Where In The World? No 35 #India

Where in the World? is our occasional series in which Adam, The Daily Constitutional’s Editor is logging the locations of his London Walkers.

“We meet people from all over the world, and I thought it would be fun to map them out to create a picture of where our London Walkers (and Daily Constitutionalists) come from.

We’ll be breaking it down by English and Welsh counties, Scottish regions, Irish provinces, U.S States, Canadian provinces, Australian states, European, Asian, African and South American countries.”

Today we're adding India to the map! 

A few weeks ago I was joined on the Rock'n'Roll London Pub Walk by an old friend – or repeat offender as I like to call 'em – a London Walker who had joined me on a previous walk. 

In this case, however, my Walker was not only joining us again but repeating the same walk! I must have done something right the first time around!

He was part of the team that had re-launched the famous Royal Enfield motorcycle in the UK – a famous name in the world of motorbikes now made in India. The Royal Enfield people joined us with a gang of international journalists on a Rock'n'Roll London Walk during a trip that also included a visit to the famous Ace Cafe in North London and a bike ride to Brighton. I recently read that the re-launch was such a success that shifts have been doubled at the plant where the bikes are made. I like to think our Rock'n'Roll London walk contributed to their success!

India in London

The most famous Indian statesman of all has to be Jawaharlal Nehru. Widely regarded as the political founding father of modern India, he was Prime Minister of India from 1947 - 1964. He trained to be a barrister here in London at Inner Temple, and lived at Elgin Crescent in the Borough of Kensington from 1910 - 1912. His bust…

… can be found outside the Indian High Commission in Aldwych.

(Nehru featured on our Political Top Trumps series last year.)

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A London Walk costs £9 – £7 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.

In & Around #London… Bits of the City of London

Monday is mute on The Daily Constitutional (well, almost mute) – because Monday is the day when we post five images captured in and around London by London Walks Guides and London Walkers.

Collated on a theme or an area, if you've got some great shots of our capital and want to join in send your pictures to the usual address.

The Monument looking up

The City from Camberwell in the south

The City from Alexandra Palace in the north

I wanna wake up in the City that's never finished…

The Monument looking down

POST UPDATED 25/3/16

A London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.

Walk of the Week: Literary Bloomsbury

Every Sunday we’ll pluck just one walk from the vast London Walks repertoire and put it centre stage.

You can check out the full schedule at www.walks.com.

But if you only take one walking tour this week, why not make it…

In keeping with this month's Literary London theme here on The DC…

LITERARY BLOOMSBURY & THE OLD MUSEUM QUARTER

There's no need to book. A London Walk takes about two hours and costs £9 or £7 for concs. Kids under 15 accompanied by their parent[s] go free.

Tuesdays at 2:30p.m from Holborn Tube

What larks! What plunges! Because this walk also explores "the other Bloomsbury" - the Bloomsbury the tourists don't get to see. The problem - for them, not us - is the sheer gravitational "pull" of the British Museum and Virginia Woolf and co. "We take chairs and sit on our balcony after dinner... Really Gordon Square, with the lamps lit and the light on the green is a romantic place" (V. Woolf). And, sure, we'll "do" that quarter. But we also "go" centrifugal - "do" undiscovered Bloomsbury. And you'll be very glad we do because that marvelous old writ - "London specialises in hiding the best of itself" - applies here in spades. Okay, time for a taster. Amongst much else, we'll see London's tiniest street, its most literary street (no, it's not in Virginia Woolf's Gordon Square neighbourhood), a Sylvia Plath-Ted Hughes house, the "nodal point" where the most important moment in the 20th century occurred, London's most beautiful square, etc. - and trust me, it's a capacious, cup-runneth-over "etc.". Bottom line: this is a very special walk! Guided by Tom, Brian or Andy R.

A London Walk costs £9 – £7 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.

#BST British Summer Time Begins!

Clocks go forward! Welcome to British Summer Time!


The clock we asked you to identify in our previous post can be found on the Archway Tavern in north London!

The album Muswell Hillbillies was released by The Kinks in 1971. The sleeve was shot at The Archway Tavern just a little bit down the hill from Muswell Hill (a pub actually nearer Rod Stewart’s childhood home than that of Ray and Dave Davies).

Upon its release the album fared poorly in a commercial sense, but many a die-hard Kinks fan will happily tell you that it is one of Ray Davies’s finest hours as a songwriter, with his characteristic wit and wisfulness tackling favourite themes such as alienation in modern life and authentic working class culture. Here at The DC we’ll always have a place for it on our turntable – and in our hearts – for the couplet from the track Muswell Hillbilly:

“I’m a Muswell Hillbilly boy/But my heart lies in old West Virginia”

… and for the swampy stomp of their paean to that great British restorative Have A Cuppa Tea with its glorious refrain:

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah Rosie Lee!”

And here's a Kinks playlist featuring 10 weather-related songs…

A London Walk costs £9 – £7 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.