Londonphilia Tours update...

Over six months ago I decided to try and expand my walking tour business, Rock n Roll Camden Walking Tours, into Londonphilia and do other tours, not music related, around London. The last couple months have been a bit stressful for me, I left one job where I was unhappy for another one where I am happy. Getting your footing in a new job can take some time, and with the coming holiday season, I work in retail, I will be very busy at my 'proper' job.
I also realised that I need more time to research and write the tours I'd like to do. I am going to be doing Londonphilia tours but I won't be doing any tours until 2016. I will continue to blog about London and my favorite things about London!

Londonmusica: Pulp - Bar Italia

Even though Pulp are from Sheffield, a lot of their songs, especially on Different Class, are about London. This song is about a little all hours cafe on Frith Street in Soho, where all the 'broken people go'. It's where all the indie kids would go after a night out in Soho for a last coffee before the night bus home...or to someone else's home.
Of course, my Britpop loving friends and I had to go there for a late night coffee when we first came over to London on vacation...which was ironic for me because I don't drink coffee.
Bar Italia has been owned by the Polledri family since 1949.
Bar Italia was awarded the 2010 London Lifestyle Award for London Coffee Shop of the Year.

Literary Footprints

The lovely people at Footprints of London are doing their annual Literary Festival from October 8th till the 25th. Over forty literary themed walking tours covering authors like; Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Geroge Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Pepys...and many more interesting topics.
Last night I went to the launch night at the Hoop & Grapes in Farringdon. Dr. Matthew Green the author of London: A Travel Guide Through Time gave an eductional and entertaining talk. His book is about what you would see, hear and experience if you travelled back in time, like a time traveller, to different periods of London...the time of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, Medieval city life, the plague, the coffee houses, the reign of Queen Victoria and during the Blitz.
Dr. Green talked about London during Shakespeare's time...gruesome bear and bull baiting pits, the theatres and the tabacco house...which out numbered the pubs. It was a fun talk that got the room, filled mostly with other tour guides talking about which time period they would travel to, if they could.
There's so many intersting walks happening over the next two weeks, I can't decide which one to go on! I might have to get the season pass!

 http://footprintsoflondon.com/other-events/literaryfestival/

Londonfilmia - Attack The Block

This isn't just one of my favorite films set in London, it's one of my favorite films of the last five years! I love this movie so much. It's a well made low budget 'cult' film about an area of London not really portrayed in film and about a group of boys who start out as thugs and end up being heroes. Its funny and scary which is really hard to pull off.
Attack The Block is a Sc-Fi/Horror movie set on a south London estate...after a gang of local boys mug their neighbor something falls from the sky and they kill it. Turns out that something was an alien and now the other aliens are coming after the gang...so they try and protect the block.
It's produced by the same people who did Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and directed by Joe Cornish from the Adam & Joe Show. Oh and one of it's young stars is Joe Boyega, who is starring in the new Star Wars movie 'The Force Awakens'!
The American distributors were concerned about the London slang used in the film. Some websites have 'translated' some of the slang used in the film...which is ridiculous...I'm pretty sure most people understand what 'bruv' means. But whenever it's on TV, my friends and I just end up posting 'allow it' and 'believe' on Facebook to each other.
After watching this movie, you too will be chanting 'MOSES! MOSES! MOSES!'