please empty your brain below

Please concentrate on attractions 101-166
(because we've already discussed 1-100).

Did they leave out the Tea and Coffee museum?

600 sewing machines - possibly in an Asian sweat shop - and with individual 'demonstrators'.
It's one 'ell of a yawn fest this list - a bit like those 50-100 'greatest' programmes on those freeview channels you only find when you're bored and you're flicking through the channels to get to the radio programmes. (Yes, I know you can just punch in the numbers but sometimes the thumb gets fidgety)

Get connected at Clapham Junction? I think "the UK busiest railway station" is an interesting pub-quiz fact, but visiting it in order to have a look seems to be a recommendation too far surely? It's boring.

There appear to be some more added:

170: Stay in the Dome Suite at the Hilton Hyde Park?

Thanks - you're a diamond! : )
I'm so trying some of these!

128 & 130 - they really want us to go to the Tower of London, don't they?

156 - TV Centre isn't really the headquarters of the BBC. After all, they keep trying to close it...

163 - I don't remember being allowed anywhere near real gold at the Bank of England museum.

170 - eh? surely there are others...

Hey DG,

I have a challenge, what would your top 166 'Only in London' locations/things to do be?

Let's start a competing list!

ho ho ho - when the first list was published, I got into a huge email fight with someone from Only In London - I directed them towards DG's blog and invited them to comment. They were MAJORLY pissed off! Unfortunately I dont have time to bait them again today. Or maybe I'll find some.

ooh i want to go to the Sewing Machine Museum! first saturday of the month - this week! ta DG

"Visit the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace – England's last and greatest medieval hall and one of Britain's oldest theatres" - in Surrey, not London

dg writes: Hampton Court *is* in London.

"See the greatest collection of 18th-century French paintings, furniture and porcelain shown together anywhere in the world at the Wallace Collection" - I suspect the curators at Versailles would have something to say about this

"Take part in or watch the world's largest annual fund-raising event, the London Marathon" - well, you could, if you had a time-travel machine and could go back to last weekend.

Combine 113 and 134 as they're in the same place

136. Visit the earliest known purpose-built still house (the 17th-century equivalent of an in-house pharmacy) at Ham House - in Surrey, not London

dg writes: Ham House *is* in London.

106, 140 and 142 are the same place

"142. See the great vine at Hampton Court Palace, the oldest and largest known vine in the world at more than 230 years old and over 36.5 metres (120ft) long" - the oldest and largest known GRAPEvine, certainly, but there are many other types of vine, as Tarzan will attest

"144. Paint a picture in East London, which has the highest concentration of artists per square metre than anywhere else in Europe" - the list authors have obviously not tried walking around Monmartre on any summer day?

"145. Ride around the city on an original London Routemaster bus" - how many routes run Routemasters still? Very few, if any!

dg writes: ...but it can be done.

"151. Walk the streets in Islington, where sci-fi writer Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, set many of his novels" - as long as many = 2

"155. Visit the last untouched Arts and Crafts interior at 7 Hammersmith Terrace, the former home of Emery Walker" - how about The Red House in Bexleyheath, mentioned in the first 100?

"159. Play at the Royal Blackheath Golf Club in Eltham, the world's oldest golf club, which celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2008" - but only if you're a member. And there's a six year waiting list. Which isnt open to non- UK residents

p.s. I guess all that this post is doing is increasing the traffic to the list - they'll think their list is popular. Sad sops.

127 - not being able to see it, may make it pointless, but some of the shops are rather nice.

they're not shops that you can't find outside London though.

Now extended to 171 including:

"169. Stay in The Dome Suite at Hilton London Hyde Park which was used in the 1972 Alfred Hitchcock movie, Frenzy, starring Marlene Dietrich."

So then it mentions something entirely trivial instead of inviting the reader to visit the atmospheric scenes of Covent Garden which featured so prominently in the film.

And Marlene Dietrich did not even feature in the film. 'Has someone muddled it with the 1957 film "Witness for the Prosecution" ?'

I do love it when you quite rightly pull to pieces things like this - as it really is a load of old codswallop, isn't it?

*Slight pause to wonder at the origins of the word 'codswallop'

The 'unique by defination' category made me chortle the most. Nice work!

And I think you have fun with these posts don't you?

Ham House. It has a Richmond postcode. Which makes it Surrey, not London

Hampton Court It has a Kingston-upon-Thames postcode. Which makes it Surrey, not London.

At this rate, you'll be getting a job with OnlyInLondon.

Visit London are perfectly justified in describing anywhere within the Greater London boundary as London. But you can carry on living in pre-1965-county-world if you insist.

I refer M'Learned Friend to my comments made on The Red House, Bexleyheath (Kent), Croydon (Surrey), Rainham Marshes (Essex) et al the last time round. When M'Learned Friend didn't take it on himself to be *quite* so picky about what is London and what isn't.

But hey, your blog, your rules.

I thought I was generally picky last time. Next time I shall try harder to be specifically picky.

"142. See the great vine at Hampton Court Palace, the oldest and largest known vine in the world at more than 230 years old and over 36.5 metres (120ft) long" - the oldest and largest known GRAPEvine, certainly, but there are many other types of vine, as Tarzan will attest

The vine in Maribor, Slovenia, is 400 years old - http://www.maribor-slovenia-trav...ne-
maribor.html


DGs been got at by the opposition.

At least London's got the market for sewing machine museums stitched up.

I think the Bramah Tea and Coffee museum has gone for good.

Exit, pursued by a bear:
I live in Surbiton, in the borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, which is part of London despite the KT postcode.

If you go to Streetmap.co.uk and search for KT6, you'll see a big thick purple line which says "Kingston upon Thames" on one side and "Elmbridge". Kingston is in London, Elmbridge is outside of London. If you follow it along the river you'll see that Hampton Court Palace and (downstream) Ham House are both on the London side of this line.

Whether Exit pursued by a bear's view of what constitutes London is right or wrong, it certainly has nothing to do with pre-1965 counties. The London postal district is older than the pre-1965 county of London, and has never had the same borders as any local government area.

Oooooo, can I have a stir in this pot?
As the crow flies - Hampton Court Palace is about the same distance from central London as the distance for me where I live. It is in a London borough but I am not. I have a London area telephone number (as do all my neighbours) HCP does not (02031666000 - if you want to know it.) It's certainly in the greater London area and a worthwhile place to visit - there are interesting odd things in my neck of the woods too - but that would be telling!

Re. the entries 167-171:

The Churchill Museum and the Picasso Mural at the Wellcome Collection sound interesting.

On the other hand... the National Geographic Store? Really?

I havent had any response to my emails to OnlyInLondon about their latest idiotic suggestions. I'll keep you posted.











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