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London for Beginners

Following her recent trip to London our blogging friend Katy has written a series of three posts of hints and tips for those visiting London for the first time. They are excellent advice even if you’ve been to London before. I recommend that you go and read them.

And when you’ve read them, come back here for a few things I, as a Londoner born and bred, can add.

London Transport
London for Beginners – The Basics
London for Beginners – Tourist Attractions

OK. In general I will echo everything that Katy says in these three posts. But here are a few additional thoughts which I’ve arranged roughly by each of Katy’s posts.

London Transport
Although Katy isn’t a Londoner, she’s been visiting London for many years and has lived here, so in many ways she knows more about travelling around London than I do.

Driving in London
My first piece of advice here would be what Katy doesn’t say in as many words: DON’T. If you thought the one-way systems, restrictions, traffic etc. were bad in your city they’re worse in London.

If you must drive in central London then something to watch is fuel. Fill up before you get into the centre. There are very few petrol stations in the central area. OK I’m not a driver but I can think of only two fuel stops in the West End area: one on Park Lane and one on the Marylebone Road. Doubtless there are others, but they’re pretty well hidden.

Take Katy’s words about parking restrictions to heart. Yes you can find convenient on-street parking but it is rare; near Oxford Street you can try Manchester Square which sometimes has available parking especially at weekends. (And while you’re in Manchester Square visit The Wallace Collection.)

Do not dice with the parking/traffic restrictions. Not only are there lots of Traffic Wardens, but there are lots of cameras, including on mobile vans and buses. If you get caught (and you will be) flouting parking restrictions, stopping in yellow boxes, jumping lights or using bus lanes you will find you’re stuffed with a £100+ ticket. Don’t risk it.

Trains
If you are eligible, get a Senior Railcard. They are £28 a year (£65 for three years) and give you around 30% off many train fares; you could save the cost on your first train trip to London.

London Underground (The Tube)
As Katy says: get an Oyster Card, if possible before you arrive. This will allow you to swipe through gates and will save you money as Oyster fares are significantly cheaper than paying cash for single tickets. Once you have the card you can also top it up online as well as at stations.

If you have a Senior Railcard, take it with your Oyster Card to any Underground Ticket Office and ask them to attach the Railcard to the Oyster card. This will save you around another 30% on all your tube fares. Many people do not know about this facility!

Buses
If you have a “granny free bus pass” issued by your local authority then it may also give you free travel on London buses.

If you live in one of the London boroughs and are over the female pensionable age (its moving nationally from 60 up to 65 at present, so you’ll have to check) or have one of a range of disabilities you are entitled to Freedom Pass. This is the London-wide version of the “granny free bus pass”. But it does a lot more. You don’t just get free bus travel at any time, you also get free tube travel and mostly free rail travel (there are a few restrictions) in the London area; also free trams and free DLR. (But note freedom Pass doesn’t cover Inter-city journeys from the mainline termini.)

There are over 600 bus routes in Greater London. Where they start, finish and the routes they take are often far from obvious. You need to do some research before you arrive if you’re planning to use the buses.

You can find out about almost all London travel, including Oyster cards, on the Transport for London website.

Taxis
This is something Katy didn’t cover. Everyone knows about the London Black Cab, which is ubiquitous in the central area. Use them. Yes they are more expensive than the tube if you’re on your own. For two, or especially more, they could work out cheaper than the tube. All Black Cabs are metered and you pay by a combination of distance and time, so the meter keeps ticking even if you’re sitting in traffic. Cabbies know this and while a few will use it to their advantage, in my experience most won’t. They know where the bottlenecks and roadworks are. And they are masters at knowing every back double and cut-through going so they generally will do their best to get you to your destination quickly — after all the sooner they drop you, the sooner they get another fare and most would prefer to keep moving.

If a Taxi has it’s yellow light on it is plying for hire and you can wave it down, or you can pick up a cab at a Taxi Rank. A cabbie is required by law to take you to any destination within 6 miles (25 miles from Heathrow Airport, I think) regardless. If it is over 6 miles he may refuse if he has a “reasonable excuse”. You will find a few ladies driving cabs and the vast majority of cabbies are London born and bred.

All taxis in London are registered with, and regulated by, the Public Carriage Office and the incidence of problems is rare. The London Black Cab driver is in general very knowledgeable not just about what’s where and how to get there but they often have interesting historical/trivial facts about places. I’m a great admirer of the London Cabbie; I don’t know how they manage to learn all this stuff — and they do have to learn it thoroughly (it’s call The Knowledge) to get their licence. They really are a breed apart, in the nicest possible way.

Outside the central area Black Cabs are rarer and you’ll likely have to know where the nearest cab rank is, which may be only the nearest decent-sized station.

But outside the central area there are also minicabs. These are the private hire cars; they are not allowed to ply for hire and by law all journeys must be pre-booked — which means you have to call their office and ask for a pick up. They’ll want to know where you’re going and will generally quote you a price. Be sensible with minicabs: when your car arrives ensure the driver really is for you: ask him to tell you the name of the person he’s picking up and if in doubt don’t get in. If necessary call his office and ask for the details of the car (make, model, registration number) picking you up, and check they match. Many firms are now converting to a computerised system and if you have a mobile will text you the details of the car they’re sending to you.

Minicabs are also licensed by the PCO and generally use saloon cars which can be identified by round yellow licence tickets on the top near-side corner of the windscreen and rear window. Minicabs are not metered but charged by the mile (as registered by the car’s trip meter) so it helps to have an idea where you’re going before you start.

Apart from the need to book a minicab the downside is that the vast majority are driven by immigrants who don’t have to have a good knowledge of their area (although many do); most do satnav. On the upside, they are generally around 30-50% cheaper than Black Cabs.

Bicycles.
Frankly, DO
N’T
unless you have a death-wish. Yes, you can hire bikes from the organised stands (the so-called Boris Bikes, after the current Mayor, Boris Johnson, who introduced them). But frankly the London traffic is so horrendous that I think cycling in London is no longer safe, especially if you’re not familiar with the roads. The same goes for rickshaws. And I say all that as a long-time cyclist.

London for Beginners – The Basics
Buy a good London Street Map before you arrive! A-Z and AA maps are both good. Make sure it covers the area you will be trampling over. Maps are good if you want a view of a wide area. Map books, where you get a small area on each page may be larger scale and more detailed, but you won’t get the wide view and they aren’t as comfortable/easy to carry.

Also get a tube map, you can download one from the Transport for London website.

As Katy mentions, things in London are expensive so be prepared to pay. London is one of the most expensive cities in the world; nothing is cheap unless it’s free! Even Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral now charge for entrance. Expect any exhibition to charge at least £10 per head and £15 or more is not unusual.

Remember too that London is one of the biggest cities in the world. The central area is 5 miles from east to west. And it is almost 10 miles, in a straight line from the Tower of London to Kew Gardens. Do not underestimate the distances you may have to cover or the time it will take.

Keep tight hold of your valuables and luggage. Like all cities there are some very clever pickpockets around. And if you are unlucky enough to be the victim of crime, do report it to the Police. It’s a pain but the Police should give you a record number which will help you with any insurance claim. And they might even be able to take the perpetrators off the streets.

Food.
Yes you will want to eat out, sometimes at least. See if you can get recommendations for good places to eat. Most pubs will allow children in if you are eating, but under 18s are not allowed to buy or drink alcohol. Most pubs these days do reasonable, if basic, food at reasonable (for London) prices; some are absolutely excellent.

If you want a sandwich lunch then Marks & Spencer (M&S) probably do the best take out pre-prepared sandwiches. And with a bit of looking you can often find a garden or park where you can sit and eat your sandwiches — although if you do this be prepared for an audience of hopeful sparrows and pigeons.

Money.
Yes, you’ll need loads of this. Personally I don’t like cash machines as they are too open to criminal minds, but you may not have a choice. If you’re happy with cash machines then there are lots around; you’ll seldom be more than a few minutes walk from one!

If you need to change foreign currency you will often get the best deals by going to a Post Office. Their rates, certainly for Euros and US Dollars) tend to be reasonably good and they do not rob you of a commission!

I would say don’t give money to anyone begging on the streets. Yes, London does have a problem with the homeless living on the streets. While some of those begging are genuine, many are known not to be. In my view it is better not to encourage any of them.

London for Beginners – Tourist Attractions
Katy provides a pretty good list of the things to go and see. I would add:

  • Westminster Abbey
  • National Gallery
  • National Portrait Gallery
  • Tate Britain
  • The Wallace Collection
  • Borough Market (especially on a Saturday)
  • Hampton Court
  • London Eye (it isn’t cheap for a 30 minute ride but the views are worth it)

But I would also add a list of things that really are not worth bothering with:

  • Madame Tussauds Waxworks (boring and unreasonably expensive)
  • London Planetarium (part of Mme Tussauds and thus also a gigantic rip-off)
  • London Zoo (interesting if you like zoos, but in their small space not outstanding and another which is very expensive)
  • Personally I won’t go in churches & cathedrals that charge on principle. I’d give St Paul’s Cathedral a miss anyway because I think it’s hideous, but not many agree with me.
  • London Aquarium (which I thought was pedestrian compared with many other large such)
  • Oxford Street (yes, it’s the iconic shopping street but frankly it is mostly just the usual chain-multiples, with just a couple of good department stores: Selfridge’s and John Lewis)

Katy mentions the round London bus tours. Yes they aren’t cheap, but the tickets are valid for a whole day (so start early to get best value) and you can hop on and off most of them repeatedly. They are a good way of seeing lots of the sights and deciding what you want to come back to — or if you have only one day of getting a glimpse of a lot. They are also very good at helping join together all the different bits of the city.

Finally as Katy also says, don’t buy tickets from ticket touts. The tickets may well not be valid (they are often trackable and non-transferable) and touts are often operating illegally. If you really want tickets for a particular show you may have to depend on one of the ticket agencies, or queue on the door on the night for returns. Almost all London shows get sold out.

Don’t let any of this deter you from coming to London. Most of what is less than positive really is only good common sense which should apply anywhere. Use what Katy and I have written and enjoy your visit. You won’t regret it; almost everyone ends up loving London!

In Case You Missed …

The irregular selection of links to things which have amused or interested me, and which will hopefully do the same for you. So in no special order we have …

Are There Fundamental Laws of Cooking? Wired reports on research into how flavours and ingredients relate to each other and whether there are combinations of flavours with work in doublets but not in triplets.

According to meta-studies by researcher Peter Gøtzsche breast cancer screening cannot be justified and actually overall does more harm than good. Needless to say the medical profession are outraged, although they are coming to realise that the equivalent in men — prostate cancer screening — also does more harm than good.

As announced a week or so ago, here’s the official press release from University of Birmingham on Alice Roberts appointment as Professor of Public Engagement in Science.

Now there’s more science which overturns the accepted beliefs. Research has now shown, apparently definitively, that watching pornography doesn’t cause men to commit rape. (You’ll want to follow the links in this summary item for the fuller story.)

And finally for the scientific research here’s a great article by Rob Dunn, author of The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Our Evolution, which describes how research projects get started and books written all intertwined with bits about how living too clean is actually bad for you.

The Heresy Corner explodes Alain de Botton’s ideas about what makes people atheists. While I don’t have a lot of time for Richard Dawkins’s aggressive approach I do seem to have ended up, philosophically, pretty much where he is albeit via a different route.

Following on from last week’s pictures of amazing libraries here are some equally stunning pictures of tunnels.

And finally Ian Visits reports on a relatively infrequent, but very ancient London event: the Ceremony of the Constable’s Dues.

Enjoy!

In Case You Missed …

A few links to news and interest items you may have missed. Let’s do the serious stuff first.

First off, following my tirade of 10 days ago about the proposals to change the way we keep time, here are a couple of items explaining the background to our calendar systems and why leap seconds do actually matter. One is from Scientific American blogs: The End of the Time of Earth: Why Does the Leap Second Matter?. The second is from Discover Magazine bogs: Wait just a (leap) second.

I also came across this piece on the use of seismology for forensic purposes, eg. monitoring nuclear tests. Interesting that some seismometers captured the Costa Concordia hitting the rocks.

And now for something more sublime but equally mind-boggling: some pictures of amazing libraries.

Multi-tools have a geek following. But despite what we might think they aren’t new and weren’t invented by the Swiss Army. The first documented ones were used by the Romans and they have developed ever since. Here’s a selection from the first recorded Roman example right up to last week.

And finally from the sublime to the totally, well, crazy. Protect Your Cats And Mice With Armour. How brilliant is that!

In Case You Missed It …

Links to a selection of the curious and interesting items you may have missed in the last week or so.

Do You Have Free Will? How can we know?

Heroes of the Hot Zone: pen portraits of some of the guys who are trying to clean up Fukushima.

Waterstones ditches apostrophe. English must be under threat when a bookshop ignores good grammar and makes it’s possessive Waterstones’s which is worse!

OK, here’s one for the mathematicians out there: 153 and narcissistic numbers. I want to know how they’ve proved what the biggest such number is.

Here are some seriously stunning 100 year old colour photographs of Russia (see right).

Difficult to work out here who is the madder: Amish men jailed over reflective triangle dispute.

Cats occasionally like all sorts of unsuitable things. Apparently some even like mushrooms.

And finally, just to prove it is worth goig to the gym … Scientists name rare horse fly after Beyonce “in honour of its impressive golden behind”.

Just in Case You Missed It …

… here’s a few links to the curious and interesting that I’ve read in the last few days.

Scientists have now worked out why not all chillies are hot. It’s easy logocal stuff; no science required.

How good is your science? Well it’s got to be better than most of the British! Britain’s biggest science misconceptions revealed.

Would You Get a QR Code Tattoo? Would you get any tattoo? Thoughts on why we do this.

I’ve always said Shaun the Sheep would be a good alternative to the lawnmower. Now someone is doing it!

Gawdelpus! Now the government wants every under 11 to have read Harry Potter! FFS why can’t politicians stop meddling in things they don’t understand? Oh, hang on then they’d have nothing to do. No change there then.

Finally I was going to say this could only happen in Japan, but I suspect the Americans could do it as well. It was the “maternity suite” which finally tipped me over the edge! Hopefully we British don’t scrape quite so much off the bottom of the barrel.

Weekly Links

This week’s collection of items you may have missed but which, in the interests of public service, we didn’t.

First let’s get the boring bit out of the way. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider might have spotted the first glimpse of the elusive Higgs Boson. Maybe. Maybe not.

Talking of glimpses, how doctors die shows they have a different approach to their glimpse of the afterlife than the rest of us.

Which may be related to why we invented monsters (aka. dragons).

From something scary to something scary? Why peach fuzz makes it harder for parasites.

And if you’re male you can now be really scared. Apparently donating sperm can be scary. Seems like all in a day’s work for the average male to me. 😉

Of course then there are plastic carrier bags.

Everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about … shoelaces!

And finally just to prove that cat’s can’t think outside the box.

Happy Christmas, Everyone!

Links of the Week

This week’s collection of links to items you may have missed …

First off something scary. Just look at the size of this giant bug!

Not all critters are quite so scary … For instance, we know the crow family are highly intelligent, now Ravens have been shown to use ‘hand’ gestures to communicate.

But then who would have thought that there are cognitive benefits to chewing gum.

Now here’s a job that you never even dreamt existed, nor wanted … castrating sheep with teeth, which has been shown not to be a great idea!

Here is a list of ten of the most dangerous chemicals in the world. And to think I’ve worked with some of those, as well as a few which aren’t on that list!

Talking of dangerous, this one is really worrying … ‘End of virginity’ if women drive, Saudi cleric warns. WTF do these people think they are! Made me see red.

But then again the Egyptian authorities are clearly no better (and equally make me see red), prompting a young Egyptian woman to stand up for women’s rights and argue that modesty objectifies women. She reinforces this by appearing nude too. Two reports in a weblog here and this one from the Guardian. More power to her elbow. Let’s all hope for her safety.

Finally, for amusement, more on the vulva cupcakes. Maybe a new fashion statement?

Links of the Week

Here’s your usual selection of things which interested/amused me and which you may have missed. And do we have a bumper selection this week!

First something useful? There’s a view that “use by” dates on food are a myth which needs busting. So it’s American but I don’t see much being different in the UK. But I do worry whether people have enough common sense to safely abolish “use by” dates.

And now to the very unuseful. Why does the search for the Higgs Boson matter? Actually to most people it doesn’t matter; whether physicists find it or not it won’t change the lives of 99.9999% of the population. That doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t look for it, but in the overall scheme of broken banks and countries it actually doesn’t matter.

Sociable wasps have an eye for faces. But not for caterpillars. And you just thought they were animated automatons sent by the Devil to annoy you!

And talking of the works of the Devil, pyjamas are another … The joys and benefits of sleeping naked. And no, it isn’t colder!

Think you’re good at sudoku? You’ll need a good night’s sleep before you try this! He-he!

A few weeks back we told of these strange paper sculptures left in libraries. Well the phantom has returned, for the last time.

Not got enough to do in the run-up to Christmas? Need a craft project? Make storybook paper roses (above).

And finally … Do you need an udder tug? Well who doesn’t? — Certainly no self-respecting mutt!

Links of the Week

This week’s small selection of the curious and not-so-curious you may have missed …

According to a recent survey people spend too long in the shower and use too much water. And it isn’t as green as we were told. Now there’s a surprise!

But then no wonder we go for the therapeutic, because according to uSwitch the UK is the worst place in Europe to live. Well it is if you care about what they measure. For geeks like me you can follow their method, recalculate the scores, exclude things you don’t care about and add in other things you do care about. But you’ll still get much the same answer. 🙁

HornetNow here’s a seriously WOW! image. Yes it’s a European Hornet, Vespa crabro; a humongous but relatively docile wasp**. Sadly you don’t see them often. But just look at those compound eyes … and the detail which I’m sure shows the substructure underneath the eye. I’ve looked out other images of hornets and they all seem to show the same eye substructure. Absolutely amazing!

** Note. Hornets are brown and yellow, as in the image. If what you see is black and yellow it’s a wasp, not a hornet, regardless of its size. Please leave all these creatures alone. They generally won’t attack you unless you provoke them. Wasps and Hornets are superb predators of other insects, on which they feed their grubs. Without them we’d be knee-deep in caterpillars etc. They also chew up old wood for their nests. Besides Hornets are becoming endangered.

If you had a pet monkey, would you feed it crap food and never let it exercise or play and tell it how stupid and ugly it was? No, you’d love your pet monkey! So love your Monkey!

We all make mistakes. They’re nothing to hide. But we all do hide mistake, because they make us feel stupid. Don’t be afraid of Stupid. Stupid means self-awareness. Stupid means you’re learning. Love your Stupid.

Links of the Week

This week’s catch-up on things you may have missed, and which I missed writing about. This week: Sex and Science.

Now I know all maps are a 2D projection of a 3D surface, but I’d never realised before quite how many different ways there were of doing the map projections.

Does bestiality increase your risk of penile cancer? Why would anyone even think to want to find out?

First there was the Human Development Index — a sort of generalised national “happiness rating”. Then someone decided to add some greenness and turned the whole thing upside down.

Lots of interesting, quick and easy video explanations of physics at Minute Physics. Worth a look — and not just for geeks.

Vulvanomics — on female genital cosmetic surgery. Why would anyone? But then as a fully paid up mail I will never understand.

Antibiotics with a side of steak. Worrying commentary on agribusiness.

And finally …

Some lucky women are having orgasms in an MRI scanner. Now how cool is that?

But they’re doing it to show that only Epilepsy brings more activity to women’s brains than does “self-stimulation” to orgasm.

We live in a strange world!