Playing bagpipes
This must be a pub in Scotland
Wrong, it’s in Soho
The Clachan pub is in Kingly Street, which is close to Carnaby Street
Surely it is in Scotland
Reply
Tag Archives: london
When seeing the catalogue outshines viewing the exhibition
AT TATE BRITAIN in London, there is an exhibition of photographs taken by the highly talented Lee Miller (1907-1977), which is showing until 15 February 2026. We visited it today, 15 October 2025. There is a vast number (about 250) of Miller’s photographic works on display. And there was a vast number of people looking at them. Plenty of the images are quite small, and viewing them was not easy because of the crowd of other visitors.
After leaving the exhibition, I looked at the catalogue that has been prepared for it. Many of the exhibits are reproduced well in this huge volume. Whereas in almost all other exhibitions, viewing the actual artworks in ‘real life’ is far more satisfactory than seeing them in a catalogue. I felt the reverse was the case with the Lee Miller show. With the catalogue in your hands, you cans get close to the images, and enjoy them for as long as you wish without being disturbed by others around you.
Unless you are a Member of the Tate, you need to pay about £20 (per person) to see the exhibition. The catalogue costs £32 (paperback). In the case of this exhibition, but not most others, I would suggest buying the catalogue without purchasing an entry ticket. It is a case of see the book, not the exhibition.
Comparing kebab rolls in London’s Soho with those in Kolkata
ACCORDING TO ITS website, the small restaurant in Soho’s Poland Street called The Kati Roll Company (‘KRC’):
“… serves authentic street Kati Rolls just like the ones in Kolkata, India.”
The restaurant is attractively decorated, with its wall covered with fragments of Hindi film posters and a corrugated iron ceiling. It has several tables and chairs. Food is ordered from a counter at the far end of the rectangular dining area, and is delivered a few minutes later. I could not see the kebabs being prepared, but if they are truly kati kebabs, they should have been grilled on bamboo skewers. The roll, wrapped in paper consists of a spicy meat or vegetarian filling enclosed in a rolled-up roti, which the restaurant described as a ‘paratha’.
KRC was, according to its website, started:
“… by Payal Saha shortly after she moved from her hometown of Kolkata to New York City. Without any experience running a restaurant, she let her desire for authentic kati rolls drive her passion.”
Well, it was with great interest that today, 3 September 2025, I visited and ate at KRC in Poland Street. I was curious to see how their rolls compared with those at Nizams in central Kolkata. I have written quite a lot about this restaurant in my latest book “88 Days in India: A Journey of Memory and Discovery”. Here is a short excerpt from my description of the rolls at Nizams:
“The kathi roll consists of a kebab (usually chicken or mutton, or potato for vegetarians) wrapped, with or without a cooked egg (like an omelette), in a rolled up flaky paratha. Onions and chillies can also be included in the roll. The paratha is heated in a large amount of oil on a tava (a circular, concave metal hotplate). It is the same one that was installed when the restaurant first opened. According to an article in The Telegraph Online (dated August 2024), the tava weighed 185 Kg in 1932, but through constant use it has lost weight. By 2024, it weighed 80 Kg. Until 1964, the kebabs were grilled on iron skewers. After that, the metal skewers were replaced by cheaper bamboo sticks, known in Bengali as ‘kathi’. The rolls have always been served, wrapped up in paper so that the customers (often in the early days, British men out on the town with Indian ladies) did not get grease on their fingers whilst consuming them. Interesting as the history is, it pales into insignificance when you bite into one of Nizam’s kathi rolls. I do not know how they achieve it, but the taste of Nizam’s kebab filled rolls surpasses that of every other kebab roll I have eaten. Year after year, Nizam’s manages to maintain the high quality and magical flavour of their products.”
After having eaten at Nizams many times, I waited with great interest for the 4 kathi rolls we had ordered in Poland Street to be served.
The fillings in the KRC rolls were tasty enough, and if you have never eaten at Nizams, you would think that they taste pretty good. The so-called parathas in which KRC’s rolls are wrapped seemed more like rotis than what I was expecting. In contrast, the parathas that enclose the fillings at Nizams are, as mentioned above, flaky, almost as much as Malabar or Kerala parathas, but oilier. Although I enjoyed the rolls at KRC, and will happily eat there again, they are not nearly as satisfying and tasty as those at Nizams. However, it is much easier and quicker for us to reach KRC in Soho than it is for us to get to Nizams in Kolkata.
PS: My book, which contains a chapter about eating in Kolkata, is available from Amazon:
A pigeon and a palm tree
Resting by a palm
In very busy Leicester* Square
This bird observes
*Note: Leicester is pronounced ‘lester’: 2 syllables
From Lahore to London but he did not live long
THE WHITECHAPEL GALLERY in London’s Aldgate area often hosts exhibitions of adventurous art, and has been doing so for many decades. The current show “Hamad Butt: Apprehensions”, which is on until 7 September 2025, displays works by an artist Hamad Butt. He was born in Lahore (Pakistan) in 1962, and died of AIDS in London, aged only 32. His family brought him to London when he was 2 years old. He studied art at London’s Goldsmith College, Morley College, and Central Saint Martins.
The ground floor of the Whitechapel Gallery contains three enormous sculptures. Together they form an art installation, which the gallery’s website described as follows:
“Familiars 1: Substance Sublimation Unit is a steel ladder made of glass rungs, each filled with an electrical element and crystals of solid iodine. The current ascends the ladder, intermittently heating the rungs, causing the iodine to sublimate into a purple vapour. In Familiars 3: Cradle, named after Newton’s cradle, 18 vacuum-sealed glass spheres are filled with lethal yellow-green chlorine gas. If smashed together, the gas – a respiratory irritant – would be released into the air. In Familiars 2: Hypostasis, three tall, curved metal poles, reminiscent of Islamic arches, contain bromine-filled tubes at the tips.”
Well, they were visually intriguing pieces of conceptual art. What they stand for is almost more important than their physical appearance.
Upstairs, the galleries are hung with paintings, drawings, and prints. There is also another installation that contains a set of lights emitting ultraviolet rays. Visitors are provided with protective goggles when viewing this exhibit called “Transmission”, which is yet another example of conceptual art that you need to read about to make any sense of it.
What saved the exhibition for me was the display of Butt’s paintings and prints. Ranging from almost figurative to abstract, they appealed to me immediately. It is a shame the artist lived for such a short time. That which he produced in a few years, I am sure, would have led to him becoming a noteworthy artist with a fascinating output.
A busy market in a street in west London
CROWDS OF TOURISTS swarm to west London’s Portobello Road Market, especially on weekends. But how many of these visitors from all over the world know anything about the history of the place?
Here is an excerpt from my book “BEYOND MARYLEBONE AND MAYFAIR: EXPLORING WEST LONDON”. Beginning with Kensington and Paddington, it describes London from west of Park Lane and the Edgware Road to (and including) Heathrow Airport, and from Wembley south to Chelsea.
Here is an extract from the chapter dealing with Portobello Road:
“Before the mid-19thcentury Portobello Lane, as it was then called, was to quote the historians Florence Gladstone and Ashley Barker (writing in1924):“‘… one of the most rural and pleasant walks in the summer in the vicinity of London’, and within living memory it led ‘through fields to Kensal Green… cornfields and meadow land on each side… ‘”
Well, Portobello Road is no longer bucolic. It is lined with buildings along its length. Currently, it begins with a short section that leads off Pembridge Villas. It is here that you can stop for a drink at the Sun in Splendour pub, which was built in the early 1850s.Afterrunning a few yards westwards, Portobello Road heads off in a north-westerly direction, which it maintains with barely any deviation for the rest of its length. Number 22 was the first London home of the writer George Orwell. He lived there as a lodger in the winter of 1927. After crossing Chepstow Villas, the road slopes downwards and soon after this the market area commences. On most weekdays, much of the market is dedicated to daily needs, mostly food. On Fridays and Saturdays, the number of stalls and the variety of goods on offer increases dramatically. In normal times (i.e., when there is no pandemic),Portobello Road is choked with crowds of people from all over the world on Saturdays. In the 1860s, the Metropolitan Line (now the ‘Hammersmith and City Line,) was built. It crosses Portobello Road …”
To discover more about London, from west of Park Lane and the Edgware Road to Heathrow Airport, buy a copy of my book/kindle from Amazon website, e.g..:
After the heatwave came the cloudburst … après moi le déluge
FOR OVER A WEEK at the end of June and the beginning of July (2025), temperatures in London hovered around 30 degrees Celsius. Then, it became a bit cooler, and the sky clouded over. Despite the slight decrease in temperature, the air in London remained unpleasantly humid.
Then, on Sunday the 6th of July, the heavens opened. Rain came streaming down. The downpour was as heavy as monsoon rains I have seen in India.
After less than 10 minutes, the rain ceased, there were several rolls of thunder, and the sky became blue once more.
The photograph shows the disadvantages of a flat roof. With poor drainage, it becomes a swimming pool.
Flowing through Lodon
See the canal
Enjoy the birds and many boats
Savour London’s sights
Walk the house on London’s South Bank
DO HO SUH is an artist who was born in South Korea in 1962. He was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Seoul National University, and then later, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. He lived and worked in Seoul, then in New York City, and now in London. So, during his life, he has changed homes several times while moving from place to place. His exhibition that is on show in London’s Tate Modern until 19 October 2025 is called “Walk the House”. The exhibition is his artistic interpretation of what the concept of home means and of his experiences of moving from one residence to another.
Th artist’s works in the exhibition range from sketches, paintings, and sculptures to spectacular three-dimensional installations. Some of the installations can be entered and explored by visitors. In one of them, called “Nest/s”, the artist has stitched together a series of rooms made of translucent cloth that evoke places where he has lived in Seoul, New York, London, and Berlin. Visitors walk along a tunnel from room, thus following in the footsteps of the artist as he changed homes. Another large installation that can be entered is a large room made of translucent, white polyester. To the walls of this structure, the artist has attached models of appliances and fittings that were in each of the homes he has lived. The items that have been attached have been colour coded: a different colour for each of the places in which he has dwelled. One other thing that particularly appealed to me is a translucent resin model of the house in which he lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Visible within this model there is a model of Suh’s childhood home in Seoul.
The Tate’s web page for this exhibition explained:
“Is home a place, a feeling, or an idea? Suh asks timely questions about the enigma of home, identity and how we move through and inhabit the world around us.
With immersive artworks exploring belonging, collectivity and individuality, connection and disconnection, Suh examines the intricate relationship between architecture, space, the body, and the memories and the moments that make us who we are.”
And this does well summarise what can be viewed in this exhibition, which is well worth visiting.
Recycling in nineteenth century Kolkata (Calcutta) and London
THE GWALIOR MONUMENT stands on the bank of the Hooghly River in Kolkata (Calcutta). The monument commemorates British officers and their men, who died in the Gwalior War of 1843. Constructed in 1847 by the then Governor General of India, Lord Ellenborough, its roof is made of metal.
Several thousand miles away near London’s Hyde Park Corner and the towering Hilton hotel, there is a statue of the ancient hero Achilles. It commemorates the victories of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and his men who helped achieve them. Standing on a granite plinth, Achilles is made of metal.
These two distantly spaced British memorials both contain metal in their construction. They have one more thing in common. The metal on the roof of the Gwalior Monument and that used to make Achilles is recycled. In each case, the metal was obtained by melting down the canons of the defeated armies. In the case of the Gwalior Monument, the metal was derived from the cannons of the defeated Marath army, and in the Achilles statue, it was derived from the enemy’s cannons captured at the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo.
I wonder how the defeated armies would have felt if they had known that their weapons were being melted down to celebrate their opponents’ victories.
yamey 