Craig Cross's Blog, page 15

London blog: The Monument

I climbed up The Monument yesterday -- never again. I'm done with stairs. I'm not climbing up any stairs ever again. I don't know exactly how many there are up to the top of the column, but I'm guessing it's about a million. After two minutes my heart was pounding loud enough to make a sound -- it was the drumming percussion to my shuffling huffs and puffs. My chest was thumping, my legs were shaking, my head was sweating... and they make you pay an entry fee as well! The spiral stairs are...

London blog: Cutty Sark

When I was a kid the Cutty Sark used to be beached inside a dry concrete pit, and all the stale rainwater would collect in the corners in a dirty stew of sticks and polystyrene cups. Ah, nostalgia! Nowadays its floating on a greenhouse. It's quite clever the way they've done it. Imagine a half-bubble of glass with a boat dropped on top, sinking halfway through the roof. It's a bit like a cherry on top of a bun. It just sits on top with its decks exposed, and you can have a stroll around the...

London blog: National Maritime Museum

I do like the National Maritime Museum, but given Britain's rich history of war on the waves, and the fact that we won just about every battle we ever fought, it always seems a bit sparse on content to me. Where's the rest of it? I suppose we must have sunk it. All you'll find downstairs are some ship's figureheads, a titchy model of Nelson's Column, a gilded barge from Georgian times, two old industrial engines, a few scale models and a silver speedboat. That is practically it. That is...

London blog: Carnaby Street

You have to be in your sixties to remember the 60s, so I never saw Carnaby Street in its hey-day. All I can do is tell you what it looks like now -- and it's nothing special. They've painted the shop fronts in pastel pinks and lemon yellows to try and brighten it up a bit, but it's just a long line of clothes shops with a couple of pubs and coffee bars. Admittedly I'm too old to shop down here. In fact, the clothes that I'm wearing right now are probably older than most of the shoppers. But...

London blog: Clink Prison Museum

The Clink was a proper prison. The kind of prison that actually punished you. These days the prisoners get a bedroom with a TV and a Playstation inside. Back then all they got was typhoid. Not that I've ever been to a prison, of course -- although I have spent a couple of nights in the Covent Garden Travelodge, which isn't far off. There's hardly anything left of the original prison anymore. All that remains of the medieval gaol is a solitary wall which survived the fire of 1780. So it's not...

London blog: Cleopatra's Needle

What's the oldest thing in London? No, it's not Prince Philip. It's actually this big block of rock on Victoria Embankment: Cleopatra's Needle. This monument is even older than London itself -- literally. When the Romans built their first bridge across the Thames in 50 AD this block of stone had already been standing outside an Egyptian temple for 1,500 years. And it was another 1,800 years after that before the Victorians finally got their hands on it. It's quite incredible, really. Just...

London blog: Chinatown

I wonder if the whole of China looks like Chinatown? It looks like one of those themed zones you find at amusement parks. A big stone dragon? check! A huge wooden pagoda with green roof tiles? check! Red paper lanterns hanging from the lampposts? check! Watercolour paintings of waterfalls and blossom trees? check! Golden cats and pottery Buddhas? check! Wizened old ladies with cigarette stained fingers mumbling to themselves? check! You can tell who the real Chinese people are because...

London blog: Wellington Arch

I'm guessing that most people come to Wellington Arch for just one reason: to have a sneaky peek over the wall into Buckingham Palace. They're hoping to see the Queen sunbathing on her manicured lawn, or Prince Philip testing out his shotgun on the sparrows. Alas, the view into the gardens is quite disappointing... but more on that later. This place is like a Tardis inside, and a lot bigger than you'd imagine from the front. They've got a few rooms on a couple of floors, which they use for...

London blog: Royal Mews

You really have to be a fan of the Royals to like the Royal Mews. Either that or you need to love horses, because there's not a lot to see inside. I'm a bit of a Royal nut, but even I would skip this one. All you can really see of the architecture is a quadrangle that doubles up as a staff car park. Presumably they exercise the horses in it, but every time I've been here in the past (including today) it has been jam-packed full of modern day cars, which rather ruins the view. People still...

London blog: Westminster Cathedral

Westminster Cathedral is the nuttiest church in London. It's covered in classical columns, checkerboard walls, stained glass windows, Roman mosaics, stripes and spirals, stone statues of saints and angels and birds... and that's just out the front! I don't know who submitted the architectural plans, but they were clearly drunk. I bet they had a lot of explaining to do when they turned up at the Pearly Gates. "What the hell is this?" asked God. "I ordered a cathedral, not a...