Just over a year ago when chilling in a hostel in Pula, Croatia, a friend lent me a book: Longitude. Cool, I thought, seeing it simply as something that would help me pass the time as I laid around on the beach. A literary dork, I don’t often read nonfiction, so I was surprised how much I ended up enjoying this story of sea clocks that I read through as quickly as I would have a novel. If you have the slightest interest in British history, seafaring, navigation, clocks, or astronomy, I cannot recommend it enough.
To get on with it, the book chronicles John Harrison’s journey toward solving the problem of longitude. We take for granted the globes we’ve grown up with that are stratified by their degrees in both longitude and latitude, never really thinking about what mankind had to undergo to come up with this. How on Earth did they figure this out way back before today’s technology? The problem was so dire that, in the 1714, the British Parliament offered a monetary prize of £20,000 (worth millions in today’s terms) to whomever could solve it.
As Harrison (a self-taught clockmaker by trade) determined that being able to accurately track time was at the crux of the matter (such that the local time of a destination could be compared with a basis such as Greenwich Mean Time), what was needed was an accurate clock. Sounds easier to us than what the issue really was at the time. In the 18th century, clocks didn’t exist that could keep ticking with accuracy for a long duration of time, and certainly not against conditions at sea of varying temperature, moisture, and pressure. And so, Harrison proceeded to build his clock, refining it through 5 different versions for over 4 decades of his life, all the while running neck and neck with competing clocks and the other dominant school of thought, astronomy (which relied on the stars as a measure of time…which works great until it gets cloudy!). It’s a fascinating story of dedication and precision and such a testament to man’s perseverance and innovation.
The sea clocks (technically referred to as “chronometers”) are on display and still tickin’ in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where time begins
This is just an update on our London Livingsocial networking site. Our membership continues to grow and as of today consists of 142 Londonistas standing proud
London Relocation Ltd. created London Living as an interactive resource for you if you’re relocating to London or have already moved here and are looking to network with fellow expats. It’s a one-stop shop that houses feeds from our blog and Twitter profile, as well as connects you to the London blogs authored by our Londonistas for further resources on living in London. Our discussion forums are open to any London-related topic you wish to chat about, from things to do to essential moving advice. Going forward, we’re adding a feature in which Londonistas can share what upcoming plans they have that others are welcome to join in on to supplement the socials we organize and London events we post, and we’re adding to our offering of apps for fun schtuff like chatting with other members and playing online games.
If you join us at London Living, you will also get your own profile page to pimp out with apps, photos, texts/feeds, and a comments section where other Londonistas can post messages to you.
As a growing network, we’re happy to evolve to meet your needs as a current and future London expat. There’s a lot of possibility within this friendly community, and you and your ideas are very welcome here
This guest post comes to us compliments of one of our fabulous London Living Londonistas, Jessica.
When my husband and I moved from our corporate flat to our own place just a 25 minute walk north to Hackney, I didn’t know what to expect and oddly enough my main concern was “Where am I going to go grocery shopping?” Our last place was in walking distance to a Waitrose, a Tesco and most importantly, Borough Market where we had become familiar faces on Saturday mornings to our favorite vendors. Walking back from these places without a full backpack is not an option.
One Google search later and wouldn’t you know it these are our local markets:
Broadway Market.
Open Saturdays 9am – 5pm. Lots of fresh produce, meats, cheeses, clothes and hot lunch options.
The street is lined with shops and cafes to poke in and out of as you shop. Grab lunch and take a walk through London Fields or along the canal.
London Fields Market
Open Sundays 10am – 2pm. Lots of fresh produce, meats, cheeses, pasta and more.
Columbia Road Flower Market
Open Sundays 8am – 3pm (ish). Flowers, flowers and more flowers. Oh and plants, herbs, cafes and pubs too! Go at the end of the day for great deals.
The street is lined with shops and cafes to poke in and out of as you shop.
Back Yard / Up Market
Back Yard Market is open Saturday 11am – 6pm and Sunday 10am – 5pm
Up Market is open Sunday 10am – 5pm
You name it, they sell it. There are food stalls inside and out, a beer garden, vintage warehouse, art galleries, produce, music and that doesn’t even include the shops along the street!
Spitalfields Market Thu: Antiques & vintage 10am – 4pm Fri: Fashion & art 10am – 4pm Sun: Busiest day – all shops & all stalls 9am – 5pm
You name it, they sell it. Sometimes there is music or an outdoor beer garden happening.
Hoxton Street Market
Open Monday through Saturday 7:30am – 6pm. Go on Saturday, it has the most stalls open.
You name it, they sell it and it is good and cheap!
Check out the individual website for events happening in and around the markets. Up Market and Spitalfields Market specifically have various free events happening all the time. Enjoy!
Walking home from the Tube last night, my eyes fell upon brand new and shiny bike docking stations a couple blocks from my flat. AWESOME!!!
For those of you moving to London who might not yet be aware, the city is introducing a new cycle hire scheme (sponsored by Barclays, London Relocation Ltd.’s bank of choice through which we set our clients up with their accounts in one day to make relocating to London that much easier!).
The Transport for London website outlines the scheme, but, basically, London residents will now be able to rent bicycles for commuting or recreation. It’s similar to the Zipcar concept in which you can rent a car that is parked somewhere in your local area, picking it up and dropping it off back in its designated street space independent of having to actually walk into a rental office.
You can start renting bikes as of now if you sign up for a membership, whereby you’ll get a “key” to the terminal that will release the bike from its lock; you will also be able to manage your account online. This is the way to go if you’ll be a frequent user, as it will save money and add convenience.
Alternatively, if you prefer to wait a little longer, coming soon is an option for “Casual Use” for only the occasional rental, like if you simply want to pedal through one of London’s many beautiful gardens. This is open to non-UK residents, so even if you’re just visiting London as a tourist, you can take tourism to a fun new level—there are even guided cycle rides! Access is obtained either directly at the docking station, online, or by phone.
I’ve embedded the helpful how-to video above for your reference (hey Americans, no giggling at the way they spell “tires”) and am positively psyched for London to become the next cycle-friendly Amsterdam. Let’s get rollin’!
Earls Court is once again hosting the annual Great British Beer Festival! Spanning the 3rd through 7th of August, the event features 500+ varieties of beer from around the world, along with live music, pub food, games, and tasting tutorials. Tickets are £6 if purchased in advance and £8 at the door.
So get those beer goggles out to better stomach (pun intended…wait for it…) the sight of grown men wearing half-tops to display the fruits of their ale-drinking labors. Me, I can’t wait for my pork scratchings.
While we want you to have fun, London Relocation Ltd. also encourages you to drink responsibly for the health and safety of yourself and others. Cheers!
July 25th brings us a posh English event straight out of Pretty Woman (as an aside, I saw a woman walking down Kensington High Street last week in that exact same polka-dot dress. Timeless, I suppose…). From the Guards Polo Club website:
“Cartier International Day, in association with the Hurlingham Polo Association, is the world’s greatest spectator polo day. The main highlight of the day is the afternoon match for the Coronation Cup, which features the very best English players. [...]
Action on the field is not confined to the afternoon though. Talented and up and coming England players will take to the field at 11am to play for the Golden Jubilee Trophy. As the standard of polo is now so high in the UK, this game is the perfect opening for the England International later in the afternoon.
However, Cartier International Day is so much more than polo. Cartier entertains some 600 guests from the world of stage, screen, literature and fashion over a gourmet lunch prepared by Anton Mosimann. All visitors can have the opportunity to visit the unique and extensive Retail Village which offers everything from a cooling glass of champagne to a luxury dog bed; from a beautiful polo painting to the very latest Audi.”
There are assorted full-day itinerary packages that you can purchase through different organizations that will offer morning and afternoon food, cocktails, etc. (such as the Chinawhite package referenced on the Guards Polo Club website)–simply run a Google search for the event to explore the possibilities!
This guest post comes to us compliments of one of our fabulous London Living Londonistas, Wendy McCooey, who chronicles her life as an American expat in London at her blog, The McCooey’s of London (where this post originally appeared June 30th, 2010).
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After a tasty brunch with friends, we headed out to explore and ended up in Canary Wharf and Greenwich. We had not done a lick of research, so we had no clue what to expect. We show up and at first think hmmm Canary Wharf is a bit, well…not worth the trip… It’s a financial district (YAWN!). We keep walking and then we see a nice riverbank area and cool buildings, TALL buildings, and then we turned another corner and it was glorious, yet another riverside area with cute restaurants/pubs, even a floating church for those who like to take their lord to the water. Mike actually went from “Let’s get out of here” tooooo “Now this is my kind of place, ‘corporate and sterile,’ everything looks brand new.” As for what I thought, it was nice, everything looked brand new, nothing like London; it reminded me of the area near the river in Chicago, and, well, I HEART CHI-TOWN.
The name Greenwich comes from the Saxon term for ‘green village’. There is evidence of Bronze Age barrows in Greenwich Park as well as a Roman villa or temple.
In the Domesday Book, the manor of Greenwich is recorded as held by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, and a royal palace or hunting lodge has existed here since before 1300. From the 15th century, the town became the site of the royal palace of Placentia, the birthplace of many Tudor monarchs including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
Come and stand on the world-famous Greenwich Meridian Line, which represents the Prime Meridian of the World – Longitude 0º. Every place on Earth is measured in terms of its distance east or west from the Greenwich Meridan. The line itself divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the Earth, just as the Equator divides the northern and southern hemispheres.
The Center of Time
During the evenings, the position of the Meridian Line is often marked by a green laser in the sky. Since the late 19th century, the Prime Meridian at Greenwich has served as the reference line for Greenwich Mean Time. It can now claim to be the centre of world time, and was the official starting point for the new Millennium.
Is Greenwich worth a visit? I say Yes! It’s a great way to spend a few hours. As always, there is a market (Greenwich Market) full of your typical market stuff, pubs, cute boutiques, a pier, and the Royal Observatory, which is wrapped in green space to have a picnic after you check the time and even the University of Greenwich.
Folks, I’ve got a plane to catch to Chicago, but wanted to pop in and give any French expats or visitors in London the heads-up that Bastille Day (the French Independence Day on 14 July) is being celebrated in London’s Battersea Park this Sunday, 11 July!
This is going to be one of my more all-over-the-place posts, giving you a glimpse at an average day in the life of a Londoner.
It’s a busy week ahead as I prepare to fly home for Chicago on Friday, and mixed in with my packing are a couple great visitors. Very excited about today in particular, as one of the top Anglophiles is in London this week – Jonathan Thomas of Anglotopia! I’ve given a shout-out to Anglotopia here before (“London Relocation Loves Anglotopia” post) and have the privilege of meeting with Jonathan this afternoon for lunch. In selecting a central meeting place, we’ve opted for Ye Olde Cheschire Cheese off of Fleet Street (yes, the Fleet Street of Demon Barber renown). Rebuilt in 1667 after the Great Fire, it is believed that its cellars date back to a monastery that once stood on the site, dating back to the 13th century. So, in about a half hour I’ll be catching the Central Line at Notting Hill Gate tube station.
I always enjoy an opportunity to venture into the City centre, especially on a gorgeous sunny day like today. It is unreal how warm this UK summer has been so far; unfortunately, the grass is the casualty—I’ve never seen the UK so brown. I’m still hoping to sneak a peek, though, at how the gardens of New Square off of Chancery Lane are holding up, as well as venture off to Sports Direct for a UK sports-related birthday present for my nephew—they usually have stellar sales and am hoping now that England is out of the World Cup that one good outcome is slashed prices on football paraphrenalia And what a lovely thing ’tis that I can run such simple errands with St. Paul’s Cathedral as my backdrop, which is an aspect of London that makes the everyday extraordinary. The spouse works around there, too, so perhaps I’ll catch him for a smooch before having to return home for…
…the Virgin Media guy. When you move to London and set up your utilities, a few options you have for TV/phone/internet packages are Virgin, British Telecom (BT), Onetel, and Sky. Londonistas from our London Living network have been asking me lately about this, and I’ve related to them that, while we might have opted for Sky for its movie channels, it required a landline, which we don’t have. Virgin Media, then, has been the provider of choice, and we’ve been so far satisfied with their broadband and cable (complete with On-Demand movies and television shows as well as DVR functionality to record and stop/rewind/fast-forward live TV); the only issue we’re encountering now is the not-so-”Smart Card” we recently received in the mail and had to swap into our box…alas. Not the best timing with the World Cup and Wimbledon underway, is it.
*sigh* After that, I’m sheh-juled to meet with another friend in town with his family. Today, they’re off on the Stonehenge/Bath bus day-tour, so their return should perfectly coordinate with my 4-7pm cable-guy window. As they’re staying in Earls Court, there are a myriad of restaurant options to choose from for dinner, be it a low-key pub like the Blackbird, a gastropub like the Pembroke, or my cafe fave, the Troubadour, not to mention a range of Italian, Thai, Indian, Greek and other cultural cuisine.
Oh, all the wonderful ways in London to procrastinate from packing…All right then, all this being said, I’ve gotsta’ go!
This June-in-review blog post is brought to us all by Sue Hillman of It’s Your London touring company. Providing custom tours of London tailored to your personal interests, It’s Your London will help you make the most of your time in this phenonemonal city. (For more information, see our previous blog post on It’s Your London as well visit www.itsyourlondon.co.uk)
Here’s your London Relocation review of June 2010 when we have seen the arrival of a stomping heat wave which is always a delight if a bit of a shock for us Londoners but has been great for play at Wimbledon. Here are a few highlights from the last month and we’ll not be mentioning the football at all!
We have wonderful big royal events in London and they are amazing spectacles, especially if you can get to see them close up. In June we have the Trooping of the Colour when the Queen celebrates her official birthday – she has 2 being the Queen and her actual birthday is in April. Crowds gather outside Buckingham Palace and along the Mall from about 8 o’clock onwards to get a front spot to see the royals ride past. From about 10 o’clock men in extraordinarily bright uniforms start to march past, then the massed bands gather and march down to Horse Guards Parade where the Trooping takes place. To get a seat for the main event means applying far ahead and being very lucky as you get grandstand views of the Queen inspecting her troops and then certain divisions parade their colours past her. The whole lot then march back up the Mall to Buckingham Palace and all the members of the royal family who are there for the event come out on the balcony to wave to the crowds, hear the 41 gun royal salute and watch the impressive fly past. Once the royals are safely in the palace the crowd is allowed to rush up the gates to get a better view of the balcony. It’s a great morning with a fun atmosphere and so much tradition being played out before you. Here are a few photos to give you the general idea and I was so pleased to get a good one of the Queen but what about poor Prince Philip with the huge bearskin weighing him down!
Open Garden Squares weekend is a fabulous event for the nosey among us! Many of the amazing gardens in London which you just can’t get into normally open their doors for one weekend and a single tickets at the reasonable sum of £7.50 gives you entry to all of them. There are so many to choose from that it’s really hard to pick a few but my favourites were the garden on top of the Ismaili mosque; the Kensington Roof Gardens and Crescent Gardens. The mosque garden was worth a visit as we could go into their prayer room as well which is very modern and is open to women as well. The Roof Gardens are extravagant and mad with Spanish, Tudor and English country gardens sections with pink flamingos to add to the fun. The photos are from here as it’s hard to believe this is the centre of London on top of a major shop! Crescent Gardens are huge private communal gardens which are as big as a park and hidden away so you’d never see them – how the rich live!
On the theme of budget you can’t get better than free! For a few evenings in the summer giant screens go up and there are live screenings of ballet or opera from the Royal Opera House. I went to see one in Trafalgar Square which was magical as the first ballet was beautiful and the advantage of it being a television feed is that you get good close ups. The ballet was Chroma by Wayne McGregor and it was performed by dancers in singlets and no shoes and was rawly brilliant with a driving score. A couple of photos give you some idea of what it was like.
It’s been the best weather for going to riverside pubs so we went to Chiswick in west London for a Sunday lunchtime treat and here’s a photo to show how much effort they go to with their flowers to make it look great. Every pub with a garden in London has been packed out every night as we make the most of the heat (sorry to go on about it but last year summer was very brief!). Other eating out has been in friends’ gardens – and in mine of course. Regents Park hosted the annual Taste of London Festival where top restaurants take a section and serve 3 of their signature dishes in small but decent portions. It’s a great showcase for all things food and drink with lots of stalls offering tasters. We had evening tickets and it was a really fun time grazing and checking out all the different restaurants trying to choose the best ones for our 3 dishes.
I’m off to America for a couple of weeks in July but I’m sure there’ll still be plenty of London activities to tell you about in the two weeks I’ll be in London!
Just over a year ago when chilling in a hostel in Pula, Croatia, a friend lent me a book: Longitude. Cool, I thought, seeing it simply as something that would help me pass the time as I laid around on the beach. A literary dork, I don’t often read nonfiction, so I was surprised how much I ended up enjoying this story of sea clocks that I read through as quickly as I would have a novel. If you have the slightest interest in British history, seafaring, navigation, clocks, or astronomy, I cannot recommend it enough.
astronomy (which relied on the stars as a measure of time…which works great until it gets cloudy!). It’s a fascinating story of dedication and precision and such a testament to man’s perseverance and innovation.
