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London Curiosity, 47 Aldgate High Street, London (2026)

06/03/2026

Walking the Lines: Part Three

In my last two posts, I recommended Mark Mason’s book “Walk the Lines” as a key reading for those of you who want to truly understand London.

Mark’s endeavour was to walk along every single London Underground line (403 miles taking in 269 stations), and through so doing attach physical above-ground reality to Harry Beck’s iconic tube map.

I’m not suggesting you do the same, but I do recommend you adopt Mark’s method of drawing out each line on a map, or rather maps of London. I’ve gone for a Mark Mason-lite approach (he used a set of nine large-scale maps), focussing my efforts on Ordinance Survey’s 1:25,000 scale maps, centering on OS 173 London North and OS 161 London South. I’ve also added OS 162 and OS 174 in the east and OS 172 in the west, so capturing nearly all of Mark’s 269 stations (Watford frustratingly falls off one edge and Hatton Cross and Heathrow Airport off another, but I’m not buying another two maps just for those).

Already you can see that the tube map skews one’s perception of the city. The south bank of the Thames is chronically under-represented, with only the Northern, District, Victoria, Bakerloo and Jubilee lines crossing the Thames, and the latter three not getting much further than the river bank.

Indeed, the south bank has a paltry 33 tube stations against 239 for the north.

Given the north-south population split of roughly 60:40–around six million north and four million south according to the Greater London Authority (GLA)—are we looking at discrimination here?

Partly “yes”. Prior to 1933, all underground initiatives were private-sector driven, and they followed the money north and west. But it’s also geology. The north bank mostly sits on London Clay, which is easy to tunnel through. The geology of the south is sand, silt and gravel, thus posing greater engineering challenges, and cost!

Once my Befriending London Substack is up and running, I’ll return to these maps in more depth. In the meantime, you can join my walking tours on GuruWalk; look for Guru Justin.

11/02/2026

London Clay Part Two

My previous post explained my Instagram relaunch: shifting my focus from showcasing a succession of interesting facts about the city, to a series of posts that help to rewire your view of the city. Basically, a Tube map liberation. I want to ask the questions: “how does London fit together” and “why does it fit together the way it does”.

I’ll start this exploration with a truly wonderful book, Tom Chilvers’ “London Clay” which goes deep down into the geological dirt.

Chivers, using a prosaic Streetfinder map, colours London according to its geological strata: London clay, which underpins the whole city, gravel, alluvium (a gloopy mixture of silt, sand, clay and gravel) and much else besides. In his words:

“London Clay is a book about the city beneath the city, a hidden landscape of lost rivers and secret woodlands, of marshes and islands long buried underneath the sprawling metropolis. Across eight documentary essays, I chart the unheard stories that emerge from my hacked and tattered street finder.”

Those essays include 1) a sinkhole in Aldgate (Hoop & Grapes pub close to the spot), marking the border between the City of London & the East End, 2) the Norwood Ridge & the River Effra, 3) the Roman River Walbrook, 4) Hampstead Heath & its springs that seed the Fleet and Westbourne rivers, 5) the Westminster delta, 6) the South Bank’s Neckinger, 7) Bermondsey island & 8) the Lea Valley, which marks the eastern edge of the city.

Chivers is the urban anatomist equivalent of Gunther von Hagens. Hagens’ Body Worlds, a travelling anatomical exhibition, displayed real human and animal bodies preserved using a technique called plastination, revealing layers of muscles, arteries, veins, and nerves. Chivers does the same.

My upcoming Substack on London will start by explaining what London is from a geological and geographical perspective: a big shallow basin. The Thames enters the basin at one end and meanders around before exiting out the other. So, to understand London, you must first get up high onto the southern and northern ridges, and then follow its lost rivers down from top to bottom. Adventure awaits.

11/02/2026

London Clay Part One

I’m relaunching this Instagram account, including renaming it “Befriending London”.

A lot of social media accounts cover London, but less so in a joined up way.

So I went back and deleted over half of my posts and left only the ones that reflect my love of reading (fiction and non-fiction). So here on Instagram I will present books on London that have informed and entertained me, putting them in a place (usually a pub) that is connected to the book in question.

But you can think of this Instagram account as more of a “gateway” to my central project of 2026, a long form Substack of how London knits together (coming soon!).

We are blessed with a plethora of brilliant social media accounts on Instagram, TikTok and YouTub: Living London History, Bowl of Chalk, Look Up London, to name a few. These highlight London’s hidden charms. But my aim is to present something more holistic.

London is an extraordinary world city. It may not have the architectural unity of a Paris or a Florence—in truth it is a bit of a mess—but it has amazing diversity and vitality. Yet it produces mixed emotions of love and hate.

Any city can alienate, and perhaps London more than most. Too big, too grey (especially in winter), too unfriendly. How to befriend London? Through understanding its history, geography, geology, politics, economics and culture.

Books help you get to such understanding. They are, however, not enough. To understand London you have to get out and walk it. For the vast majority of London livers—longtime residents, temporary stayers and repeat visitors—London is defined by The Tube.

OK, I don’t deny the centrality of The Tube in terms of how it sets our mental map of the city. But layer on top of The Tube London’s hills and rivers; its canals, railways and roads; its theatres, cinemas, concert halls, museums and art galleries; its architecture and historical heritage; its pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants, its boroughs, villages and ethnic enclaves: understand how this all fits together and the city makes sense. Fit the pieces of the jigsaw together by walking them, and the city becomes a close friend. That is my goal.

08/09/2024

On my Soho & Chinatown walking tour (actually the title is a little misleading as Chinatown is officially part of Soho) I get asked for restaurant recommendations.

In the past, I’ve stated that the days of sub £10 bowls of noodles are long gone. Actually, not true. For all things bargain basement in food and beverage I cede to the brilliance of .

Behind is a gentleman called Isaac Rangaswami. His mission in life is to document London’s best characterful low-end eating establishments where value can be fused with charm.

In the Chinatown area, Isaac serves up Wong Kei. In times past, Wong Kei was famed for its rude service, but these days it has mellowed into just light brusqueness, even grudging politeness at times.

Having lived in Hong Kong twice in my career, Wong Kei is the real deal when it comes to basic Cantonese dining. You sit down and a free pot of tea immediately descends before you. For those on a budget, choose one bowl of noodles (such as Wun Tun noodles in soup) or one plate options (sliced meat on rice). No service charge. You get up from your seat and pay at the counter.

I went large, adding fish balls to my Wun Tun noodles but still stayed under the £10 mark (£9.90 to be precise). The bowl was pitch perfect. No need for any extra seasoning and a far more generous fill than for posh pot noodles at, say, an Itsu.

Wong Kei is at the bottom of Wardour Street, close to both Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square tube stations, an area full of restaurants that look on the cheapish side by then remove £25 per person from your wallet for a very mediocre meal. By contrast, Wong Kei is a case of “what you see is what you get”. No Michelin stars but some Michelin style dining satisfaction. And all for under £10. What’s not to like? Swipe for menu.

04/09/2024

Out with my two daughters, and oldest daughter’s boyfriend, last night to see the musical “Next to Normal” at the Wyndham’s Theatre on Charing Cross Road (right next door to Leicester Square Underground). What can I say? Wow, just wow!

The musical revolves around a family trying to deal with a mum suffering from bipolar disorder.

Now this is hardly a subject that would normally draw me to a musical, but I got a glowing recommendation from a lovely German lady who was on my Covent Garden walking tour a few weeks back. The lady in question is a secondary school English teacher in Germany but pops over to the UK once a year to see plays and musicals in London’s theatre land over one week back to back. She’s basically seen everything.

She adored this musical so much that she actually plans to return to London purely in order to see “Next to Normal” once again. And I can understand why.

The musical was pitch perfect, with all 5 main actors on fire. It’s a rock musical but infused with poignant ballads along the way. Unusually, there are no goodies and baddies in this musical; rather a collection of family members trying to cope with what is, in effect, an intolerable situation. Emotionally, your heart goes out to all of them.

I’m not going to give the end away, but going into the closing scenes I couldn’t see how they could not come to an ending that was either mawkish or utterly depressing. But they managed to pull off that balancing act.

Beg, steal or borrow a ticket. And bring a tonne of tissues. If this musical doesn’t emotionally move you, then you are already dead.

30/08/2024

As part of my Soho walking tour, we pass along Gerrard Street, which has some lovely buildings dating back to the 1680s according to Dan Cruickshank’s book “Soho: A Street Guide to Soho’s History, Architecture and People”.

But the walking tour conversation invariably encompasses food and my restaurant recommendations. Having spent most of my career in the Far East, I love Chinese food, particularly street food. But it is next to impossible to find cheap street food any longer in Soho.

But there are a few places I like to go, although I wince at the prices. Now Gerrard Street is a little too intense for me: I prefer its less garish cousin, Lisle Street, which runs parallel to Gerrard Street on the Leicester Square (south) side. Here you have Bun House, where you can sit down or get takeaway. The buns are great! Soft fluffy exteriors and delicious savoury interiors. But they are not cheap at £3.80.

In Tokyo, the Japanese convenience store equivalents are called ‘nikuman’. They sell for less than Y200, or about one pound. Now that’s street food pricing. I guess a coffee at Starbucks or Pret is now £4 in London, so I shouldn’t complain. But then again a Sainsbury’s meal deal (sandwich + snack + soft drink) comes in at £3.50, so I am going to complain!

A bit further along from Bun House is Tao Tao Ju, a great place for dim sum. The problem with dim sum is that while each dish appears reasonably priced at around £7.50, the stomach soon takes over from the wallet. I have a passion for their fried white radish (daikon) cakes and the Cheung Fun (steamed rice noodle rolls), so budgeting goes out the window before too long once you pair that with some dumplings, vegetables and rice.

Back on Wardour Street is the famous (infamous?) Wong Kei, a street food-style budget friendly paradise. Isaac Rangaswami of fame claims that you can still get a bowl of noodles there for less than £10. Now Isaac is the “go to” guy for cheap, characterful places to eat in London so I dare not contradict him. But London restaurant prices are moving so fast that I think I need to check this out for myself (well that’s my excuse). Will report back in due course.

London Curiosity

06/03/2026

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