London Themed London Trip 17/11/18 - St. Paul's, London Transport Museum and Rivers of London Author Event

Ben Aaronovitch, author of Rivers of London, is doing a UK tour as of the time of writing. I was excited when he first announced he was coming to Southampton. But as it turns out, the Southampton one was lunchtime on a Wednesday, when I would be working. So I thought to myself, why don't I go to the London one instead? The London one was also a talk and signing, rather than just a signing. And where better to hear about the Rivers of London series than in London itself?

He did two signings in London on this day - one at Forbidden Planet and one in Foyles, and I went to the later event in Foyles. I thought, why not make it a full London themed day. So I also looked around the cathedral of St. Paul's and the London Transport Museum.

Clothes!
T-shirt: Sainsbury's
Necklace: LAGOM
Earrings: Pylones
Jeans: Jeans.
Not pictured - coat and converse.

My nails looked like this, playing into the London theme!

I pretty much blitzed through this book in my two hour train journey
and had no reading material left for the rest of my day. Oops.

On my way out of Waterloo, I saw a shop window which is the perfect example of my mantra. Always keep your eyes open in London, you never know what you may see. London really does go to town on it's shop fronts, and I took quite a few pictures of shop windows from today.

"Work by Textiles and Jewellery students for the Morley College Catwalk Show 2018"

My first stop was Chocofruit, somewhere I'd heard about online. They do fruit skewers covered in chocolate and with toppings. They are situated in the Southbank market, not far from the London Eye. I actually had considered going on the Eye, but it would have meant queuing and queuing.

This is the marshmallow and strawberry skewer, covered in milk, dark and white chocolate
and topped with mini marshmallows and crispy chocolate balls. It was £4 which I thought was
reasonable for London, since I was expecting it to be double that.

I'm still impressed with the mechanics and architecture of the Eye.

After deciding not to go on the Eye, I made my way to St. Paul's. I find cathedrals are a nice moment of calm in a busy city, and many are working to be places which are welcoming to all.

One of the squares near St. Paul's had this as a 'roof.' It was the perfect London day for pictures,
with clear blue skies and good lighting.

I loved this angle of St. Paul's with the autumn effect on the trees.

This was the front of St. Paul's. I like how the architecture is baroque, different to the normal Gothic style seen in most
cathedrals in the UK. It's also a rather strange juxtaposition in an otherwise very modern part of the city.

There were no photographs allowed inside St. Paul's, but we were given a multimedia tour device. I enjoyed watching the videos about the library and the missing books from it they are trying to locate. The ceilings were also very ornate, with gold detailing. I always find it odd that it was done at a time when many people in that city were poor. But religion means something different now then it did back then, and I appreciate that.

From the cathedral shop, I bought two bookmarks (I have a collection, shush) and a little book on the Suffragettes. One of the bookmarks was leather, with a stained glass window design, and the other was metal with an image of the cathedral in autumn. I chose that one because I was there in autumn, but they had all four seasons available.

Spotted this butterfly on the side of a Bill's restaurant while walking around!

For lunch, I went to BAO, a restaurant doing small bao buns. Since my idea was to do London-related things, I had to include some of the many, many cultures that have made London what it is today. I've always liked the soft buns used for bao. Since I did want to stop off in a few places to eat, I didn't have a huge lunch.

Fried chicken bao and seasonal lemonade. So good I wished I ordered twice.

After BAO, I wanted to find my way to Covent Garden for the British Transport Museum. Looking it up on my phone, I decided to walk it. One of my rules is that if something in London is within walking distance, walk it, as you never know what you might see on the way. Predictably, I overshot one road by a large margin, having to walk half-way back. That's okay, because it gave me shop window gems like these.

I don't really set much store with astrology, but this window was too nice not to photograph.

This one was one that helped me mark that I was getting back on track - I'd seen it before.

November is a really interesting time of year in London. The city is just starting to get a Christmas look to it, but it remains too early to completely feel Christmassy. While in Covent Garden, I bought a necklace of a girl riding a scooter from a stall called Sensations Jewellery.

The London Transport Museum is highly recommended. Under 18's get in free, and there's much to do for kids, as they can go inside much of the old transports they have there. They also had an exhibition on showcasing some of the work done by women on the London Underground advertising posters.

These were fascinating, showing underground maps from foreign cities, by trying to match them up using the coloured lines. They looked really cool.

Now, when I say London is huge and the population exploded over the 1800's, this is what I mean.
The dark blue is the size of London in 1801 and the light blue is the size in 1901
1801 population census: 959,310 1901 population census 4,536,276

"Illustrators and innovators: When Frank Pick took charge of  Underground publicity in 1908 there were few poster artists working in Britain. Almost all were men, a situation reflected in the male-dominated advertising industry. Opportunities for women were mainly limited to book and magazine illustration. From the start, Pick took a progressive view to commissioning, irrespective of gender. The first poster by a woman appeared on the company's trams in 1910. More commissions soon followed, often to established female illustrators, and by 1920 a new group of women poster artists was beginning to emerge."

"This exhibition celebrates a century of outstanding poster art by women designers, illustrators and fine artists. From small beginnings in 1910 to Transport for London's contemporary commissioning programme, more than 170 female artists have designed posters for the Capital's Tube, buses and trams. Many of the names featured in the exhibition are unfamiliar today and deserve to be better known. Championed by London Transport and admired by the travelling public, they are the heroines of twentieth century design."

I feel like these poster images speak for themselves, so I will leave them here!

Ella Coates, Miss Bowden, Nancy Smith

Hilda Cowham

"A female persepective?: London Underground's progressive attitude towards advertising wasn't just shown in the numbers of women artists they used but also in the commissions they received. All these posters designed for the interiors of Tube carriages and buses are by women. What's notable is the variety of subjects covered. At a time when women artists were seen as best suited to feminine subjects, Frank Pick showed no such prejudices, giving traditionally masculine subjects like sports matches and motor shows to female designers. Some of these modern subjects also depict a new women, emancipated and travelling for her own independent pleasure."

Mary Adshead

Vera Willoughby and Irene Fawkes

Bought another bookmark from the Transport Museum, this time of the Central line! I chose the Central line as it seems to be the one line I end up on most often.

The next place I wanted to go was to Snowflake Gelato, in Selfridges, to try their new pumpkin pie ice cream, served in an actual pumpkin!

Selfridges always goes to town on their Christmas window displays. Enjoy this rocking Santa!

I got so lost, I was wandering up and down the escalators here forever, finally locating it right at the back of the food hall.

I'll be honest, I wasn't overly struck. The ice cream wasn't as creamy as I like ice cream
and it wasn't worth the £9.50 price tag. I guess an extra bonus is that it's vegan, but in
London, you can find far better vegan options.

It was finally time to find my way to Foyles for the event. I made sure to get there extra early, so I could have a look around Foyles first. It's a six-floor bookshop, so I needed to. I have a rule that if I could find anything easily in my local Waterstones, I don't get it from Foyles. I bought China Rich Girlfriend, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, Piglettes and I Believe in a Thing Called Love.

The space upstairs for the talk.

Ben does his whole thing Q&A style, so he really gets to play off the audience well. I found out that at first, the accuracy of his depiction of the London Met wasn't paramount, and is something that has come out more in his later books. He also mentions that his books hit during the zeitgeist, a perfect cultural moment. A whole generation of Harry Potter fans grew up and started looking for a new Harry Potter. Although his books really aren't exactly like Harry Potter, but... the point still stands.

Just after signing. I swear, I'm so awkward at author events.

His signature.

Purchases of the day! Suffragettes book, autumn cathedral bookmark,
stained glass window bookmark, Circle line bookmark, necklace,
Lies Sleeping, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy,
I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Piglettes and China Rich Girlfriend