A review of Padraig (U.S)

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Probably my favourite old pub in central London is the Seven Stars in Aldwych, which thankfully isn't overly touristy. Decent food too, actually. It's full of legal-theme tat because it sits in the middle of the Inns of Court. The Old Cheshire Cheese just off Fleet Street is great too - it was rebuilt the year after the Great Fire on the site of an existing inn, but most of it is below ground, in the cellars of what used to be a Carmelite monastery, dating back to the 13th century. The Grapes in Limehouse is also very old - it nearly shut down a few years ago, I think, but Ian McKellan bought it.

These places are so integral to the history and fabric of the city that I'd have thought they'd be well worth a visit even for a non-drinker.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Some good suggestions on museums here, but there's also the point luka was hinting at on the last page, which is that London as a whole is in a sense a museum to itself. Because it's been so thoroughly burned, bombed and redeveloped, it doesn't have a Colosseum and tons of ancient churches like Rome, but it wasn't renovated according to a conscious and more or less rational plan in recent times either, like Paris was. So while most of the city as it existed at the time was destroyed in the Great Fire, the new streets were constructed right on top of the old streets, so even to this day the street plan in the City itself is largely unchanged from mediaeval times and in some cases even Roman times. (Which is great for the modern historian, tourist or flaneur, but was not so great for poor Londoners of the 18th and 19th centuries, who lived in dingy, narrow, winding streets and alleys that were no less conducive to disease and crime than they had been hundreds of years earlier.) Old Street is called that because it's the old Roman road out of the city into Essex - it reappears a few miles further east as Roman Road, just north of Bow Road near where I used to live. Some of the streets follow the course of rivers that have been imprisoned underground for hundreds of years. The Walbrook is really the Welshbrook - the stream that once formed the frontier between the English and the 'Welsh' (Britons). At Sloane Square tube station there is an anonymous box-shaped metal structure running above the tracks which contains the river Westbourne:

Sloan_Square_Tube_Station_London_and_Westbourne_river.jpg

And this stuff is everywhere - the deep past lingering on in hidden, unobvious or incorporeal ways. I know the whole psychogeography thing now looks a bit like a fad that came and went in the last decade, but London is really the psychogeographer's city par excellence.
 
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luka

Well-known member
Good post. The museum of London has a lost rivers exhibition on at the moment. But where is Padraig anyway!
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
when i was in london once i liked all the tropical birds and plants and that they were selling these gigantic slugs on the market. what even to do with them?
 

craner

Beast of Burden
An itinerary:

The Bird Cage in London Zoo
Speakers' Corner, Sunday Lunchtime
Brompton Oratory, Vespers and Benediction, Sunday 3pm
Daquise Restaurant, South Kensington
Trisha's, 57 Greek Street, Soho, until early morning
 

droid

Well-known member
Do I need to rank him in comparison with my other Dissensus encounters? This is the list (in no particular order):

John Eden,
Martin,
Luka,
Slothrop,
Idlerich,
Tea,
Gabriel
Elijah,
Dan Hancox (very briefly)

I think that's it. Am I forgetting anyone?

Yes I was! Matt B and his lovely wife/partner came over in 2010.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Trisha's, 57 Greek Street, Soho, until early morning

Very good shout. If Padraig has any interest in the disgraceful levels of tribalism that are a British birthright, going to the Yucatan on Stoke Newington High Street to watch the Arsenal-Chelsea cup final might be a good shout on Wednesday.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Hey guys, I'm here.

Sorry, having phone issues, can text + call but can't use data, so no Internet or email. Fucking Verizon told me phone was unlocked when I asked before I left, but guess not idk. Borrowing sisters laptop rn for this. Also I got pretty sick (whole fam did, caught it off them) was laid up for last day+.

We're staying somewhere by Paddington Station. Everything v posh. Just walked from here to I think Kings Cross + back. Surprised how early things close. Got propositioned twice by sex workers which also surprised, but idk lotta tourists around I guess.

Will look thru recs. Thx all for said recs.

Gonna try to have dinner w the man like Eden tomorrow. Down for a pub meetup if people wanna; droid is correct I don't drink but don't mind hanging out while other people do. Someone suggest a place I guess.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Gonna museum etc tomorrow, Thursday idk yet. Wish I had a bike (a real one I mean, not bikeshare).

Luka, still down for the hill. Text or Whatsapp me.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Nothing really to add but would second or third the John Soanes Museum, Trisha's, going up the hills and looking over London, even Gordon's I guess. And also yeah just walking - someone mentioned the rivers and there are places in Clerkenwell where you can hear the Fleet under the streets I believe. Lots of things do shut early but now there are more and more places that don't... or at least there were when I moved away.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Couple new reviews to post

John Eden: (to my total lack of surprise) 10/10, scholar + gentleman, gracious host, a joy to talk to

Myself talking to John Eden: 5/10. Was late (Tube takes awhile don't it), rambled on + on, etc

Luka + I tryna get in touch with each other: 2/10 - tomorrow's last chance then I'm out! So now or never really
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Check yr phone, texted u back

Or PM or email tonite. I'll have access to a laptop til like 9 tmrw morning then it'll back to just texting (rest of fam doing a jaunt up north)
 
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