Scootercaffe – best coffee in the south of London
It was just made to my attention that Time Out has listed Scootercaffe as one of the best places to go for a cuppa in the south of London. Says Time Out:
Retro equipment used well | No food – but you can BYO | Unique atmosphere. Scootercaffè (formerly Scooterworks) breaks with London conventions. Instead of Square Mile or Monmouth, the bean of choice is Londinium. A La Marzocco is shunned for a strikingly retro 1957 Faema espresso machine. Read full review…
Since this is one of the favourite haunts on Lower Marsh for most Livebookings people I am thrilled. 
Pay them a visit, if you are looking for a cosy place with great coffee they will not disappoint!
Get awesome pies at Gabriel’s Wharf!
This country is in short supply of really good pie and mash shops, it seems, which is odd considering this is the land of pie! A brand making a serious effort to change this, reinventing the old pie and mash concept, is pieminister.
While they have a few shops around the UK where you can get a wide range of excellent pies with mash and gravy, there has never been one anywhere near my home or office. Until now.
Opened just a few week’s ago (January 2010) they now have a small shop in an almost hidden away corner in the cooky Gabriel’s Wharf down by the Thames. Although perhaps not really in Waterloo, it is a bit of a walk from the station, I feel the quality of their food makes this one worth noticing and rejoicing over.
Have a look, and certainly go try them out: pieminister information and location.
Scooterworks changes name to Scootercaffe
Scootercaffe, the cafe formerly known as Scooterworks, has changed name to make it more clear that they actually don’t sell any scooter parts or accessories in the coffee shop on Lower Marsh.
Anyone looking for that type of stuff is better off going to their workshop, still known as Scooterworks, located on Enid Street in Bermondsey.
We have also updated their listing with a load of recent information, do check it out.
Personally I think Scootercaffe is the perfect embodiment of why Lower Marsh is such a fantastic and constantly surprising street. Pay them a visit for your caffeine fix, you will not regret it.
Gritting the Leake Street tunnel, 1st of August
On the 1st of August an event slightly out of the ordinary will take place in the Leake Street tunnel: knitters and graff artists will create “a fusion of can and craft” as they will be gritting the tunnel.
Bringing knitting and graffiti together is bound to lend an entirely unique look and feel to the dear tunnel. This is an event not to be missed, so bring out your best hardcore ninja knitting needles and join in the fun!
Read more on the I Knit London web site.
Mysterious ex-Eurostar activities
Since a couple of weeks mysterious activities have been going on in the old Waterloo Eurostar terminal.
Lots of construction workers, speaker stacks, funky lights, what looks like new flooring to cover the platforms and old railway tracks… Difficult to spy efficiently from our officewindows though.
Eurostar terminal in Waterloo with mysterious screens
What are they preparing?
Funky club venue with unrivalled location for convenient public transport?
Eurostar revival, allowing us yet again to have the lovely feeling of knowing we work less than three hours away from Paris?
Opening of a new railway line to ease morning train congestion?
No… Probably not. That would be too good. Today a wall of flat screens lit up on the far wall, and we can hear soundchecking. Our best collaborative effort guess is a product launch for an Italian car (check the screens, a car whizzing past on flat panels of green / white / red…) that will be coming over from mainland Europe to the UK.
Careening up the tracks.
Arrived.
Krispy Kremy goodness – take a springbreak from your desk!
The kind people over at Krispy Kreme doughnuts have informed me that this week they are running a promotion they call “Take a springbreak from your desk”.
Each day, a voucher will be available on www.KrispyKreme.co.uk from 11.30 AM, which can be downloaded and redeemed at any participating Krispy Kreme store for something awesome. Now exactly what “awesome” means Tom from their PR company would not tell me, but he assures me the deal will get sweeter for every day of the week. Pun probably intended.
Krispy Kreme doughnuts may not be the healthy option for your lunch, but come on, live a little. It is the end of the week, get out from your gloomy office, enjoy the sun and get a bit of sugar rush.
Your closest Krispy Kreme sugar rush dealer is located at Waterloo station. Use their store locator to nail him down.
Park life resumes
Finally, the area around Waterloo with all its small green spaces and excellent spots to steal a few relaxing minutes away from the office desk is coming to life. Sun, people, all smiles and chill.
Actually succeeded in getting a coffee at the lovely Konditor & Cook today after our lunch, over which we discussed the need of an anti social networking site to balance out all this tweeting, fickle relationship building and friends scoring that has been going on for the past few years and doesn’t seem to abate.
Our dear colleague Kristofer, visiting us this week from the Livebookings office in Stockholm and helping us keep proper lunch traditions alive, was duly impressed with the thai served at The Kings Arms as well as the opportunity to get away from the stressed out environment around Waterloo station just by crossing the road.
Relaxing moment in the park after lunch, with visitor from a far.
Coffe was as usual excellent, wish I got some of their Ninja Slice to go with it.
Ninja Slice, a mind blowing experience.
Eating for sustenance or pleasure?
Swedish sociologist Maria Nyberg at University of Lund in a recent paper makes the point that there is a difference between eating and having lunch. There is more to a meal than just getting the required nutrients and liquids in your body; time, place and social relationships are as important as food and drink to satisfy us and make us happy.
In her study Maria has looked at two different workplaces and the dining habits of the people working there. On a factory for medical equipment the staff had all of 21 minutes to leave their station, go to the bathroom, go get their lunch, eat, get cleaned up and get back to start working again.
21 minutes? That is what I like to spend just walking from and back to the office after finding a place to sit down and enjoy my lunch break! Without that I really don’t feel I have actually had any break…
Maria says the lack of time for a lunch break leads to unhealthy eating and lacking social interaction. An ideal lunch at work needs to provide some social exchange with the colleagues, some calm and relaxation and a few minutes away from the demands of the job, she thinks.
I agree with Maria when she says that it is a bit paradoxical that job lunches are seen as more a necessary evil than an opportunity to make the job environment more enjoyable and a chance to build on relationships and share information, since there is a major boom in healthy eating and advanced cooking.
What about yourself? Do you eat mainly for sustenance or pleasure?
Read full article in DI.se (in Swedish).
Hayward Gallery: Mark Wallinger and Ujino and The Rotators
Working in or near Waterloo gives plenty of opportunity to go for a cultural excursion for lunch. Right now there is an exhibition on at the Hayward Gallery curated by Mark Wallinger which my Livebookings colleague Olivia forced me out of the office to go see. Entrance fee 8 pounds and well worth it.
Being one of the UK’s perhaps most well known contemporary artists Mark Wallinger won the Turner Price in 2007, and he has for this exhibition picked out a selection of photos, sculptures, paintings and installations that made me as a viewer think about where the physical realm of reality ends and the art starts.
Most noteworthy and interesting were in my opinion some of the installations, like the short movies where film clips from the 50s and 60s in Berlin have been recreated in present day and shown side by side on separate screens. There is also some absolutely amazing photography on display by Thomas Demand as well as studies in human movement by Muybridge.
Don’t miss the little unremarkable entrance near the video screens with unpublished news clips from the Balkans, it leads to a corridor with a grey marbled carpet ending in a suprise that messes with your brain…
Sneaky subversive photo of Olivia from Livebookings doing some crazy Matrix moves in the freaky corridor with odd angles and directions!
As you leave the exhibition, do go to the second level using the stairs opposite the ticketing booth and check out the band Ujino and The Rotators. Funniest and most interesting installation I have seen in a very long time. Bring a few old household appliances if you have any laying around, apparently the band is recruiting! It is for free! Have a jig to the rhythmical Rotators!
Once you are done with all the cultural stuff, why not go for stew lunch at the nearby Riverside Terrace Cafe?
Chilli beef stew and bread, Riverside Terrace Cafe
In our quest to get our colleagues away from their computers, and bring more custom to our local business community, the turn has come to Jay and Mikael. Choice of the day was simple: Riverside Terrace Cafe.
Riverside Terrace Cafe, Jay and Mikael from Livebookings.
On a beautiful, but cold, day like this it is great to sit just inside the big river facing windows at Riverside Terrace Cafe in the Royal Festival Hall and enjoy one of their hearty stews. Their bread is fantastic, and for a bit of added fun you can always play the game “get double servings of bread without paying the extra 50p”… Even if you have to pay the extra measly 50p, still an excellent lunch for a fiver!
Followed by excellent coffe at Smålands. Ready to take on the rest of the day.
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