An instant feckle-raiser* to many new arrivals to Old Blighty from Australia is the idea of the TV Licence – the annual fee which owners of TVs pay, which goes into funding the BBC.  Personally I don’t mind the idea at all, and think it’s a reasonable way of funding a national broadcaster, and every now and again one gets the opportunity to see something which the licence fee is going towards which reinforces what excellent work some parts of the BBC do.
Previously my exposure to such things was chiefly …

London – Eating & Drinking – Fastfood & Takeaway – Fish & Chips
“Fish & chips” is an interesting cuisine option – it’s almost universally invoked with a modicum of enthusiasm, and is very much regarded as an English cultural cornerstone – and though it’s ostensibly a simple meal, there’s definitely a huge variation in quality. One thing that’s always puzzled me, in fact, is how people maintain their enthusiasm for fish & chips from their local chippy when it’s obviously terrible.
Having walked past The Laughing Halibut many-a lunchtime to …

London – Eating & Drinking – Pubs & Bars – Pubs
Out on a Saturday evening’s pub-skylarking with a friend we found ourselves in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, and I have to say – I was very impressed!
Initially the heat from the fireplace seemed oppressive, but that was possibly in contrast from the frigid chill we’d come in from. As our eyes adjusted to the stygian darkness of the front bar we managed to find a couple of chairs and thought “Ah well, this is a tourist pub – we’ll …

London – Eating & Drinking – Pubs & Bars – Pubs
We recently bowled in here for a Sunday roast whilst in the neighbourhood – as a visitor from the far North I’d often heard of The Union in the wilds of Greenwich, and was quite pleased with what I found.
The main drawcard of this place is the beer: the tap selection is almost solely the preserve of Meantime Brewery, London’s excellent artisans of the brew. There were around 6-8 interesting looking beers on keg, and 3 further ales on …

London – Eating & Drinking – Pubs & Bars – Pubs
The Speaker is a neat, cosy little bolthole tucked away in Westminster – a perfect place to be snugly installed with a pint of real ale when the freezing rain’s lashing down outside!
A favourite of nearby officeworkers (and often, parlimentarians), if you arrive much after 5pm – or at any time on a Friday night – the chances of finding one of the few available seats is fairly minimal. You would never call The Speaker a spacious place.
The selection …

London
There’s a tendency in this country for quite mediocre businesses to survive or even flourish based on their proximity to large groups of lazy people. There’s the Station-to-Pub-Proximity-Rule to illustrate this (in that by and large the quality of a pub will be inversely proportional to its distance from a train station), and then there’s the fact that a sizeable part of any office population will quite happily go to the pub or sandwich bar nearest to the office because… well… it’s the nearest.
So, with that introduction: Cafe Fresco.
It’s …

London
Have you ever wandered into a restaurant because you were getting really hungry, were in a rush to be somewhere else, and the place had (lots) of empty tables?
Well, in this case, the best advice would be to keep looking.
2 colleagues and I had originally hoped to get into Chowki for a bite before a gig, however it was completely heaving and we didn’t stand a chance. After some furtive darting about Soho we settled on the Piccadilly.
Appearance-wise it seemed functional enough – a little tacky in that 70’s/80’s …

Westminster
After reading about all of the wonderful coffee places springing up in the City in the last few months, jealousy began to take hold of the workers in the St James’s Park/Victoria area. Around here it’s all been the main chains, and lunchtime sandwich bars. Quality’s therefore ranged from acceptably-above-mediocre to DIRE.
With the arrival of Fabio & Charlie and The Flat Cap Coffee Company however all this has changed, and proper coffee can be found in the streets of Westminster!
Fabio is an expert barista with incredible knowledge and …

London – Eating & Drinking – Pubs & Bars – Pubs
Many elements must converge to make a great pub, and The Gunmakers is one of a handful of central London pubs which exemplifies this.
The main drawcard is the always-changing selection of immaculately kept real ales. Landlord Jeff takes great care of his beer, and won’t serve a shoddy pint. He’ll typically have 2 regular ales & 2 rotating guests based on the season – you’ll often find a lineup like Harvey’s Sussex Best, Purity Mad Goose, Theakston’s Old …

I’ve loved reading Viz magazine since I was about 16. After first being exposed to the wholesome, 1950s-style optimism of British “Fish & Chips” comics like Dandy and Beano there was something that spoke to me in the subversive and sniggering-behind-the-bike-shed humour of Viz and its motley band of characters like Felix & His Amazing Underpants, The Fat Slags, Buster Gonad & His Unfeasibly Large Testicles, and Roger Irrelevant.  Reading Viz was a bit like listening to Derek and Clive: you knew you weren’t really supposed to be doing …