Tag: london

Travel Woes and Thrills: Following Arsenal in London

From the heartbreak of my Spanish club, Real Mallorca, getting relegated, I went to the euphoria of my English club, Arsenal, winning the Premier League. So my two sons and I decided to go to London to watch them play and then attend the trophy parade on the Sunday.

We had intended to go to Budapest for the final, but the cost of flights and hotels was off the scale. Something needs to be done about airlines and hotels profiteering whenever a major event comes to a certain city. How can a hotel that normally charges €100 for a room suddenly charge €1,000 for the exact same room on the night of the event? Remember, that’s a two-star hotel charging five-star prices, yet you’re still getting a two-star hotel room. You can guarantee that the same room will be back to €100 the following day. It’s wrong and should not be allowed to happen.

Anyway, we ended up in London and were in desperate search of a pub that hadn’t sold tickets the week before. There were hundreds of people on the streets all looking to do the same thing. We eventually found one called The George, just off Holloway Road.

The atmosphere was great: lots of banter, songs being sung, and plenty of drink being drunk! At £8.00 a pint, I’m sure the landlord was very happy.

I’m sure you know by now how the game went. Arsenal scored early on and PSG equalised in the second half from a penalty. In the end, penalties were the only way they could separate the two teams. They’re still searching for the ball from Gabriel’s penalty, which left PSG winning 4-3.

We went back to the hotel quietly, but knowing we still had the Premier League trophy parade on Sunday to look forward to.

We arrived at Finsbury Park on Sunday morning at around 11am and straight away you could see it was very busy. We decided to stay in that area rather than walk somewhere else. The crowd was around 30 people deep at the front at that point and getting deeper by the minute.

We then had approximately four hours to wait before the team bus was due to arrive. I don’t recommend hanging around for that amount of time with absolutely nothing to do. When the bus did arrive, it was a fleeting 20 seconds and most of it was lost beneath the red smoke filling the air from hundreds of flares being held aloft. Whoever’s clever idea that was hadn’t really thought it through properly.

And that was that — parade over.

It was 3.30pm and we then had to make our way back to Gatwick for a flight due to leave at 9.00pm. Fairly routine, you’d think: the Tube and then the Gatwick Express from Victoria. But we hadn’t banked on the sheer disorganisation of Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police and, I’ll throw him in there too, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

We went to Finsbury Park Tube station, which was shut, with no announcements telling anyone what was actually happening. So I said, “Let’s walk to Arsenal station.” We got there and that was shut too. Onward we shuffled to Highbury & Islington station. There was a pattern developing here — closed.

A policewoman sent us to Angel station, which she assured us was definitely open… it was closed.

By this time I was looking at my watch thinking, “Are we going to make this flight?” Next stop on our magical mystery Tube tour was King’s Cross St Pancras. You’ve guessed it… CLOSED!

Eventually, due to crowd pressure, they opened the gates. We hot-footed it — which wasn’t a saying by the way — to Victoria and caught the train to Gatwick. We arrived at Gatwick at 7.30pm.

So a journey that would normally have taken just over an hour actually took four hours.

When we got airside, we were greeted by the departure screen delightfully informing us that we were delayed by an hour and a half. When we were eventually called to the gate, we arrived to find the other 21 people waiting in the queue. Yes, there were only 24 of us!

The plane then mysteriously developed a technical fault, which led me to believe we were spending the night at Gatwick. An €18 drinks voucher was given to us at midnight, which was gratefully received, but we had nowhere to spend it because everything had already shut.

At 02.00am we finally took off, with all of us having about six rows each to stretch out on. We arrived just as the alarms on my phone were telling me to wake up for my morning breakfast show on Wave Mallorca Radio!

Definitely a weekend to remember, and I’ll leave you with the words of Louis Dunford:

North London forever

Whatever the weather

These streets are our own

And my heart will leave you never

My blood will forever

Run through the stone!

Quality Street

If you’re visiting London you’ll be inundated with recommendations of where to visit. One place that might not be high on some peoples lists is St Pancras International Station. It opened in 1868 and is a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic architecture and one of the most elegant stations in the World.  It is the terminus for Eurostar services from Belgium, Netherlands and France with an exciting collection of shops, restaurants and bars, including Europe’s longest Champagne bar. It is normally the station I go to if I’m going to watch Arsenal, the theatre or go shopping. 

One of the things I love about St Pancras is the piano that is in the middle of the concourse. Now this isn’t any old piano, on the 4th of February 2016, Elton John performed a medley at the station, to promote the album “Wonderful Crazy Night.” Following his performance, he donated the piano to the station, marking it with the inscription, “Enjoy this piano. It’s a gift.

Last week that famous piano hit the news, if you could call it news. It was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen in a long time. A guy was playing and live streaming on his you tube channel, when a group of Chinese tourists who happened to be in his shot asked him to stop filming them. They apparently were waiting to use the piano and as the guy who was playing said, “well why don’t you go away and come back when I’m finished?” They refused. You couldn’t make it up. The next day the piano was sealed off and the station said it was due to maintenance work. Can someone get a grip please!

I noticed when travelling to the UK that there was a piano situated between gates C and D in the airport at Palma. One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is play the piano. I can play Match of the Day and the Wombles of Wimbledon, so you can tell I’m no Elton John. It’s on my list of things to do in retirement. 

All this though reminded of how much I love watching street entertainers. Talented musicians have taken to perform on London’s transport network since 2003 with the London Underground Licensed Busking Scheme, brightening people’s journeys with genres from rock, to classical and pop for 364 days-a-year. 20 years on, the network now has more than 200 registered buskers, the busking scheme has up to 39 pitches across 25 central London stations which are clearly defined by a semi-circular floor graphic. 

Staying in London, I would thoroughly recommend you go to Covent Garden as the street entertainers there are second to none. Since the 1660s Covent Garden has never missed a chance to put on a performance. The first record of Covent Garden street entertainment came in 1662, when Samuel Pepys’ diary notes that a marionette show featuring a character named Punch took place on the Piazza. The best place in my opinion to watch the entertainers is the roof terrace at the  Punch and Judy pub. The pub was built in 1787 and was named after the Punch and Judy shows performed there for the children of the flower sellers.

We have street entertainers in Palma, particularly in and around the Cathedral area. I love to watch the statues, who are amazing. All street entertainers should have a licence that can be applied for at Palma Town Hall. 

Our holiday in Jamaica was enhanced by the guys that wandered the beach during the day. In particular the guy in the picture with my son Jude. He did his version of Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ whilst basically strumming his guitar up and down with no actual tune. No offence but he would have been better off singing ‘One Tooth’ as he was dentally challenged. But he was very grateful for the beer we invited him to, to persuade him to move on. He would in fact treat us to the same rendition pretty much every day and in a strange way we used to look forward to his performance. 

The Bob Marley film ‘One Love’ should arrive in our cinemas here in Mallorca around February 14th. He is still revered in Jamaica and it’s a film I’m very much looking forward to seeing after our holiday there.

Richie is the MD at Pirates, the islands number one night out featuring Adventure, Reloaded and Gringos.

Follow him on Twitter @DadTaxi1 & Instagram @dad.taxi or feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com 

5 Answers To The Question, What To Do At An Airport When Waiting For A Connecting Flight?

We knew that after a couple of weeks away seeing family and friends over the Christmas period and then jetting off to the beautiful island of Jamaica, we still had the dreaded return journey. Flights returning home always seem quicker which in most cases they are but not for us as we had the added complication of getting from the UK to Mallorca and in the winter time that isn’t as easy as you think.  It’s the getting off of one plane and then getting back on another which is the pain. Only this pain was going to be slightly longer than we wanted. Landing at Gatwick at 06.45 in the morning, we then had to wait until 17.00 to get our flight back to Mallorca. 

So what do you do when waiting for a connecting flight at London Gatwick or any other airport for that matter? Our problem was that Easyjet(others weren’t available) only allow you to check-in a maximum 3 hours before your scheduled flight time. Airports aren’t really designed for you to spend a significant amount of time landside, the fun only starts once you get airside. It’s a question though that will pop up again and again during this piece. Believe me when I say I exhausted all efforts to try and take away the boredom we faced. 

The three hotels right by the North terminal where we landed and were leaving from are the Premier Inn, Sofitel and the Hampton by Hilton. The Sofitel check-in is from 14.00, the Hampton by Hilton is from 15.00. That is the same as the Premier Inn who were the only ones to offer an earlier check-in at 11.00 for only £10.00 but this is only payable on arrival and subject to availability on the day. 

So a hotel was really a no go. 

All the airport lounges are airside. Which when you think about it makes sense but why not offer one that is landside? I’m sure there’s many more people who will be in the same position as us with a connecting flight and also those who would like to take the stress out of actually getting to the airport in the first place. It’s an idea if you’re reading this someone at Gatwick Airport.(unlikely!)

I even considered leaving our luggage at the airport which you can do. I found a company called stasher.com that offer certain places that will store your bags for £4.75 a bag. Then you could take a train to London to see the sights, have a meal, go shopping or go to the theatre as on the Gatwick Express you can arrive at Victoria in 30 minutes. Or take the train to Brighton, go the pier, visit the lanes or have some seaside fish & chips!  All of which you can get to also in only 30 minutes. The problem with either of those is you arrive knackered and you might not enjoy it as much. 

Another idea which we did the night before we flew to Jamaica was to take the local bus from the airport to Crowley Cineworld. It takes 15 minutes and was £2.00 each, each way. We saw a film, well I say saw a film, as the one I went to I fell asleep in. My Wife who’s my usual nudger had gone to a different one. Right outside the cinema you can eat at Nandos, TGI Fridays, Pizza Hut or Five Guys to name a few. 

What we eventually decided on was a place on the ground floor of the South Terminal called Yotelair. Basically they are pods that have either double beds or bunk beds with a TV, shower and toilet. The advantage is they’ll let you book in at anytime for a minimum of 4 hours. It cost us £49.99 for each pod for the 4 hours and £10.00 for every extra hour after that. To be honest I found them a little bit claustrophobic but my Wife and boys slept without any problem. It was good though to have a shower after an overnight flight. After leaving our hotel in Jamaica at 12 midday on Thursday, we arrived back at our house in Mallorca at 21.00 on Friday night. 

I hope this will help anyone who has a similar journey to us coming up. As for us well we’re already planning on where we can go next year.

Richie is the MD at Pirates, the islands number one night out featuring Adventure, Reloaded and Gringos.

Follow him on Twitter @DadTaxi1 & Instagram @dad.taxi or feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com