Sightseeing

"Artists, writers, musicians, dossers off the street, all just interacting and relaxing in our pad, the new hub of North London -- the cutting edge!"
--Daisy, "Spaced"

I'm in a great hostel here in North London. Technically, I'm in the Village of Highgate, in the Borough of Haringey, in Furnival House, one of the University of Westminster's dorms. It's exactly like Park Village, in most respects. Single room, shared bath and kitchen, only the room's smaller, the kitchen's bigger, the building's older, and there's an actual bath in the bathroom, which has been a comfort. Highgate's a nice little residential area with a smattering of shops and cafes, plus a fruiterer (why not just "fruiter"?) and a Tesco's. Easy walking distance to Archway Station, too. I lucked out.

It's also a 20-minute walk to 23 Meteor Street, the house from "Spaced." That inspired me to go on a sightseeing tour of sights that most people, to be honest, wouldn't care about seeing, but to me would be huge.

23 Meteor Street
There is no Meteor Street, as it turns out; it's on Carleton Road, but I assure you, it's definitely there, and it's definitely number 23. I was excited to find the place, but blown away by the presence of a shopping cart in front of the house. Only someone with an unhealthy interested in the show would know that there was a shopping cart permanently parked outside the house in the exterior shots. So I wonder, was this coincidence? Is there a secret cabal of "Spaced" fans who contrive to leave shopping carts here just for the sake of real-keeping?

So... that's Marcia's place on the top floor, Tim and Daisy's in the middle, and Brian, who "rents downstairs," on the ground floor. There's someone living there, of course, so I was a little self-conscious about loitering outside their home, but I did manage to sneak this shot of the front door to get the address.


In case you're trying to find the place yourself, from the Odeon at the corner of Holloway Road and Tufnell Park, you want to head west down Tufnell Park (if you're looking down Holloway towards Holloway Road Station, you'll take a right down Tufnell Park Road). Carleton Road meets with it at an angle on your left; follow it for a little longer than you think you should, and keep an eye out for road signs, because it's not always clear where it continues. Eventually there'll be a big fenced-in empty lot-type thing on your right, and immediately past that is... the house. So good luck with that.

Fantasy Bazaar
This was kind of a crapshoot, since we never get a good exterior shot of the comic store where Tim and his boss Bilbo (Bill Bailey) work. All we really know is that there's a large window to the right of the cash counter, which is up against a rather featureless wall. According to IMDB, the actual store used for this was They Walk Among Us, a comic store in Richmond at 26 Red Lion Street. I'm not convinced this is the place.


The outside looks nothing like the Fantasy Bazaar we see in the show, and the inside just isn't arranged right: the window's to the left instead of the right of the till, which doesn't run all the way to the storefront. And since the door is in the middle of that storefront, there's no room for a window big enough to stand in for the one we see in the show (we get a clear shot of it in the first episode when the "aliens" are pointing and laughing at the painted window). They were awfully nice in there, though, especially considering I was wearing my Shaun of the Dead shirt and asking for the issue of "2000 AD" that had the Shaun of the Dead comic in it (this is the comic equivalent of going to a concert wearing a shirt of the band on stage), but I'm not buying it.

However, the shop next door is a different story.


The set-up looks right from the outside, plus the door on the right fits as well. I'm going off the top of my head here, but I think the only time we see someone actually enter the shop, it's Daisy, coming in with Colin, and the location of this door would her entrance from the left as the camera looks out towards the front of the store. In any case, neither of these places has an exterior that matches the brick-bordered window painted with the shop's name.

Is all this geeky and anal-retentive enough for you? Good.

This one was easy to find, but it took a while, because Richmond's pretty far from the center of London. Take the District line all the way to Richmond, turn left out of the station up The Quadrant, left again on Victoria Place, and before you hit Red Lion you'll see They Walk Among Us in front of you.

The Winchester
This pub, the Duke of Albany, has definitely seen better days.




If Shaun and Ed had tried a drunken walk from here in the middle of the night, though, they'd be lucky to make it home intact. To be honest, this is in a pretty rough neighborhood. I may have felt safer surrounded by the walking dead. This neighborhood is the polar opposite of the upscale, trendy digs of Richmond. I realize I'm just a lily-white collegiate wimp, but I recommend finding this place only in the broad light of day.

Still, if you're determined: take the East London line to its terminus in New Cross. Out of the station, turn right on New Cross until you hit Monson Road. It doesn't go all the way through, but there's a pedestrian walkway and a sign, so take it. As soon as you come out on Monson you'll see it. The address is 39 Monson Road, but if you're the kind of person who'd go looking for this place, you won't need to see its number to recognize it.

As sidenote, today I went to the Soho area and visited Forbidden Planet, arguably London's most famous geek store: comics, RPGs, CCGs, toys, collectibles... etc. They had this great signed poster up on the wall that fit nicely with the previous day's theme.


I also managed to visit a "dive" comic store called Orbital, which was essentially a basement full of comics. I got a little education in "2000 AD" there. Only two issues are worth anything, and even though the "Shaun" issue doesn't rate among them, it's still impossible to find, so I gave up.

And this place was closed, but I was drawn to it anyway.


Stumbled upon this future site of "Spamalot," too.


Two other cool things make my oddball sightseeing list. One of them, Christ Church Spitalfields in Whitechapel, is a legit thing to see, primarily because of its significance in the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888. In fact, I came across three or four Ripper walking tours while tracking it down. It's another Wren church, and I think it looks plain evil. The spire bears a passing resemblance to an obelisk, and obelisks are set into the wrought-iron fence that encompasses its yard. This was built in the mid 17th-century, before Nelson and Alexandria made obelisks cool. I find the whole place a little odd.


The other weird, interesting sight was City Glow, Mountain Whisper, a series of murals by Chiho Aoshima currently on display at Gloucester Road Station.


I'd passed it a few times on the Piccadilly line, but I took the opportunity yesterday to get some pictures of it.


From the brochure on the installation: "City Glow, Mountain Whisper shows a timeless world created by contemporary technology. It suggests a utopian vision of the earth in which the past and future have collided and the boundaries between organic creatures and inanimate things have broken down."

So... there's your next game.

And with that, I am officially caught up with this blog. Whew. Been a while since I've been able to say that. Jill arrives tomorrow, and then we're off on Jill's Friends' Places Tour 2006, so I don't know when or if I'll be able to do much updating for the next week or so.

I'd better get to sleep, though. I've got a date with an angel at 8:00 in the morning.