please empty your brain below
Ok I'll ask...Wood roasted badger flame beetroot? Really?

BTW - great pictures as always.

Jona26 | 03.12.20 - 7:25 a.m. | #

The roundels are indeed lovely so, yes, thanks for the snap DG.

Kevin | 03.12.20 - 7:59 a.m. | #

That E20 photo is a great shot.
Excellent tour, as always, thanks DG.

Herbof | 03.12.20 - 8:18 a.m. | #

St James Street - well worth looking at the photo to see the detail, I have visions of some archeologist looking at a piece of pottery in a few thousand years, wondering what www.artyface.co.uk meant.

Daffodils - perhaps they have pushy bulbs.

Still Anon | 03.12.20 - 8:20 a.m. | #

The mosaic roundel more than made up for the items I was not so interested it.

Michael | 03.12.20 - 8:36 a.m. | #

I've seen early flowering apple blossoms in my neck of the woods in Seaside. What's that Sputnik doing in the photo in E20?

msjs | 03.12.20 - 8:40 a.m. | #

I'd place the path by the Timber Lodge cafe terrace to the immediate right of the trees on the right-hand side of the image. I always like that spot, and think the ring of trees would suit it well.

NickW | 03.12.20 - 8:57 a.m. | #

The Saturday post is just London doing what London has done for the last 2000 years or so. It's not depressing.

A couple of hundred years ago they were destoying fields to build boring, flat fronted, all look the same in row upon row high density housing. Today we call them beautiful Georgian town houses ...

Putters | 03.12.20 - 9:34 a.m. | #

Go on then, I'll fall for it, although I have a feeling this will be like QI on the telebox, and the klaxon is but seconds away. When you say "33 trees, one for each borough", do you perhaps mean 32 boroughs and one district, ie the City of London? Earplugs in.

✉ dg writes: That is indeed the pedantic whine in today's sealed envelope.

Stuart R | 03.12.20 - 9:45 a.m. | #

The re-assembled gas holders are hardly visible around the cylindrical flats at Kings Cross. I expect the Hackney ones will be the same.

And I had the same thoughts on the Pidgin menu. Sadly no exact match for Lobster, swede, nettle, but Lobster.Tweed.Nettle lands you in Gabon, West Africa.

Man of Kent | 03.12.20 - 9:53 a.m. | #

I've worked at the Barbican for more than a decade, and it still took me 30 seconds of staring and calculation to work out where you were standing to get that shot. It's definitely a path less-traveled, even when the place is open...

CJS | 03.12.20 - 9:56 a.m. | #

Sadly there was no crowd at all at Pidgin last night:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CITPYrUH3qv

David | 03.12.20 - 10:06 a.m. | #

Nor does there deserve to have been, given it has one of those appalling menus which list (some) ingredients but give you no idea how the dish has been prepared. Modish spaff for people with stupid haircuts and too much money.

David | 03.12.20 - 10:09 a.m. | #

I am not sure exactly where the Greenwich Peninsula gasometer was but it was a wonderful orientation beacon for us last year. The remaining gasometer frames need to be saved.

Andrew | Homepage | 03.12.20 - 10:12 a.m. | #

Does reassembling gasometers make them less authentic? It sound akin to wat most historic structures still standing have gone through. With the possible exception of Stonehenge.

I reckon if it looks like a borough and quacks like a borough, then it is a borough.

Malcolm of Kent | 03.12.20 - 10:26 a.m. | #

I’d argue that reassembling gasholders with a block of flats inside does indeed make them less authentic.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 03.12.20 - 10:31 a.m. | #

The food at Pidgin is excellent. If you are up for trying imaginative tasting menus and trust top chefs then go. If you prefer an all you can eat carvers probably not the place for you.

Flare | 03.12.20 - 10:41 a.m. | #

Wondering if those not old enough to remember local manufacture of town gas understand how a gasholder works, or have seen one in operation. Preserving the supporting framework and not the working parts must seem odd!

David Cook | 03.12.20 - 10:42 a.m. | #

I'm all for planting trees (yay) but I hope no daffodils are harmed in the making of the grove!

Cornish Cockney | 03.12.20 - 10:53 a.m. | #

Another +1 for Pidgin here, we went in 2017 for an anniversary dinner when it was winning the Observer Food Monthly's restaurant of the year and had a michelin star.

Given it's almost impossible to get a walk-in seat, and that the wait staff know the menu well, I don't see any problem having a menu that is more of a riddle than a recipe. And a menu without superfluous adjectives is a bonus for me.

TomH | 03.12.20 - 10:59 a.m. | #

The Barbican is the only place I have ever had to use the compass on my phone to find my way out.

Ned | 03.12.20 - 11:29 a.m. | #

I immediately recognised those Barbican ramps from when our young daughter went to the Guildhall School of Music's Saturday School and we passed the time exploring different ways of getting lost around the Barbican complex. We got the hang of it in the end, but then they started changing things.

ActonMan | 03.12.20 - 11:56 a.m. | #

When Waterstones used to be Dillons (those in the know, know which store I'm referring to), I once came across a person fondling a set of shelves in one of the upstairs departments. Examination of the titles lodged there revealed it was the section for books on autistic spectrum disorders. Clearly, the fondler had found a very personal form of comfort. Your concrete fondling put me in mind of that.

B | 03.12.20 - 2:05 p.m. | #

Wood roasted badger flame beetroot. Good that they've found a use for the corpses from the cull.

BlackCat3000 | 03.12.20 - 2:25 p.m. | #

Stonehenge has been rebuilt a few times in just the 20th century.

James | 03.12.20 - 3:14 p.m. | #

I love walking through, over and around the Barbican Estate. It is a concrete geometric wonderland, and still surprises me. I have explored it since working nearby in the early '90s, and I am still capable of finding new bits, usually dead ends. I walked down that very ramp in the summer, following a visit to the conservatory. I miss it.

Frank F | 03.12.20 - 3:53 p.m. | #

The food at Pidgen may well be excellent, but the menu is appallingly pretentious.

And given that it's displayed outside, the knowledge of the waiters isn't much help. Plus, where are the prices?

Sarah | Homepage | 03.12.20 - 4:39 p.m. | #

When I first came to London in 1966, I went on a course in a building in Bridgewater Square very close to the Barbican, and I enjoyed exploring the then new estate at lunchtimes. Quite unlike anywhere else I'd say. And I used to buy a weekly season ticket to Aldersgate as it then was.

Ian | 03.12.20 - 11:28 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy