Follow me through south london as I ride from Croydon to Bloomsbury on my Super73 S2
#commute #Super73 #S2 #london
Morning guys. So today you’re with me on my commute into work. And usually I’d have music, but because I’m making this video and I don’t want to be demonetized, there’s no music today. So I’ve got an extra long video. Usually I try to make these videos no more than maybe 15 minutes long. But you’re going to see one of the variations of how I get to work. There’s quite a few routes I can take to get there. Some really drastic one. It’s one that’s basically the same and then it splits off. When I get to where do I get to Kennington, I either decide to go towards Westminster Bridge or head towards Elephant and Castle and go over Waterloo Bridge, but as I said, there’s so many different variants. Um, I was going to say it’s unbelievable, but there’s not that many. There’s like one where I go along the South Bank, past St. Thomas’s Hospital where I was born and uh past the London Eye, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Center. Uh where have I gone as well? There’s one where I’ve gone through Mitchum Common Mitchum. That’s like really long way. But that’s the the beautiful thing about cycling that you can go I mean you can do it obviously driving but you’re able to get through the traffic a lot easier but you can vary your route and instead of these guys at the bus waiting on a route. It just goes the same route day in day out. You get that variety and you get a bit of a thrill as well or a lot of thrill. Heat. Heat. So, I just remembered something. There’s a temporary traffic light up ahead, and I keep forgetting about it every time I come this way. It’s a freeway one. And you know these these temporary traffic lights, they’re always so slow, the phasing. But maybe it’s actually gone because usually you see quite a bit of traffic. I think it might have actually gone. Yeah, it looks like it’s gone now. Thank god. Heat. Heat. Ideally, I would have done this video back in the summer, but I think the thing was I was so focused on doing the step challenge videos. I just didn’t really make time for such a video, but I thought when I finish up doing those videos and I guess because I was doing it as a daily vlog mentally after work, it did take a toll on me. I would get home and I’d think I really sometimes I really didn’t feel like editing the videos. I just wanted to sort of just relax, just offload, not began like thinking and problem solving. How can I edit this? How can I make this look good? Uh, what effects can I put in in captions? And all of those intricacies. So, oh, Aston Martin EV11. Usually when I see an Aston Martin when I’m playing the music, I will search for what’s his name? Rick Ross Aston Martin. But uh I don’t know if you guys know or you’re interested in cars. Um I’m quite into cars. More so design than anything, but Aston Martin recently celebrated their 70th birthday, but apparently they’re in quite a bad financial state. But if you ever follow um car magazines like Auto Car and Auto Express, it seems like Aston Martin is almost continually in a state where it’s not its finances, it’s it profits are not secure. Heat. Heat. In Cen, we’ve got what we call the food quarter in South Croen, but I consider Norbury So, if you don’t know, this is Norbury High Street. I consider this to be our second or our other food quarter cuz you do have quite a lot of restaurants. uh they do tend to be South Asian uh restaurants whereas maybe with um well not maybe but with South I think there’s more variety or at least when you had a lot more restaurants in that um that stretch of Brighton Road you had a quite a variety so one of the longest standing and most established and probably well uh most wellknown is Batitudes or picatis. [Music] And then a brief but uh other one that was very well known was Crep and Conan’s restaurant, Crepton Cones, which sadly uh no longer is running. Actually closed down quite a while ago. But that was uh kind of I think its key its key dish was waffles and chicken. Don’t think they maybe did like ice cream and stuff. It was really popular. um they really cashed in on on the cudos that they had built through their music and when it opened and it first opened I think there was quite long cues and I think for quite a while uh you know it was always packed but then co came and it shut like a lot of restaurants and then unfortunately it never opened up it didn’t open for a very long time and I just assume personally that that was it for it. And then it opened. It reopened. But then it didn’t last that long. I’m not sure how long it was open. And then it was closed again. And then it never opened. And then it was announced the the supermarket project that they’re involved with, which was a bit controversial because it was touted that it was a blackowned uh supermarket. But then they also mentioned that they I think either between them or each they had a 5% share. So people pointed out that that then meant that they it wasn’t black owned as they were the only I believe they’re the only pardon me black people involved in um in the business. So it was quite controversial for us as the uh the black community because we often want to support uh things that black people are doing, fellow black people are doing. And you know it was felt that they were using it been understood that that was something that the black community wanted to do. And so it was being seized on to get that black pound uh without actually being uh transparent and honest about the the ownership structure. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with them being investors and not owners, but you know, you kind of want you kind of want to um to be told the truth. It’s crazy cuz that bus driver could have just stopped and let me and the guy next to me is sort of behind me. He could have let us through and it wouldn’t really have impacted on him because where he went, he was only stuck in traffic like the rest of well, not me, but the rest of us. But um I guess some people just aren’t as courteous. Yeah, that guy um riding off into the distance, he was behind me. He was the one asking me if I was going to go through the gap. So I think it’s this this junction. You have to be really careful cuz sometimes there’s a car turning. So like obviously a truck like this. Um sometimes even thunder cars you can’t see it until you literally would be right in the path of the car or whatever. Yeah. Well, a big car because for a van, you’d be more likely to be able to see it. So that’s not really what that junction is for. It’s for turning in to to the left of where I was. It’s a bit cheeky of me there by that guy in front. So, I’m heading off to work and I’m just thinking now what I’ve got to do when I get there. So, yesterday was my day off, but there were short courses on and being the only being the only technician now. Uh, so I’ve got a bit of a conundrum that I set up a short course in a studio that has a lesson. And I believe I has a lesson this morning at 9:00. So I’m trying to get there for 8 I’m trying to get there for 8:30 so I can see if it needs any tidying up so that doesn’t disrupt the the course uh the full-time course uh before they start. We the college has got an open day on Saturday this Saturday coming but then the problem is uh I can’t I think I wouldn’t be able to get into the studio or the two studios that uh it’s all being set up in until 400 p.m. and I finish at 5:30. I’ve got to rearrange tables. Last year when we were doing this and there was two of us, even if there was one of us, uh it wouldn’t have uh been so bad. But I believe I had the whole day to do this. uh so I could arrange the tables and then what happens because the full-time students at the college they finish at 4 the teachers come along at 4 and they set up all the work so they would get uh these stands for the for the boards for student work put them up and then boom it’s all done for ready for Saturday for them to just walk in and start talking to whoever they need to talk Hey. [Music] So yeah, with me working 5 days a week and being the only technician, what would happen when my colleague was still with us? uh he would have picked up a slack and then we have a colleague so this college if I haven’t mentioned it before it the main site is in Sussex a place called Westine and then this site in London is the secondary site smaller site uh so there’s a colleague from Sussex who she uh she works in marketing she’s I think the head of marketing and she makes a lot of decisions but uh and she would like work with me and leas would mean but we’re not working on the same day usually she would be in on the Friday as well [Music] and so we we would um you know I would do the work and then it would be seen if uh what I’ve done is exactly what is needed or what um she wants and all of that. But yeah, she’s not going to know physically until literally the morning. Um, I guess to be honest, what I have to just do is be send pictures and just be communicating through uh teams. I was going to say WhatsApp. Uh, so we use Teams. Um, it’s really not ideal to be honest. Uh, things aren’t great at the college. They’re okay. They’re not great. Um we’ve had a lot of people leave. Uh some college is cutting costs and they had recently had a lot of colleagues take redundancy and uh I mean my colleague didn’t take redundancy. He just left and he moved to Germany. Uh but a lot of staff are now from what I hear basically doing uh twice the work. They’re doing like two rolls. So for example, our welfare officer left and a colleague, I’m not actually sure exactly what she does, but she is now uh doing the welfare officer uh task. So uh colleagues at uh my workplace very stretched at the moment. So this is uh often I think I take this route and this is I guess what you would call a quiet way. I mean, it’s not usually quiet. Usually dark because of me. But yeah, anybody going along this route is going to get some peace today outside of hearing me talk. [Music] But yeah, um usually you just go you continue where I was headed down Brixton Hill and uh straight onto Brixton High Street. But yeah, I decided to take this route and even though you veer off, unlike Brixton Hill at the time, you don’t have everybody commuting into central London. and then being caught up in the traffic. So, there’s two routes. Sometimes I turn right here, but often most of the time I just go straight ahead and again both these these routes take to the same place essentially end up round the back of Brixton Prison. Sometimes the reason why I won’t go this way is depending on what time and day I get here, there’ll be a garbage truck blocking the route. So sometimes I will turn down that road I mentioned to get around the garbage truck. So yeah, at the end of the road, this is Brixton Prison. And there’s also a windmill. Uh I can’t remember exactly where it is. You can’t see it. It’s very hidden, I believe, back in the day. It was, you know, it would have been in open fields. Yeah. The the windmill is a bit further along, but it’s on the right uh inboard of uh one of the estates that’s going to come up on the right. [Music] It’s quite nice. So, I recommend visiting if you you get the chance and they have a visitor center, a shop, and you can get some merchandise. And when I went there years ago, they was I think it’s maybe down the right here. I think it’s actually a bit further along. Yes. So, I think if you go through this estate on the right, you eventually end up at uh Brixton Wind. So, I generally always turn right here, but I’m going to show you something. So, I really love this show called Grand Designs, and this glass um building on the left is one of the Grand Act actually there two Grand Designs house. this glass one and the one next to it. I’m going to turn right here. This is going to take me to the same place I would have ended up if I’d taken the usual turning I took. So yeah, actually sometimes on this road uh there’s garbage truck depending on what time. So, I think a lot of the time I get here later and the garbage truck is somewhere totally different, maybe down one of the side streets. Thankfully, this one is in the middle of the road blocking it. [Applause] So again, this is another of my quiet way routes that I take. So, I could have turned right onto that main road and that takes you down to Britain um town hall and the high street and towards Windrush Square with the Ritzy Cinema, the Tate Library and the uh the National Black Archives. But something I like about this route is it goes past the road that my grandparents, my maternal grandparents lived on. Actually, also this last place, this last house on this street is really cool. So, it’s a modern building, but it’s a really accurate it’s a really accurate recreation of the rest of the terrace, but it’s only one level. [Music] And it really blends in. I think it also helps that other residents along the street probably clean the facades so it doesn’t look like this really modern this really fresh clean place next to buildings obviously been there for I don’t know like probably close to like a hundred years another garbage truck. So yeah, usually I think I’m about half an hour. I get to every point that I’ve been along, maybe close to half an hour later. So probably like the garbage trucks uh somewhere else or they’re heading back to the depot. [Music] So this road on the left, I wouldn’t usually go down it. Glendor Street is where my maternal grandparents used to live when they first moved to to England to London. And um they lived I think at number six and uh eventually they moved to Cudden. But um my mom says that like I think it was on a Sunday when my grandparents wanted some peace, they would send her and my uncle to this church and that would give them a bit of a rest. And I guess uh the thing is they didn’t have I mean they did have um cousins and and that but there obviously wasn’t as many of us back then and they didn’t have their parents uh to help out. So yeah, they lived on Glenor Street and it was the first property they bought and they also managed to buy it just before my mom was born. My granddad said that he saw the way that other people were treated when it came. Well, in every way to be honest, it wasn’t um a secret. It was very overt. and um he saw how our people were treated by landlords, the sort of conditions uh we were expected to live in, to be honest, even how we were treated by some of our own uh living in these rented accommodations and he felt that that wasn’t that wasn’t for him. He didn’t want his children to grow up in that sort of environment. So he made a plan and my grandmother decided that they would um uh make it their mission to purchase a property, but they I believe they decided to move to Cordon because of the sus laws and maybe they felt it was safer. incred. I think it kind of generally maybe the feeling was things were getting quite bad in Brixton. So yeah, we moved I say we they moved to CON and then I think uh my mom and my dad moved after some time after. So I lived in Brixen. I was born in Labbeth at St. Thomas Hospital and we lived in Lambeirth I think close to a year after I was born and then I was uh ever since I lived in Cudden uh apart from the times when I was studying in Bournemouth and Coventry and this church unfortunately it’s no longer in use is where I was christened and also where I think uh quite a lot of my my family uh so my I don’t know if my my uncle my mom would christen there considering it was quite close but I know that uh one of my uncles on my paternal side I believe he was christened there and I think his um his cousins were christened there as well. So, I think my granddad, my paternal granddad, married his second wife there. And there might have been uh another family wedding there as well. Now, we’re heading close to where my paternal granddad used to live with his second wife. But, uh unfortunately, we’re not going to get to go down the road, Mayflower Road. We’re going to turn right and that way we’re up. We’d have to turn left to get over to Mayflower Road. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] One of the things that’s nice about stopping at the light um is I get to stand up. My right knee tends to get quite cramped. So years ago, unfortunately, I had an accident where I was uh going along cobbled area in Groen and the cobbles were loose and I didn’t realize there was one that was at an angle. Well, it wasn’t at an angle, it was loose. So when you went over it, it ticked it up at an angle. And that made the that made the it made the basically made the bike buck and it threw me off. But I landed on my feet. But in landing on my feet, I twisted my right leg literally from the ankle all the way up. Um all the joints. So there was damage to all the joints. And to be honest, it’s never really been the same. It’s got a lot better, but um yeah, no issue with the left one, but especially in the winter, um it does clearly get more cramped than anything. So, it’s really great when I get to stop and I guess uh allow that circulation. So where these red brick towers are, there used to be a BT, a brutalist BT tower and it was the only tall tower for a long time and you never saw anybody going in and you never saw anyone coming out. And I think some people thought that it was actually a ruse that it was a somewhere where spies went because you’ve got MI5 and MI6 aren’t that far and then they build St. George’s Tower at St. George’s wall and then eventually they just started these uh other towels start popping up and there’s so many now in this area of Fox Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. There used to be this thing called the doctors and it was an amphibious vehicle, military vehicle that from the Second World War being converted for tours. So apparently Jeffrey Archer lives or lived in this tower on the left and what they were saying was this. So this is the South Bank and the South side of the river. They said it used to be before all the embankments were built, it used to be loads of um Yes, islands and I think it was more marshy, but they said that you tended to have um people considered a bit bad were used to be located over here. [Music] So they believe that was probably why Jeffrey Archer ended up living on this side of the river so close to it. Uh following on with the tradition It’s a little more juicy. So, I really like riding along this stretch next to the river. I just think it’s a lot more calming and therapeutic and riding on the road with the traffic. Heat. Heat. along this stretch. What I’ll do is if I see a jogger, I’ll let them I’ll use them to set my pace. So, if I’m not see going any faster than down, then I guess I’m going a decent speed that’s not going to startle or hopefully isn’t going to startle anyone. But what I was saying about it being more peaceful and calming generally for me uh cycling one is about fun and especially on these fat tire ebikes but it’s also about um for me mental health and helping with my mental health. So I mean I don’t think anybody who commutes likes it at all. I think all of us endure it but I tend to suffer with my anxiety and I get very stressed. Um so I found cycling is a really good way to do my commute and um just be at one I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it in a video before, but this wall is the official national co memorial. It must have thousands of hearts painted on it. And if you ever come down here, most of the hearts have a message written on them with someone who sadly passed away due to co when we were going through the two years of lockdowns across the world. This was also the hospital I was born in. And my mom was born here as well as my uncles, my two younger maternal uncles. My mom said it was a really nice hospital to be pregnant in. It had a library back in the day. A lot of entertainment. The only thing that she the only issue she had was that uh they she had to demand they bring me to they bring they bring me to to her bedside because I think maybe it’d been a day and she hadn’t seen me after giving birth. So this spot is really popular for photos. Especially if you stand right here, uh, you get a nice framing of Big Ben. The only thing is don’t often smell the urine. So, this is where I used to work years ago. I used to work at the London Eye, uh, doing the photo experience. And so I would actually work literally underneath the London Eye and in County Hall, this building on the right. And if you didn’t know the history of county hall, it was so the mayor of London before we had a mayor of London, this was where greater London, I think it was council KLC. This is where they were located and now it’s a entertainment complex. So you’ve got London Eye U not Madam T London Dungeon East Shreks Adventure I think they’ve changed it to Paddington um Sea Life Center which I very surprised to hear has penguins. Um I would often think you would have penguins outside. Um now they’ve got penguins inside. And then this nice green space over here is Jubilee Gardens. I think Jubilee Gardens was part of the the Festival of Britain festival that I believe took place in the 50s. Thought that guy was waving at me. I think I just happened to be in the line, the line of sight of somebody else. He was waving to. I gave him a thumbs up. Anyway, so this is the festival hall concert hall which the um Fairfield Halls in Cuden is based on. Sort of like a sister a smaller sister building civic center to it. South Bank Center here with the famous skate park underneath. [Music] It’s the first time I’ve ever been near the side of the fence. So, it’s really cool. The That’s the skate park I just went in. And you’ll often see uh kids, the adults practicing and people viewing this bit I’m riding through the cinema on the right. It has uh what do you call it? A market sort of like a book market. So you’ll have stores with secondhand books and bloody odd record stores. You can just browse through the collection and purchase a book. And then this on the right is a British Film Institute. It’s back in the day. Uh they I think it was called the British Film Institute experience. Um so it had a museum, but I believe you can go there and you can they have an archive of probably thousands and thousands of films that you can view. You might I think you might even be able to do it online. I might be wrong. Guys, sorry to resp realize that I was around. This building at the top of the hill is the BFI IMAX. So, I believe it’s the biggest screen in the UK. And it actually used to be cardboard city. So built in the middle of the roundabout and I think it was in the 80s, maybe the ‘ 70s as well, maybe running into the ‘9s. There’s a lot of homelessness and it was almost like an encampment. But we’re now on Waterloo Bridge, which I think has some of the best views in London. standing on the bridge. I think it’s just where it’s located. I you you can see a lot of the landmarks from it and the sunsets from here are really beautiful. So, uh sadly you can’t see them from the view that I’ve got. It’d be really good if I had a 360 camera. You can see the city of London, Oxford Tower, South Bank, London Eye, Chowing Cross Station, uh Hungerford Bridge, uh so many things. So, Waterloo Bridge was built during I think it was during the Second World War by uh a team of women and apparently it’s the only bridge in London that’s self cleaning as well. And apparently when it was finished they really didn’t um play up the fact that it was built by women. Heat. Heat. So, [Music] usually I just go straight ahead and now I’m going to find some way to to get to where I actually wanted to go. So when you go straight ahead, it heads towards the Royal uh Opera House and uh Covent Garden, [Music] which often if I’ve got time, I would go through Covent Garden. So I’m going to see if I can turn off somewhere on the right and head back through that area. I think I’m going to have to go to all the way to Trafala Square to do that. So to my left is Chering Cross station which is geographically the center of London. So whenever you see signs, I believe it’s Yeah, I believe it’s Chang Cross. I don’t think it’s Traval Square. When you see signs for distances to London, this is what it’s based on. Heat. Heat. [Music] 67. Sorry. I didn’t quite mount the pedal um where I should. So, I kind of bucked bugged my foot on it. Heat. Heat. [Music] Yeah. So, I’m going back on myself now and I’m going to take one of these turnings on the li on the left on the left on the left to uh head towards uh uh Coven Garden. Yeah. Heat. Heat up here. So if you love public transport, specifically London public transport. You’ve got the transport museum in Covent Garden. We just drove past the back of the shop. It’s really cool place to head to if you want a bit of merchandise, I don’t know, stuff like cushions to furnish your property. Heat. Heat. Another heat. Yeah. If you’re creative, this place on the left just pass this Langley Street sign, the London Graphic Center. It’s a really good place to visit. They have so much uh materials and equipment for any sort of project you’re doing. Now we’re heading towards seven dials. [Music]