Famous places down the street where I work French Railways House (178 Piccadilly)
Voulez-vous acheter un billet pour le voyage de train en France? Visite ici. C'est le French Travel Centre, à côté de Fortnum et Maçon et vis-à-vis de l'Académie Royale. Le centre combine Rail Europe et Maison de la France, ce qui est une association entre le gouvernement français, les régions de la France et les membres de l'industrie du tourisme française. Voici que vous pouvez réserver vos vacances et voyager en France. J'aime le signe dehors. Il a six carrés noirs et chacun a une grande lettre blanche. Le bâtiment a été conçu par Erno Goldfinger, l'architecte célèbre avec un bureau dans Piccadilly.
Beaucoup de lignes aériennes ont des bureaux dans Piccadilly aussi. On peut réserver un vol avec Korean Air si on veut voyager une longue distance. On peut réserver un vol avec Aeroflot si on veut prendre un risque. On peut réserver un vol avec Iran Air si on est très courageux. Tristement on ne peut pas réserver un vol avec le EgyptAir parce que le bureau s'est fermé. Je pense que un billet de retour vers Paris par Eurostar est toujours la meilleure option.
The FIFA 100 (6 Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy) (until August 31st) Behind the Royal Academy, at the opposite end of the Burlington Arcade from Piccadilly, the football season has been open since June. FIFA are celebrating a century of international football by hosting a special photographic exhibition of soccer star mugshots in what used to be the Museum of Mankind. They asked Pélé to pick the 100 greatest living footballers from around the world (he ended up picking 125), then asked some of the world's top photographers to take their portraits. Giant portraits they are too, so while you wander the exhibition all these famous players are staring right back at you far larger than life. Quite disconcerting. Isn't Gordon Banks old? Hasn't Eric Cantona evolved? And who was that Patrick Vieira guy anyway? There are action shots, profiles, close-ups, sepia tones and black and white so it's just as much an exhibition of photographic technique as a soccer hall of fame. Beautifully done, but for just four rooms and a promotional filmstrip it's not really worth the £8 entrance fee. Still, with my Royal Academy entrance ticket I got in for free, so my visit was worth every penny.
Need some cashmere? Got an urgent desire for silverware? A craving for leather goods? Bursting for an antique? You need to rush down to the Burlington Arcade, the oldest and longest shopping arcade in Britain. But don't you dare run when you get there because running down the Burlington Arcade isn't allowed. There's no singing, no whistling, no humming, no begging, no riding of bicycles and no opening of umbrellas either. Try any of those and you'll probably be stopped by a man in a frock coat wearing a gold-braided top hat. He'd be a Beadle, a member of Britain's very first private police force dating back to the opening of the arcade in 1818. We could'nt have uncouth commoners upsetting members of the gentry out purchasing their everydayessentials, could we?
Disney filmed part of 101 Dalmatians here (the 1996 remake, obviously) and yes, it is a very Cruella De Ville kind of place. But as for me, I can't ever imagine wanting to buy anything this arcade has to offer. A 1482 map of Persia, for example, a bargain at just £24500. A shell-encrusted summer handbag, only £145. A black marble shaving stand for a mere £150. Or maybe an 18 carat gold pentop for a Parker 61 ballpoint, a snip at only £480. Window shopping though, that I can recommend... but take your time because hurrying is against the law here too.
Famous places down the street where I work The Royal Academy (Burlington House)
Once the whole of Piccadilly used to be lined by palatial houses such as this, but now Burlington House is the only reminder of just how grand this street used to be. Really really grand. Burlington House was built in 1664 by Sir John Denham, Surveyor General to King Charles II, who was convinced that no-one would ever build in the fields and the woodland to the north and west. He was wrong. Next to own the property were a succession of Lord Burlingtons, esteemed patrons of the arts and sciences. The composer Handel lodged in the house for three years towards the end of his life while the scientist Henry Cavendish had a room here during his youth.
The Royal Academy became the main tenant in 1867, granted a 999-year-lease at a minimal rent. The building was extended to surround a courtyard with frontage onto Piccadilly, and a number of other societies moved in at the same time (Geological, Chemical, Astronomical and Linnean). It was at a meeting of the latter that Charles Darwin's paper on the Evolution of the Species was first read to an unsuspecting world. Following major renovation work earlier this year you can now stand in the long dark Reynolds Room at the front of the building and imagine the flame of Creationism flickering for the very first time. Or why not just come along to Burlington House to see the fountains, the art and what Piccadilly used to look like.
Every year the 80 official members of the Royal Academy open their doors to the struggling artists of the nation. They invite these artists to submit their very best paintings and arty stuff, then return most of them with a 'sorry, no thanks' note attached and fill the walls with their members' canvases instead. And boy do they fill the walls, this year with 1250 separate pieces of art filling just ten rooms. Most of the works are for sale, often at scarily exorbitant prices. Each work is labelled only by a number, not a title or artist, so you have to dip into the paperback-sized catalogue to see exactly what it is you're looking at...
"Hmm, looks like a wooden frame from a warehouse pallet, painted black then splattered with red paint. It's rubbish, literally. <checks catalogue> £105750! Scandalous!"
Fine art is just a licence to make money isn't it, art? Assuming your art is ever accepted by the establishment, that is. A couple of hours work, one gullible buyer, one vast profit. And, judging by the prices in the catalogue, it's the talentless crap that sells for the most money. Paint some brown splotches on a white background or, even better, draw a cute picture of a farmyard animal and you'll soon be rolling in it. Admittedly, however, some of the work on display at the Summer Exhibition was really very good. The best artists displayed work that was 'not for sale' and therefore managed to maintain a certain sense of respectability. On three occasions I thought "Ooh that's good", checked the artist in my little book and was pleased to discover that the piece I was looking at was an Opie, much respect. One room this year had a 'drawings' theme (including sketches by Sir Clive Woodward, Alexander McQueen and Brian Eno) which was really interesting, and there was also a room full of architectural models which I loved. Oh, and Prince Charles has a couple of watercolours on show, totally out of place alongside the more modern remainder of the collection but more than competent all the same. Nice sky, your future Majesty.
nb: There's another exhibition upstairs at the Royal Academy at the moment featuring the Art Deco world of Tamara de Lempicka. I'm sure her portraits were very good but I spent less than ten minutes looking around which definitely wasn't value for money. I counted 26 breasts though, so if watercolour mammaries are your thing then you might enjoy taking a peep before the end of the month.
The Supermarket League(thankyou for your votes yesterday, all 40 of them)
1 Waitrose(two thirds of you put this top, though one person wanted them bottom) 2 Marks and Spencer(only four of you placed this outside the top two) 3 Sainsburys(two thirds of you placed this third, so it's convincingly 3rd) 4 Tesco(over half of you placed this fourth, so it's convincingly 4th) 5 Safeway(clearly ahead of the following four which were bunched very close together) 6 Somerfield(ranked just ahead of the following three, but only just) 7 Asda(middle of the table, by George - slaps back pocket) 8 Morrisons(you were more variable in placing this than any other supermarket) 9 Co-op(their collective bargaining didn't pay dividends with most of you) 10 Kwik Save(three quarters of you placed this tenth, so it's very convincingly 10th) 11 Aldi(rated by the BWs, but right down the list for everyone else) 12 Lidl(very definitely bottom of the pile and ripe for relegation)
Observations: Most people had very similar perceptions, especially of the top four and bottom three. My own order agreed pretty much with the final list, except I swapped the Co-op (working class class) with Asda (working class hell). Where people diverged from the norm this was often because of nostalgia ("Sainsbury's used to be a sewer..."), practicality ("if you pick your brands carefully Aldi is cheap but of excellent quality...") or local experience ("my nearest Safeway is rather nice..."). A lot of you weren't familiar with some of the supermarkets on the list (I'm going to have to leave Aldi, Kwik Save and Lidl out because I've never heard of them...) so some of you must have guessed by image alone. And blimey, wasn't that fascinating. Do go and read the comments box again...
Famous places down the street where I work Fortnum & Mason (181 Piccadilly)
If the Supermarket League has Aldi and Lidl at the bottom, then it has Fortnum and Mason at the top. You'll not find value beans, cheap carrier bags and wonky trolleys here, but exclusive comestibles, immaculate shelves and fawning doormen. The whole ground floor of this grand retail outlet is full of exclusive foodstuffs, none of them in any way essential, all traditionally packaged (or at least that's what the tourists think). No expense has been spared on the decor in the food hall, ornate and golden, with the store's trademark duck-egg bluey-green prevalent throughout. Here you can still shop for 'groceries', assemble your own luxury hamper, sample a huge variety of rare teas and fork out over £150 for a tub of fish eggs caviar.
The two gentlemen you can see in the photo emerging from the clock on the building's façade are Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason. They pop out to bow to each other every hour on the hour, rather like the Trumpton clock only with a less catchy tune. Mr Fortnum was originally a footman in the service of Queen Anne and started his first business by selling the royal household's used candles. In 1707 he teamed up with his landlord, Mr Mason, to open a small grocers shop on Piccadilly. Royal connections grew stronger throughout the 18th century and soon the well-to-do of Mayfair were flocking to buy foodstuffs from around the world. There was a particular emphasis on ready-to-eat luxury dishes such as game in aspic jelly and truffled pheasant, by royal appointment. No doubt they'd have sold After Eights too had they been invented at the time.
What most tourists don't realise is that there's rather more to Fortnum and Mason these days than just food. Step off the ground floor into the deserted stairwell, ascend the narrow red carpet and there are five other floors to explore. Bring your platinum credit card, won't you. Here's a sample of what you'll find:
4th floor: the St James's Restaurant (Afternoon Tea £19.50 - sarnies, scones, clotted cream, cakes, jam, tea) 3rd floor: luggage (including Faux Crocodile), silverware (including teapots), gifts (including smoking accessories) 2nd floor: toiletries (including own brand), hair & beauty salon, bed linen, toys (including the F&M bear) 1st floor: a "relaxed haven for ladies' fashion" (yes, there are pashminas) Ground floor: Food Hall (see above), bouquets (to order), the Patio Restaurant (strawberries and cream - £5) Lower ground floor: china & glass, hampers, yet another restaurant (smoked salmon £24.50) ...and candles (which is, you remember, where the whole thing started)
25 things I've learned during my week off: BestMate still is; a week isn't long enough; not even a week with two weekends is long enough; sometimes Britain really can produce a Summer; karaoke is the devil's own entertainment; a Starbucks Frappucino is basically an over-expensive milk shake; the train from London to Manchester only costs £11 if you book early enough; the train gets there in less time than it takes to visit every London Underground Zone 1 station; Manchester is really friendly; the factory that makes Real Lancashire Eccles cakes smells deliciously of Eccles cakes; Wetherspoons serve steak and ale on Tuesdays for under £6; now may be the time to admit defeat and move up a waist size; the new Stepford Wives film is less well focused and rather camper than the original but still well worth seeing; hire cars (and their hidden extras) are astonishingly expensive; Creme Eggs still taste nice a week after their sell-by date; the new Virgin Megastore in Piccadilly Circus has none of the character of the old Tower Records it replaces; the Circle line train I boarded last Friday sadly wasn't the one with the party on board; Brighton is also really friendly; I tan well; fish and chips tastes better on a beach; there is a critical density of flesh on a dancefloor above which it is impossible to move without elbowing seven people next to you; lack of space doesn't stop the seven people next to you from continuing to dance and elbowing you; St Paul's Cathedral looks gorgeous at dawn; I don't go out often enough (usually); sometimes it takes a special week to remind you what normal used to be.
Famous places down the street where I work Hatchards (187 Piccadilly)
Hatchards is the oldest surviving booksellers in London, founded in 1797 and with customers including Disraeli, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron and me. Visiting Hatchards is reminiscent of being inside a rambling old house, with six floors of little rooms all linked together curling round a central staircase. There's a good range of books on the shelves, not just your usual corporate bookshop fodder, which is great. And this is also rather a posh bookshop. Those two gentlemen in the photo standing outside in their grey slacks really aren't Hatchards target audience at all, oh no. Hatchards specialise more in the sort of hardbacks that would look good on the bookshelves of the library in the west wing of one's stately mansion. History (especially royal history), biography (especially upper class biography), cookery (especially chefs with double-barreled surnames) and gardening (especially books to buy for one's gardener).
The gardening connection is particularly appropriate because it was here, exactly 200 years ago, that seven friends met to found the Horticultural Society of London. Two of these friends were John Wedgwood (of pottery fame) and Sir Joseph Banks (scientist and naturalist who sailed with Captain Cook). Prince Albert became President in 1858, since when this Horticultural Society has been officially Royal. Nowadays the RHS is responsible for the Chelsea Flower Show, a numberofbiggardens around the country and generally doing good in the world of horticulture. I'm sure Hatchards would be able to sell you a history of the organisation, just don't wear your best gardening clothes when you visit.
Famous places down the street where I work BAFTA (195 Piccadilly)
That's the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to you, the bunch of media types who organise big and small screen award ceremonies in in Spring every year. You'd never guess from outside that the 19th century terrace beside St James's Church houses two preview theatres at second floor level, one of which is big enough to seat 213 people. Members and their guests only thank you, and please remember it's the done thing to stay seated right until the end of the credits.
Virtual tour here, membership handbook here, next year's award winners below:
• The Fellowship: What Hobbit Did Next (New Zealand Film Foundation)
• Julie Walters Award for being Julie Walters: Julie Walters
• Best Film: something British that the Oscars will ignore
• Alan Clark Diary Award for rescuing a channel's ratings: BBC4
• Beatrix Potter Award for outstanding franchise opportunity: Balamory
• Least convincing actress: Emily Howard (Little Britain)
• Fastest down the plughole career: Michelle McManus (Pop Idol)
• Comedy Performance: anything by George W Bush
• Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Gordon Brown
• Most annoying TV genre: House renovation (oh yawn yawn yawn)
• Most annoying TV genre (runner up): Reselling antiques (oh yawn yawn yawn)
• No, honest, this really will win something big: The Long Firm
• Best continuing drama: Big Brother 5
• Single Drama: Nadia (BB5)
• Current Affairs: Michelle & Chicken Stu (BB5)
• Make-Up & Hair: Dan (BB5)
• Special Visual Effects: Shell (BB5)
• Wildlife Documentary: Jason (BB5)
Way back on Day 1, within an hour of the housemates first entering the house, I tried predicting the order they would leave. My order was Ahmed, Michelle, Jason, Kitten, Nadia, Stuart, Dan, Vanessa, Victor, Marco, Emma, Shell. It made sense at the time. Ahmed would be a bigot, Michelle would be a cow, Jason would be too vain, Kitten would get herself in trouble, Nadia would be unmasked, Stuart would be excessively smug, Dan would go unnoticed, Vanessa couldn't survive to the end, Victor would be entertaining for a while, Marco would be amusing for longer, Emma would be even more hilarious and Shell would be perfectly nice and nicely perfect. Not quite the way it turned out, was it?
The actual eviction order was Kitten, Emma, Vanessa, Marco, Ahmed, Victor, Michelle, Stuart, Shell, Dan, Jason, Nadia. Kitten couldn't follow any rules, Emma's mouth was bigger than her brain, Vanessa was rapidly ditched, Marco's seal impersonation annoyed the nation, Ahmed lasted far longer than he should have, Victor put his foot firmly in his mouth, Michelle's bunny-boiler tendencies took a few weeks to show, Stuart was totally inoffensive, Shell wasn't quite lovely enough, Dan turned out to be the perfect mediator, Jason wasn't up for nomination early and Nadia was firmly clasped to the UK's collective bosom. How wrong was I?
Very wrong as it turns out. I know because I checked. I used Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (bet you've not used that since school) to calculate just how wrong I was to three decimal places. And my predictions scored -0.175, which is a negative correlation, which is nearer to the reverse order than the correct order, which is rubbish. It may not be statistically significant but it is rubbish. I'm very pleased to be wrong though, and congratulations to the British public for getting it (mostly) right.
Famous places down the street where I work St James's Church (197 Piccadilly)
• One of the few churches outside the City to be designed by Sir Christopher Wren.
• Consecrated in 1684 as the parish church of the new district of St James.
• Poet and artist William Blake was baptised here.
• Plain on the outside, huge and splendid on the inside.
• Contains woodwork created by master carver Grinling Gibbons.
• Badly bombed during the Second World war.
• Often holds concerts, especially at lunchtime.
• A small craft market is held in the paved churchyard most days of the week.
• onionbag blogger recommends "the nice quiet graveyard / garden that is good for escaping the lunchtime rush".
• A couple of years ago I saw Dame Judy Dench buying her charity Christmas cards here. Respect.
Famous streets parallel to the street where I work Jermyn Street
Most of us wear normal clothes from places like Next, M&S, fcuk or the charity shop. But some people live in a clothing netherworld and buy bespoke clothes from Jermyn Street, and these people scare me. Jermyn Street is timewarp tailoring, with gentlemanly shops selling gentlemen's outfits and gentlemen's accessories to gentlemen. Mostly posh, old, rich gentlemen from the deepest shire counties who still think that tweed is in fashion, that brogues are de rigeur and that beige is cutting edge. Here you can still buy a deerstalker hat, be fitted for a pinstripe blazer, slip on some sensible footwear, sniff out some musky cologne or get your balding locks tended by a traditional wet-shave barber. And everything's really really expensive too. Yes, that panama hat in the photo really is half price at £69.00.
Jermyn Street is especially famous for shirts. This street is for shirts what Savile Row is for suits and jackets. None of your normal navy blue polyester shirts, oh no, these shirts scream class, breeding and colour-blindness. There are pink shirts, blue shirts, pink shirts with blue stripes, blue shirts with pink stripes, pinky-blue shirts with deckchair-style stripes, pink shirts with blue collars, blue shirts with pink collars... and that's before you start on the yellow, orange, green, check, gingham, herringbone and tattersall. And don't forget the complete set of matching ties, a wide variety of expensive cufflinks and either stiff collars or collar-stiffeners. It's pure sartorial elegance, but at a price. (And <cough> I only bought six of my work shirts from here, the rest came from Next. I'm quite smart sometimes)
A not very famous place down a street in Manchester with the same name as the street where I work The O.K. Cafe (77 Piccadilly)
I'm back from Manchester now, having been well fed, watered and entertained over the last 48 hours. And here's one of the places where I was fed. You'd never find a greasyspoon caff down London's Piccadilly, more's the pity.
The O.K. Cafe lies about halfway along Manchester's Piccadilly, a welcome culinary anachronism in a world of sandwich shops and coffee bars. It's long, it's dark and it's thin, although mirrored walls inside give some illusion of space. The booths have red leatherette seats, the tables have blue-checked plastic tablecloths and the sauce comes in squeezy bottles. Right down at the back is the staff-only table where the menopausal waitresses read the paper inbetween being caustic with the customers. Opposite lies the one-chef kitchen, serving up all-day breakfasts and fried platters. We sampled a Builder's Breakfast (£4.25) piled high with reprocessed meat and cholesterol, as well as a multi-layered plate of liver and onions (£2.75). The bacon was cooked to perfection, the black pudding (so I'm told) was firm and filling, and the mushy peas were just mushy enough. Best of all were the chips with gravy (also to be recommended from the chippie on Parker Street at midnight, eaten sat on the benches in Piccadilly Gardens while putting the world to rights). We ate in the cafe twice, and it was definitely more than OK.
If there ever was a quintessential department store, Simpsons of Piccadilly was it. Built in 1936 this six storey store sold most traditional clothing for ladies and gentlemen in a most traditional manner. They pioneered ready-to-wear suits and shirts, back in an age when made-to-measure tailoring was still very much the norm, always with reverential customer service. Alas by the 1990s Simpson had become something of an anachronism, even down Piccadilly, and the store finally closed its doors five years ago (report of the last days here). Waterstones the booksellers have moved in since, opening the largest book store in Europe. Well worth a regular lunchtime browse for those of us who work round here, but somehow not quite the same as having your inside leg checked. Bowblog went for a visit recently, checking out the grand entrance, sweeping central staircase and miniature lifts, complete with photos.
Simpson's most famous employee was comedy writer Jeremy Lloyd, a junior in the gents department in the 1940s. 25 years later he was looking for a script idea to sell to BBC comedy bosses and Are You Being Served was the result. Simpson's archaic work practices, staff pecking order and fawning customer service were fertile ground for a sitcom, and characters such as Captain Peacock ("Are you free?") and Mr Humphries ("I'm free!") were firmly grounded in Jeremy's real life experience. Scriptwriting partner David Croft suggested adding a Ladies Intimate Apparel department, bringing us the outrageous bouffant Mrs Slocombe ("Having a bath at six o'clock in the morning played havoc with my pussy!"). AYBS wasn't an instant hit, first creeping onto our screens when sports schedules cleared during the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis. But the public eventually loved it, both at home and abroad, and the sitcom ran for 10 seasons with audiences peaking at 22 million. Simpson may have long closed, but its spirit lives on at Grace Brothers. (UK Gold, Wednesdays, 7pm)
Famous places down the street where I work The first Lyons teashop (213 Piccadilly)
The fast food revolution started right here with the opening of the very first Lyons Teashop in 1894. Joseph Lyons believed in fine quality and good service and his teashops were an instant hit, providing one of the very first places for women to socialise. By 1900 there were over 200 white and gold fronted Lyons Teashops in existence, mostly in London and the suburbs, each with an identical menu of high tea and cakes. Joe soon opened his Trocadero restaurant on the opposite side of Piccadilly Circus, and in 1909 the first Lyons Corner House opened just around the corner in Coventry Street. His waitresses were always impeccably turned out, originally nicknamed Gladys but rechristened Nippies in the 1920s. Each shop sold bakery items out front along with a counter service behind providing hot meals, cakes and beverages. Teatime heaven.
Menu 1914
Tea (the most perfect the world produces) freshly made for each person per Cup 2d, per Pot per Person 3½d
Sultana cake 1d, Toasted with butter 2d
Cherry cake, whole cake 2/-, per piece 2d
The whole Lyons phenomenon is documented on this brilliant and detailed website. Makes one nostalgic for the good old days on Britain's high streets when tea was tea and not coffee, when bread was bread and not chemical stodge, when cakes were cakes and not muffins, and when service was important and not forgotten in the drive for profit. Alas Lyons went bust in the 1970s, overtaken by a vast array of competing food outlets and restaurants, and 213 Piccadilly is now a dull boring British Airways travel shop, but I give thanks that at least it's not another Starbucks because that would be pure sacrilege.
Famous places with the same name as the street where I work Manchester Piccadilly: There are two famous Piccadillies in England. One Piccadilly is in London, and that's the one I'm writing about all month. And the other Piccadilly is 200 miles northwest in Manchester, a big shopping street with some gardens at one end and a major mainlinestation at the other. So for completeness' sake I'm off to visit the alternative Piccadilly this afternoon. It's all because BestMate is back in the country for a week, and two nights in Manchester is part of the carefully-arranged entertainment and travel agenda. 150 years ago it used to take 9½ hours to travel from London to Manchester Piccadilly by train. Let's see if Virgin (grumble, appalling ticket delivery service, grumble) can do it in less than three. And fingers crossed I can carry on blogging remotely for a couple of days...
Famous places down the street where I work The Criterion (224 Piccadilly)
I was surprised to discover that the row of buildings along the south side of Piccadilly Circus is actually part of the street of Piccadilly itself. That's the Virgin Megastore on the corner of Haymarket - the one with the prancing equine fountain outside. And Lillywhite's sporting department store - five floors of flannel, lycra, leather and nylon. And, sandwiched inbetween, there's the Criterion theatre and bar.
Apart from the box office the whole of the Criterion Theatre lies underground, and the stage is currently home to the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Upstairs you'll find the Criterion Brasserie, a fine example of art nouveau design (pre-Byzantine, so I'm told, although I've never been inside). The entrance is decked with palm trees, the bar is carpeted with Oriental rugs and the main room has a gold mosaic celing with high marble walls. Sounds gorgeous, if a little pricy, so I think I'll stick to Burger King over the road. One of the Criterion's most famous patrons was Dr Watson, who popped in for a drink just before being whisked off to meet Sherlock Holmes for the first time. A plaque on the north wall still commemorates this famous ficticious meeting.
Famous places down the street where I work Piccadilly Circus
They say that if you stand in Piccadilly Circus for long enough, eventually everyone in the world will pass by. Stand among the crowds of tourists beneath Eros on a busy summer's day and you could almost believe that this is true. Obviously you'd have to wait around an awful long time to see both Osama Bin Laden and my Mum, but you get the idea. Piccadilly Circus isn't a particularly special place really, just a big road junction with a statue and some adverts, but it's got space to mill around and somehow it feels important. And it's a real magnet for foreign visitors who stand around in large groups endlessly taking pictures of each other just 'being here'.
Piccadilly Circus was formed in 1819 by the intersection of John Nash's magnificent curving RegentStreet with Piccadilly. The newly-formed crossroads wasn't so much a circus as a square, and a very grand square at that. In 1886 Shaftesbury Avenue was built, demolishing the north-east corner and giving the road junction the oddly squashed shape it has today. Tenants of the new buildings realised they could sell advertising space on their façades and so the area became famous for its illuminated advertising boards. It's a far cry from the first ad for Bovril (comprising just 600 light bulbs) to the mesmerising electronic displays to be found here today.
The most well-known sight in Piccadilly Circus is the statue of Eros, designed by Alfred Gilbert and erected in 1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Lord Shaftesbury. Despite what most people think it's not a statue of the Greek god of love, being officially titled 'The Angel of Christian Charity'. The figure is made of aluminium, a rare metal at the time of its construction, and sits atop a bronze fountain depicting a variety of marine life. The winged nude originally pointed towards Shaftesbury Avenue, firing his arrow downwards into the pavement (burying his shaft - although that's apparently a coincidence). During the Second World War the statue was removed for safe keeping, but on its return the bow was fixed pointing to the south, and then again wrongly reorientated after the road junction was upgraded in the 1990s. No sense of history, these town planners.
On the north-eastern side of the Circus is the London Pavilion, originally a music hall and now home to the Trocadero shopping arcade. To the west at number 1 Piccadilly is the old Swan and Edgar department store, reborn in 1982 as Tower Records and very very recently reopened after major refurbishment as yet another Virgin Megastore. And directly beneath London's most famous roundabout lies Piccadilly Circus tube station, built in 1906 with its trademark circular ticket hall. I rather like the mechanical clock down there depicting 'The World Time Today', but few tourists ever seem to stop to check out the time back home. Too busy I guess. It's like Piccadilly Circus here.
Famous places down the street where I work Piccadilly
I used to work on a minor road in Ipswich, a bland strip of tarmac lined by furniture warehouses and shabby Victorian terraces. I now work on one of the most famous streets in the world, a grand thoroughfare of exclusive shops and historic Georgian terraces. It's quite an improvement I can tell you.
Piccadilly is one of London's oldest roads, leading from the West End to the west of town. The eastern half (pictured left) was originally called Portugal Street and the western half Hyde Park Road. The modern name of the road comes from a tailor named Robert Baker who had his business in nearby Haymarket. He made his fortune in the 17th century selling a fashionable frilled collar called a piccadil, and then spent his fortune on a big mansion on the outskirts of town nicknamed Pickadilly Hall. The street eventually took the name Piccadilly as a result, growing up posh and proper over the following centuries.
Piccadilly is nearly a mile long, with tall elegant buildings along most of its length and Green Park along the south side of the western half. The street is numbered from Piccadilly Circus down to Hyde Park Corner and back again, from 1 (Tower Records) to 149 (Apsley House) on the north side and back from 150 (The Ritz) to 230 (Virgin Megastore) on the south. Few streets in the world can boast landmarks and institutions as famous as those to be found along Piccadilly.
It's a very exclusive street, sandwiched between posh Mayfair and upmarket St James. It's a surprisingly wide street, more an avenue really, with room for at least four lanes of traffic. It's part of the A4, the trunk road that heads out of the capital towards Bristol. It's a street full of tourists, more crowded to the east, more upmarket to the west. It's a street full of Routemasters, with only one of the six bus routes so far 'upgraded' to one-person operation. And it's the street the Piccadilly Line is named after, the navy blue tube line running deep beneath the road surface.
I should point out to non-residents that not every street in London is like this. Pick a street at random from the London A-Z and you're much more likely find a few run-down houses and a kebab shop. But the street I work on is really mighty fine indeed. So, join me on my month-long stroll down Piccadilly, starting tomorrow beneath the staue of Eros. See, I told you it was famous.
August, as you may remember, has been designated local history month on diamond geezer. And this August is also my last month working in an office down one of London's premier streets - Piccadilly. So I thought I'd spend the whole of August taking a wander down my local street all the way from Piccadilly Circus to Hyde Park Corner, seeing all the sights there are to see and then some. I'll be reporting back on cucumber sandwiches, Nippies, posh shops, prostitutes, the Queen's childhood home, a disused tube station, Mrs Slocombe's pussy and much much more. And don't worry, I'll still be writing about other stuff inbetween as well.
Famous places down the street where I work
Voulez-vous acheter un billet pour le voyage de train en France? Visite ici. C'est le French Travel Centre, à côté de Fortnum et Maçon et vis-à-vis de l'Académie Royale. Le centre combine Rail Europe et Maison de la France, ce qui est une association entre le gouvernement français, les régions de la France et les membres de l'industrie du tourisme française. Voici que vous pouvez réserver vos vacances et voyager en France. J'aime le signe dehors. Il a six carrés noirs et chacun a une grande lettre blanche. Le bâtiment a été conçu par Erno Goldfinger, l'architecte célèbre avec un bureau dans Piccadilly.
Need some cashmere? Got an urgent desire for silverware? A craving for leather goods? Bursting for an antique? You need to rush down to the Burlington Arcade, the oldest and longest shopping arcade in Britain. But don't you dare run when you get there because running down the Burlington Arcade isn't allowed. There's no singing, no whistling, no humming, no begging, no riding of bicycles and no opening of umbrellas either. Try any of those and you'll probably be stopped by a man in a frock coat wearing a gold-braided top hat. He'd be a Beadle, a member of Britain's very first private police force dating back to the opening of the arcade in 1818. We could'nt have uncouth commoners upsetting members of the gentry out purchasing their everyday essentials, could we?
Once the whole of Piccadilly used to be lined by palatial houses such as this, but now Burlington House is the only reminder of just how grand this street used to be. Really really grand. Burlington House was built in 1664 by Sir John Denham, Surveyor General to King Charles II, who was convinced that no-one would ever build in the fields and the woodland to the north and west. He was wrong. Next to own the property were a succession of Lord Burlingtons, esteemed patrons of the arts and sciences. The composer Handel lodged in the house for three years towards the end of his life while the scientist Henry Cavendish had a room here during his youth.
If the Supermarket League has Aldi and Lidl at the bottom, then it has Fortnum and Mason at the top. You'll not find value beans, cheap carrier bags and wonky trolleys here, but exclusive comestibles, immaculate shelves and fawning doormen. The whole ground floor of this grand retail outlet is full of exclusive foodstuffs, none of them in any way essential, all traditionally packaged (or at least that's what the tourists think). No expense has been spared on the decor in the food hall, ornate and golden, with the store's trademark duck-egg bluey-green prevalent throughout. Here you can still shop for 'groceries', assemble your own luxury hamper, sample a huge variety of rare teas and fork out over £150 for a tub of
Hatchards is the oldest surviving booksellers in London, founded in 1797 and with customers including Disraeli, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron and me. Visiting Hatchards is reminiscent of being inside a rambling old house, with six floors of little rooms all linked together curling round a central staircase. There's a good range of books on the shelves, not just your usual corporate bookshop fodder, which is great. And this is also rather a posh bookshop. Those two gentlemen in the photo standing outside in their grey slacks really aren't Hatchards target audience at all, oh no. Hatchards specialise more in the sort of hardbacks that would look good on the bookshelves of the library in the west wing of one's stately mansion. History (especially royal history), biography (especially upper class biography), cookery (especially chefs with double-barreled surnames) and gardening (especially books to buy for one's gardener).
That's the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to you, the bunch of media types who organise big and small screen award ceremonies in in Spring every year. You'd never guess from outside that the 19th century terrace beside St James's Church houses two preview theatres at second floor level, one of which is big enough to seat 213 people. Members and their guests only thank you, and please remember it's the done thing to stay seated right until the end of the credits.
Big Brother 5 (it's over)
• One of the few churches outside the City to be designed by Sir Christopher Wren.
Most of us wear normal clothes from places like Next, M&S, fcuk or the charity shop. But some people live in a clothing netherworld and buy bespoke clothes from Jermyn Street, and these people scare me. Jermyn Street is timewarp tailoring, with gentlemanly shops selling gentlemen's outfits and gentlemen's accessories to gentlemen. Mostly posh, old, rich gentlemen from the deepest shire counties who still think that tweed is in fashion, that brogues are de rigeur and that beige is cutting edge. Here you can still buy a deerstalker hat, be fitted for a pinstripe blazer, slip on some sensible footwear, sniff out some musky cologne or get your balding locks tended by a traditional wet-shave barber. And everything's really really expensive too. Yes, that panama hat in the photo really is half price at £69.00.
A not very famous place down a street in Manchester with the same name as the street where I work
If there ever was a quintessential department store, Simpsons of Piccadilly was it. Built in 1936 this six storey store sold most traditional clothing for ladies and gentlemen in a most traditional manner. They pioneered ready-to-wear suits and shirts, back in an age when made-to-measure tailoring was still very much the norm, always with reverential customer service. Alas by the 1990s Simpson had become something of an anachronism, even down Piccadilly, and the store finally closed its doors five years ago (report of the last days here). Waterstones the booksellers have moved in since, opening the largest book store in Europe. Well worth a regular lunchtime browse for those of us who work round here, but somehow not quite the same as having your inside leg checked. Bowblog went for a visit recently, checking out the grand entrance, sweeping central staircase and miniature lifts, complete with photos.
The fast food revolution started right here with the opening of the very first Lyons Teashop in 1894. Joseph Lyons believed in fine quality and good service and his teashops were an instant hit, providing one of the very first places for women to socialise. By 1900 there were over 200 white and gold fronted Lyons Teashops in existence, mostly in London and the suburbs, each with an identical menu of high tea and cakes. Joe soon opened his Trocadero restaurant on the opposite side of Piccadilly Circus, and in 1909 the first Lyons Corner House opened just around the corner in Coventry Street. His waitresses were always impeccably turned out, originally nicknamed Gladys but rechristened Nippies in the 1920s. Each shop sold bakery items out front along with a counter service behind providing hot meals, cakes and beverages. Teatime heaven.
I was surprised to discover that the row of buildings along the south side of Piccadilly Circus is actually part of the street of Piccadilly itself. That's the Virgin Megastore on the corner of Haymarket - the one with the prancing equine fountain outside. And Lillywhite's sporting department store - five floors of flannel, lycra, leather and nylon. And, sandwiched inbetween, there's the Criterion theatre and bar.
They say that if you stand in Piccadilly Circus for long enough, eventually everyone in the world will pass by. Stand among the crowds of tourists beneath Eros on a busy summer's day and you could almost believe that this is true. Obviously you'd have to wait around an awful long time to see both Osama Bin Laden and my Mum, but you get the idea. Piccadilly Circus isn't a particularly special place really, just a big road junction with a statue and some adverts, but it's got space to mill around and somehow it feels important. And it's a real magnet for foreign visitors who stand around in large groups endlessly taking pictures of each other just 'being here'.
The most well-known sight in Piccadilly Circus is the statue of Eros, designed by Alfred Gilbert and erected in 1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Lord Shaftesbury. Despite what most people think it's not a statue of the Greek god of love, being officially titled 'The Angel of Christian Charity'. The figure is made of aluminium, a rare metal at the time of its construction, and sits atop a bronze fountain depicting a variety of marine life. The winged nude originally pointed towards Shaftesbury Avenue, firing his arrow downwards into the pavement (burying his shaft - although that's apparently a coincidence). During the Second World War the statue was removed for safe keeping, but on its return the bow was fixed pointing to the south, and then again wrongly reorientated after the road junction was upgraded in the 1990s. No sense of history, these town planners.
I used to work on a minor road in Ipswich, a bland strip of tarmac lined by furniture warehouses and shabby Victorian terraces. I now work on one of the most famous streets in the world, a grand thoroughfare of exclusive shops and historic Georgian terraces. It's quite an improvement I can tell you.
Local history month
