ELECTRIC COMPANY x 2

   There's only one Electric Company on the Monopoly board, so it's a bit of an understatement to say this all got a bit out of hand, with two former power stations plus Millbank and St Pauls thrown in for good measure.

    Tate Modern (above) is the former Bankside Power Station and most visited art museum in Britain with (in normal years) almost six million visitors per annum. And it’s free.

    I didn’t spot them this time (there’s RSPB binoculars in the summer) but Sheldon and Amy are a pair of peregrine falcons that regularly perch on the top of Tate Modern’s chimney. Peregrine falcons are the fastest member of the animal kingdom, reaching over 320 km/h (200 mph) during high-speed hunting dives. By the late 20^th century they were considered extinct in London, one of the reasons being they are partial to a pigeon snack, so many were shot by the Ministry of Defence during the World Wars to prevent them intercepting carrier pigeons delivering sensitive information. But peregrine falcons love tall buildings (only New York has more urban peregrines) and are making a comeback. And easy-to-spot parakeets are now also on the menu. It’s good to know they’re eating their greens.

        Beef casserole for lunch at Tate Modern with a non-too-shabby view ….

    Quiz for you culture vultures …. name the eight well-known artists who created these nine Tate Modern exhibits (answers below):

    Close to Tate Modern is Bear Gardens where the elite sports of bear and bull-baiting took place in bygone days. Only the cobblestones and this relocated Ferryman’s Seat remain. Until 1750 there was only one bridge over the Thames in London, so there were lots of ferrymen.

      Although the plaque says Sir Christopher Wren lived in this house whilst his masterpiece was being created on the other side of the Thames, London’s Blue Guide says he didn’t. 

     The reconstructed Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, which opened in 1997, isn’t actually on the original site which is around 250 metres away. It’s a close match to the original but the interiors involve some guesswork as no drawings survive.  

 

    

       There is another Michael Palin connection in Pall Mall. No prizes for guessing what that is.

       No comment, but I quite like these two pictures taken walking away from Tate Modern ….

     Having decided not to send any Christmas cards this year I now feel pretty mean as I’m given one by my homeless friend Hugh outside St Pauls tube.

September 1, 2020

     Ventured into town for routine blood test at Barts. I felt very comfortable on the tube with only nine people (all masked) in my 34-seat carriage. I took the opportunity to revisit some old haunts around St Pauls. I have fond memories of the area, having been there in spring 2013 for 35 days of radiotherapy. Yes, fond memories. I had no side effects and it was a time when my life was paused, giving me a strange calmness - a bit like the time between checking in for a long haul flight and collecting your luggage at the far end – or being in lockdown.

     

 

     The statue is Rowland Hill who invented the postage stamp. Postman’s Park is on the site of the former headquarters of the General Post Office. It’s always nice to walk across the Millennium (formerly wobbly) Bridge but few people spot it’s gum art. Ben Wilson (pictured, 2016) paints blobs of disguarded chewing gum embedded on the bridge. Also worth checking out are the roof garden at One New Change, the Salvation Army Café and St Pauls Crypt café. But Big Issue seller Hugh is still stationed outside St Pauls tube station. Keng-Gah befriended Hugh when she was having her radiotherapy and would often buy him sandwiches. I had a chat, bought a magazine and gave him some masks. The Big Issue is a weekly publication sold by homeless people – most famously James Bowen who became an international best-seller with ‘A Streetcat Named Bob’ which was later made into a movie.

          Nice to see romance is not dead in London                                  ….. or Paris

 

    Not content with visiting one Electric Company, today I’m checking out the equally iconic Battersea Power Station as an excuse to have lunch in one of my favourite pubs. 

    After lying derelict for over 30 years, Battersea Power Station, located in Nine Elms, is finally rising phoenix-like thanks to a Malaysian consortium headed by property developers SP Setia and Sime Darby. 

    The power station, one of the world's largest brick buildings, will be the central focus of the regenerated 40-acre site, housing a blend of shops, cafes, restaurants, art and leisure facilities, office space and residential accommodation. It is served by Battersea Power Station Station, a new extension of the Northern Line.

    The Skypool between two high-rise residential blocks in Battersea has raised some interest. Not so much interest if you suffer from aquaphobia, vertigo, or both.

    Right now the area is a massive building site. Some commercial properties are already open - estate agents, naturally, and some smart riverside restaurants mainly serving takeaway teas to men in hi vis jackets.

    I think it’s going to be great. Malaysian people – your pension funds look to be safe!

   During its long period of neglect Battersea Power Station has often been used as a shooting location, notably for The Battle of Britain, The Dark Knight and numerous episodes of Dr Who.

    But the most likely reason for the power station's worldwide recognition is from the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album, Animals. The huge inflatable pig was tethered to one of the power station's chimneys, but broke loose and drifted into the flight path of Heathrow Airport.

     I well remember going to Floyd’s Animals concert in 1977 – complete with inflatable pig – at Wembley Arena.

    There’s a pair of peregrine falcons here also. They were nesting near the top of one of the chimneys but, at a cost of £100,000, have been relocated to a quieter corner of the site until refurbishment is completed in 2021. I don’t know their names. I’m guessing Howard and Bernadette or maybe Leonard and Penny? Raj and Cinnamon? …. and anyone who has never watched The Big Bang Theory really should.

 UPDATE:

Friday, February 3, 2023

      I visited the day after the shopping centre opened but found it busy and not much open, I return for another look.

      Well, Battersea Power Station Station is now open but it’s a lot quieter than last time. Some shops have yet to open, but, unlike earlier, there are now plenty of places for a quiet coffee and there are some nice restaurants beside the Thames. Lift 109, a glass lift inside one of the chimneys, is now working. The views are probably spectacular. But it’s not cheap (adults £23.60, £15.90 online) considering you only have around ten minutes at the top. 

       I’m instantly drawn to The Control Room which is a bar with coffee and a small selection of pastries available.

    I was brought up in a village near Scunthorpe called Keadby (pronounced kid bee). Half of the houses in the village were on an estate for workers at Keady Power Station. My dad worked for construction company McAlpine when they began building the original power station a few months after I was born in 1948. After it was completed my dad was joiner and then maintenance foreman there for the rest of his working life. He had a huge workshop with a perfectly functional workbench. But he built a second bench which had the exact dimensions of a table tennis table. There was also a shooting range and the floor doubled up as a concrete putting green. As his was a maintenance job, if nothing was broken, my dad would spend his time making brilliant toys for myself and my sister Diana. The coal-fired power station was replaced by a gas-fired one on the same site in 1997. Keadby 2 power station is currently under construction. It is expected to become the cleanest and most efficient gas-fired power station in Europe.

 

      Keadby Wind Farm, commissioned in 2014, is England’s largest onshore wind farm. It can power 57,000 homes. The surrounding area is fenland, so flat as a pancake with any wind is unhampered by hills or buildings. For us kids there was absolutely no respite if we happened to be cycling into the wind. And we cycled everywhere. I remember once, as a test in our Boy’s Brigade Wayfarer’s badge we were dumped ten miles from home and had to find our way back using only an ordnance survey map and compass. As Keadby Power Station was clearly visible twenty miles in any direction, it was a bit of a gimme.

               There’s little wonder it got this glowing endorsement ...

    Fact check: It was signed off by the George W Bush administration. And it’s a great deal for the Nine Elms project, especially as it’s rumoured other embassies, including China, might follow suit. 

    The gardens aren’t finished yet so there’s nowhere yet for protesters to protest. And, sidestepping the obvious analogy, the Stars and Stripes are as limp as Donald Trump’s lawsuits. It’s the world’s most expensive embassy but pretty much the whole of the cost was offset by sale of its predecessor in Grosvenor Square – a legendary place to protest.

    One of the reasons I came to Battersea was to have lunch in the Morpeth Arms, near to Tate Britain. It’s an old haunt which is conveniently a bus ride and short walk away from Battersea – on the opposite side of the river.

  

     And so to Pimlico and the Morpeth Arms, over the Thames from the understated intelligence headquarters of MI6. In front of the pub is a fine Henry Moore sculpture: Locking Piece 1963-4. Banksy take note – your efforts would be far less likely to be vandalised or stolen if you ditched the stencils and instead used huge lumps of bronze as your chosen medium. 

    There are some customers in the bar downstairs - spies, I would imagine. They would have paddled their rubber dinghies over in their lunch break, wearing wet suits over their dinner jackets. Or they could have come on the bus. I order a vodka martini, shaken not stirred, and whisper my secret password to the barman. He tells me it’s invalid as it doesn’t contain a symbol or any upper case letters. But he shows me to the second floor ‘Spying Room’ anyhow. It’s adorned with photos of traitors and double agents. There I feast on fish, chips and mushy peas with a pint of Guiness and pouting Russian agent Natalia Legova whilst gazing over the river at a building so secret it’s just an unmarked outline on Google maps and has only appeared in a few Bond movies, before being destroyed by an undercover CGI ring. Your secret is safe with me, Mr Bond. And I’ll eat my hard drive after pressing ‘send’.

     There is another story to the Morpeth Arms, which is on Millbank. It was once used as a holding centre for convicts being shipped off the Australia. There are cells in the basement which are said to be haunted. The Australian term Pom for the English is said to come from ‘Prisoners of Millbank’.

        Pimlico Plumbers is London's largest independent plumbing company ….  

                   

    ….. founded by Charlie Mullins who left school at 15 with no qualifications. He is probably now the world’s richest plumber. Mullins’ distinctive fleet of vans are fitted with over 100 plumbing-related number plates, such as LO 02 OLD (Loo too old), BOG1, DRA1N and W4TER. Pimlico Plumbers are not, and never were, based in posh Pimlico - although their prices suggest it. They gained considerable publicity through the employment of Buster Martin, who claimed to be Britain's oldest worker, cleaning vans part-time until his death in 2011 aged 104. He even refused to take a day off on his 100th birthday.

April 25, 2023

     Pimlico is perhaps an unlikely location for the most famous ‘greasy spoon’ café in London, but ….

  Only after you’ve queued and your order has been taken at the counter can you find a table. You collect your food when your name is called.

     The Regency Café opening in 1946 and has been a film location for Layer Cake, Brighton Rock, and Pride.

     Layer Cake is a 2004 gangster movie starring Daniel Craig in one of his early roles. It also featured Sienna Miller, Tom Hardy, Sally Hawkins and Ben Whishaw – all relatively unknown at the time. To view the scene shot in the Regency Café click here (not for the faint hearted).

      I think the tourists outnumber the locals, this maybe explains why the Japanese lady in the mauve jacket was ordering with pictures on her phone.

     Steve writes: That's classic Mick.  Nice to get a preview of your next housemates.

December 11, 2020

    RIP Barbara Windsor. She played Agent Daphne Honeycutt in her first Carry On film.

UPDATE:

     UPDATE: Google maps now name the MI6 building as SIS MI6 (SIS=Secret Intelligence Service), and it has mixed reviews …

                                                                                   

Artists answers:

Pablo Picasso, The Three Dancers

Roy Lichtenstein, Wham!

Rene Magritte, Man with a Newspaper

Jackson Pollack, Number 14

Henri Matisse, The Snail

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe’s Lips

Salvador Dali, Lobster Telephone

Henri Matisse (again), Back I, II, III and IV

Anish Kapoor, Ishi’s Light