Canal Museum

A few moments stroll from Kings Cross Station, just past the McDonalds, there is a sign for the Caledonian Canal. For the student of geography or waterways this will come as a surprise as the canal runs from Inverness to Fort William. In Scotland. And the sign is intended for walkers.

You'd have to be a keen walker - it's 561 miles away.

Of course this is silly. Follow the sign and you'll find roads with nautical names - Crinan Street, The Caledonian Road, Warfdale Road and most importantly, New Warf Road, home of the London Canal Museum.

The museum is housed in a small warehouse. Not a conventional one, but an ice warehouse. It dates from the days when ice was dug out of the Thames when it froze, and stored. Later a more reliable supply was found by importing the stuff from Norway. Below the museum are huge vats where the ice would have been stored and then transported on to the London gentry. Eventually methods to manufacture ice were developed but these were on an industrial scale so the warehouse continued to house the domestically produced product. In an era when ice production is within the capabilities of even the poorest equipped kitchen (although the recipe seems to elude people judging by the amount of ice for sale in supermarkets...) it's difficult to image a world when it wasn't available or so valuable you'd haul it across the sea.

Anyway, I pitched up just before opening time and had to hang a round a few minutes while the attendant opened up. He apologised profusely even though I was the entire queue and we were talking less than five minutes delay. I had to wait longer for the ticket seller on the Eiffel Tower to stop chatting on the phone to her boyfriend a few years ago - and I and the rest of those waiting were merely granted a sneer for our trouble.

So, what do you get for your 3 quid entry fee ?

The ground floor is home to half a barge. It's a proper working, coal carrier type and visitors can explore the living area with it's clever woodwork and amazing use of space. This makes you wonder about the absolutely tiny area a family would exist in. I've read about the cramped conditions but only really understood how cramped by standing in the space. My VW Camper isn't exactly luxurious and it's only intended for short breaks but the volume isn't that much smaller than that available to a family for life.

There are displays covering the history of the building and the ice trade. Also old tools and machines for handling goods are displayed. Of course there is also a souvenir shop. Rather than being full of tat this is really good - a wide range of books on canals including history and navigation. Stuff for kids and stuff for grown-ups. Sensible prices too.

Upstairs there is plenty of reading to do. Lots of boards with canal histories. Each covers a different topic and overall the studious visitor would get a real grounding in waterway history. In one corner a series of films are running. These vary from ancient to modern - many date from the 1950's as far as I could tell and were film makers attempts to document a way of life that was dieing out rapidly.

There are a few cases of models showing the different boats used around the country. It's not often appreciated that canals were not the same everywhere. Midlanders will be familiar with narrowboats intended for a 7ft wide lock but on Norfolk and the North much wider navigation's made for wider boats allowed larger loads to be carried, more like the current European examples.

Out the back there is a wharf with boat moorings. I'll admit to looking at these with a degree of envy. It's a quiet spot considering the central London location, almost tranquil. OK you are overlooked on all sides by warehouses that have been converted to flats but living on a boat I expect you get used to be an object of interest. The museum owns a small Bantam tug which interested me a lot as a potential subject for a model. It's tiny and brightly coloured so appeals to the inner child and is pug ugly which appeal to the industrial artist.

If you know little about the waterways world but want to learn then the Canal Museum is a great place to visit. I reckon most people could go round in a couple of hours and enjoy the trip. Obviously if there is a special event taking place, there are several through the year, then all bets are off and you might be there all day !

Visit the website - full of info but terrible to navigate.

More of my pictures on Flickr.

Borough Market

Proper travellers roam the great cities of the world and always seem to pitch up at just the right time to take part in the local festival. I'm no good at this - the posters are either telling me something great is about to happen, or their remains tell me it was a week ago.

London is full of markets. Many of you reading this will be familiar with them and probably regularly drop into Portobello to pick up some ancient nik-naks or similar. When I go to Portebello all I see is empty stalls and litter - smoked salmon and pommes frites wrappers, that sort of thing.

Anyway, for a change I bumped into Borough Market when it was open. And it is amazing. At first I thought this was a quaint local thing under the railway near the Thames. A few minutes later I realised my mistake - it's bloody enormous. Still takes place under the railway though...

London is a global city and this is it's global fruit and veg market. If you can eat it, then it's probably here. Many of the traders have travelled serious distances to sell organic mushrooms and weird cheese. I suppose the locals are workers in the centre of London and are either minted, or are looking at foods from home. Whatever, they aren't likely to look at the products and ask for directions to the nearest branch of Farm Foods.

Actually, the mix of stalls is odd. Most are selling delli items but a few do the proper piles of veg. Now I can see the point of picking up a few soupcons of cheese or mushroom, maybe a French style bread or Portuguese poncycake but 5 pounds of King Edwards ? There aren't that many people for whom this is the local market are there ?

My money stayed firmly in my pocket as the moment I started spending I knew a backpack full of posh cakes would be the result. Then I'd walk around transferring the weight from my back to my middle. What I did do was try every free sample offered to me, which staved off the hunger pangs for a while. I was a good boy and didn't go round for a second go at the chocolate brownies even though it was tempting.

Borough Market Website.

The Riverside

Good grub in London ? You want some of those jellied eels guv'nor.

No I don't. No really. The day I feel like eating a pot full of iced slime will be many days since I will last had solids. How hungry do you have to be to eat those ? I know eels are cheap and nutritious but I'm thinking roast rat might be tastier.

Fortunatly, neither roast rat or icy slime were on the menu at the Riverside on St Katherines Dock. Instead I plumped for the fish'n'chips. Plumped turned out to be a good description for the feast served up. Not just the fish, and chips but a generous salad as well. Good grief, that makes it a healthy meal !

Normally you can tell how good a London eatery is by the number of fluorescent jackets inside (more=better) but there were none to be seen. A good number of suits were eating with me though so despite the location right in the heart of tourist land, a few minutes walk from Tower Bridge, this was a proper cafe doing real food for real people. I hesitate to go on an "eat where the locals eat" riff but it's not a bad idea sometimes.

The guys on the next table were engaged in an earnest and loud discussion about computer networking. The merits of different types of security protocols and the idiots who decide what is appropriate were considered at length. One also decided he wanted to whinge about the tea (white floaty milk bits) and chips (to many. Not "right" - he was an idiot, they were lovely). If it hadn't been raining I'd have left as soon as I'd eaten rather than listen to the ins and outs of connection speeds.

The rain was coming down - there was more water in the sky than in the dock - so I felt forced to stop for desert. My waiter said the chocolate fudge cake could be made to come with cream at my request and it did. The art created with a squirty cream can rivalled that seen in the better galleries. It tasted good too.

All this (fish, chips, salad, tea, can of coke, pudding) for 11 quid. In London, according to Lonely Planet, that is as budget as you get. Bargain.

Foyles food

Foyles food
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

There I was, innocently wandering along a London thoroughfare when an A-board offers the tempting prospect of a cafe with free jazz. A moments weakness and I climbed the stairs of the worlds biggest bookshop to get some refreshment.

The cafes not huge and has excessively olde worlde seating more suited to a country barn (a smart one mind) and CD racks. We are in the corner of the music department.

The drink selection will be familiar to anyone who's been in a modern coffee house. I went for the hot chocolate. It's served in a proper mug not some fancy shaped cup, beaker or chalice. It tasted nice too and was just the right temperature.

Cakes are as right -on as you can get. Nothing containing dead animal is available so I settled for vegan (yes vegan) ginger cake. All I can say is that vegans either aren't as fey as they are made out to be, or the strength of the flavour will blow their heads off. I'm a proper red-blooded carnivore and I found it strong. Nice though.

And the jazz ? Well it was experimental. Or crap depending on how accurate you want to be. Blowing randomly on a flute does not count as music. If it's no better than I can do then shut up 'cos I'm rubbish at tuney things and if you don't, I have a ukulele and don't know how to use it...

Tower Bridge

If ever there was a landmark to represent the south of England, this is it. An iconic image, known around the world, and a bit fake 'cos it's covered with stone cladding.

Let me explain. Tower bridge exists in its current form for a simple reason. At the time it was built, any river crossing on the Thames needed to provide for sailing ships to access wharfs upstream. Hence, the bridge either had to be very tall or open to clear the masts.

The way it does this is very clever. A pair of steam engines pressurise a pair of accumulators (a water reservoir with heavy weights sitting on top). When the bridge has to open, the accumulators power engines that open the road way (bascules for techies). The complicated system is needed because the steam engines couldn't open the bridge fast enough on their own but they can store enough energy to do the job. The building is really a big machine - a bit like the Laxey wheel - with decoration. It's internal structure is steel and to make it look prettier the who thing is covered with stone embellishments, much like many houses around the country...

Anyway, all this stuff is explained if you visit the exhibition in the tower, it just takes a bit of time to get there. The entrance is at the base of one tower where a badly designed foyer slows you down. 6 quid gets you in once you've been frisked and had your bags x-rayed. Then a photographer takes your photo, "just for fun" - he wasn't impressed that I refused. Once the lift is full, visitors are conveyed to the top of the tower.

A short film with (surprisingly) some of the cream acting talent in covers a bit of history and most people sat through this politely. The real reason most make the trip is the view from the walkways. Originally conceived as a way for foot passengers to cross the river when the bridge was open they are now glazed (hooray, it was raining when I went) and have a slight duff display explaining what the Victorians did for us. Why anyone cares when farm laborers got the vote when they are in a great example of the engineering of the age I don't know but the British way is to pretend that the technical stuff is too difficult. There were some nice pictures of the construction but the multi-lingual captions were never more than 2 lines long.

The view is worth the trip though. From one side you can see the City - if the clouds aren't blotting it out. From the other, city hall, HMS Belfast etc. A nice touch are the sliding hatches for cameras to be poked out of - there are even ramps to help the shorter tourist up to some of these.

Less clever is the stand from the photographer who took the pictures in the entrance. Your image is superimposed on a background of the bridge - and you can buy a copy ! Woo and Hoo I say. It's not like anyone visiting London owns a camera and couldn't just take a picture themselves by, ermmm, standing in front of the bridge and pressing the shutter.

Once you've been down the send tower, a further delight awaits. Included in the admission prices is a visit to "The Engine Room" - just follow the blue line painted on the pavement down under the approach road and you get some proper engineering. One of the steam engines is on show with numbers to explain what the various bits are (good) the other is rotated by a motor and lit by infuriating flashing coloured lights for no good reason (bad). Further on the accumulators and various other bits are displayed for marvelling at by the tourist. I liked this stuff but then I love heavy mechanical things and seeing how machines work. The explanations were pretty good with excellent diagrams to cover a fairly complex system.

At the end, obviously, there is a souvenir shop. It's not very good although you can buy two "Make your own Tower Bridge" kits and no end of books explaining what the Victorians did. To be honest though, the tat was the same stuff available anywhere in London. Am I alone in wanting nice location specific junk ? At least that way you have to actually visit the place rather than just raiding the shop in the duty-free on the way through the airport.

The pavements of London are hard. I mention this only because I decided to sit down and read the paper for a while after leaving the Tower exhibition. A few clues into the crossword there were some boats horns blaring - I looked up and the bridge was opening to allow a replica Las Vegas showboat to pass which finished the visit very nicely.

My London pictures on Flickr

Tower Bridge on Wikipedia

Cartoon Museum

London is full of odd-ball attractions. If you fancy museums of fans, tea or spectacles you're in luck. While I love a good cuppa and have worn glasses for years, I tried the Cartoon Museum in Little Russell Street instead. It's just around the corner from the slightly better know British Museum but as I'm not as big a fan of stolen marble as I am of speech bubbles, cartoons it was.

The building is unprepossessing tucked in amongst the special London mix of posh eateries and tacky gift shops. A street sign outside announces its presence and to be honest I stumbled it this by accident. Entry is a reasonable £4 which gives you access to whatever is on as the special exhibition plus the usual fare covering the history of cartoons and many original copies of classic British strips.

The special was an exhibition of the cartoonist Pont. No, I'd never heard of him either but that's not always a bad thing. Pont (real name, Graham Laidler) wryly observed the British character and committed these to paper. Mainly published in Punch before, and just into WW2 his drawings are still amusing today. Well they made me laugh anyway. It's difficult to describe the cartoons but one that sticks in my mind is titled the – The British, Like to fit in when traveling abroad – with a picture of a couple of tents in a jungle and the intrepid explorers sitting around the table in full evening dress.

Not having heard of Pont before I wasa tad worried how heavy this would be. This history section of the main gallery covers people like Hogarth who may have been devastating in their day, now mean nothing to anyone other than cartoon officiaonardos. One snippet I picked up from this part of the display that appealed was that in the early days of print, books were so expensive that publishers would hire out a folio for “an evenings entertainment”. I can imagine the volume being brought home with the same sort of excitement a new DVD is now, The whole family would settle down for a good read and laugh about the failings of the great and good.

Upstairs the visitor is treated to a display of original cartoons from many famous cartoonists and comics. These tend to date from pre-computer days and I was fascinated to see how many parts of the page are stuck in place using copied parts. I suppose it makes sense that the artist doing the cover of 2000AD doesn't have to draw the title every time. Quite a lot of Tippex and general tidying up showed too. I suppose this all disappeared at the printers and it's interesting to see. I'll be honest – seeing the words “digital print” against a item made me think they'd simply photocopied a page. I want ink and paper and watercolour paint not inkjet printers !

My visit lasted a couple of hours at most and much of this time was spent chortling and enjoying the subject matter. If I have a complaint it would be the souvenir shop. I wanted copies of some of the Pont cartoons, ideally as postcards. Sadly all that was available were prints at £28 a throw or the £11 programme. The later was good value being a fat volume with life history and lots of illustration but you can't really post bits to people who would appreciate them.

Visit the Cartoon Museum Website

Laxey Mines

Laxey isn't home to just one giant waterwheel, it actually has two. In the gardens at the centre of the town a smaller wheel has been erected. Smaller is a relative term as it's still around 30 feet in the diameter so pretty impressive. When I first saw this under construction a couple of years ago I thought it was an odd move - surely they didn't need this miniature impostor when the real thing was a few minutes walk away ?

As it turns out the "small" wheel has history. It started life at the top of the valley powering stone crushing equipment. When this was no longer required the wheel moved around, ending up in a museum in Wales where it was discovered half-buried and repatriated. Now restored it forms the centrepiece of the gardens that great visitors to Laxey.

Of course one new attraction is fine, but two is better. Joining the two wheels is the Laxey Mines Railway. This is a completely new line built over the last 5 years. Two identical locomotives run it with a couple of coaches and demonstration train of iron tub wagons. The locos are replicas of Lewin built, Ant and Bee, which used to pull the ore trains into the mine workings. Nowadays they provide a fun ride a quarter of a mile up the valley to the main wheel.

When I arrived it was raining yet the volunteers running the line were cheery and friendly. Considering the weather forecast for the rest of the day this was good going and probably the sort of thing you can only sustain while wearing a bright orange pair of overalls. New for this year is a station around a sharp curve from the tunnel entrance but in the rain trains were leaving from outside the engine shed so the passengers could shelter.

The ride takes a few minutes and thanks to the rain, not many got off to continue on foot to Lady Isabella. There was a slight delay on the return as the driver had to remove his waterproof overtrousers - they might keep the weather off but at the price of roasting his legs in the tunnel !

Back at the start I managed to get a quick guided tour of Bee which was in bits for boiler testing. Apparently even though the locomotives are new, the construction wasn't of the highest quality. Ant has already been rebuilt and Bee is due for the same expensive treatment soon. We chatted technical for a while and I now know far more about these odd little engines, and have some unusual photos as a result.

This isn't a serious ride but what makes it is the sense of fun you get from the people running things - they really care about their little line. It's not just a railway enthusiast thing either. They care about entertaining the punters. On fathers day, Dads and Grandads get a free ride. Halloween sees the tunnel turned into a ghost train. Yes it's a railway which represents some important history in the Laxey valley but it's far more fun than that.

If you don't fancy steam heritage then a five minute walk away there is a the Laxey Woolen Mill. There real Manx wool products are made in a semi-traditional way. To me a jumper is a jumper but the loom was something else. It was set up to weave a traditional Manx tartan and uses a Jacquard style paper tape to set the threads for each pass of the shuttle. Power comes from a set of bicycle pedals so it's very "green" !

See a video of the loom here.

More photos on Flickr

Laxey Mines Railway website