Weekend in the Smoke. : Motoring Motoring Discussion forum

Motoring Discussion > Weekend in the Smoke.	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Armel Coussine	Replies: 36

Mon 15 Nov 10 16:14

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

Spent the weekend in SiL's flat in Islington. I'd been looking forward to it but there was a lot of rain, traffic too at its worst and the actual Londoners, my compatriots so to speak, in a pretty foul mood. On the way into town on Thursday evening saw a Pizza-delivery kamikaze getting very irate with a motorist who might (or might not) have nudged him off his bike. Anyway at one traffic light he was elbowing and kicking the driver's door and at the next he had it open and appeared to be kicking the driver. On Saturday, in what has been my local newsagent for the last 36 years, two customers in five minutes - both black women as it happens; there seems to be a cultural dissonance between today's pushy young women rather tiresomely insistent on what they see as their rights, and the brisk, hard-working, harassed family of Tamils who run the place - got shirty and loudly rude with the counter staff who certainly didn't deserve it. And some young twit who had just done a spectacularly ill-timed, ill-placed and obstructive U turn making me and others miss yet another green light, saw me mouthing off at him as I passed and made some sort of prattish rude gesture.

Yes, it was nice to be home, countless thousands of tortoise-like drivers and unpleasant idiots notwithstanding. I did a lot of quite loud cursing in the car. That too was familiar. But it didn't make me feel terribly well I have to admit. Managed a Sunday afternoon parking ticket in Kensington too. The carphounds had just moved the goalposts and I hadn't checked. Another 40 quid I haven't got.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 16:36

Weekend in the Smoke. - R.P.

Weekend in Cardiff was unfailingly pleasant -- nice staff at the Hotel, nice village feel to the city centre, thousands of rugby fans from Wales and South Africa happily drinking themselves stupid, very little Police in evidence, no trouble seen. Got little of the sense of being ripped off that follows you around the Smoke like a bad smell. In fact far exceeded my expectations - so I'll be going back !

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Mon 15 Nov 10 16:42

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

There are a lot of pleasanter, more relaxed places than London. But then they aren't usually contenders for the Hub of the Universe are they?

If what you like is stoned taffs and jarpies, you can certainly find those in London too PU. For in London, sir, can be found everyone's cup of tea however bizarre...

:o}

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Mon 15 Nov 10 16:48

Weekend in the Smoke. - R.P.

Oh I know that !

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Mon 15 Nov 10 17:19

Weekend in the Smoke. - RattleandSmoke

Manchester was fairly rough this weekend, it isn't usually too bad but this weekend it was full of beered up skinheads looking for fights. I bunch of skin heads pushed into me on purpose in order to try and cause a fight. They muttered "sorry mate" and I just said ok, they looked quite disappointed that I wasn't going to raise to the bait.

It turns out there was a big boxing match on at the Arena and that may be why it felt rougher than normal.

I think any city has its good and bad weekends. When I was Plymouth it felt like the roughest place I have ever been to, I saw fights at 5:00pm and the place just had that general rough feel to it. Another day it might have felt completly different.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 17:55

Weekend in the Smoke. - Iffy

Seems to me a lot of people in London operate on a knife edge of civility, especially when it comes to getting around the place.

I have always said there are two things you do not want to be London: poor or in a hurry.

If you are either or both of those, the place will eat you up.

I'll go back if I ever join the ranks of the idle rich. :)

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Mon 15 Nov 10 17:59

Weekend in the Smoke. - R.P.

Funnily enough my most pleasant visit was almost exactly twelve months ago - went there on a whim (being close and a loose end) and spent a happy enough day wandering around the places I've always seemed to miss - including guitar shops in Denmark Street....really enjoyed it as an unexpected day out.....there is a benign side to London, sometimes it's just hard to connect to it if you're in a hurry.

No plans to go back in a hurry, seemed to spend too much time there with work crap over the years - I'm a provincial type really.

Last edited by: Pugugly on Mon 15 Nov 10 at 18:00

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:08

Weekend in the Smoke. - RattleandSmoke

I suppose I like London because it is so cheap and quick for me to get to and there is plenty of choice of cheap hotels. It has good pubs and is such a big place you can't get bored. I've always said I would hate to live there though. Property is just far too expensive and the traffic would just drive me mental. It is bad enough in Manchester.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:18

Weekend in the Smoke. - Zero

London on a sunny sunday is gorgeous. A wander round the Inns of court, the Knights templar, the London Wall.

You get a sense of - as the OP (thats old person!) said, History - Importance - yes the Centre of the universe.

Weekdays, you need to go on a crisp bright November day, no tourists around, Just working londoners. Walk the southbank to Tower bridge, The globe, The Clink, Borough Market (dont go on saturdays)

Superb place. Love to do my tourist guide part to my Yank and Aussie visitors, feed them entertaining bullsheet that they lap up

Some of its tru tho, I love saying to a Yank, "of course - that bits not old only about 200 years or so, that bit there (points at the Tower of London) is over a thousand years old"

Manchester? PAH its got about as much heritage as a fresh cowpat.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:27

Weekend in the Smoke. - RattleandSmoke

Yep but here for £300k you can get a nice three bedroom house in a very posh part of town. In London £300k would buy you a nice 1 bed flat in a decent part of town.

It is also far too big in terms of social life. What I love about Manchester is the city centre is like a little village. I can walk into certain pubs and everybody knows me, but they are suppose the rock clubs even central London probably has a lot of pubs close together to cater for lets just say a bunch of freaks (and I include myself in that!).

I can spend a good coulple of days in London for less than £120 including the hotel and it takes me two hours to get there, so I really have no reason to live there. If I got a job there I couldn't afford it anyway.

Manchester is Victorian city and although has been a town for over 1000 years it has only grown in the past 200.

Of course most my family are from London originally and the last lot moved out during the 1970's. I still have very distance relations down there.

The fact with London is unless you're rich you can have a much better quality of life else where in the UK.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:35

Weekend in the Smoke. - Zero

>> Yep but here for £300k you can get a nice three bedroom house in a
>> very posh part of town. In London £300k would buy you a nice 1 bed
>> flat in a decent part of town.
Make that a one bed flat in an average part of town.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 19:21

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

>> Make that a one bed flat in an average part of town.

My very thought Zero. But actually it depends on what people want, and there are relatively good deals to be had if the buyer can think a bit laterally. But I don't think 300,000 quid would get you a very nice place where I used to live.

And of course you are spot on about London in a slightly better mood, which to give it its due it often is. The Thames through central London is an absolutely magnificent spectacle. And there are good, ancient reasons for that.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 19:27

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

>> Manchester is Victorian city

So is London of course Sheikha, for the most part. It quintupled in size and population between 1810 and 1910, more or less. Being a poor labourer in the mid-19th century would have given you a quality of life similar to that enjoyed today by residents of places like Lagos, Djakarta or Sao Paulo. But with a much nastier climate.

Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 15 Nov 10 at 19:27

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Mon 15 Nov 10 20:30

Weekend in the Smoke. - Boxsterboy

>> >> Manchester is Victorian city
>>
>> So is London of course Sheikha, for the most part. It quintupled in size and
>> population between 1810 and 1910, more or less. >>

I would love to travel back in time to London - or any Victorian town/city - to the Victorian building boom just to witness the sheer amount of building that was going on in those days - nearly all done by hand/cart/canal. No big trucks or motorways to ferry the roof slates up from Wales. The volume of industry must have been truly amazing.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 20:45

Weekend in the Smoke. - Zero

The real housing boom was 1891 to 1911 where the population rose from 5.5 million to 7.1 million.

I have the "A to Z of Edwardian London" which is a lovely book, based on a 1912 print of Bacons "New large scale ordnance atlas of London and suburbs"

One thing that stands out, is the huge quantity of Lunatic Asylums and Workhouses dotted around the edge of London (which in 1912, is roughly about 3 miles inside the North and Souith circular roads)

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:27

Weekend in the Smoke. - BiggerBadderDave

Hasbeenchester

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:32

Weekend in the Smoke. - R.P.

Love to do my tourist guide part to my Yank and Aussie visitors

They're easily fooled Zero - sitting on a bench in Harrogate last "summer" slurpping a Costa, bike ticking quietly a few feet away an American joined me and asked me whether "this is York" !

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:40

Weekend in the Smoke. - Iffy

...sitting on a bench in Harrogate last "summer" slurpping a Costa, bike ticking quietly a few feet away an American joined me and asked me whether "this is York" !...

I prefer Harrogate to York for a general recreational visit.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:47

Weekend in the Smoke. - R.P.

Oh and me Iffy - York is a little busy even on a bad autumn day....

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:34

Weekend in the Smoke. - RattleandSmoke

It has until the crunch been the fastest developing city in the UK. Only a few years ago the city centre was a mass of 100's of cranes. Even during the crunch the amount of building work continues to be huge and with exciting new projects like the Metrolink extension it is very much not hasbeen. We still get the investment when other cities such as Sheffield and Liverpool have lost out.

I do think the next big thing will be Liverpool though, in the past five years I am amazed of what they have done to the place.

The only thing which lets Manchester down is there is still far too much poverty and like London it is very quickly becoming too divided with very poor and rich people.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 18:32

Weekend in the Smoke. - SteelSpark

>> And some young twit who had just done a spectacularly ill-timed,
>> ill-placed and obstructive U turn making me and others miss yet another
>> green light, saw me mouthing off at him as I passed

A wise man on these forums told me, quite recently:

"commonsense and COURTESY should always be applied, especially when two cars get across one another."

Emphasis added ;)

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Mon 15 Nov 10 19:13

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

>> commonsense and COURTESY should always be applied, especially when two cars get across one another."

Heh heh SS... it's nice to have people keeping you up to the mark. But this wasn't two cars 'getting across one another'. It was an incompetent, arrogant little carphound getting in everyone's way for no reason that any person with commonsense would recognise.

You have to know when patience and courtesy will get you somewhere and be appreciated, and when it's totally wasted. Some people beg for rudeness, and it seems stingy to disappoint the little twerps.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 20:26

Weekend in the Smoke. - SteelSpark

>> Some people beg for rudeness, and it seems stingy to disappoint the little twerps.

Amen to that.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 20:46

Weekend in the Smoke. - mikeyb

Rattle - Plymouth is rough most of the time. Not somewhere to venture out at night unless you know the ropes!

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Mon 15 Nov 10 20:52

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

>> Not somewhere to venture out at night unless you know the ropes!

Quite. Next time the Sheikh ventures there he should spend an agreeable Friday or Saturday evening in the elegant wine and coffee bars of Union Street.

They resemble horrible rough pubs full of drunken Navy sailors and terrifying women. But that's just their preferred disguise. If you sidle quietly into one and order a decaff double latte with a ciabatta and olive oil on the side, they'll be all over you.

Promise.

:o}

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Mon 15 Nov 10 20:55

Weekend in the Smoke. - Zero

> If you sidle quietly into one and order a decaff double
>> latte with a ciabatta and olive oil on the side, they'll be all over you.

he means the Sailors will be all over you. The women will still be sinking pints of Steam Bitter.

Last edited by: Zero on Mon 15 Nov 10 at 20:56

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Mon 15 Nov 10 20:56

Weekend in the Smoke. - R.P.

Film it for us - might win an award.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 20:57

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

>> the Sailors will be all over you

... like a squirming concrete suit...

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Mon 15 Nov 10 21:51

Weekend in the Smoke. - Westpig

.

Last edited by: Westpig on Mon 15 Nov 10 at 21:51

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Mon 15 Nov 10 21:54

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

(In reality the sailors wuldn't give you a second glance. They don't waste their time on rabbits.

The women might mug you in the bog though.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 21:58

Weekend in the Smoke. - Zero

I was fortunate to read that tale WP before you yanked it!

Nice one.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 22:01

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

>> Nice one.

Missed it. Damn!

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Mon 15 Nov 10 22:02

Weekend in the Smoke. - Runfer D'Hills

I was thinking that AC.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 22:04

Weekend in the Smoke. - Zero

It involved chucking out time, fish and chips, and a local hooker in white stilletoes.

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Mon 15 Nov 10 22:06

Weekend in the Smoke. - Armel Coussine

Well, the starving mind will just have to keep boggling.

Where's Old Navy with some har har Jim lad stories of nayhem in Plymouth?

Perhaps as a submariner he wasn't much there?

Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 15 Nov 10 at 22:08

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Mon 15 Nov 10 22:59

Weekend in the Smoke. - helicopter

Popped up to London on the train yesterday to meet helicopter jr as it was his birthday, rained buckets and most of the tube seemed to be out of action for engineering works but the day got better .

Had a wander around Covent Garden Market in the morning and SWMBO picked up a few Christmas presents

Then we had a superb lunch here in a beautiful dining room with excellent unobtrusive service, the only problem was selecting a reasonably priced wine from the 800 plus on the list......

www.closmaggiore.com/ - Highly recommended

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Tue 16 Nov 10 17:28

Weekend in the Smoke. - Westpig

In response to Zero.......

Wait until I retire...then i'll let rip with both barrels.

Last edited by: Westpig on Tue 16 Nov 10 at 17:28

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