London Random Stuff
Sat Lav in Westminster
The City of Westminster has many of London’s leading tourist attractions, entertainment areas and shopping districts. What it doesn’t have are extensive and easily findable public toilets. Now the council are doing something to help visitors out who find themselves taken short while out and about.
Sat Lav is a new texting service they’ve started which allows people to locate the nearest public toilet to them in the borough, 24 hourts and day, 7 days a week. Users just have to text TOILET to 80097 and they’ll receive a text message back giving the location and opening hours of the closest public convenience.
Date: November 29th, 2007 |
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Free London tuk-tuk rides
The new Owen Wilson comedy The Darjeeling Limited about three brothers taking a journey through India opens in London this Friday. As a promotion for the film a fleet of tuk-tuk vehicles, familiar anyone whose travelled in India or Southeast Asia will be cruising the streets of central London from 8.45am to 6pm offering free rides.
If you see one that’s empty just hail it down and it will take you where ever you want to go in a specified zone. With the weather on the cold and wet side in London right …
Date: November 21st, 2007 |
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Americans feel the cost of coming to London
There are a couple of interesting articles in The Times today on the subject of the weakness of the US Dollar and its effects on Americans who are visiting the UK or are thinking of doing so. The first is by a student from Boston University who’s in London this autumn for work experience and who writes about coming to terms with British prices. He says the best advice he can give his friends coming over is ‘bring much more money than you ever think you will need.’
The second article looks at the effects on tour operators as numbers …
Date: November 8th, 2007 |
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London Film Premieres in November
08 November - Om Shanti Om A big West End premiere for this new Bollywood extravaganza featuring a host of big name Indian film stars including Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan and Shilpa Shetty (well known in the UK for winning the show Celebrity Big Brother). The premiere takes place at the Empire Leicester Square and if half the stars in it turn up, it should draw a massive crowd of London Bollywood film fans.
11 November - Beowulf After the success of Lord of the Rings Hollywood continues its trawl through English literature and mythology for film ideas, the latest being a screen version of the classic Old English poem Beowulf, about the hero of the same name and his battles. It’s directed by Robert Zemeckis and stars Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone and John Malkovich, although its an animated, performance capture film (something like 300). The premiere’s at the Vue Cinema in Leicester Square, below is one of its trailers.
Date: October 27th, 2007 |
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New stats on London’s population
London has one of the most cosmopolitan populations of any big city in the world and one that’s constantly changing with waves of new immigrants arriving as anyone will tell you. In the part of North London where I live, Eastern Europeans, Somalians and people from other muslim countries have moved in quite rapidly in the last year or two.
The Office of National Statistics have just released figures on the number of foreign born people who live in London and its currently one in three of the capital’s 7.4 million people, with a further 10,000 people born overseas settling in London each month.
Date: October 19th, 2007 |
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Oyster cards on your mobile
Like the sound of having your Oyster card on your mobile phone so you won’t have to carry the plastic card around with you? Well it could soon be happening because phone company O2 are trialling a new system called the O2 Wallet using an adapted Nokia mobile phone that will let 500 of their customers use the handest to swipe on the Oyster card readers on buses, Tubes and trams in London.
The phones can be loaded with credit the same way Oyster cards are in shops and stations throughout the city and users will also be able to pay for goods in stores that have the card readers.
Date: November 28th, 2007 |
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New Eurostar Ads
Above is one of the new advertisements for the Eurostar which have gone up in Belgium promoting their services to London with the slogan ‘London’s just around the corner’ and a picture of a bare chested skinhead with a cross of St George on his back, pissing into a tea cup.
Its a character from Britain that continental Europe is probably familiar with but Eurostar have had complaints from British people complaining about the stereotype.
Date: November 17th, 2007 |
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German trains to use the Channel Tunnel?
Interesting story in the Daily Mail today about the German national rail company Deutsche Bahn putting in an application to use the Channel Tunnel that runs between England and France and the high speed rail link to the new international terminal at St Pancras station.
Their proposal is to link London with Cologne and from there the rest of the German rail network and at four hours journey time between the two cities that would be a really attractive alternative to flying and having to get to or from one of London’s airports.
Date: November 1st, 2007 |
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British Summer Time Ends
British Summer Time officially comes to an end early tomorrow morning when clocks will be put back one hour at 1am. British Summer Time (BST) runs from the last Sunday in March when clocks are moved forward one hour from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) to the last Sunday in October.
In practical terms this means that the sun, which has been rising around 7.40am this week and setting around 5.45pm, will now rise at 6.44am tomorrow and set at 4.43pm. Probably good news if you have to get up early but very noticeable if you get up later because suddenly you’re missing an hour of daylight.
Date: October 27th, 2007 |
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Eating out and about in London
Who says the London Underground is a dirty, smelly place full of grumpy people, its really what you make of it. The kids in the clip above thought a Tube train was the ideal place to have a dinner party and share a glass of wine with friends, and it looks like they were right.
Date: October 4th, 2007 |
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