A week of cheap London winter pleasures, one cheerful jumper and a rural reading list for anyone leaving town
Monday, the Night Tube and the Strike Calendar
London announces its strike dates the way other cities announce their festivals: with a long list, a sigh and a sudden shortage of comfortable shoes. I wrote my feelings on the subject in London tube strike dates announced and why I still love the Night Tube, and I stand by every word, including the ones I typed on a platform at midnight with a kebab in one hand.
The Night Tube, for the uninitiated, is the closest London comes to a promise kept. It takes you home from a late show, a gig or a long dinner without the aid of a minicab driver who wants to discuss his sat nav. When it works, it is a miracle of urban life. When there is a strike, it is a reminder that every miracle has a rota behind it. Both sides in a dispute have a case and I have a Zone Three flat, so I mostly keep my opinions short and my walking shoes close.
The London Prat captured the national mood in a single line: Tube Strike Christmas: Londoners Start Walking Now. I take the advice literally. A walk from Soho to Waterloo in December is one of the great free entertainments, provided you wear a hat and avoid the pavement outside the big shops, where tourists gather to photograph each other photographing lights.
The Reindeer Question
Now for the real news. I own a jumper with a reindeer on it, and I bought it for a few pounds in a charity shop near the museum quarter, which is exactly where the Christmas jumper belongs. The full story, with the nose that lights up when you squeeze the left cuff, is in London museum Christmas jumpers and my charity shop reindeer. Several museums now sell festive knitwear with a straight face, and I think that is wonderful, though a museum jumper costs about forty times what my reindeer did and has, I suspect, fewer opinions.
The advantage of buying second hand is that the jumper has already been to a party. It knows what happens after the second glass of mulled wine. It is not shocked by anything.
Tuesday, Reading List for a Day Out of Town
Every winter I get the urge to leave London for a day and look at something with grass on it. Over the years I have built up a reading list for the countryside, because a person who knows nothing about cows should at least be able to sound curious on a train. If you are heading for dairy country, begin with dairyherd.org. For beef, ranchbeefcattle.org is a friendly introduction. Anyone who wants to know why a farmer stares at a tractor the way a Londoner stares at a boiler should visit tractorequipment.org.
Farmers plan in seasons rather than weeks, and cropcalendar.org explains the calendar in plain English. The money questions, which are the same in a field as in a flat, are covered by farmmoney.org and smallfarminfo.org. If the trip makes you wonder whether rural life is for you, agjobscareers.org lists the work, and fairandrodeo.org shows you where the fun is. For the wider picture and a gentle reminder to wear sensible boots, there are ruralfarm.org and farmssafety.org.
Pocket Money Planning
Back in town, the sums matter. A tube strike turns a three pound journey into a forty minute walk and a rail replacement bus. A coffee on Regent Street turns into a small loan. My policy, which I recommend to anyone with a modest budget and a large appetite for December, is to pick one paid treat per week and fill the rest with free things: a late opening at a gallery, a market stall tasting, a bench with a view.
The London Prat has a neat headline on the subject of money and work, Say What You Pay: Job Adverts Must Show Salaries, and I would like the same rule applied to Christmas markets. Say what you charge, gently, before I have a mug in my hand.
Wednesday Night, the Short Walk Home
I ended the week on the South Bank with a paper cup of something warm and the lights of the river doing what they do. A busker was playing a slow version of a carol on a saxophone, and a man in a bicycle helmet stopped to listen with his whole face. That is London at its best: a city of eight million strangers who occasionally agree, for three minutes, that something is lovely.
I do not need the Night Tube to be perfect. I need it to exist, and I need the people who run it to be treated fairly, and I need my reindeer jumper to survive another wash. Three modest wishes. In a city this big, modest wishes are the only ones that come true on schedule.
Next entry: ice rinks, ankles and Somerset House.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, The Daily Mash keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/