Walk: Vintage Soho

Today - well, there was a ton of stuff on Meetup! I finally decided that the most attractive thing was the Vintage Soho guided walk with Barrie, again with the 45+ Not Grumpy Old Londoners (it's a bank holiday, you see). As with so many of his walks, however, tickets were also available with TAC - and even though I still had to pay him £5 cash on the day, it represented a saving!

My, I had trouble with buses though - third time recently I've had to take three! The first driver told me the road was blocked, and she'd only take us to King's Cross. OK - I could get another from there. The second bus driver told me he was only going as far as Russell Square. OK, it was at least on the way.. the third, amazingly, left there (which was its terminus) when it was supposed to. Unheard of, for a bus to leave its terminus on time! Anyway, it went down Great Russell Street, of all things, which is ridiculous, given the traffic on it! Delivery vans, pedestrians, parked cars.. Its TFL page seems to indicate that that's the regular route too, although Google Maps doesn't seem to think so! Caveat emptor - they recently changed the bus routes, that might be the source of the problem. Seriously though, it'd have been faster to walk..

I got there in time, the guide standing on a flight of steps, wearing a very visible red/orange jacket. For all that, it was impossible to see him for most of the walk, walking between stops - he's a bit short, you see! Well, we managed. Also ran into someone from Laurence's walks, which was nice. This walk was mostly about the music - the "tribes", the clubs, the stars.. it was lovely to hear about it from someone who saw it in the day, though.

We started in Chinatown, which was apparently quite intimidating for our guide, back in the day - well yes, if the area is full of Chinese people, speaking a different language, I can imagine a little boy would find it strange!

Crikey, Waxy's is expanding:

Oh, and we saw the site of the UK's first Wimpy bar! Hmm, that's where I first got a taste for curry, from the gorgeous smell emanating from a Wimpy Bar.. Back in the day, apparently the thing was coffee bars:

and we were told about an exclusive club that hung out here, admitting only the outcasts of society:

Man though, I have to say I perked up when I heard about Le Macabre Coffee Bar, which was the hangout of Screaming Lord Sutch:

..and which segued nicely into Hammer House, where, you know, they made the horror films.. I remember watching these on tv when I was a kid! Excellent stuff..

And, of course, the fashion revolution around Carnaby Street was mentioned:

With frequent blasts of snippets of music from his MP3 player, this was a most atmospheric talk - lovely way to spend a free afternoon. Headed for dinner afterwards at Bar Remo, the first place I didn't see a queue - the ground level was full, but happily, they have a basement. And, once some of the customers left and the pressure was off, service was a dream! As was the chicken in cream sauce with mushrooms, although to be fair the sautée potatoes were the highlight - absolutely to die for. Wine also comes in carafes, so I had one.. and the ice cream is lovely. Not the cheapest, but not astronomical either, and lovely every now and again.

On the way home, I was passed by a Paddington Afternoon Tea bus..

No problems actually getting a bus home either. Unusually.

Tomorrow, I was thinking film again - but another late listing has the World Music Meetup (WMM) advertising Sounds of Sudan, at St. Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. At a time when Sudan is in the news for all the wrong reasons, this sounds a lovely concert by Sudanese artist Mo Sarrar. So now I'm going to that.

On Wednesday, again, loads of stuff on Meetup - but two of my groups are running events that would interest me, but are sold out. The Horror Book Club, meantime, is reading The Yellow Wallpaper - a novella that I found on Kindle, and downloaded a free sample for. Mind you, it came as part of a collection.. and is so short that its entirety was included in the free sample! so I read the whole thing in half an hour. How different from our last assignment.. I wasn't that keen on it - although the ending is good. So I'll probably head to yet another film that night. That blasted film listings site still has, as of now, partial listings up for it. Frankly, they're taking the mickey now. So - subject to change, as so many films are listed with the caveat "no information available at the moment" - Wednesday's film is looking like How to Blow Up a Pipeline, the fictional account of climate activists attacking a pipeline in Texas. Showing in my local cinema - not that the listings site let me in on that secret, but from experience, I tried the cinema website myself directly..

On Thursday, I booked a livestream from the Crick Crack Club, from the Story Museum Oxford. This is King Lear Retold. However, these tend to be available for a week after - so I've taken the opportunity, also, to book another concert with the WMM! This is La Chinganera, in the Finnish Church - and the concerts organised by Eleanor Salter Thorn of TunedIn London are always good!

Then back to Ireland for the coronation weekend..