Hello, welcome to London!

Hi! I've been living in London for 7 years now. One thing I love about it is that many areas are true micro cosmos of cultures, sometimes totally unexpected. For some reasons I had to move to Southall and I discovered a world in London I wasn't aware of. Southall looks to me like the center of the Indian and surrounding areas community in London. It's like walking into a separate world full of colours, spices, clothes with traditional decorations, turbans and well groomed beards. When I walk the streets people look at me like an alien, for some reason I like this feeling because it makes me feel like the world still have unexplored areas that can enrich you. I really love London, I really do.

Taken on approach to Heathrow at around 8am Sunday 4th Oct

If you've ever travelled along Loampit Hill between New Cross and Lewisham, you might have noticed this unusual old house at number 62.

The house was originally called Beaufort Lodge and was built in 1850 by a local architect (Alfred Cross) for him to live in. Cross designed a number of houses in the area but Beaufort Lodge seems to have been the one where he left himself get a bit more experimental. It's an eccentric Victorian villa in red brick, dominated by a tall square tower with an unusual pagoda-like roof and it's covered in decorative details like arches, mouldings, patterns and faces.

But the house became much more famous over a century later when someone else moved in...

Brenton Pink came to Britain from Jamaica in 1957 as part of the Windrush generation and he bought the house in 1967. Apparently, it was already dilapidated at that point but over the following decades he transformed the house into something that felt like home. He painted it in vivid pinks, reds, blues, yellows and white, and he made his own sculptural additions to the building. He also filled the garden with plants that reminded him of Jamaica.

Pink worked for Lewisham Council and became something of a local landmark himself. People say remember him sitting outside the house, gardening, singing and talking to people passing by. And there was even a short documentary made about him (A Portrait of Mr Pink) where he talks about how he wanted to created a part of Jamaica here in London :)

I wanted to share here because I love that the building was already one man's eccentric expression of himself when it was built in the 1850s.. and then more than a century later, Mr Pink did the same thing all over again. And now we have this strange mix of Victorian architectural fantasy and Jamaican colour and identity.

Sadly Mr Pink died in 2017 (aged 92!) and the house has deteriorated badly since then. But conservation groups and local societies have been trying to find a way of preserving it.

Day: Slow Horses
Night: Batman

On two occurrences now (one I’ve been with him), my friend has witnessed young guys buying a silly amount (I reckon 20-30) of Buzzballs in Wetherspoons.

The time I was with him, the staff have even brought out cardboard boxes so they could put the Buzzballs in them and obviously transport them as they clearly weren’t drinking them. The other time I wasn’t with him, my friend said that they weren’t given boxes but they were putting them in pockets, bags etc.

The thing confusing us is that the Buzzballs in Spoons aren’t even cheaper than they are in newsagents or supermarkets, so it can’t be a money making thing surely?

What could be going on here? Just curious really. Am I missing a trick?

Edit: we asked one of the bar staff why there weren’t any Buzzballs available on the app (obviously knowing why) 🤡 and he said “oh some guy bought 300 of them to sell on at parties…” what???!!! Not sure if that’s the real reason…would you not order that many from Tesco for cheaper? All v confusing.

Back in the day, some London streets were paved with wood. Quieter than stone, cheaper than asphalt and relatively durable. If you keep your eyes peeled you can sometimes still find small sections of it here and there.

An interesting bit of London history.

Is anyone else sick to death of them.

Back when it was just a speaker outside a ship I hated them enough. But every fkin day I have to hear a long speech about how I’m going to hell at the bus stop on the train and literally everywhere else.

I'm about to sit down for a curry.

I owe this community for various reasons.

If anyone wants a curry, and they're near Hayes Ub4, dm me and I'll send you the restaurant address.

It's on me.

First person to request and able to get here has it.

European here, used to having pharmacies open all night long so you can pick up emergency prescriptions. Here the latest closing pharmacy in central I could find is Boots in Liverpool Street which shuts at 8pm - and online services won't deliver prescription medicines I found.

How come there's no night pharmacies in one of the world's largest & most developed capital cities?

Edit: if you know a pharmacy that's open until at least 11pm, please share name and link to its location here (and please double check before sharing), hopefully this will help someone else in the future!

Looked up earlier and caught this stunning WWII flying boat cruising above London! Hearing those old engines go past was amazing. Did anyone else manage to spot it today?

I booked a Bolt at around 10:50pm on Saturday night in London.

Now Bolt offer an option where you could wait a little longer in exchange for knocking a few quid off the fare. I took it to pay £11 for my ride rather than paying roughly £13 for the quicker option.

At the time, I had no issue waiting the extra 10 minutes, so I naturally chose the cheaper fare. Little did I know that was a complete fuck up..

It took around 45 minutes for me to find a driver, and that driver was 7 mins away but decided to cancel half way through getting to me. Found another driver, who also cancelled instantly.

By that point, I’d been waiting close to an hour simply trying to get home. And when I was looking to try again,the fare had increased to around £16.

So instead of paying £13 at the start for the quicker option, I chose the £11 option based on the waiting time Bolt was showing me. I then waited nearly an hour, had two drivers cancel, and was ultimately being asked to pay more than the quicker option would have cost in the first place.

I contacted Bolt support and explained the situation. Their response was essentially that prices can change depending on demand.
I understand that. Dynamic pricing is not what I’m complaining about.

The issue is that I made a decision based on the service you were presenting. Had I known that the estimated 10 minute wait could become waiting an hour with two cancellations, I would obviously have paid the extra £2 at the beginning.

I asked for the complaint to be escalated and was told that it had gone through an official supervisor review. The response was effectively the same. No account credit, no goodwill gesture, and no meaningful acknowledgement that the service itself had fallen well below what was presented.

Not saying that a 10 minute estimate should be treated as a guaranteed arrival time. Delays happen, particularly on a Saturday night. But there is a substantial difference between a 10 minute estimate becoming 15 or 20 minutes and it becoming nearly an hour with two separate

Am I being unreasonable here?

As seen from Ironworks close to Canning Town

I've seen this before at the Heathrow bus station, where there's a queue for the left lift because the sign looks like only that one goes to the tube or terminals 2 and 3

I’ve been living in London for a fair few years now and done a series of walks from this book, however my partner and I are both so confused where this distinctive archway is from the front cover of the book collection, if anyone has any ideas please let me know.