I wanted to know if this ageing body of mine was still capable of doing a London day trip bookended by overnight coach trips to and from Edinburgh. I booked the Megabus for a very reasonable £31 return with no seat reservations. There were times when people were sat next to me that I thought I was doing real damage to my knees, and I was in a pretty sorry state when I got off the bus, but I managed a few hours sleep on the return journey and I do think I would do it again.
In a packed itinerary I walked 25944 steps, from Victoria to Russell Square and then Pimlico to Battersea (in the pouring rain). I took in two gallery shows, both now closed (hence the need to go last week): Entangled Pasts at the Royal Academy and Crass at Horse Hospital. I was surprised how small the Gee Vaucher originals were, but I guess that’s a necessary part of producing callage work from magazine images.
I ate at the Regency Cafe in Westminster and the Indian YMCA and enjoyed a pint of bitter in the Angel, which used to be a regular of mine back when I was working at Forbidden Planet (I know, I know, 37 years ago). I like that they still have many of the same theatre posters in the saloon bar at the Angel, but Anthony Sher in Richard III seems to have moved on.
I am interested in the memorials that people leave behind and so this trip I wanted to see the plaque for the Denmark Place fire and the Theatre Street floral tribute to the two bikers who were killed there back in 1998. I didn’t know about the Denmark Place fire back when I worked in Denmark Street and it’s a shocking story.
On the walk to Battersea I found another memorial that I didn’t know about previously, Mary Smith’s Pantry, a foodbank in Pimlico which founder Mike Smith named after his mother.
