The Goat Race at Spitalfields City Farm near Brick Lane has to be London’s most anticipated annual animal event. Tickets sell out almost instantly for punters to place their bets on who will take the racing crown: Oxford or Cambridge? They’ve been training for months, all in anticipation for today. Maybe they’ve never stopped training, not since the big race last year. Who knows how many pounds of food they’ve …
I don’t get modern art. It’s not that I despise it or think that I could create something better, and I most definitely wouldn’t let my children crawl over it. But if the point of multi-million pound installations is to make you pause for a second and say, “Hmm…”, then I suppose modern art has accomplished its job for me. Maybe that’s all the getting there is to be got. …
When I was younger, I used to have this deep-seated fear that I was being followed. I could always feel someone lurking, someone watching me through the shadows, someone slipping cartoon-like around the corner just as I was turning around. I didn’t think I was being followed by monsters or clowns or Furbies or whatever scares kids these days. It was infinitely more terrifying. I was sure I was being …
Back in my day when I was in journalism school, when we walked uphill both ways (seriously, they should have handed out topographical maps of my campus), we always demanded that a clear distinction be drawn between the “news” side and the “advertising” side. After all, we newsies were the serious, honest ones. We weren’t trying to sell anything. Of course, in the real world, the lines are a little blurrier. Journalism …
It’s not often that you get to go under water without getting wet, so perhaps it’s no surprise that this Victorian-era curiosity ended up in the 1,000 Things guide. Construction started in 1899, and the tunnel opened three years later to replace the expensive and unreliable ferry service that took workers from the south side of the River Thames to London’s docklands. (No, I’m not talking about today’s River Boat …
I thought I was safe. How could I have ever seen this coming? It was the first one she crossed off the list, damning it to the heap of the Not-Worth-Doings. #16: Get your hands on the latest Apple gadget. “Why on earth would this be included in London’s 1,000 best things?” she said, frowning. “Especially in the top 20…” I breathed a sigh of relief, though then she just …
Even if you don’t have anything on the to-read list, stop at Daunt Books in Marylebone to browse the books and ogle the gorgeous Edwardian architecture. It’s quiet just inside the dark wooden doors, away the from the midday phone conversations and the cafe-bound lunchers on Marylebone High Street. Here, all you can hear are fingers quietly flicking through the pages and the occasional scratch of another potential taken off the …
“I hope you have a good birthday, but it’s time for you to come home now.” It’s been 960 days since I moved away, and it was only supposed to be 365. My family’s thoughts about this time difference have gotten significantly less subtle in the last 100. It was only supposed to be one country, one visa. Then it was two countries. And it will be four visas by the …