The Knights in White Denim Tour -AKA The White Trash Tour…
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Last weekend I took a run down to Shoreditch, which is probably the most fashionable (there's that word again) part of London. Naturally everything there is ultra-hip…
Seul, if you want me to find out what they're asking for it…
A couple of years back I came down to London for a job interview. I'd borrowed my mother's old, brown Karrimor rucksack as I'd just moved back from the Netherlands, and most of my stuff was in storage. Anyway, I was browsing in Present, and one of the shop staff inquired where I'd got it from. He even asked for first refusal if I ever wanted to sell it. Turns out they were very much in demand by hipsters.
My mother, who is even less of a fashionista than Giles, was rather amused by this.
Anyway, the main reason for heading down to Shoreditch is Son of a Stag, which is probably the best denim shop in London. If you're down that way, go take a look.
The owner spotted my Knightly raiment, and was interested in taking a look. He thought that they were a "pretty good" pair of jeans, but recommended Spellbound as his choice.
Yeah, Spellbound jeans might be made on vintage machines with nicely curved back pockets, but a pair of 634s could take them in a fight!
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Having been elevated to the knighthood, I felt the need to acquire clothing suitable for my new status. Where better than Gieves and Hawkes, probably the biggest name on Saville Row?
Whilst trying to find the last of those coats, I caught the tube out of Sloane Square station. Yeah, I know, I'm going upmarket now.
London is filled with buried and hidden waterways, one of which, the River Westbourne, flows through the cast iron conduit you can see in the photo.
Another stop, this time in Mayfair at the RRL Store on Mount Street. I'm a bit in two minds about Ralph Lauren's denim, some of it is nice, but I dislike the fact that a lot of it is distressed.
The shop itself is worth a look. Parts of it feel like you're in a cowboy outfitters, but there are some nice vintage pieces mixed in with the new products. I saw a pair of Corcoran Jump Boots, and these very nice Russell Moccasins.
To recover from a shopping trip, I recommend Hawksmoor, who sell what is probably the best burgers in London. Yeah, I disagree with the critics who say otherwise.
It's an occasional treat, and I have to let my cholesterol levels recover afterwards.
My advice is don't eat too much at lunchtime, and go for the beef dripping fries.
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Nice updates, Graeme.
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What are the burger prices like at Hawksmoor Graeme? I can't even find burgers on their menu for the one near Covent Garden.
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I took a run over to Richmond on Tuesday. The London one, not the identically names town in Yorkshire. If you live in London then it's one of the nicer places to be.
This is the Green, which is the one of the more desirable corners of the borough.
I was chatting to an older gentleman last year who was serving in Lutwyche a while back, and he said that he and his wife nearly borrowed the money to buy a house there back in the sixties when he was newly graduated. He didn't, and the property they were looking at was recently up for sale at somewhere well north of a million quid.
Now, I know that the older generation likes to lecture the younger about being feckless and hence not able to afford a property. But when twenty and thirty somethings are spending half their income to rent a room in a shared house, it's a whole different kettle of pilchards to how it was fifteen or twenty years ago.
The Green used to be a jousting ground, as down by the river was Richmond Palace, home of Henry VII and Elizabeth I, who died there 410 years ago. These days it's mainly used for cricket, though not in this weather.
Sadly there were no passing knights for me to uphold the honour of Gosport against.
Incidentally, this is what it used to look like, though only a few parts survive.
Heading off down the southeastern corner of the Green takes you past an unassuming building.
This is where Eel Pie, Pete Townshend's publishing and merchanising empire is based. I never saw him, though.
And this is where I lived in 2011. Because every knight needs his castle, right?
The site of Richmond Palace got flattened a couple of times over the years, and the tower was a pump house to a manor, since demolished, that was built in the late eighteenth century. The Thames is tidal, and it floods frequently, so it was used to drain the gardens.
Incidentally, the gardens behind the wall are lovely. And private.
The tower is tiny internally, less than 400 square feet / 35 m2. When it last sold, it was apparently the most expensive property on a square foot basis in the borough due to its compact and bijou dimensions. My landlord had to move out when his missus found herself in a blessed condition, which was where I came in.
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My parents habitually head through to Kendal on a Saturday for the weekly shop and market. It's a small, old town, famous for Kendal Mint Cake, which is the traditional fuel of British mountaineering expeditions; Catherine Parr, who outlived Henry VIII, and worked her way through four husbands; and Alfred Wainwright, who lived there for many years and wrote a series of guides to the Lake District Hills.
This is Farrer's Tea and Coffee Merchants. I've got a feeling that the building is three or four hundred years old.
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At Oxenholme Station on the way back to London.
It commemorates the shooting of PC George William Russell by a suspect, who later shot himself.
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Back in Cumbria for a minute, this is Hazelslack Tower, a medieval peel tower. It's believed to have been built in the fourteenth century, and derelict since the seventeenth.
The border between England and Scotland was bandit country in the Middle Ages and Tudor period, with raiders, known as Border Reivers engaging in cattle rustling and worse. To give you a flavour, two words that originated during that time were blackmail and bereaved.
There are a number of these towers along both sides of the border. There are four or five within a few miles of this one.
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This is Farringdon Street in London, which follows the course of the old River Fleet. It is the most famous of the city's lost rivers.
By the middle of the nineteenth century it had degenerated into a fetid ditch.
So the fact that the British press is collectively known as Fleet Street, due to their historic location, is somewhat appropriate.
This is a shot of St. Paul's Cathedral from the end of Fleet Street.
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I went out to look at watches today. Giles is keen on the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, and I found a suitable version for the Knights in White Denim.
(TWSH-06, IH-634S-WH, Gieves and Hawkes Admiral Coat.)
I need to get saving.
A few random shots of London. A carved owl in Liberty's.
Centre Point at the end of Oxford Street. The Portacabins you can see at the end of the road are to do with the Crossrail project, and a whole block has been levelled to make way for a new station. It's a huge infrastructure project to build an east-west line across London.
One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge. This is some of the most expensive real estate in the world, and mostly sold to Russian oligarchs and Arab sheikhs as far as I can tell. That seems to be who's buying most of the superprime properties in London.
And for Seul…
Or if he prefers a huge lump of chocolate. Well, he is Belgian after all…
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Yesterday was Alex Thomson's homecoming, and being a miserable February I decided that a trip to sunny Gosvegas was in order.
The train from London runs out of railway at Portsmouth Harbour. Just outside is this old ship.
I took the ferry across the harbour, and caught the tail-end of the Parade of Sail.
Welcome to Gosport.
Skaters aren't popular there, though.
The Gosport navy? A World War 2 motor torpedo boat. These used to be really popular in boys' comics in the seventies, along with the German E-boats.
I arrived at the pier at about the same time that Alex did. Giles and Paula were already there.
At that point we decided that the pub was the better option. Some of Giles friends run Hardy's, which I suspect will be the official hostelry of the Chain Stitch Massacre, and we found Simon lurking in the bar. (Sensible man.)
Hardy's was the venue for Alex's celebratory shindig. I spent much of the time chatting to Giles and his friends, as Paula had been roped into serving behind the bar. Got a chance to shake Alex's hand and say well done, but he spent much of the time circulating. He's very good at working the room.
Oh, I found out that one of the possible new office locations could have military guards. Which, as I pointed out, would have guns. I think they'd be the real 21 oz Army…
On the way back, I saw this sign. I think that it's necessary given the prevalent conditions in Gosport...
I've been to London quite many times and I've never found it too exciting but your pics make me want to give it (yet) one more chance..
