Welcome Back To The Capital.

View from the 38th floor at Bokan: looking across the river as the sun sets over the capital.

In case you didn't know, I'm from London U.K. Born and raised in the capital, and proud of. Apart from a brief stint at university (in Roker, Sunderland, of all places) in my early twenties, I've always lived in London. Not planning on living anywhere else either. The area I live in the South West of the city is an area called Tooting (where Robert Lindsay's character in Citizen Smith was from). For those who don't know exactly where it is, I call it the halfway house between Clapham and Wimbledon - where the annual tennis tournament of the same name is.

What prompts me to write this entry is, in the run-up to World FantasyCon in a few days, I'm about to head out of London - and thinking of some the cool stuff I've seen lately. Starting with a date up at Bokan in South Quay (just past Canary Wharf), East London a few weeks back. If ever you want to catch a sunset with someone, this is a good pick. Early September I had a date that introduced me to the Ain't Nothing But blues bar in the back of the West End. While my go-to would have been the likes of the Nightjar up in Shoreditch, I can't fault the two acts that I saw - both of them were tight, the music superb.

Second act of the night: the Living Legends take to the stage.

Ever since last year, I've now started going to the London Film Festival. Too many years had passed with me being on both sides of the Atlantic - specifically, in Toronto at the end of the summer - and missing two film festivals. Now, I go to the London Film Festival more for the experience, rather than to watch something in particular. What I now know is that the festival runs for two weeks in the middle of October, but booking opens up (if memory serves) at the end of September. If you're ever interested, you need to get while the going is good - tickets move like the proverbial hot cakes. I toyed with the idea of watching drama/thriller Ballad Of A Small Player, starring Colin Farrell, but opted against it, since it's due on Netflix in a few days from writing this entry. Plus, I'd like to see more reviews on the supernatural/ghost aspect before I watch it. Anyhow, I'd opted for Is This Thing On? - comedy drama starring Wil Arnett and Bradley Cooper, who also directs.

Just enough time for a picture before I take my seat for the main event. Look at the scale of the auditorium - a 2000-plus seater.

Now the BFI (British Film Institute) sits on the South Bank (read: beside the river up at Waterloo, Central London). As part of the London Film Festival, films are screened at the BFI, at the Royal Festival Hall, which is nearby, at the Curzon cinema (which one exactly, I forget) and the Prince Charles Cinema, which is just down a side road off the main plaza of Leicester Square. My preference for now (and I may branch out to the others in the future) is to see something screening at The Royal Festival Hall. Part of the reason for this is that it's not like a theatre at the Odeon or the Vue - the theatre(s) in the Royal Festival Hall seat over two thousand people - I know this because I can remember the announcement when I went for the first time last year (FYI, this was at the screening of the Pharrell Williams animated feature biopic told in Lego, called Piece By Piece). In going to the Royal Festival Hall, I just love the pomp and ceremony of watching that many people leak into the auditorium, clamber high and low to take their seats, the master of ceremonies taking to the stage to introduce another step in the festival, cast and crew taking the stage to say a few words, etc. Great fun - and one of the cool things in the city.

In fact, I was at the Royal Festival Hall about a week later for a birthday dinner. My birthday, in fact, at a place called Skylon - which occupies the third floor. I hadn't planned on heading back to the Royal festival Hall - but for all the rooftop places I was looking at for a birthday dinner, this was the first pick that had a chocolate pudding for dessert ...which wasn't present on the day. Be it known that while I'm a foodie, I'm not a snob about food - the same way I'd get amped about fine dining, I'd get amped over homemade Jamaican patties from a local market, which are shortcrust pastry packed to capacity with spicy and lean minced beef. Better than most supermarket pies that cheat you by filling the pies with sauce/gravy, gristle, and air - anything but the actual meat. Anyhow. The food at Skylon is decent quality, but my portion size, strangely, was too small. Luckily, this is where the hack of making sure you order meat/fish starters to compensate for deficiency in the main comes in handy.

Lounging during the intermission. And, unlike other theatres I've been to, the Alexandra Palace Theatre has an abundance of leg room. Much appreciated.

And finally, I went to see the stage play of Susan Hill's novel The Woman In Black up at the Alexandra Palace. I had booked to see it a couple of weeks beforehand, but with service disruption on London Underground that weekend, I missed the show. Not wanting to repeat that, I tried again. Imagine my surprise when I saw the Alexandra Palace Theatre is actually part of Alexandra Palace. In case you didn't know, this is in the wilds of North London and the place is (cue hyperbole) fucking massive. For the record, I've not been here since I saw Alice In Chains playing songs including some off the then-new album Black Gives Way To Blue.

Anyhow. Time at the Alexandra Palace theatre was decent and, unlike more theatres I've sat in, this one has ample leg room. As for the show itself? I wasn't too impressed by the two-man cast playing a number of parts, nor with a lack of props for things like horse and cart. What did impress though was the capturing of atmosphere. Although, overall, I'll give the nod to The Enfield Haunting, which I saw early last year, but had some solid practical effects for poltergeist activity, like sofas getting a violent overturn.

With a twist ending, and applause, the actors take their final bow. The Woman In Black, at the Alexandra Palace Theatre.

These are just a handful of things that I want to see and do when I go out in London. From an author point of view, they help keep my stories grounded in a sense of realism and the everyday, because not only do I go to different things in different places but I also get to meet different people. Or, at the very least, observe different people. As a kid and as a teen I experienced more people from outside the UK, be at from across an ocean or not. What stuck with me was the protestations on 'London's too dirty, too expensive, not cool enough,' etc. etc. etc. - and me, still having some growing up to do, would just swallow it.

Now when I hear this talk, I just think ' well, piss off, then. I won't miss you. Neither will London.' Nowhere is perfect. But where I do give London the nod is the sheer scale and diversity: the young and the old, the black and white, the straight and the gay, the hip and square, and all the shades between. I don't subscribe to all of them - I just appreciate all of them. Which help me reproduce London faithfully, I hope - enough that when you read my work, it's all the more disturbing.

Welcome to the capital.

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