The Curiosity Museum with Cocktails, Taxidermy Classes & Cuddly Crawling Chameleons

“I’m so bored of contemporary museums and their desperate attempt to classify and make sense of everything. The world is one big, glorious mess and we should celebrate that.” – Victor Wynd. Oh, I couldn’t agree more Mr. Wynd! This may come as a bit of a surprise, but you’ll rarely find MessyNessy in a…

Meet the Family with the Secret Recipe for making London’s Iconic Blue Plaques

Jimi Hendrix has one. Virginia Woolf has one. So does Karl Marx. Since 1984 all the plaques have been hand made by just one family– and they’re pretty adorable… Via Huck Magazine.

Candlelight Cocktails in the “World’s Oldest Music Hall”

They say it’s the world’s oldest music hall, yet there’s no theatrical facade, just a faded red door set into a peeling wall cobbled together from five Victorian house fronts. Hidden half-way down a pedestrian alley in the heart of East London, an unforgettable evening awaits… It began as an alehouse dating from 1743 or earlier,…

The Notting Hill Pub with a Spicy Secret

If you’re looking for a traditional English pub with a twist, I think I have something for you. I grew up around the corner from this place, admiring the flowers passing by everyday, but I was always faithful to another local pub during my Londoner years and I never even went inside to discover its secret– until this weekend that…

The Secret Seventies Bar Hidden inside a Retro Laundromat Café

I‘m guessing every keyword in that title had you at hello. Secret, seventies, hidden, retro, laundromat café– yep, I like to think I’m starting to get a feel for the sort of things that float your boat. So let’s get straight to it and hop over to London for a moment to check out this spot I’ve been eyeballing every since it…

Borrow an East London Time Capsule House

At number 4 Princelet Street in East London, there is an 18th century yellow brick Georgian time capsule behind the Old Spitalfields Market. The double fronted merchant’s house, conserved in its original condition from top to bottom, is one of the last of the original houses to be built on the street where dozens of…

The Shoreditch Live Animal Market, 1946

Once upon a time, you could purchase a lion cub on the streets of Shoreditch. At the Club Row Animal Market, just north of Bethnal Green Road, every Sunday the cobblestone road would transform into a theatrical scene where the whoop of monkeys, the howling of dogs, the singing of exotic birds and the hissing…

The Tiniest House in London, possibly the World, is for Sale just shy of Half a Million Dollars

Come and take a tour of this one-bedroom London property up for sale, it’ll only take a second– no, literally. Despite its shortcomings (measuring in at just 17 square meters or 188 square feet), this compact little terraced house located near Angel in Islington, pretty much has everything you could possibly need in a London pied-a-terre (yes, I…

The Forgotten Souls of London’s Women of the Night

Guest article by A Passport Affair Down an unremarkable side street in Southwark, London, is a fenced lot filled with broken concrete slabs, patches of overgrown grass and the odd piece of abandoned construction equipment. Its dark history and iron gates separate this sad little patch from the outside world. Lengths of ribbon, handwritten messages…

The Bohemian Coffee Houses of 1950s London

Before Starbucks took over the London high street, London had as many bohemian coffee houses as Paris does charming cafés. A meeting place for artists, writers, musicians, radicals and intellectuals, coffee houses had their own quirky themes and style. This 1959 newsreel gives us a glimpse into the golden age of London’s beatnik coffee bars… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nsRHHcq1P8#at=130]…