Shocking news: turns out that Starbucks isn’t the best coffee in London. In fact, it was recently noted that:
(a) there has been an overwhelming number of exceptionally good [coffee] places opening over the past 18 months,
(b) many of these places are owned by, or staffed by Aussies and Kiwis, and
(c) the path of good coffee seems to lie in either central London (more explicitly, Soho and surrounding areas) or the East End (with a bias towards Hackney, Shoreditch and Clerkenwell/ Farringdon).
- Charmaine Mok, Timeout, Friday 31 July 2009
And so begins the tale of my quest to find the best coffee in London, hopefully with a happy ending.
Thus far, I have compiled a coffee ‘wish-list’, and am working my way through it as quickly as my money and legs will take me. I will update this list as and when I try new coffee.
09 November 2009
Urban Ramblings Part One
Date: 23 September, 4.30- 7.30pm
Start: Tower Hill Station
Finish: Royal Courts of Justice, Strand
Guide: Timeout London Walks, vol. One, Dan Cruikshank, 'Building Blocks'.
Length: guide says 7 miles/ 5.5 hours. I did a slightly modified route that I reckon was about 6.5 miles, in 3 hours.
Fantastic because: discovering such serene, gorgeous Churches felt magical and special; they were a welcome and calming sanctuary from the bustle around me, and it was almost like entering a different world.
Less fantastic because: getting dirty looks from City workers because you're blocking their streets looking touristy. They don't like.
So. In my day-to-day job I hate tourists. To the extent that I used to avoid them and the line of their photos, then became indifferent, but now *actively* seek to walk in front of them when they're taking a picture of Big Ben (a big clock yes but still JUST A CLOCK) and feel a certain satisfaction in releasing my tension by accidentally-oops-on-purpose barging into them when they've stopped in a particularly offensive place and I'm trying to buy lunch/get to work before I'm late/leave work. I suppose that working pretty much dead in the centre of Trafalgar Square, Houses of Parliament, Downing Street and the London Eye is never going to allow for much refuge from tourists, but I still like to complain. I love where I work, I just don't like to share.
Anyway, where am I going with this, and why have I bothered to indulge in such a long rambling vent of frustration over tourists? It's for more than just cathartic purposes (although I do feel better now I've released today's rage); it's so that you can fully appreciate the enormity of the inner turmoil and self-loathing this Urban Ramble caused me. I was deliberately and knowingly turning myself into a guidebook-toting, rush-hour-wandering, meandering, photograph-taking tourist, and god help me, I bloody enjoyed it. I may have even purchased some liquid refreshment from a certain American chain whose logo is green, white and features a crowned lady in a circle.
And so it was that, armed with only a small umbrella, map, phone and the sundry items contained within the strange and terrifying depths of a woman's handbag, I set upon Tower Hill. My journey commenced as follows:
4.30: exit Tower Hill station. Think: looks like rain's on the way.
4.32: it's raining.
4.33: after brief discussion with self about the sensibleness or otherwise of undertaking what I thought at the time would be nearly five and a half hours of walking in the rain, decide to soldier on regardless. Tower of London is covered with scaffolding and, for some reason, advertising. A sign (ho ho) of the times? Lots of tourists (like myself, I realise – and a wave of self-loathing hits me, not for the last time this afternoon), but also office-y people. Why aren’t they at work still? Shouldn’t they be trading away whatever remains of the London Stock Exchange or something?
4.40: Come to Lutyens’ War Memorial, as directed by the book. I don’t really get it.
4.41: Come to something which I realise is *actually* Lutyens’s War Memorial. Other thing was ugly stone building on hotel. This makes more sense now : it resembles the Cenotaph very closely, which figures, as he designed that and all. As I work very near to the Cenotaph, it occurs to me that I should, in an hour or so, be leaving work and battling against tourists to get to Westminster Tube, just as I have just battled against workers hoping to get to Tower Gateway Station. I am everything I have ever despised in the world, and yet I don’t mind too much. Really I’m just pleased at not having to be the embittered commuter, battling the tourists, for just one day; there but for the grace of God go I, etc.
4.50: St Olave’s Church: this was Samuel Pepys’ favourite Church and he wrote some lovely things about it. The gardens are quite sweet and I take a short amble through them, past where Sam himself is buried. Then spot a tramp cooking his dinner on the other side of the graveyard. Leave, briskly, noting to self: Do Not Make Eye-Contact.
4.58: Stop by wall of Church to write this down. Get moved on while writing this. Now feel strange affinity with tramp.
5-6pm or thereabouts: wandering around Fenchuch St / Leadenhall St Market / Gherkin / Lloyds Building etc etc. This is all very lovely, inspirational etc, and it is genuinely exciting to be in such a dynamic place with such a, sorry for the trite language but yes, buzz. You can almost smell the economy burning. What you can also smell, and feel, hear, touch and palpably taste, is the annoyance of City Folk who are desperately trying to get to places quickly. I sympathise: I am normally one of them- if somewhere’s worth going then it’s worth going to quickly, I say. However, today, I’m more interested in taking witty pictures of Old/New City of London (crumbling Church in the background with Gherkin in foreground etc) and just taking it all in, that I can’t quite keep pace and as such, they are pretty ratty with me. But I watch them (from a safe distance, sitting on a wall inobtrusively) and it turns out they’re pretty ratty with everyone and everything, so I don’t take it too personally. I can understand anyway; I was preventing the Lloyds / BNP Paribas workers from getting to their Chablis/ Strongbow, respectively. Time for a break.
I was originally sitting in the shop, fuming and thinking about how cathartic it’d be to write out my story of woe and horror and 30p overpaid but I now can’t be bothered to describe my Starbuck annoyance; it does serve me right for purchasing coffee from Starbucks after all. Onwards!
6-7pm: This was more freestyle: I decided I didn’t want to go all the way to Moorgate since all there was to see was more Churches and big buildings, and I’d seen a lot of them already. Instead, I went to the Guildhall and drank in its big-ness, then to a handfull of backstreets around Goldman Sachs and drank in their cute and small-ness, then got deliberately lost around Bank (since I knew my way around there fairly well anyway and had seen a lot of what the guide promised) and re-found myself at St Paul’s Cathedral, which was superbly beautiful at that time of evening. Needed toilet; followed signs for toilet but didn’t find it. What I did find was a huge spurting fountain instead; hardly an adequate substitute I’m sure you’ll understand.
7pm: decided that I would terminate my voyage at the far end of Fleet Street (where it turns into Strand), but would end with just one more spot: a pilgrimage to Samuel Johnson’s house. Found this down a lovely backstreet that you’d never know was there, were it not for about 15 signs from a mile radius pointing it out to every Tourist in the vicinity (including, I suppose, on this occasion, me). However, this didn’t seem to work perfectly because the couple of foreign tourists who were visiting around the same time I was didn’t actually know what they were visiting. I took great patriotic pleasure in telling them, and so it was that I realised that I needed to stop being a tourist, like, now.
So back to the land of knowing smirks and not needing a map to get from one place to another, away from discovery and back to familiarity, no longer to be the annoyance but once again to take the role of annoyed, furious, incredibly busy and important (obviously) worker. And the lesson: am I more tolerant, now that I’ve seen the other side of the coin? Now that I have been that person who was happily and peacefully meandering around this wonderful city, taking in its centuries of glorious history and inspiring new developments, pausing occasionally to capture the marvellous spectacle with my camera or to consult my guidebook to decide where next my adventure would take me? Of course not. Now, get the fuck out of my way; I’m going to miss my train.
Start: Tower Hill Station
Finish: Royal Courts of Justice, Strand
Guide: Timeout London Walks, vol. One, Dan Cruikshank, 'Building Blocks'.
Length: guide says 7 miles/ 5.5 hours. I did a slightly modified route that I reckon was about 6.5 miles, in 3 hours.
Fantastic because: discovering such serene, gorgeous Churches felt magical and special; they were a welcome and calming sanctuary from the bustle around me, and it was almost like entering a different world.
Less fantastic because: getting dirty looks from City workers because you're blocking their streets looking touristy. They don't like.
So. In my day-to-day job I hate tourists. To the extent that I used to avoid them and the line of their photos, then became indifferent, but now *actively* seek to walk in front of them when they're taking a picture of Big Ben (a big clock yes but still JUST A CLOCK) and feel a certain satisfaction in releasing my tension by accidentally-oops-on-purpose barging into them when they've stopped in a particularly offensive place and I'm trying to buy lunch/get to work before I'm late/leave work. I suppose that working pretty much dead in the centre of Trafalgar Square, Houses of Parliament, Downing Street and the London Eye is never going to allow for much refuge from tourists, but I still like to complain. I love where I work, I just don't like to share.
Anyway, where am I going with this, and why have I bothered to indulge in such a long rambling vent of frustration over tourists? It's for more than just cathartic purposes (although I do feel better now I've released today's rage); it's so that you can fully appreciate the enormity of the inner turmoil and self-loathing this Urban Ramble caused me. I was deliberately and knowingly turning myself into a guidebook-toting, rush-hour-wandering, meandering, photograph-taking tourist, and god help me, I bloody enjoyed it. I may have even purchased some liquid refreshment from a certain American chain whose logo is green, white and features a crowned lady in a circle.
And so it was that, armed with only a small umbrella, map, phone and the sundry items contained within the strange and terrifying depths of a woman's handbag, I set upon Tower Hill. My journey commenced as follows:
4.30: exit Tower Hill station. Think: looks like rain's on the way.
4.32: it's raining.
4.33: after brief discussion with self about the sensibleness or otherwise of undertaking what I thought at the time would be nearly five and a half hours of walking in the rain, decide to soldier on regardless. Tower of London is covered with scaffolding and, for some reason, advertising. A sign (ho ho) of the times? Lots of tourists (like myself, I realise – and a wave of self-loathing hits me, not for the last time this afternoon), but also office-y people. Why aren’t they at work still? Shouldn’t they be trading away whatever remains of the London Stock Exchange or something?
4.40: Come to Lutyens’ War Memorial, as directed by the book. I don’t really get it.
4.41: Come to something which I realise is *actually* Lutyens’s War Memorial. Other thing was ugly stone building on hotel. This makes more sense now : it resembles the Cenotaph very closely, which figures, as he designed that and all. As I work very near to the Cenotaph, it occurs to me that I should, in an hour or so, be leaving work and battling against tourists to get to Westminster Tube, just as I have just battled against workers hoping to get to Tower Gateway Station. I am everything I have ever despised in the world, and yet I don’t mind too much. Really I’m just pleased at not having to be the embittered commuter, battling the tourists, for just one day; there but for the grace of God go I, etc.
4.50: St Olave’s Church: this was Samuel Pepys’ favourite Church and he wrote some lovely things about it. The gardens are quite sweet and I take a short amble through them, past where Sam himself is buried. Then spot a tramp cooking his dinner on the other side of the graveyard. Leave, briskly, noting to self: Do Not Make Eye-Contact.
4.58: Stop by wall of Church to write this down. Get moved on while writing this. Now feel strange affinity with tramp.
5-6pm or thereabouts: wandering around Fenchuch St / Leadenhall St Market / Gherkin / Lloyds Building etc etc. This is all very lovely, inspirational etc, and it is genuinely exciting to be in such a dynamic place with such a, sorry for the trite language but yes, buzz. You can almost smell the economy burning. What you can also smell, and feel, hear, touch and palpably taste, is the annoyance of City Folk who are desperately trying to get to places quickly. I sympathise: I am normally one of them- if somewhere’s worth going then it’s worth going to quickly, I say. However, today, I’m more interested in taking witty pictures of Old/New City of London (crumbling Church in the background with Gherkin in foreground etc) and just taking it all in, that I can’t quite keep pace and as such, they are pretty ratty with me. But I watch them (from a safe distance, sitting on a wall inobtrusively) and it turns out they’re pretty ratty with everyone and everything, so I don’t take it too personally. I can understand anyway; I was preventing the Lloyds / BNP Paribas workers from getting to their Chablis/ Strongbow, respectively. Time for a break.
I was originally sitting in the shop, fuming and thinking about how cathartic it’d be to write out my story of woe and horror and 30p overpaid but I now can’t be bothered to describe my Starbuck annoyance; it does serve me right for purchasing coffee from Starbucks after all. Onwards!
6-7pm: This was more freestyle: I decided I didn’t want to go all the way to Moorgate since all there was to see was more Churches and big buildings, and I’d seen a lot of them already. Instead, I went to the Guildhall and drank in its big-ness, then to a handfull of backstreets around Goldman Sachs and drank in their cute and small-ness, then got deliberately lost around Bank (since I knew my way around there fairly well anyway and had seen a lot of what the guide promised) and re-found myself at St Paul’s Cathedral, which was superbly beautiful at that time of evening. Needed toilet; followed signs for toilet but didn’t find it. What I did find was a huge spurting fountain instead; hardly an adequate substitute I’m sure you’ll understand.
7pm: decided that I would terminate my voyage at the far end of Fleet Street (where it turns into Strand), but would end with just one more spot: a pilgrimage to Samuel Johnson’s house. Found this down a lovely backstreet that you’d never know was there, were it not for about 15 signs from a mile radius pointing it out to every Tourist in the vicinity (including, I suppose, on this occasion, me). However, this didn’t seem to work perfectly because the couple of foreign tourists who were visiting around the same time I was didn’t actually know what they were visiting. I took great patriotic pleasure in telling them, and so it was that I realised that I needed to stop being a tourist, like, now.
So back to the land of knowing smirks and not needing a map to get from one place to another, away from discovery and back to familiarity, no longer to be the annoyance but once again to take the role of annoyed, furious, incredibly busy and important (obviously) worker. And the lesson: am I more tolerant, now that I’ve seen the other side of the coin? Now that I have been that person who was happily and peacefully meandering around this wonderful city, taking in its centuries of glorious history and inspiring new developments, pausing occasionally to capture the marvellous spectacle with my camera or to consult my guidebook to decide where next my adventure would take me? Of course not. Now, get the fuck out of my way; I’m going to miss my train.
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