The Herd is Getting Ready for Migration

This blog, all of its sundry London scraps and of course all the London elephants are about to migrate! See the end of this post for sketchy details. There is just time to catch a glimpse of a final Weekend Elephant here in its original home.

As regular readers will know, each Friday we publish a picture of one of  London's enormous herd of elephants, this week's is Number 7.

You then have the whole Bank Holiday weekend to email the location to elephants@peterberthoud.co.ukThe first person to locate each weekend's elephant will be rewarded with a glorious mention sometime on Tuesday when the location will be officially revealed.

So, this week's somewhat titillating Weekend Elephant is:

Happy hunting!

During next week the new blog should be up and running at  a new self-hosted site http://www.peterberthoud.co.uk/ .For those of you who are technically minded, a quick glance at the new site will demonstrate conclusively that I am not! A feast of broken links, odd typography, poor layout and limited functionality awaits you.

I am relatively confident that bit by bit I will develop a basic mastery of FTP, CSS, RSS, PHP, HTML, Widgets and all the other tools I would currently struggle to define, let alone be able to use! This confidence, I must stress, is the kind born of blissful ignorance rather than that born out of experience and ability.

Whether I can remove the irritating auto link to a Romanian car dealership, that has embedded itself into every single imported post, remains to be seen ( I hate you Piese Auto, I don't even drive!). I should however be able to remove the other annoying feature of the import, the use of the > symbol at the beginning of every headline and first line.

So, why the move? Well, I have been advised that if I am to develop this blog in the way I want and have the ability to integrate a couple of new London related projects, then I will really need to set up my own site. So I have taken a leap of faith in a quest to deliver more and better content.

August seemed a good time to immerse myself in utter bewilderment, double my nicotine intake and lose what little hair remained on my head. The fruits of my new found obsession and physical deterioration will hopefully be worth it.

It will certainly be good to be back blogging more regularly, I have been missing the daily ritual and have collected quite a backlog of posts. I haven't been publishing too many this month as it would just have given me more stuff to import to the new site and of course provided more free advertising opportunities for that dratted car dealer in Romania!

Anyway, if I can master the mystery of a "301 redirect" and get my RSS into gear, then this blog should pop up at the new site automatically over the next few days. If my innate technical incompetence gets in the way, then I may have to ask anyone who has kindly linked, followed or bookmarked me to amend their links.

Any feedback on features you would like to see on the new blog would be very welcome at hopeless@peterberthoud.co.uk, any advice on how to implement them even more so!

Have a great Bank Holiday!

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout Westminster, see tabs for details.

McDonald's Defy Banksy Ban in Bond Street

Outside the West One Shopping complex, that houses Bond Street Station, this sign has appeared.

No food or drink illustrations allowed beyond this point

Inside West One the food illustrators, chiefly McDonalds, are carrying on regardless! In defiant mood they have even chosen to illustrate precisely the products that Banksy has specifically banned i.e. burgers, fries and sodas!

I will not give McDonald's the oxygen of publicity that they so clearly crave by reproducing their illustrations here, I am sure you can imagine the sort of images they have so blatantly used.

Banksy first issued a similar ban back in 2010 at his "Lambeth Palace" cinema on Leake Street, where Exit Through the Gift Shop premièred. You can see an image of the original large scale sign here.

The message of the smaller scale sticker at Bond Street is not diminished by its size. Nor do I think it matters whether Banksy himself produced the sticker version and placed it here, or whether it is the work of a studio assistant. The message is clear and I feel McDonald's should desist from food illustration at the site immediately.

Does anyone know of other sites where McDonald's are flouting similar bans?  If so please drop me a line and perhaps together we can nip this worrying trend in the bud.

Entry Restrictions Lifted on St Martin's Lane

Okay you have probably seen this already but it still makes me smile every time I nip into the Chandos for a pint of Alpine. No idea who the artist is, more info, as always much appreciated.

Update 31st May 2011 after a kind tip off by the wonderful people at London Remembers I was able to locate this second sign in Regent Square today, see comments below.

Now I have a matching pair, thank you! Does anyone else know of any more?

Do Dogs, Do Do-ing, Do Symbols?

Groucho Marx once said "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.".

I hope that, from a dog's perspective, this Camden paving slab is legible.

At the Sign of the Four-Poster

I was waiting outside Goodge Street Tube yesterday and the front of Heal's on Tottenham Court Road looked magnificent in the sunshine.

 

This is the  southern extension built by the architect  Sir Edward Maufe (1882–1974) between 1936 and 1938 and features these beautiful decorative panels advertising the specialities of this venerable furniture and interior design shop.

 

 

The architect's wife, Prudence Maufe, was a designer and interior decorator, and a Director of Heal's. She  had a long running affair with the Managing Director Ambrose Heal. I wonder if in some convoluted way, this is how Edward Maufe was chosen to execute the extension?

Prior to  his marriage to Prudence, Sir Edward had fortuitously changed his birth name by deed poll to Maufe. He had originally been christened Edward Muff. The change no doubt helped his career and that of Prudence and would presciently deny shop floor wags the opportunity of  mocking a "Prudence Muff" or any variations of the name.

Not satisfied with just one lover Ambrose Heal, like Prudence, needed  more loving than most. During his affair with Prudence he also conducted a long affair with one of the store's assistants, Dodie Smith, who went on to become the author of One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

In addition to his dalliances Ambrose Heal also found time to work with London Underground's Frank Pick to set up the "Design and Industries Association", forerunner of the Design Council.

I couldn't find photos of all the panels on the net and in looking for more details I discovered these snippets. I still haven't been able to find out who produced the panels for Maufe, .if anyone knows please drop me a line.

All You Can Eat Street

Spotted high up, on the south east corner of Frith Street and Shaftesbury Avenue in Soho. Advert or admonishment?

I rarely do the "All You Can Eat" places now.  Maoz and Pollo's are so nearby, so cheap and so filling that even unending buffets of vegetarian duck and prawns can't tempt me away. I suppose I am spoilt.

New Street Art in Charing Cross Road

This adapted road sign was standing on the junction of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue yesterday morning. I doubt if it is still there now.

I have seen this face elsewhere in the West End, does anybody know who the artist is?

Update 1st May 2011: After an email, thank you, I believe the sign was made by one of the LFH crew. More examples of their handiwork here.