Tea with the Evil Twins

We took advantage of today's dry weather and headed over to London Fields for another visit to Broadway Market. I'm sure I say this every time we go there, but it's definitely one of my favourite places in London--for food, for atmosphere, for sheer niceness, for East London at its best. After another dose of Vietnamese coffee in the market (so strong that it tastes alcoholic), we thought we should get some food to accompany our caffeine, and Bob suggested we check out a place that we've long said we should try one of these days, F. Cooke.

Established in 1862, F. Cooke remains a family business today, with Fred Cooke's great grandson, Bob Cooke, currently running the shop. As if he needed any more credentials, Bob was born above the shop, has worked in the business his entire life, and met his future wife when she came to work as the shop's "Saturday girl" at the age of thirteen. In honour of tradition, all first-born sons are either named Fred or Bob (and if you're curious, the current great-great-grandson of the original Fred is named Robert). With all this history in mind, the place itself didn't disappoint, and displayed its old-school sensibilities in the decor

and the way the pie was drowned in parsley liquor and the mash was unceremoniously scraped onto the side of the plate.

As we sat amongst a mix of shoppers from Broadway Market and some rather old-timey sorts from the neighbourhood before it went trendy, we enjoyed our bargain-priced hot lunch and even took a free calendar from the counter on our way out. From one set of initials and a surname to another, our next stop was a literal curiosity just north of London Fields, in a shopfront that retains its old sign, L. H. Brown, but which now houses Le Gun's Curiosity Shop.

It may not look like much from the outside, but we were here today to take part in another one of those things that makes East London great. After we confirmed that we were in the right place, the shop employee gave us a waiver to sign and pointed us toward the narrowest staircase ever. "Don't go through the door that says 'Do not enter'" was his only instruction, and as with many of the odd things that I drag Bob around to, I hadn't given him any idea what to expect, and was myself unsure what was down the dark stairs, having brought us here after being told to "be prepared to leave reality at the door as you descend into the sensory trickery that is the home of the Evil Twins. . . . Expect to feel intrigued, compelled and a little nervous as you travel through this unusual installation." Here's what we found at the bottom of the stairs:

A beautiful oversized book in a tiny, claustrophobic room told us the story of the Evil Twins, ending with the instruction for readers to drop to their knees. When we did so, we found a dark passageway that we had to crawl through (the reason for signing the waiver was becoming clear) to get to an even more claustrophobic room (it wasn't even a room--it was more like a medium-sized cupboard) in which we could barely sit without hitting our heads. Here's Bob crawling into the "room":

The cabinet was filled with images representing the Evil Twins' Seven Ominous Incidents; my favourite was the drawer that was simply labelled "Incident 2: Marble Cake."

We crawled out of that room and went into another small, dark tunnel,

using the tiniest promise of light to guide us to the next "room," which we had to get to by climbing a rather unstable wooden ladder. The image we saw on the wall as we entered definitely reflected the stature of the room!

The ceiling height and tea service size were to the same scale,

whereas we were, of course, of another scale altogether! (I hit my head again sitting up for this photo.)

Another dark passage was followed by the relief of being able to stand up, but what this room gained in height, it lost in width, with barely enough floor space for both of us to stand.

The supplied goggles made the surrounding images seem almost fluid in their blurriness, simulating the experience of being underwater, which fit with the watery images. Oh and they also made us look funny!

We returned the goggles to their hooks and once again crawled toward darkness, passing a small framed hole in the passage through which we could see people in another room further along in the journey. Our next stopping point contained two sets of instructions:

Crawling forward once again, we joined the people we had glimpsed earlier, and found the last doorway shut with a padlock and a riddle. After figuring out the lock's combination, we encountered more food and drink, along with the now-expected range of instructions.

Exiting that room and padlocking it for future visitors to tackle the riddle themselves, we spotted the exit and tumbled out into the book room in which we had started, which was now full of another set of people just beginning their journey through the home and fables of the Evil Twins. Curiosity shop indeed! My only regret about the experience is that I found out about it too late for us to experience the other half of the installation, which took place in Holloway, but was now finished. Our next stop of the day was a more conventional one, at Bankside's Frost Fair, taking place along the Thames, near Tate Modern. A celebration of the winter of 1607, when the Thames froze and Londoners could truly enjoy winter pursuits on the river, the modern-day Frost Fair has been held for the last five winters, and brings crowds down to the non-frozen Thames to celebrate all things winter.

These fake protesters drew attention to the free opening of Shakespeare's Globe being put on in conjunction with this weekend's Frost Fair.

Since the Globe is one London attraction that we'd not yet visited, we went and had a look. The exhibition portion was very crowded, and the marketplace being held at the centre of the permanent exhibition was pretty, but not very interesting,

with the exception of this kiosk, B. Binding & Sons, Literary Greengrocers:

We weren't really here for the exhibits though; we wanted to see the theatre itself!

After wandering through the theatre's levels, we exited the Globe and continued making our way along the Frost Fair.

The husky rides were finished for the day, but there were still plenty of cuddly, yelping pups available for patting.

After we finished up at the Frost Fair, Bob went to meet his friend Claire, who would be staying with us for a few nights. I still had a few more places I wanted to visit this evening, so we arranged to meet up again at home later on. Shortly after we started heading in our separate directions, I took this photo of this memorial plaque outside Waterloo Station because of the sad array of rubbish that unintentionally turned the memorial into a farce:

From Waterloo, it was a short journey to Somerset House,

where the skating rink was once again busy with people seeking winter distractions.

Can you guess by looking at the presents under the tree (above) and the colour of the ice rink itself (below) who the corporate sponsor of the rink is?

I wasn't here for the skating, though; I was here for the wonders hidden inside this building at Somerset House:

The Design Grotto flyer claimed it would "warm your Christmas cockles, entertaining you with interactive stalls, creative workshops, unique gifts for under £20 and a bucket load of traditional festive cheer," and I would have to say that it came through on its promise. Visitors were welcome to contribute to the paperchain that graced the entrance,

and the warren of small rooms that comprised the space were filled with all manner of Christmas festivities. While I didn't quite expect the whole thing to be so hands-on, I was pleasantly surprised by the diverse examples of DIY on display.

In one room, people added their own visual replies to the question, "If you could get anything for Christmas - what would it be?"

For a donation to charity, people at this booth tried to guide tiny cars around a Christmas-themed course.

I tried my luck at this booth, where you removed the pin closest to your home, and won a prize based on the colour of the pin's hidden tip. (I didn't really need a plastic ring, but I suppose that wasn't the point--and if it means that Santa's going to stop at our flat, well then it was definitely worth it!)

A lot of the booths collected donations to charity in return for a chance to win something, like the "Ten-Second Christmas Fondle," where £2 got you your pick of wrapped gift,

and after cuddling it for (a very generous) ten seconds, if you correctly guessed which gift you held, you got to take it home.

I witnessed a young girl correctly guess that she was holding a carrot, and while it was exciting that she guessed correctly, the payoff was a tad anticlimactic. This booth was one of the most popular, with people paying £1 to see if they could pull out a number that matched one of the possible gifts behind the booth.

(Holders of blank slips got their choice of consolation prize: piece of candy or can of beer.) My next stop was at Covent Garden's "Christmas Deluxe," with its shimmery decorations,

acrobatics,

and Christmas food market.

To finish off my festive wanderings, I stopped at Norway's annual Christmas gift to London, the tree at Trafalgar Square, to listen to carollers underneath the lights,

along with audience members heartily joining in.