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The Last Tuesday Society

Penny Blood — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:49:37 +0000

Now here is a collection of weird shit. So taxidermy and monkey skulls I get, but Labrador’s testicles in jars? It’s hard not to like it here, I mean there aren’t many places where you hear the staff shout, “the ocelot fur coats are in the kid’s coffin under the mortuary table in the back room with Aleister Crowley’s skull and the Vagina grafts” now are there? The stream of people asking what is and what isn’t real must do their head in though. Upstairs there is a conventional gallery but downstairs is Viktor Wynds wet dream, the extensive overspill of his house of madness. With dark red walls and cabinets full of his collection of classical ivory figurines randomly (?) placed next to a key chain of a teddy bear blowing his brains out and a set of goliwogs mixed with shrunken heads and prosthetic limbs. The Last Tuesday Society additionally hold a series of talks on subjects ranging from Hypochondria to Syphilis to bed bugs by renowned speakers who although have a list of great credentials on paper often have a tendency to waffle. I think half the time they are just people Mr. Wynd wants to meet. The shop is a ‘window display’ so to speak for the Last Tuesday Society which hosts debauched and fabulous fancy dress and masquerade balls at different locations throughout the city.

http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org

11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP
07947 049814
Wednesday – Sunday 12pm – 6pm

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Le Grenier

Penny Blood — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:46:25 +0000

Le Grenier appears to be the official retailer of 70’s Crockery. Full sets of brown and orange tea cups, sugar pots and tea jars interspersed with eclectic jewellery, retro furniture, exciting knick knacks and old record players in suitcases which are so pretentious it makes me want to throw up. This shop probably survives in large part to people thinking that they will start their own collection of vintage clutter inspired by the immaculate style of this shop, so they start by purchasing one of the gaudy tea sets, but once they get it home and realise how badly it goes with dated Ikea furniture it gets stuck in a cupboard and never sees the light of day. Two years later said tea set ends up in a charity shop where it is bought by a similar posh second hand shop and the price put up by 1000% where it is then purchased by a younger generation of same people. It’s all part of the upper middle class circle of stuff.

www.le-grenier.com

146 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 6DG
07720 890 393
Monday-Saturday 12pm-7:30pm; Sunday 10am-7:30pm

Koenig Books

Penny Blood — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 10:46:36 +0000

Koenig books hosts a collection of wanky art books with beautiful covers and artistically out of focus photographs. It does have a huge selection though so if you do have £50 to burn on a book you will look through once then leave around to use as a coaster you will no doubt find something here. The basement houses all their less glamorous art books (the ones not published by Phaidon), collections of titles on each main stream artist and artistic movement which art students buy to plagiarize in their 3rd year thesis. Main reason I go is that the owner has a pet pug which is sooo cute.

80 Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square, London WC2H 0BF
020 7240 8190

Beedell Coram

Penny Blood — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:51:12 +0000

Easily my favourite ‘junk shop’ in London. Beedell Coram is stocked full of Victorian paintings, taxidermy, antique furniture, books, postcards and old medicine jars all lovingly displayed with no order or thought to presentation whatsoever. When she’s not drunk in the Golden Hart pub next door this is where ?????* collects her miniature tea sets, the ??????* buy their master paintings before they deface them, where ??????* has bought the odd taxidermy dome and ???? and ?????* purchase a human skull or two. The owner Andrew Coram is a gem in himself, with his gold earring and an east end sales man grin he alone makes it worth a visit.

*I have omitted the names of those guilty out of respect for the proprietor and his gracious message concerning the privacy of his clients. This little antique shop can hold its own without name dropping anyway.

86 Commercial Street, London, E1 6LY

Alfies Antique Market

Penny Blood — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:58:33 +0000

Situated on a street which is home to a scummy street market selling stolen toilet paper and knock off household products with old immigrants and market people yelling at each other and groups of Eastern European and Asian kids hanging out in intimidating groups cutting school is Alfies Antiques Market. A vast cavern of Antique shops, several stories high, there are hundreds of vendors inside specialising in everything from Victorian jewellery to vintage lace, antique paintings, 60’s furniture with the odd junk shop or two thrown in. I can spend hours here, mainly because most of it is expensive and once engaged in a conversation over the price of something that despite the fact is £600 out of my budget I get a kick out of selling working his ass of to convince me it’s a really good price. There is a café too which is a highlight.

http://www.alfiesantiques.com/

13-25 Church Street, London, NW8
020 7723 6066
Tuesday – Saturday 10am-6pm

F. Cooke

Penny Blood — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:41:51 +0000

One of the last remnants of the pre-gentrified Broadway market, F. Cooke dates back to the days before the street was thick with Cypressa vans delivering organic goods. When I politely ask if I may take a photo, I get an obvious “aye roll along” with a weary sigh and a “what’s it for?” “My blog on pla….” “Oh another blog, yeah ok just a couple though”. It helps having a rubbish camera as no one takes you seriously. F. Cooke is a beautiful and authentic old pie and mash shop with all the original tiled walls, marble topped tables and metal and wooden benches. Being a vegetarian there is nothing I can actually eat here, I may just order a coke. I just love the fact that you would never find anywhere that resembled a place like this outside of London, well Britain any way.

9 Broadway Market, London, E8 4PH
020 72546458
Monday – Thursday 10am-7pm Friday – Saturday 10.30am-8pm

Kokon To Zai

Penny Blood — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:28:02 +0000

The sister shop to Kokon To Zai in Soho but this one is so much more exciting, marrying together my twin obsessions death and clothes. It’s a menagerie of gorgeous stuff, taxidermy, glass domes, phallic shaped sculptures from A Clockwork Orange, gothic jewellery, weird clothes, beautiful staff, amazing antiques the collection just goes on and on there is so much to look at. Situated on Golbourne road in West London near Notting Hill it’s surrounded by Moroccan and Lebanese cafes, in an area populated with residents that don’t ever seem to work although the type that choose not to I might add therefore possibly the type that can afford anything from this amazing shop. Lord knows how a place like this makes any money, I just got to get home decorating ideas, new ways to display crow skulls and what not.

http://www.kokontozaishop.com/

86 Golborne Road, London, W10 5P5
020 8960 3736
Monday – Saturday 10am-6pm

Petersham Nurseries

Penny Blood — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:33:19 +0000

Until I discovered Petersham Nurseries “Let’s go to Kew Gardens” were 5 words I wasn’t keen on hearing. Kew Gardens is hugely over-rated and expensive. If you’re looking for a nice day out in the park then Richmond Park is a better idea the best part being afternoon tea or lunch at nearby Petersham Nurseries. Being an actual nursery it’s an idyllic setting with potted trees, flowers and stone statues everywhere. Part o it is a fairly expensive restaurant designed to feel like you are outdoors…. Indoors, with a canopy like roof and vines growing up pillars, all the while decorated with antique furniture and old paintings. It’s gorgeous. The café is equally lovely yet more relaxed serving all kinds of cakes, soup, quiche, that kind of thing. It’s a perfect place to make a trip on a sunny day for a cup of tea and a piece of Victoria sponge cake.

http://www.petershamnurseries.com/

143 Petersham Road, Richmond, TW10
020 8605 3627
Restaurant (Monday – Tuesday Closed) Wednesday – Sunday 12.00- 2.45
Cafe (Monday Closed) Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 4.30pm Sunday 11am-4.30pm

Fortnum and Mason

Penny Blood — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:59:19 +0000

Fortnum and Mason is a palace of food, it’s also a one-stop-tourist hole from hell. What was once the grocer to Queen Victoria’s court is now a giant food themed gift shop (unless you buy all your food in pretty tins). But what a gift shop it is. The window displays are worth a visit alone. Every British condiment and edible commodity from days gone by is sold here in [re-produced] original packaging. There are also counters dedicated to all and everything delicious, chocolate, pastries and cakes, cheese and exotic coffee and tea in delectable wooden boxes. It’s a good a place as any to get all your gifts in one go and when you feel you have just about enough, drop into the fountain tea room for an authentic, I mean expensive afternoon tea. Actually don’t its a bit tacky, designed for American tourists. Afternoon tea is a cherished British tradition from days when the upper classes had the time to sit around and eat finger food and chat. That’s why many such places including fancy hotels try to re-create this experience in lavish and fake settings which charge anything upwards of £40 a head making them little more than overpriced tourist traps. Like I said great for gifts though.

http://www.fortnumandmason.com/

181 Piccadilly, London, W1A 1ER
020 7734 8040
Monday – Saturday 10am-8pm Sunday 12pm – 6pm (with browsing time from 11.30am to 12noon) 020 7734 8040

Past Caring

Penny Blood — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:02:13 +0000

This is the kind of place I’d recommend if you were looking for something random like say, a dressmakers dummy or an antique mousetrap. It’s effectively a junk shop but really well organised and edited to only the best stuff without charging a fortune for it. Needless to say they always have vast amounts of 50’s and 60’s tea sets in gaudy colours. It’s well placed, surrounded by a few great places to eat and a good second hand record shop not to mention ‘Get Stuffed’ and amazing taxidermy shop albeit with questionable morals. There are usually a few crazy folk here, the kind of regulars who have lived in council flats in the area for ages and stop by frequently to see what new stuff is in that they can feign interest in buying. I over hear a middle aged lady complaining to the cashier that her mother had be kicked out of the loony bin for depressing the other patients so had come home to depress her family instead and that she was trying to find any reason to be out of the house.

76 Essex Road, Islington, London, N1 8LT