The 38 to Clapton Pond

Ghost Town, Charing Cross Road… a quick, socially-distanced car and walking trip into the West End to get some photos for a virtual tour… My name is Adam, I'm a London Tour Guide, and this is my photoblog…  This blog features photos snapped with either a Canon 500D or an iPhone6 or an iPhone11 as I make my way Londoning around leading & researching my tours. I hope you enjoy them. If you'd like to book a London guided tour, just get in touch   Keep In Touch…       

Did you know that the Wyndhams Theatre on Charing Cross Road is the only West End theatre to feature a depiction of William Shakespeare? This blog features photos snapped with either a Canon 500D or an iPhone6 as I make my way Londoning around leading & researching my tours. I hope you enjoy them. If you'd like to join me on a London tour, you can book me here… Keep In Touch…      

Is that a mini Dalek browsing the antiquarian books?

Disappointed smokers gather outside Smith's tobacconists on the Charing Cross Road… only to find their favourite shop stubbed out. R.I.P.

Approached by no less than THREE v. helpful, v.polite, v. nice young members of staff at Waterstone’s bookshop in Kensington last Thursday, all of whom asked,”Can I help you?” Each with a seemingly genuine desire to be of assistance. “No thank you,” I replied each time with a smile that was MILES away from being as v. helpful, v. polite and v. nice as each of theirs. Feeling misanthropic, I mooched out of the shop, regretting that I hadn’t given them the reply I’d wanted to. Which was: “Help me? Help me? I’m a man in early middle age browsing in a bookshop. This is ONE of the only TWO places ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH where I require no help. The other is in a record shop. Help is what I require almost EVERY MOMENT OF THE DAY UNLESS I AM BROWSING IN A BOOKSHOP OR A RECORD SHOP . If being approached THREE TIMES suggests that I LOOK LIKE I NEED HELP EVEN HERE IN A BOOKSHOP then only the record shop is left as a safe haven of surety and self-confidence. But if I already look like I need ...

And I should jolly well think so, too. “My philosophy is as simple as ever. I love smoking, drinking, moderate sexual intercourse on a diminishing scale, reading and writing (not arithmetic). I have a selfless absorption in the well-being and achievements of Noel Coward.” Noel Coward (Found the sign at the door of the Phoenix Artist Club . Was reminded of the quote at a great blog called I’ve Been Reading Lately ) And before the Gasper Squad swing into action and bust the joint, the terrace they refer to is the common street outside the building.

“Drugs are bad, mmkay?” Mr Mackey, South Park Having said that… “It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake.” Mark Twain. “I'm glad to hear you smoke. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is.” Oscar Wilde. Shop illustrated G.Smith & Sons 74 Charing Cross Road. Even if you’re not going to buy a smoke, check out their elaborate snuff handkerchiefs, the finest pocket hankies in town.

This is my local bookshop in N2, which often adds a much-needed flash of counter-cultural ribaldry through its window displays in otherwise sleepy suburbia. It is a much-loved resource on the High Road. This is Simon Callow in The Guardian (as I read it yesterday in the window of Any Amount of Books, Charing Cross Road WC2). “The bibliocide in the Charing Cross Road continues its depressing course apparently unchecked. The one gleam of light is the reinvention of Foyles, which has now become a very enterprising outfit, its stock, and indeed its general layout, informed by discernible individual taste. But a block further down the road, beyond Cambridge Circus, in what was once the heart of the book village, glumness is everywhere, the most recent losses being Murder Inc and Shipley's three excellent art book shops. Two Zwemmer's shops are long gone. In their places spring up Chinese herbalists, poster shops and coffee houses, all of which no doubt cater to pressing needs; mean...