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“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” So opined that old sage Samuel Johnson to his friend and biographer James Boswell in 1777. Of course, what he should have said (and doubtless meant) was “never, ever, under any circumstances, start a travel piece about London with a hackneyed, over-used quote”.

The reason I deviate from such generally accepted wisdom is to highlight the rather extraordinary fact that old Sammy came up with such doubtless wisdom despite never having visited “Puttshack” (at least to the best of this modern day scribe’s knowledge). Had he done so, one can only imagine he would have been even more strident in his claims that the UK capital boasts something for everybody – and a dizzying array of events and activities so ludicrously resplendent one can never slide into boredom. But more of such treats later.



It was late spring and we had been invited to London to sample the delights of two hotels – the at the foot of Regent’s Park and Not, one might fairly conclude, an assignment that sounded like too much of a hardship. And so we departed Scotland at a truly ungodly hour for a Saturday morning flight (Edinburgh to Stansted by air, followed by the Stansted Express to Liverpool Street) and found ourselves pounding the streets of London a little after 9am. A fine morning’s stroll around Hyde Park and its environs later and we were ready for a bit of higher-octane action and so made our way to Bank and the intriguingly titled.

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