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**Rogin the Armchair fan** · 24-09-2008, 07:12

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London's a great place if you've got loads of disposable cash for all the great cafes, bars, restaurants, etc. It gets annoying when you realise you'll never have enough cash for all the really great cafes, bars and restaurants that the Davinas and Hughs all hang out in, blowing Ł10,000 a pop on champagne.

Take the river cruise all the way from Westminster to Greenwich, if you've not done it yet. It's surprising how few Londoners do. It's really good.

**Ant van Oviedo** · 24-09-2008, 07:29

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That cruise is good from Westminster to Kew, too.

London is brilliant for parks and walks, and then you've got the museums, and the best of these are free. The biggies are well worth a visit and deserving of their reputation, but seek out less-well known ones like Sir John Soane's Museum, the Wallace Collection and the Courtauld Institute for a real treat.

Of course if you've got huge wads of cash it helps, but I don't think you necessarily have to spend huge amounts to enjoy London. M&S do a great prosecco* which you can drink with friends in the park on a picnic, or even on your sofa at home. There - that's better than pissing 10,000 quid up against the wall, isn't it?

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/jun/25/foodanddrink.features16

**Lucia Lanigan** · 24-09-2008, 10:04

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The only unavoidable cost in London is travel, really. Sandwiches, coffees and all the rest of it cost the same as they would elsewhere, but you get to go to the Tates, National Gallery and all the rest of it for free. (Ł1.60 for a big, fuck off pot of tea in the Tate Britain cafe, by the way.) But it's also a great place to wonder endlessly around, cause there's so much of it and it still resembles a foreign country to me after living here for eight years. And walking alongside the river never gets old.

The cinema's a bit more expensive than back home, and so's booze when you're out. But that's about it, really, unless you want to sit around smoking Ł50 notes with retarded men with blonde flap hair who go ski-ing and think culture's just something their employers sponsor.

**Mumpo** · 24-09-2008, 10:25

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I like the idea of endlessly wondering around. The very definition of being a flâneur, perhaps.

I've got two, possibly three (depending on how long my conscience lets me get away with saddling sole responsibility for the kids on m'lovely wife) days in London next month, culminating with British Sea Power at the Roundhouse on the 17th. Any newfound little corners (or edges, or middle bits even) of London that are worth a visit?

**Eggchaser** · 24-09-2008, 10:27

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I prefer my British Sea Power moored up opposite the Tower.

**Evariste Euler Gauss** · 24-09-2008, 10:31

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I think there's a pretty widely held view that the largest "unavoidable" additional cost of living in London compared to other places in England is accommodation, whether you're paying rent or mortgage interest. For most people, I think that dwarfs the cost of a travelcard.

**hobbes** · 24-09-2008, 11:37

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who go ski-ing and think culture's just something their employers sponsor

Talking of employer-sponsored culture, my lot are sponsoring this

**Guest** · 24-09-2008, 11:57

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I am moving jobs and going from the City to Canary Wharf, so I've been spending some lunchtimes being a tourist, taking pictures and reading up on the history of the City of London (i've done it in bits-and-bobs before but not particularly thoroughly) - it's absolutely brilliant - "Ah, Cromwell got married there, this was the corner fort of the Roman city, William Wallace got executed there, the first bomb to fall on the City during the Blitz is here, ghetto there and another Wren church... Merrills... history now..." Shame the wheather is sh*te today but will wander to the river via Bank, I reckon.

**Lucia Lanigan** · 24-09-2008, 12:54

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True, m'Lord, but we're talking about getting out and about here rather than overall living costs, innit.

**Ant van Oviedo** · 24-09-2008, 15:25

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I mentioned Sir John Soane's Museum -this is very close to Lincoln's Inn, which is a little corner well worth discovering. Some great pubs round there, too, including:

The Seven Stars http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub192.html
The Princess Louise
http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub482.html
The Cittie of Yorke
http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub134.html

**Tubby Isaacs** · 24-09-2008, 16:47

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Sash, I am a City of London Guide. If ever you want to fit a couple of Wren churches in, let me know. Where do you work?

Travel isn't that bad by British standards. Buses in most places cost more than 90p, and parking and running a car would be far more.

If ever you want to save money on tea by Trafalgar Square, there's a place up the alley by the Sainsbury Wing. Pleasant enough small cafe. As Leo says, the Tate's big pot of tea is very good value if you're down there.

**mafu** · 24-09-2008, 17:54

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yep, some great pubs there (though you need to be a sam smiths fan to enjoy a lot of the interesting old pubs around the city)

I'm a big fan of Ye Olde Mitre as well (which is, or at least was, technically part of cambridgeshire i think), and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese which is like the labyrinth of crete but with a bar every 10 yards. I found a reference to that in a wodehouse novel the other day

**Ant van Oviedo** · 24-09-2008, 18:05

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On my brother's stag night a few years ago we went on a pub crawl to the following (in order of visit):

Princess Louise, Holborn:
http://www.fancyapint.com/main_site/thepubs/pub482.htm
Seven Stars, Holborn/Lincoln's Inn:
http://www.fancyapint.com/main_site/thepubs/pub192.htm
Tipperary, Fleet Street:
http://www.fancyapint.com/main_site/thepubs/pub582.htm
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Fleet Street:
http://www.fancyapint.com/main_site/thepubs/pub582.htm
St Bride's Tavern, Blackfriars/Ludgate Circus
http://www.fancyapint.com/main_site/thepubs/pub751.htm
The Black Friar, Blackfriars/Cannon St
http://www.fancyapint.com/main_site/thepubs/pub171.htm

Needless to say, I remember more about the first one than the last..

**Harbinger of Hope** · 24-09-2008, 18:51

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You told me the dungeon was shite, EIM.

Well researched opinion as ever :-)

**EIM** · 24-09-2008, 18:54

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I wouldn't have paid Ł20 to get in, man. No ways.

**EIM** · 24-09-2008, 18:55

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What's the point in researching an opinion anyways? Half the fun in opinions is basing them on misinformation and ignorance.

**Harbinger of Hope** · 24-09-2008, 19:04

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I did have a 'five pounds off' voucher, I got from being ripped off at the London Eye.

Was it worth Ł15?

**EIM** · 24-09-2008, 19:04

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No. Tenner would have been about right.

**Harbinger of Hope** · 24-09-2008, 19:06

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I'm still yet to understand why they charge so much for the Eye. Hasn't it paid for itself by now?

Having said that I was stupid enough, to cough up for it. "Where theres mugs there's brass"

**Rogin the Armchair fan** · 24-09-2008, 19:09

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The other half of fun of opinions is that you can change them. They're not facts. I used to think Top Gear was a hopeless waste of licence-payers' money, providing Jeremy Clarkson and his pathetic acolytes with an excuse to road-test high-performance cars that none of the viewing public would ever be able to afford to buy, and blow up caravans in areas of outstanding natural beauty for a giggle.

But then the simpering little dwarf Clarkson kept to dance for him while he was being boring and had lost the audience almost died while trying to drive a rocket on wheels at 300mph, and due to shocked public reaction (that came only second to the death of Princess Diana, ironically taken from us in a high-performance car attempting the "Gambon curve" at 85mph) now I realise that it's clearly the most cutting piece of consumer journalism and cutting social satire rolled into one that the bbc has ever commissioned. Clarkson said last week that all old people should not only be banned from driving, but should be forced into voluntary euthnasia (by throwing themselves off Beachy Head) - shaping a genuinely topical political debate, I'm sure you'll agree!

**Eggchaser** · 24-09-2008, 19:33

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Gerontophile will be devastated at Mr Clarkson's radical proposals. Who will he have to leer at?

**JtS** · 25-09-2008, 09:07

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Just so long as I can avoid the hideous Oxford Street/Regent Street/Piccadilly Circus/Leicester Square areas

You're missing out on some fantastic stuff woven in between those places

**Tubby Isaacs** · 25-09-2008, 09:32

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"Woven" is a bit poetical for you there, Jason.

Good choice of pubs from Ant. I was surprised at how nice the pubs in that corner of the City are.

**Guest** · 25-09-2008, 14:55

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Tubby Isaacs wrote:

Sash, I am a City of London Guide. If ever you want to fit a couple of Wren churches in, let me know. Where do you work?

At London Wall... for 1 more day.

Wish I started my church-gazing campaign a tad earlier. So many of them are not exactly spectacular from the outside - apart from the spires but once inside - super-duper. Churches done today
1. St. Lawrence Jewry - super light.
2. St. Margaret Lothbury - nice screen and a cozy place for a spot of organ music.
3. St. Botolph Aldgate - rather odd.
4. St. Katharine Cree - old school - didn't realise only 8 out of almost 100 churches survived the Great Fire of London.
5. St. Stephen Walbrook - rather squat-looking from the outside but what a splendid dome once you're in!
6. St. Mary Aldermary - Wren ventures back into perpendicular and the priest sells Roman coins!
7. St.Mary-le-Bow - somehow a very square construction for them cockneys, innit. Love that steeple, though.

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