judging by the different types of food outlet.
One of the establishments along this road, which at first glance seems to be a fairly run of the mill looking 'health spa', is almost conspicuous in its lack of self-promotion. Yes there are gaudy signs proclaiming it to be 'Rio's Relaxation Spa' - but below these the windows are completely blocked out by attractive but uninformative pictures of sandy beaches, the doors are shut, no glossy photos of healthy and beautiful patrons enjoying its facilities adorn the frontage...
 |
| Inside, all will be revealed... |
Personally I have nothing against the idea of Naturism, despite its rather seedy 'Carry On Film' connotations (at least in this country). I'm just a little surprised to find it on a busy high street. It's the sort of thing one might expect to find on secluded beaches or select 'holiday camps' - but a North London suburb? Who knew?
And before you ask, no - I didn't go inside. I'm afraid that would be beyond the call of duty. So, in the best traditions of British journalism, I made my excuses and continued my wombling.
Further north up Kentish Town Road and veering off left along Highbury Road, I come to what could almost be described as a kind of musical Mecca - two Meccas in fact.
 |
| The Bull And Gate |
And practically next door is the Forum (formerly the Town & Country Club), which was a key venue for the Indie scene in the 80s, featuring bands such as The Pixies, Carter USM and The Wedding Present.
 |
| The Forum |
Unfortunately, I'm unaware (until I spot it on Google on my return home) that there's a third venue on this stretch of road that I've completely missed. Not a music venue this time, but a cocktail bar. I may, I think be forgiven for missing it, since it is very much disguised as (and indeed used actually to be) a public toilet. One of those subterranean street corner ones where steps lead to separate 'Ladies' and 'Gents' sections.
The 'Ladies And Gentlemen' Cocktail Bar (The sign outside just reads 'Ladies & Gents - with no indication of what sort of establishment it is) was only launched in January 2015, and produces its own gin using a 16 litre copper still.
Shame I walked right past without noticing it really...
***
It's long been a bane of London life for me that so often you can't go from one place to another without the annoying palaver of taking a detour via the centre of town. The Piccadilly, Northern, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines all branch out northwards from the centre, yet getting from one to the other will almost always involve travelling south into Zone 1 first.
 |
| Kentish Town West |
 |
| Kenton |
"It's not worth making an effort," the shop fronts seem to say, "no-one ever comes here anyway..."
And so I quickly move off the main streets and head off in search of a quiet leafy cul-de-sac tucked away in the back streets.
At first, the corner of Mentmore Close and Lapstone Gardens may not appear in any way exceptional - and, indeed, that's the very reason (in a sense) that it is. It's very ordinariness was the reason it forever became associated with one of the most memorable moments of British television comedy history.
 |
| Just an ordinary street corner... |
 |
| ...And in its hey-day (Photo copyright BBC) |
Was there something especially Fawlty-esque about this street corner? Was there no equivalent patch of suburbia closer to the studios?
Well, I can answer that - yes there was, and indeed is. For decades I had imagined that it had been in Ealing (on any one of half a dozen similar looking street corners) that the scene had been shot. The fact that I was mistaken only underlines the fact that surely, when the foreground features Basil Fawlty maniacally wielding a branch at a car, one street in the background must be just as good as any other. To go to the trouble of transporting the entire production crew several miles to the north west of where they're based seems a needless expense.
***
It's just gone lunchtime, and since I have a few hours of daylight left today, I decide to add an unscheduled station to my journey - and squeeze in a visit to Kew Gardens.
My decision is encouraged by the fact that, once again, I can avoid the convolutions of going via central London and take the Overground almost directly there - once again simply changing at Willesden Junction.
I really do like the Overground Line.
***
 |
| Kew Gardens |
At Kew Gardens Station the heavens open.
What has thus far been a sunny early spring day, has reverted to being a miserable winter one. I sit in a nearby Starbucks (on the very pleasant Station Parade) for a while until the rain passes, and then venture forth again.
Being a resident of West London for over a quarter of a century, I have, not surprisingly, visited the 'Royal Botanic Gardens' at Kew (to give them their full title) several times over the years, and so don't really feel the need to do so again today.
 |
| Kew Gardens |
I'll leave that to you though, as my travels for the day are over, and I make my way finally home.
***
And so, dear reader, we begin 2016.
I hope to be more conscientious with my blogging this year, and with the half-way point in sight (just a few more Ks and a couple of Ls!) I feel a determined effort coming on!
