Craig Cross's Blog, page 5

London blog: Parliament Square

Parliament Square is full of metal fences and scaffolding today -- it's looks like they're trying to spruce it up a bit. It's the same with the surrounding buildings: the Houses of Parliament are covered in a mesh of poles and Big Ben is disappearing behind a rapidly rising ring of steel will hide it until 2021 -- that's four years away! So a bit of rust and dust and restoration work has managed to do what Hitler's Luftwaffe couldn't, and silence the country's clock. I feel a bit sorry for...

London blog: Churchill War Rooms

You know that war's inevitable when they start digging government bomb shelters. Chamberlain began planning these four months before his 'Peace In Our Time' speech, so while he was standing on the tarmac waving that little piece of paper about he was simultaneously ordering the furious digging and drilling beneath the Treasury. They got the whole thing rushed and done just one week before his declaration of war. The first bomb dropped four months later and Churchill took over four months...

London blog: Imperial War Museum

When was the last time that Britain lost a war? Let me think... apart from the Romans and the Vikings and the Normans, and the Hundred Years War, and the First Boer War, and that war against Mel Gibson in Scotland, I can't think of a single time that someone actually managed to beat us. Obviously you can't include the American War of Independence because that was technically against ourselves. And Iraq and Afghanistan were half-wins and Libya was a win for about five minutes so I'm still...

London blog: Clarence House

Nowadays Clarence House is the official residence of Prince Charles and Camilla, but most of us still associate it with the Queen Mother. Every time her birthday rolled around she used to totter out the side gate and wave at the public. They'd line up a few kids to give her some flowers then she'd stagger back inside for a gin. This went on for years and years until she passed away aged 101. Before the Queen Mother lived here she was up in Buckingham Palace with George VI, and Clarence House...

London blog: Docklands Light Railway

When I went to Chessington World of Adventures as a kid (back in the days when it was still called a zoo) the first ride we went on was the Safari Skyway, because that was the only ride my mother wasn't afraid to go on. That was the only one that didn't have any loop the loops on it -- it just a monorail that trundled over the top of the cages at about fifteen feet in the sky while you sat there taking photos of the lions and tigers underneath. I can't promise you any lions and tigers on the...

London blog: Brompton Cemetery

Mr Chambers is a very quiet today, and that's not like him -- on his epitaph it says he's the liveliest guy in the room. I've been standing at the foot of his bed for two minutes and he hasn't made a peep so either he's asleep or he's ignoring me. I know you're down there somewhere, mate. You can't ignore me forever. But that's how it is at Brompton Cemetery: you come here for a bit of company and all you get is the cold shoulder. As soon as people die they don't want to know you anymore....

London blog: Apsley House

I've got a soft spot for the Duke of Wellington. If I had to choose somebody to model myself on then I'd probably go for him, or Oliver Cromwell. Or possibly Luke Skywalker. The reason I like the Duke is because I see him as a stiff upper lip Englishman. He was a proper Englishman: he knew what he was doing and just got on with it. He looked after his army, respected his enemy, stayed loyal to his drunk and troubled wife -- he was like a knight from chivalrous times -- and he managed to save...

London blog: Museum of London Docklands

You have to be seriously into the history of London to enjoy this place. Try the Museum of London first (for the city's history) and then this one after (for the river's history), because it concentrates on the docks. Most of the historic wharves and warehouses around Canary Wharf have long since been bombed and demolished and replaced with skyscrapers and impossibly expensive flats, but they've saved one of the old Georgian sugar stores to tell its story. The first thing you'll learn about...

London blog: Canary Wharf

I'm too scared to get on a plane these days so I've never been to America, never been to New York. I just settle for Canary Wharf instead. I've got all the skyscrapers and Starbucks I'll ever need just three stops from London Bridge. I must admit that I'm totally useless when it comes to finding my way around here. This is the one area of London where I always get lost, because every time I visit they've put another couple of skyscrapers up. It's like trying to find your way around a forest...

London blog: Billingsgate Roman House and Baths

This is the closest you're going to get to a time machine. Considering that the Romans lived here for 350 years and built us a forum, fort, basilica, baths, and even a little amphitheatre, I've always found it rather disappointing that there's so little of it left. If you want to see what remains of Roman London nowadays then you usually have to file down a flight of stairs where you'll be lucky to find a few bits of brick and maybe the shape of a drain. Roman London is under London. And if...