Why be like the other sheep?
A visit to the final home of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
Sigmund Freud, Austrian Jew and renowned psychoanalyst, fled the Nazis and arrived in London in 1938. Until his death the following the year he lived in a large house in North London, just off Finchley Road and not far from Finchley Road underground station. Continue reading “Freud Museum”
An afternoon spent masquerading as a posh lady got another challenge ticked off my 60 things to do before I’m 60 list.
Dodging showers we made it to the Ritz, not looking our best, but not looking too bedraggled either. Back in February when I’d booked our afternoon tea I’d half hoped for rain so I could have one of the top-hatted doormen hold a golf umbrella over my head as I went up to the steps to the entrance. Continue reading “Afternoon Tea at the Ritz”
I’m so glad I don’t live near Borough Market. I’d spend all my money on cheese and licorice.
Last Saturday morning I arrived in London far too early for my afternoon tea at the Ritz, so to while away a few hours I went to Borough Market. I couldn’t believe I’d waited so long to pay this foodie haven a visit. Continue reading “Friday Flickr – Borough Market”
Afternoon tea at the Ritz will be another challenge ticked off my list.
One of the more sedate challenges on my 60 before 60 list is to have afternoon tea at the Ritz.
When I first lived in London I worked at a sandwich bar on a hidden alleyway near St James’s Palace. I used to get the tube to Green Park and so twice a day I would walk past the Ritz on Piccadilly. I never ventured inside. Doormen in tophats and tails would swing the doors open for expensively clad people alighting from taxis outside; if it was raining they even held huge golf umbrellas to prevent elegant hairdos from turning frizzy.
I imagined the same doormen slamming the doors shut if I ever tried to enter in my old jeans and trainers. One day, I thought, I will go there and they will hold the doors open for me and I will go inside and have afternoon tea. (I considered afternoon tea to be the poshest of the posh when it comes to food.)
Although I’ll happily do most things on my own, this is one of those things that I think will be enjoyed more if I have someone to share the experience with. And as it’s expensive I knew it could take a while before I found someone willing. Fortunately, I’ve now found that someone.
A good friend and I were at the funeral of another friend this week. She was only 45 and died suddenly. After the funeral we went for a drink in her memory and got onto a maudlin discussion of how life is short and you never know what’s round the corner. I kind of know this already which is one of the reasons I have a list in the first place, but sometimes I need reminding of it.
By the end of the drink we’d decided that part of making the most of life should involve a weekend in London and afternoon tea at the Ritz. I went home and booked it.
Because we want a weekend date and don’t want to have afternoon tea at 7.30pm in the evening (that’s just wrong), the earliest date I could get is in October. At least we’ve got plenty of time to save up for it.
And maybe it will be raining in October. Even if it’s not, I might still ask the doorman to hold an umbrella over my head.
A restaurant that doesn’t cook the food.
Over the New Year holidays I had a day in London. I was staying with friends in Kent for a few days and caught the train in on the 2nd. I had a long list of things I wanted to do, but when I researched them I found many places were still closed for the holidays and so that limited my choices somewhat.
One of the decisions I had to make was where to have lunch. I like trying out new places, but also have a lot of old favourites that I like to have the chance to get back to. The first few places I checked out were closed, so I decided to go to an old haunt, The World Food Cafe in Neal’s Yard. This was run by a couple who have travelled the world taking amazing photographs and researching recipes. They have published a couple of beautiful cookbooks combining photos and recipes and also displayed some of their photos on the walls of the cafe. The food was always great and the menu consisted of a range of dishes from around the world.
Yes, I’m talking past tense. The World Food Cafe is no longer and has been replaced by The Wild Food Cafe. It looks the same, except the photos are gone. The concept of the new establishment is to serve food that hasn’t been heated to anything above 39 degrees. Most of the food on the menu is served raw although the grains they serve with some meals have been cooked properly before being cooled down. They refer to their way of preparing and serving food as ‘sunfood’.
I’d heard of this way of eating before, but can’t say it has ever really appealed. However, I’m always up for a new experience and so was happy to give it a go.
I ordered a burger made from mushrooms and I think some kind of sprouts or seeds. It was served with salad, home-made ketchup, mustard and sweet potato wedges (these had been cooked and cooled). Instead of bread it was on a cracker made from seeds and things, all dehydrated and squished together. The cracker was really tasty. The burger was ok but I won’t list it amongst my favourites; if anything it was overpowered by the mustard and this spoilt the taste a bit.
I finished lunch with a coffee (hot and normal) and a piece of chocolate with high cocoa solids and made without cooking or heating.
So what’s my opinion overall? I quite liked it, but not enough to make it a ‘haunt’. It was interesting to try a different type of food and the staff were really friendly and happy to answer questions and explain the products. If I didn’t have so many other places that I like to go to in London, then I probably would go back, but as I have alternatives, I probably won’t.
A major exhibition at the British Museum.
The Hajj Exhibition at the British Museum was of relevance to me because of my interest in Islam. As an aspect of Islam, the Hajj is of particular fascination because it’s something I’m unlikely to ever experience. To be allowed to enter the area of Mecca I’d have to be a Muslim. As a female I’d have to be in the company of my husband or close male relative who would also need to be Muslim. Now that I’m over forty I could get around the unaccompanied female clause by going as part of an all female group, but there’s no way around the non-Muslim bit unless I was to convert. As I’m not religious and don’t hold any particular belief in God that would be rather hypocritical of me.
The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. All able-bodied Muslims must make this pilgrimage once in their lifetime as long as they can afford it. And of course it is something they should try to afford. As pilgrimages go this must be one of the, if not the, most ritualistic. Over the course of five or six days the various steps are followed by several million pilgrims, aided by around 12,000 guides. Bear in mind the setting is the red-hot Saudi Arabian desert, and one of the steps involves standing out on the plains of Mount Arafat for the whole day, and you can begin to see that this is no holiday but a real test of mind and body.
This site is the official Saudi Arabian site for the Hajj and gives lots of details.
But, back to the exhibition. I’d bought my ticket well in advance and so could go straight in. One of the first things I saw was a piece of a kisweh. The kiswah is the gigantic cloth, usually black and decorated with a band of Arabic inscriptions embroidered in gold thread, that covers Islam’s most holy place, the Ka’aba. It is to the Ka’aba that Muslims all over the world turn when they pray. A new cloth is produced each year. The piece in the exhibition was huge and it was wonderful to get so close to it. I can’t imagine the majority of pilgrims themselves getting that close. Although all pilgrims must circumambulate the Ka’aba seven times, sheer numbers must surely mean the majority are circumambulating at some distance.
Once inside the exhibition proper, the displays wound around the hall imitating the journey of the Hajj itself. The first section showed what it’s like to prepare for Hajj and had stories told by people departing from different countries. The next sections followed the days of Hajj culminating in the pilgrims’ arrival back at home. Each section had a range of exhibits, which I found quite interesting to see, and various short films, audio testimonies and photographs to complement them. There was plenty of information provided in each section so a visitor not so familiar with the procedures and meanings of Hajj should learn plenty and have no trouble understanding what they are looking at. I found this slightly less interesting as it was a little too basic for me. Any visitors who have studied Islam should go to the exhibition with the intention of seeing artefacts they would not normally get the chance to see, rather than to learn something new.
Would I recommend this exhibition? Yes. Is this one of the best exhibitions I’ve been to at the British Museum? No.
Here are some statistics about last year’s hajj that I’ve copied from the Telegraph website.
Key numbers for the Hajj this year:
– An estimated 2.5 million pilgrims are gathering in Mecca this year – 1.8 million from abroad and 700,000-800,000 from inside Saudi Arabia.
– Every Muslim country has a hajj quota of 1,000 pilgrims per million inhabitants and the biggest contingent – 200,000 pilgrims – will come from Indonesia.
– Saudi Arabia is deploying some 63,000 security forces, including 3,500 anti-riot policemen backed by 450 armoured vehicles, while the civil defence is deploying 22,000 forces and 6,000 vehicles.
– Some 1,500 CCTV cameras have been installed in and around Mecca’s Grand Mosque and 29 police stations will be open to serve the holy places.
– Some 20,000 health workers have been mobilised to cope with any emergency and five rescue helicopters also have been readied to serve the faithful.
– More than 12,000 male and female guides known as “mutawif” help organise the pilgrims’ stay.
– The Grand Mosque at the centre of Mecca, where pilgrims gather to pray and circle the cubic Kaaba building, covers 368,000 square meters and can hold more than 1.5 million people.
– The Kaaba rests on a marble base and is built from granite, and has a door made from 280 kilos (616 pounds) of pure gold. The black silk kiswa covering, made anew every year, is embroidered with holy phrases using 150 kilos (330 pounds) of gold and silver thread.
Whilst I was googling I came across this site – I’ve only had a quick look at it but it’s definitely one I’ll come back to.
Wish I’d allowed more than 2hrs to see this fantastic exhibition.
I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the Hockney exhibition whilst I was in London. The online allocation of tickets had long been sold out so I was reliant on buying a ticket once I arrived. The queue for same day tickets was an hour or two long, but for next day tickets it was only 5-10 minutes long. Lucky me.
The following day I turned up and got straight in. It was quite crowded but the timed tickets made sure it wasn’t over-crowded and so it was still easy to get a good look at everything.
The exhibition was much bigger than I’d expected and spanned a period of about fifty years. Many of the paintings depict landscapes, including a series showing the same countryside scene throughout the four seasons.
Not all of the works were paintings however. Several large scales images were actually made up of hundreds of polaroid photos. These photographs were each taken of a tiny part of a huge landscape such as the Grand Canyon and then pieced together jigsaw style to create a whole huge image. The look was really effective and this is something I really must try at some point. I don’t have enough wall space (or enough patience) to do anything on his scale, but even a smaller version would be fun to try.
Hockney has recently discovered iPads and has been using one for his intial sketches. One exhibition room had a series of iPads showing the sketches he’s done. In one of the main exhibition rooms was a group of primary school children all squatting on the floor with their own iPads copying his paintings. It was fascinating to watch them and seeing the iPads in use – they were getting almost as much attention as Hockney!
One of the best exhibits was a series of films. Hockney was born in Bradford but has lived in Los Angeles for decades. A few years ago he came back to Yorkshire to spend time with his sick mother and rediscovered his love of the place. He’s painted quite prolifically since then, but also got into film-making pioneering a technique using 18 cameras. The cameras were all loaded onto the front of a landrover at different heights and angles. As he drove slowly up a Yorkshire lane the cameras captured the scene from eighteen different perspectives. These films are shown simultaneously on eighteen joined together screens. There is some overlap which in itself creates an interesting effect, but mostly the perspectives merge well to give the impression of actually moving down the lane yourself. One camera, even with a wide-angle lens, shows such a restricted perspective but it’s only when seeing something like this do you realise how restrictive normal photography and filming is. I really felt like I was there and it seemed more realistic than any 3D film I’ve seen.
I spent about two hours at the exhibition and could easily have stayed longer, but I had to leave to ensure I was on time for my floatation appointment. I would highly recommend this exhibition, but do allow plenty of time.
The best chocolate EVER!
I’ve been eating my favourite chocolate. I love white chocolate and cardamom is my favourite spice. In this bar from Rococo I get both combined and it is amazing! Rococo make really good quality chocolate from organic ingredients and have lots of unusual flavours: Geranium anyone? The company is based on the King’s Road in Chelsea but rather than trekking all the way down there I buy their chocolate at the Algerian Coffee Stores in Soho. I only get to buy when I’m in London and as it’s expensive at more than £4 a bar, I don’t buy much. So this really is a treat to be eked out and savoured.
Champagne with a view
This was another treat over half term. Paul had heard recommendations and wanted to go. I’d never heard of it but got quite excited about it after a bit of googling. Neither of us like champagne, so we were going for the experience and the view rather than the beverage. It needs to be booked in advance and a credit card number given so you can be charged if you don’t turn up. We’d booked a 2 hour slot from 6pm till 8pm on the Tuesday night.
Vertigo 42 is so called because it is on the 42nd floor of the second tallest building in the City of London (it’s the fifth tallest in London as a whole). At 183 metres (about 600ft) it’s definitely high. The bar is basically a circular corridor round the outer edge of the floor. The lifts, kitchen, toilets and so on are in the middle bit.
The windows are floor to ceiling and the wall behind has floor to ceiling mirrors so which ever way you look you are met with an absolutely stunning view. I could easily have stayed all night just gazing at it. Because of the time of year it was dark so we were looking out over a lit London. We were fairly close to St Paul’s and could see the Thames, the London Eye, Centrepoint, Big Ben and lots of other tall landmarks.
To be allowed up to the bar we had to give our names at reception and then go through airport type security, walking a though a metal detector and passing our bags through an x-ray machine. The private lift to the 42nd floor practically flew up and I felt my ears popping. Once at the top we had to give our names again and were led to our ‘area’.
Each window has a low ledge which is used as a table and a couple of egg style chairs. Further round was the area for groups which had a higher ledge and bar stools. Each ‘area’ is labelled with the name of the something in direct sight e.g. Barbican and the direction in degrees and minutes.
We ordered a bottle of the cheapest champagne which was £60. It arrived in a silver bucket and a waiter filled our glasses. The waiters continued to fill our glasses each time they got low. We were drinking quite slowly however as we needed to make our one bottle last the two hours! We ordered some salted almonds to go with it. I’m used to bags of crisps in pubs so was very impressed with the way the almonds arrived in a dish on a platter with a white cloth. They were nice and the saltiness took away some of the taste of champagne so we actually found we were enjoying it. By the time we finished the nuts our taste buds had adjusted and we were enjoying the champagne on its own. Now this is a habit I really can’t afford to develop!
Would I go again? Definitely, despite the cost. I felt chilled, relaxed, comfortable and in awe of the view. The waiters were attentive but not over-bearing. I had worried that the place would either be a tourist trap or stuffily posh, but it was neither. The clientele seemed to be mainly workers enjoying a special night out after a day at the office.
One of the best meals I’ve had. Shame the state of the toilets let the place down.
Over half term I had lunch in Jamie Oliver’s restaurant, Fifteen, in London. We made a booking a few weeks in advance and were able to get a table for mid-afternoon (the time we wanted). It is in a part of London I’m not familiar with and although not far from the centre, seemed a bit run-down and not really an area for people to go unless they live or work there. So I suppose Fifteen is, as well as working to help young unemployed people become trained as chefs, also helping to bring people to an area they wouldn’t usually visit.
We were slightly early, but were led downstairs to the main restaurant straight away. We were sat next to the kitchen which meant we were quite warm, but it was interesting to be able to see what was going on.
The restaurant was dark (being in the basement), but lit well enough that we could easily see. Further down the room from where we were sat there seemed to be some kind of booths. On the ground floor is the bar and trattoria and this has a lighter, airier feel to it.
The waiter was attentive and explained the menu. It’s a fixed price menu at lunch time depending on how many courses you have. We went for the two courses plus dessert option for £30 a head.
We started off being served with bread. The restaurant is Italian and so it came with olive oil rather than butter. We then both had the same starter of a gooey warm Mozzarella – the nicest we’ve had – and roasted aubergine.
For a main I ordered a vegetarian risotto and Paul ordered the lamb. Risottos can sometimes be served in small portions but this was fine and I was full by the end. It was made with fennel and olives and had quite a delicate flavour, despite these being quite strongly flavoured ingredients. Paul’s lamb looked delicious (and I’m a vegetarian saying that!) and he said it tasted as good as it looked. We ordered a side salad and some potatoes as side dishes and were absolutely stuffed by the time we had finished.
We wanted to try a dessert as this will probably be the only time we come here. We had to wait a while and let the rest of the food digest a bit before we felt up to it though. I had the pannacotta which was creamy but refreshing and served with a scoop of chocolate mousse and Paul had a slice of lemon tart. To finish off we had a coffee.
To drink with our meal we ordered a beer. At £6.50 a bottle it was quite pricey so as it was a 500ml bottle we just ordered one between us. It was Junction Ale, a brew made locally and was quite light. I’d expected something heavier. It was so nice and went so well with the food that despite the price we ordered another one.
We enjoyed our few hours here and loved the food. The only complaint I’d have would be the toilets. They obviously hadn’t been cleaned over the lunch time period and so by the time I got to them at the end of the afternoon they weren’t particularly enticing.
