No, not Margaret Thatcher; comedy!

From Monty Python to Spitting Image; we may be grumpy on the Tube but we’re funny on the telly.

The list of British comedy acts that have taken over the world is huge; and since almost every act had to come to London to break into the big time, we’ll happily take the credit for all of them.

I was in Berlin last weekend and all the German people I met said how much they love British humour. They are watching Little Britain over there! A truly scary legacy as we transmit Vicky Pollard around the world.

Check out Wikipedia for a rollercoaster ride through British comedy that should lead you to some treasures in the 5-day rental section of your local video store.

After that, you can check it out live and in person all over London.

Tags: Metblogs7Gifts 7Gifts Metroblogging7Gifts 7 gifts to the world

Indian restaurants here generally annoy me. When my colleagues go ‘ooh I would love to go for a curry!’, my first reaction is always ‘blech!’ Okay, I confess, I get a tad toffee-nosed about it, being a desi and all but believe me when I say this: it ain’t authentic.

The joints that serve authentic grub are usually packed to the rafters with true-blue South Indians who know their idli from their vada and as a result, service is normally pathetic. On one memorable occasion, the waiter-type bloke almost took my plate away when I was just a little over half-way through stuffing my face!

So imagine my surprise when I walked into a restaurant 1. that looked real decent - proper decor and all 2. served real decent grub 3. this takes the cake, is in East Ham!! So, if you want to eat proper Indian, then I have no qualms in suggesting Sathiyams - great food, fantastic value for money.

The underground map:

The original map [1] was designed in 1931 by Underground employee Harry Beck, who realised that, because the railway ran mostly underground, the physical locations of the stations were irrelevant to the traveller wanting to know how to get to one station from another — only the topology of the railway mattered. This approach is similar to that of electrical circuit diagrams; while these were not the inspiration for Beck’s diagram, his colleagues pointed out the similarities and he once produced a joke map with the stations replaced by electrical-circuit symbols and names with terminology: “bakelite” for “Bakerloo”, etc. In fact, Beck based his diagram on a similar mapping system for underground sewage systems.

To this end, he devised a vastly simplified map, consisting of only named stations, straight line segments connecting them, and the Thames; lines ran only vertically, horizontally, or at 45 degrees.

The Underground was initially sceptical of his proposal — it was an uncommissioned spare-time project, tentatively introduced it to the public in a small pamphlet. It was immediately popular, and its successor is now used throughout the Underground on poster-sized maps and pocket journey planners.

Thanks Wiki.

Where would the world’s huddled masses be without a decent metro map, huh? There have been many attempts to better Beck’s masterpiece. Indeed below you’ll see what the tube map ‘really’ looks like. However, for many londoners as with caffs the tube map is the way they see the city that has defined what an underground should be.

I give you gift number 2, the Underground map.

Sean

Tags: Metblogs7Gifts 7Gifts Metroblogging7Gifts 7 gifts to the world
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