A Shoreditch Staycation

Sunshine, clear blue skies, turqouise water, a top note of sun block, drinks by the rooftop pool (espresso martini anyone?), hot gay guys, assorted metrosexuals sucking their bellies in, bikini babes, tanned milfs & their off-spring, and slackers with laptops. On a Monday in central London ... pray tell, where is this Nirvana? In Shoreditch E1 of course, central London's staycation capital, Shoreditch House.

As the heavenly hegemony of foreign travel has trickled down from the aristocratic heights of 'the grand tour', to 'wintering' on the riviera, to tanning in St. Tropez with Bardot, to package holidays in Spain, to Club 18-30, to budget airline travel, to second home ownership, to journeys to peripheral airports ... modern travel has become nothing more than a hellish experience for most of us. So why do we do it when all the above is right here on our doorstep?

Following the adage 'build it and they will come', Nick Jones' Shoreditch Hotspot* has come of age as the sun has come out. (*Now with added roof a garden for adults). If only they did all-inclusive.

The Captain.
>);-0



Comments

  1. Anonymous2 July 2009 at 11:11

    Looks rather nice, I'd take one of those espresso martinis any time!
    Andreas

    ReplyDelete
  2. Robbie Lawson6 July 2009 at 23:52

    You forgot to mention the cheeky boys in the changing rooms Bloodster!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zen & The Art of Clint Eastwood

Image
Growing up in my grandparents house meant we were greeted every morning by a moody, squint-eyed, cigar-chomping, stetson-wearing cowboy, staring down at us from his position above the gas-fire. Shee-it, I must have seen that picture on a daily basis for at least 15 years. A couple of decades later and The Man With No Name is still with us, dissing 'the pussy generation ' and telling us how it is, in this month's Esquire magazine. Most noticeably of all ol' 'No Name' reveals a zen-like mastery of the creative process with platitude such as: ' "We've come this far, let's not ruin it by thinking." Children teach you that you can still be humbled by life, that you learn something new all the time. That's the secret to life, really -- never stop learning. It's the secret to career. I'm still working because I learn something new all the time. It's the secret to relationships. Never think you've got it all. We were doing In ...
Read more

'Mesrine pt.1'

Image
The last time I went to Paris on the Eurostar (about 4 years ago) I ate a fantastic dinner at a restaurant in St Germain called 'Ze Kitchen Galeri' notable both for what it wasn't: old-fashioned, posh, expensive (due to the favourable exchange rate) as well as for what it was: precise, skilled, & perhaps a little playful rather than pretentious. Since then the chef, William Leduil, has picked up a Michelin star and Ze Kitchen seems to be firing on all cylinders. Another Frenchman who seems to be firing on all cylinders is Vincent Cassel, star of new French gangster flick 'Mesrine: Killer Instinct'. With ingredients including Cassel, Gerard Depardieu, Ludovine Sagnier, Cécile De France & a liberal sprinkling of facial hair, wigs, guns, gangsters, torture & sick humour ("What do you call an Arab in a trash can? A waste, you can get three in there ..."), director Jean-François Richet ceates a fantastic visual feast. Playful rather then pretentiou...
Read more

Snowboarding on Primrose Hill

Image
Primrose Hill is an amazing place to live. What's more we now have our own piste, if only for one day. To recap: It's Monday 2nd February, it's been snowing all night (as predicted for days before), and in the early light just before dawn (7.45am) it's still snowing. What to do? Get out there and make the most of it, of course ... When I got to the top there were already 20 or so children and parents who quite natutrally had decided that they we're going to have some fun and take the day off. As you'd imagine, with no piste grooming facilities it was real back to basics stuff, but pretty soon there were a couple of jumps and things got a bit more lively... But by 9.30 am, and with hundreds more people recklessly throwing themselves down the hill on sheets of cardboard, plastic, trays, whatever ... it was time to leave the latecomers to it.
Read more