Category: London

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

I’ve never understood the enduring, almost religious appeal of sci-fi and superhero stuff – the comics, the blockbusters, the video games, the whole alternative universe. Ok, I admit I did enjoy the original Star Wars trilogy and loved the sixties Batman with Adam West as the camp caped crusader in budgie smugglers (I wonder why?). But that was back when I was young and easily aroused. These days, I much prefer a whodunnit – even better if it’s set in a quintessential caramel-coloured English village with a mad vicar with murder in mind.

But we were reminded how big the ‘super-verse’ has become when the circus came to town for Comic Con 2025 at the Excel Centre in London’s Docklands. Our East End digs for my 65th birthday extravaganza were occupied by a battalion of young superhero lookee-likees. A trio of dressed-up Star Wars jedheads joined us in the lift. As the doors began to close, one cried out, ‘Shit, I’ve left my light sabre behind!’ Down in the lobby, we were faced with a speeding bullet of supermen in full caped garb, rushing – though not flying – out the door, with Captain America and Darth Vader bringing up the rear.

Still, I guess it’s all good clean fun for the young and the young at heart. Much healthier than being seduced by the dark side of cybercrime, county lines, street gangs or religious fruitcakes.

Dancing Queens No More

As our birthdays are just two weeks apart, each year Liam and I tend to mark them together. Nowadays, as befits our budding dotage, our jollies resemble more of a pensioners’ outing than the bop-til-you-drop of our yesteryears. 2025 also marks me reaching my latest chronological milestone – 65 – so Liam planned some fancy ticklers to get me in the mood. First on the menu was a glass of overpriced plonk in a Canary Wharf wine bar followed by a surprise dinner date with family. We dined on Italian, washed down with copious amounts of gossip and scandal – naughty but nice!

 The next morning Liam took me up this…

… for a full-on full English with a show-stopping view at the Sky Garden. Perched on top of the Leadenhall Building – affectionately known as the Walkie Talkie – the Sky Garden is London’s highest public green space, with panoramic views of the city. It was a gorgeous crisp day with the sun hanging low in the wispy blue, so our snaps aren’t all that. But you get the picture.

After breakfast, we wandered through the City in a vain attempt to burn off the calories, passing ‘the Monument’, the enormous column commemorating the Great Fire of London of 1666, and then across the Thames to Southwark – pronounced suth-erk – via London Bridge. We strolled along the busy Queen’s Walk, passed HMS Belfast and through Hays Galleria before crossing back into the City via Tower Bridge.

Our final destination was St Katharine Docks, immediately downstream from the Tower. Once part of the Port of London, the docks have since been repurposed as a place to work, sleep, shop and sup, centred around an upmarket yachting marina. After a quick gander, we found a place to sink a bottle and watch the world sail by.

Afternoon drinking can be exhausting even for these two old lushes, so it was back to our Westferry digs for a kip. We had to be fresh and fragrant for the main event, which was…

This was our second visit to the breathtaking ABBA Voyage, located by the deliciously named Pudding Mill Lane Station. Our debut performance was in 2023 as part of a birthday bash for the good wife of our local pub’s (now ex) landlord. Back then, we wiggled about like has-been dancing queens to the ageless ABBA classics. This time round we booked comfy seats in the auditorium. This old codger has finally hung up his dad-dancing shoes, much to the relief of all those around. Well, I don’t want to put my back out.

Greek Intermission

While we’re away on our Greek odyssey clambering over old tumble-down stones trying not to break a hip, here’s a few of my pics that didn’t quite make the cut, mostly taken in or on the way to one drinking den or t’other. Yamas! 🥂

Spuds, Spies and Something for the Weekend

The renaissance of the iconic Battersea Power Station and its surroundings isn’t the only radical regeneration along the old Thameside rust belt. Virtually the entire south bank from Grosvenor to Vauxhall Bridges has been transformed by new fancy offices and posh flats along Nine Elms Lane. At the Vauxhall end once stood Market Towers, a typically seventies block with the Market Tavern on the first floor. It was added for the traders who fancied a pint or two after a hard day’s graft shifting spuds and sunflowers at the nearby New Covent Garden Market*.

Come the weekend, though, an altogether different trade was transacted. The pub doubled up as a gay bar, particularly popular on a Sunday afternoon because the boys just loved to booze and cruise after Sunday prayers. I should know, I was one of them. I misspent many an afternoon there during the nineties and noughties. As did Jean Paul Gaultier during his Eurotrash years. But I was never tempted to try my hand in the very ugly and very derelict Nine Elms Cold Store next door. Many a randy lad came a cropper cruising its dark and dank corridors. Plunging down an unlit crane shaft was not good for anyone’s health. Ironically, it was built on part of the 17th-century Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which had pleasured Londoners for over 200 years. Both Market Towers and the Cold Store are now gone, swept away by redevelopment. Ah, the memories.

Alongside the ribbon of luxury riverside high rises sits the HQ of MI6, the UK’s spymasters, as featured in a number of James Bond films. And not far away is the new, fortress-like US Embassy, which looks like it sits on a lazy Susan. No doubt, both buildings are bristling with various top-secret ways to detect and deter, disrupt and destabilise. Is their proximity to one another just a coincidence? I wonder. Let’s hope they’re keeping us safe from Tsar Pukin and his deadly cronies.

MI6
US Embassy

*The old Covent Garden in Central London is now an uber-busy tourist hotspot, so you won’t find Eliza Doolittle flogging flowers and warbling ‘Wouldn’t it be Loverly’ on the steps of the Royal Opera House.

Lift 109 – What a Ride!

We like a spectacular view, and they don’t get much more spectacular than the view of old London Town from the top of one of the chimneys at Battersea Power Station. Back in the day, the coal-fired turbines lit a quarter of the city. But by the eighties, dirty old King Coal had been deposed by cleaner (though not clean) energy. Fully decommissioned by 1983, the magnificent building – one of the largest brick structures in the world – fell into near ruin. That was then.

This is now. The building has risen from the ashes, phoenix-like, repurposed for the modern age as an upmarket playground for the well-heeled. The magnificent turbine halls have been restored and are now stuffed with posh shops and designer eateries, with price tags to match. Take your plastic, you’ll need it.

The cathedral to power is the centrepiece of a Thameside renaissance along a lengthy stretch of the once-destitute riverbank. We alighted at the brand spanking new Tube station to an avenue of fancy flats, no doubt obscenely priced and not meant for ordinary folk. As we passed, we spotted a gang of hunky modern-day steeplejacks in hi-vis, hanging around and rubbing their shammies.

We were there for the main event, to ride Lift 109 up that chimney for that view. And we weren’t disappointed. With hardly a cloud in the sky, we could see for miles and miles. It was amazing. Liam had planned on whistling Chim Chim Cher-ee from Mary Poppins as our egg-shaped glass conveyance emerged from the stack, but he got distracted by the jaw-dropping wow factor, much to the relief of our fellow riders – and me.

And yes, we bought another fridge magnet.

Okay, You, One Sentence Should Do It

Our double anniversary has sneaked up on us again – 19 years since our eyes met across a busy West End gay bar fit to bursting with a gossipy after-work crowd, and 17 years since we got hitched. This year, we’ve decided to push the boat out and paddle down the Seine. Yes, we’re off to gay Paree for a gay old time. For these gay old timers, this means a gentle stroll along the handsome boulevards and a big slice of café culture rather than painting the town pink in our disco pants. Our tush shaking days are long gone.

In the meantime, I stumbled across this old Faceache post written by him indoors to mark our seventh anniversary. Liam was challenged to say it all in a single sentence and he did it in style. He wrote…

Seven years ago we met in that bar in Trafalgar Square, shared that Sloppy Giuseppe and over-priced Pinot Grigio, argued about the bill, eventually went Dutch, courted for months like a pair of 1950s Catholics (for heaven’s sake), collapsed out of exhaustion into the world of jiggy-jiggy (terribly messy but strangely exciting), fell madly in love, got married (nice suits), moved in together (delicious scandal), watched the curtains twitch (mostly nets), gave up everything sensible and moved to Turkey (what was wrong with Spain?), fell in-and-out-and-in-and-out of love with an extraordinary (no, challenging, misogynistic, homophobic, primitive and God was it cold – okay I loved it) place, you writing ‘that’ book, ‘that’ book getting critical acclaim and big sales (cha-ching) but ‘that’ book largely ignored by those close to us (discuss?), coming back to look after our own (good call), becoming poor, well poor-ish (bad call), discovering the great city of Naaaarwich (nuff said), having more jiggy-jiggy (apparently unnatural, but terribly good with central heating and an injection of Radio 4 LW), re-discovering UK culture like a long lost friend but afraid to tell the expats how wonderful it was in case it came across as boastful (fine line), you becoming ‘properly’ recognised as a ‘proper’ writer (hurrah!) not to mention radio star (OMG), me re-learning Bach fugues (they are SO hard to play, even harder than Mozart, you really have no idea how my fingers ache), both of us weeping like candles at the latest Cinema City flick (okay, mostly Dame Maggie and thank God for the discounted tickets and blood-warm Merlot at the bar), getting over-excited about that converted railway carriage in miles-from-nowhere (yes, I could wash my bits in a sink with a view like that), improvising those make-shift nappies during the messy norovirus days (thank you Blue Peter and Morrison’s super-padded 2-for-1 kitchen towels, we owe you), people-watching at the Playhouse and longing to be young (clearly, we need to avoid Death In Venice comparisons here), gasping at Bonnie Langford’s amazingly flexible crack (and boy, can that Dolly can write a tooone) but most of all, keeping our focus, always, on making sure our glass is resolutely full. I’d say it’s been an extraordinary seven years, husband.

Pantos and Parties

Storm Darragh barrelling across angry skies couldn’t keep us from our annual panto and party pre-Christmas pilgrimage to The Smoke. The London Palladium pantomime this year is Robin Hood, starring the outrageous queen of high and low camp, Julian Clary, and his usual cast of merrie men and women. The vocal act is Jane McDonald – every pensioner’s favourite cruise-line crooner – as Maid Marion. And the likely lass from Yorkshire can really belt out a tune. Lavish, filthy and with a plot as flimsy as a Christmas twig, the show is a belly-laugh sacrament that’s become a firm festive fixture for these two village people.

The gusty winds and horizontal rain drove us into various watering holes to dry off and warm up. Everywhere was rammed. But even these two old merry men don’t drink before midday, so we spent one morning wandering around the splendid Museum of Science, one of the holy trinity of world-class museums along Exhibition Road in South Kensington – the V&A and the Natural History Museum being the other two must-sees. Like the pubs, the various galleries were rammed, not with dripping trippers but with wide-eyed kiddies in backpacks and waterproofs. It’s a fascinating place to spend a few hours, whatever the weather.

We also had the good fortune to catch up with family for much-missed hot gossip and to meet the latest editions to the clan – twin girls. And gorgeous they are too! It made these two old festive fairies very proud great uncles.

Getting the Abbey Habit

We interrupted our recent theatrical pilgrimage to old London Town to have a gander around Westminster Abbey. Regular viewers will know I’m a sucker for an old ecclesiastical pile, and King (and Saint) Edward the Confessor’s ‘West Minster’ is arguably the most famous ecclesiastical pile in the realm. Generally thought to have been founded in the mid-10th century as a Benedictine monastery, the church was rebuilt by the saintly king about 100 years later to serve as his royal burial chamber. What Edward the Confessor actually fessed up to is anyone’s guess.

Following the Norman victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror (or ‘the Bastard’ as he was affectionately known) was crowned King of England at the abbey on Christmas Day that same year; just to make sure everyone knew the old bastard was now in charge. Extended and remodelled down the centuries, the church has been the site of royal coronations ever since. The 14th-century coronation chair sits behind bars to prevent we plebs from getting above our station.

The abbey’s Gothic splendour soars heavenwards while history drips from every statue and every stone. As well as being the most famous house of God in the land, it’s also the most popular. The crowds were too much, particularly when trying to catch a fleeting glimpse of the first two undisputed Queen Regnants* of England – the first Mary and the first Elizabeth – half sisters, one Catholic and one Protestant at a time when you had to pick a side. These two old queens – one Catholic and one Protestant – inched and jostled past the tombs. Of the 16 or so other monarchs buried at the abbey, the tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots is perhaps the most poignant, given her life and times.

*That is, a queen reigning in her own right rather than a queen through marriage to a king.

Mary Queen of Scots
Mary I
Elizabeth I

The list of the dead and commemorated is a veritable who’s who of Britons past: a galaxy of big brains – Newton, Hawking, Darwin; a symphony of composers – Purcell, Vaughan Williams, Elgar; a company of luvvies – including Laurence Olivier; and a society of dead poets and writers – Chaucer, Byron, Lewis Carroll, Dylan Thomas, DH Lawrence, et al.

There is also a parliament of politicians – many either forgotten or best unremembered.

And, lest we forget, the abbey also contains the grave of the Unknown Warrior, commemorating the terrible slaughter of the First World War. It’s the only floor stone on which it’s forbidden to walk. Be warned. Lest you forget.

The Devil Wears Prada

Picture it. October, London, Liam’s birthday and the much-anticipated new Elton John stage musical, The Devil Wears Prada, based on the acclaimed 2006 film. So imagine our disappointment to discover, quite by chance, that the performance we were due to see had been cancelled – no notice, no explanation. We contacted the Dominion Theatre Box Office to establish what was what. They said they’d emailed. Well, sweet Fanny Adams received this end – zero, zilch, zip, nada, nothing, nowt. Lost in cyberspace or so it seems. Or was it? A first-world problem, I know, but annoying nonetheless. We could have arrived at the theatre to find it ‘dark’, as they say in the trade. Many happy returns.

Anyway, once prompted, the theatre refunded the cost of our tickets and we booked to see Moulin Rouge instead. Because we can-can!

The Ties That Bind

My oldest friend died in January 2020. He’d just finished his shift as a drama teacher at a North London school and was about to drive home. He had a cardiac arrest in his car. It was sudden and without warning. He died shortly afterwards.

We met in the first year of our secondary school and meandered through life together – the fab times and the not so fab times, the love affairs and the broken hearts, the loss and the recovery – just like family. And it’s fair to say that, also just like family, we didn’t always see eye to eye. In fact, we sometimes clashed and quarrelled. But through it all, we remained truly bonded, more like brothers than friends. He even remembered me in his will, which was completely unexpected.

Rather than commemorate his death, instead we celebrate his life. And we do this around his birthday. It’s that time of year again so we’re off to old London Town to raise a glass or four with a few choice friends. It will be a day of gossip and giggles. He would have loved it.