Haunch of Venison Yard: London's roads and pubs

I have been wandering the streets of London since I was six when accompanied by my Dad and little sister we would pick an area and walk it. Once home we would highlight the area covered and over several years of walking most of zone one was a veritable rainbow.

This education was furthered by studying in Bloomsbury, working near St Pauls, living in East London and now living in NW3. Every time I move to a new area I take great joy in getting lost, and then found with, or without, the assistance of the GPS or a local tube stop.

On foot the important things are the compass direction and the food outlets ('left at Sainsburys') to navigate by.

But I am discovering London from a completely different angle of late. Living as far west as I ever have done, and travelling primarily by bike and bus the key navigating points have changed and so I'm noticing other things. For example, did you know there's a road in Mayfair called Haunch of Venison Yard? Or that Mornington Crescent is actually still a crescent?

(Photo credit: 441K9 Flickr)

Cycling in London can be a bit nail-biting and as such I need all my concentration on the road, not on my phone GPS system. When I am going somewhere new I try to remember at least a 10-minute stretch and I do this using a combination of road names but also by the pubs. It amazes me that there are still enough pubs to navigate by. Its also got me thinking about pub signs. I always assumed they harked back to mass illiteracy, 'meet you at the Red Lion at 5'. But I wonder if those hanging pub signs also serve a greater purpose to people who are travelling too fast to read.

(Photo credit: camdenpubs.blogspot.com)

Now, I don't pretend to be a lightening fast cyclist but the signs outside both The Victoria and Edinboro' Castle reassured me that I was on the right track. By contrast the lack of signage outside the Queens Head and Artichoke on Albany Street nearly led to a small diversion. Being fair to the owners I'm not surprised they didn't feature a pictorial sign. In my head its looking like a head on a plate, with a stick of artichoke between her teeth. Apparently the name was given by Queen Elizabeth I's Head Gardener.

(Photo credit: www.beerintheevening.com)

Pub signage navigation comes particularly into its own when considering that postcodes are a relatively new invention. These days we take for granted our ability to type a code into our GPS but postcodes were only introduced first in the 1870s and then fully rolled out 1954 - 72. Before then points of interest would have been much more helpful for navigation.

Perfect Strangers - Footlights Review

I have really been enjoying the good weather lately, afforded us by the Olympic weather gods in London. In the space of one week I’ve done Camberwell, the South Bank, St Katherine’s Dock and Little Venice.

I went to Little Venice to watch a sketch show by Footlights in a little theatre above a pub; productions above, or below, pubs are often my favourites; there is something authentic and intimate about performances above pubs. My pub meal was both affordable and delicious by the way (see below).

(my dinner at Canal Club*Perfect Strangers*Paddington Basin)

The Footlights are celebrating their fiftieth year at the Edinburgh Fringe. Fifty years ago an intrepid troop comprising; Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, Ian Lang and John Cleese, produced by some guy called Trevor (Nunn!) headed for Edinburgh. Next you will need a bit of Cambridge context. In Cambridge freshers are invited into ‘families’ for their pastoral care in the opening weeks of their time. Surprisingly comedy runs in my Cambridge ‘genes’ as both my Cambridge ‘Dad’ and my Cambridge ‘grandson’ are Footlighters and current comedians in their own right; perhaps I was just the carrier?! My Cambridge grandson was in this year’s quartet of genius.

This show is funny. It features excellent writing, wittily combining a number of story lines into subtle but evident themes – I think Ryan O’Sullivan will go far. All the funniest tropes, aliens, politicians, daughters, husbands, and neurotic mothers were present. The comedic value in scenes often relies on wordplay and context, the jokes work twice – once when you only know some context and three times as funny when five minutes later, you understand the backstory – a tactic often employed by Sheeps a Cambridge alumni comedy troop. The show was directed by Abi Tedder and Jonny Lennard; the former’s impact on the performance was evident as the style of the comedy was thoroughly reminiscent of the ADC pantomime 2009 which she co-wrote (Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves). 

I really enjoyed the threads too of my Cambridge experience; the cast features two Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic graduates (no mean feat when the average number of ASNACs in a year across the university is 25!) and similarly two out of five cast (three if we’re counting crew!) were alumni of Homerton, my dear alma mater. It was good to feel so connected to a show that amused me in an hour, featured my own Cambridge relatives, was preceded by good food and good beer and gorgeous weather. Also did I mention it was good value for money.

The good news is you can still catch this show. I changed the habit of a life time and caught the show at the start of its run rather than the end. ‘Perfect Strangers’ is showing at the Pleasance Dome at the Edinburgh Fringe between 2^nd and 27^th August, then tours America from 4^th – 22^nd September (catch it if it comes near you Tommy!), British schools (25^th-29^th Sept) and then returns to Cambridge for Freshers’ Week (2^nd -6^th October). Genuinely, this was funny and did not feature any ‘student’ references – you’ll love it. Go!