36. All the little London things in between

• Some shop names just make you laugh.

There are, of course, certain places I consider my little London gems. Places I go back to time and again.

Scooter caffe on Lower Marsh Street, for example, for it’s quirky décor, cosy basement, resident cats and decadent hot chocolate. There’s the melt-in-your mouth sushi at Sushino on King’s Road and the Latino lounge, Azteca, nearby where I had my first mojito (and the one after that, and the one after that…). And there’s Souk Medina in Covent Garden - my favourite Moroccan cave of tantalising belly-dancing, low tables and delicious tagines where the mint tea is poured from an unbelievable height without spilling a drop. Don’t get me started about all of my favourite places to eat!

When I want to relax? There’s nothing better than sniffing around the Book and Comic Exchange in Notting Hill for a great secondhand read then taking a stroll down the wide, tree-lined avenues of Holland Park to find a sunny patch of grass near the waterfall in Kyoto Gardens on which to open the first pages.  

The teeny tiny street art of Pablo Delgado, paste-ups stuck on the bottoms of buildings

A night out in Camden with live music is unbeatable. The men who play jazz on saxophones in the back room of Marathon kebab shop on Chalk Farm Road to a crowd in the know, where candles are jammed into empty Jack Daniels bottles set on wooden picnic tables. And the up-and-coming bands that showcase their music at the Dublin Castle and Barfly have made for many a memorable night out.

I could go on…But what I think is really great about London is the little things in between, the things that are easy to miss out on in the rush of city life. So some days, I wander around armed with a camera and do nothing but observe and shoot for a few hours. A couple of my favourites?

• And the even smaller chewing gum art by Ben Wilson that you can spot all over the place, especially around Muswell Hill.

• Portobello resident Ron who walks around the market with his dog Betsy on his shoulders.

• Catching graffiti artists in action.

• Sophia Fox’s happiness switches glued to walls.

• Handwritten or misspelled signs outside of shops are always amusing.

Especially when it must have taken several tries

• Messages scrawled on walls in public spaces.

• The scraggly birds that call Elephant & Castle home.

• And the interesting mix of 

• architecture makes you think.

• The homeless man who sits on the golden jubilee bridge and plays his plastic pink guitar with the tip of a pen.

The People

But overall, it’s the people that I think deserve to be considered as one of London’s 100 greatest things. Because they are endlessly diverse, fascinating and inspiring no matter which part of the city you find yourself in looking for London’s other greatest things.

Author: Stephanie Sadler
@LLOStephskimo

Littlelondonobservationist.wordpress.com