She Loves London

Author: She Loves London

  • Someone Should Start a New Tumblr Called “Weird Stuff on Top of Bus Stop Shelters”

    Someone Should Start a New Tumblr Called “Weird Stuff on Top of Bus Stop Shelters”

    There’s some really odd stuff sitting on the top of London’s bus stops.

    When you get the bus as much as I do, you start to wonder who puts them there.

    As far as prerequisites go, they’d have to be tall, carry a step ladder around, or have a mate who doesn’t mind having someone stand on their shoulders while they hoist a lampshade onto the roof. In the dark.

    Outside Beyond Retro in Dalston there used to be a typewriter on the bus shelter. At another one on Kingsland Road, a pair of DM style boots. All over east London into the city, you’ll find neon potatoes with cotton buds sticking out of them, placed there for the purposes of art and, I’m guessing, the entertainment of commuters on the top deck of the 243.

    And on Essex Road yesterday?

    A toaster.

    IMG_2312

    Luckily for you I’m not going to start a new blog called “Weird Stuff on Top of Bus Stops” because that would be boring and a pretty niche way to spend an evening.

    But if you choose to set up that blog, you won’t be short of stuff to put on it.

    Also, credit me, because you heard it here first.

    No, you’re welcome.

  • How to Achieve Greatness on a Night Out in Notting Hill

    How to Achieve Greatness on a Night Out in Notting Hill

    Some of my friends live in west London and last weekend they staged a mutiny.

    “NO, JHC” they said, “WE WILL NOT COME TO EAST LONDON AGAIN. YOU MUST COME TO THE OPPOSITE END OF THE CENTRAL LINE AND HAVE FUN HERE INSTEAD.”

    I put up a good fight to begin with, showed ’em my best Dalston sunset, sent them the poo Emoji, basically did everything in my power to try and lure them to my beautiful east London lair.

    Just look at it. It’s basically like the Grand Canyon:

    IMG_2280

    Unfortunately, they weren’t having it.

    So I picked up my Oyster card, got on the tube to Ladbroke Grove and joined them in Mau Mau.

    Mau Mau is one of those bars on Portobello Road which has probably been the same since about 1992. This is a good thing. 

    Well, it’s a good thing as long as you’ve got cash because they don’t take card – or if they do, they’re cleverly avoiding it for tax purposes – but that just adds to the charm.

    They also had Your Mum on the menu which, if your humour is as juvenile as mine, will make you point, cackle and take a photo while yelling “LOOK, YOUR MUM! YOUR MUM!” while your friends just shake their heads and sigh and order more mojitos.

    IMG_2281

    Your Mum aside, hahahahaha, it soon became clear that their cocktails put the “oh!” in potent, something I feel was instrumental in the crafty escape of a group member, who “went out for a fag” later in the night, never to return.

    Where she goes, nobody knows (usually home to bed).

    Another good thing about this night was that we got seats at the bar – which in my eyes is a massively underrated place to sit.

    Forget booking tables at the back or loitering round the sides, the prime placement in any London cocktail establishment has got to be right smack bang in front of the person making the drinks.

    It is in this spot, my friends, that you will achieve greatness.

    Whether we achieved greatness that night is anyone’s guess. After a few more drinks we moved onto the Notting Hill Arts Club, where we all achieved getting ID’d (high five, club 29-30), I achieved a cheap cab home and the others achieved fried chicken.

    And on a night out in west London, that’s probably as close to greatness as you’re going to get.

  • A List of Entirely Plausible Reasons Why the Northern Line was Broken this Morning

    A List of Entirely Plausible Reasons Why the Northern Line was Broken this Morning

    The Northern Line was a bit broken this morning.

    It was the same old story: e-mails flying to bosses from employees lamenting the delays, signal failures, hundreds of people on the platform and queues for trains that come every 25 minutes.

    At times like this, it’s easy to just get really annoyed and blame TFL. But sometimes we should all stop and consider that there might be another explanation for the severe delays and line suspensions.

    So before you submit that refund form today, just consider the other possibilities:

    1. With so many branches, things are bound to get a bit messy when something goes wrong.


    https://twitter.com/bensalter87/statuses/383510656575475712

    2. Thursday is the new Saturday, so perhaps it just had a heavy night.


    3. …you know, like you did.


    https://twitter.com/ClaireE1izabeth/statuses/383495407315464192

    4. Look, I’m just saying. This bloke’s username is Zuki Magic Wand, and we’ve all seen The Craft.


    https://twitter.com/ZukiMagicwand/statuses/383500073365422080

    5. Would you work if someone was being sarcastic to you all day?


    https://twitter.com/RyanJohnNelson/statuses/383513479547981824

    6. Rush hour delays aren’t a new thing. They happened at the end of the Vietnam War too.


    https://twitter.com/AOFisAOK/statuses/383509985772462081

    7. And anyway, everyone should experience the joys of the bus once in a while.


    8. This morning’s trouble was written in the stars.


    https://twitter.com/TlfTravelAlerts/statuses/383517335161950208

    9. And if we’re honest, you love it, really.


    In conclusion: Yeah, you should probably just submit that refund form after all.

    Thank god it’s Friday.