Deep Purple : specials/RAH99/whattodo.html

Oxford Street has two Virgin Megastores and two great big HMV stores which tend to be very well-stocked, and Tower Records on Picadilly Circus is almost as big and tends to be good for Japanese imports.

Berwick Street is home to a lot of cheap record shops. And there are several second-hand record shops in and around Notting Hill. Also a couple of 2nd-hand places in Camden Town.

Berwick St. as Mike Collins mentioned is really great. Also still some (new and second hand) vinyl available there.

A shop that should not be missing on a list is Ray's Jazz Shop on Shaftesbury Av. (top end). Not everybody's cup of tea, but if you're into jazz this gives the best selection of new/second hand CDs and vinyl in London I reckon.

The mighty General Goods Exchange empire has a shop in Notting Hill, next door to one of their music shops, for 2nd hand film and TV stuff. Lots of videos, obviously, and also other memoribilia.

Oh, and their music ahops and the book/comic shop are well worth a look. As is the computers+games one too. They're all 2nd-hand shops, scattered around Notting Hill, all within spitting distance of the Tube station.

Many's the time that a planned shopping trip to London has never gotten further than Notting Hill...

OK, let's get the pedantry out of the way first :-)   Whiskey with an 'e' is Irish, whisky without an 'e' comes from Scotland, and is one of the very few times you can correctly use the adjective "Scotch".

Right, to business...

Shops first.

If you want to buy some stuff to take home, then you should head to a shop called Milroy's, at 3 Greek Street, in Soho.  This is just south of Soho Square, and very close to Goslett Yard. Open 10-7 Mon-Fri, 10-6 on Sat.  Whisky is now downstairs, they tell me. You could spend a fortune here - literally thousands of pounds on 40-50 years olds! You'll also be able to buy books and other stuff
.

There's also a shop which I've never been to in Covent Garden - "Cadenhead's" at 3 Russell St, WC2. Cadenhead is one of these independents who produce their own bottlings of whiskies - if you're into it, you'll have heard of them.

If you want to wait until you're leaving, the main duty-free shop airside at the airport will have a wide selection of the most common malts. You may also find a branch of "World of Whiskies", which will have the common stuff, plus some more exotic (ie expensive) stuff.

Now, as for pubs and bars - well, I tend to drink the stuff in the comfort of my own home, so I've never gone looking for it in pubs. But apparently the place to go is a restaurant/bar called "Boisdale", at 15 Eccleston Street, SW1 - this is close to Victoria Station. Milroy's shop recommended this place to me when I phoned them.

The Time Out guide has an entry:

15 Eccleston Street, SW1 (0171 730 6922)

Victoria tube/rail. Bar Open noon-11pm Mon-Sat. Average £6.

Restaurant Lunch noon-2.30pm Mon-Fri. Dinner 7-10.30pm

Mon-Sat. Average £30. Set meal £12.50, £16.90, two courses.

Credit AmEx, DC, MC, £TC, V.

"French classical cooking using the best Scottish ingredients and drawing from traditional British recipes" is the Boisdale's somewhat confusing-sounding but successful formula. The bar has a fantastic selection of whiskies.

I just found this list at a page called "Whisky Madness":

    http://www.demon.co.uk/rye-bred/whisky.html

The Beehive, Walworth

The Coach & Horses, Covent Garden

Garfunkels, London Bridge Station

The Plough, Moorgate.

I don't know these.

You won't find the Paradiso in London, it was in Amsterdam.

The Speakeasy was in Margaret Street, very close to Oxford Circus, but is no longer there, probably a shoe shop basement now.  AFAIK Hanwell Community Centre is still in existence but good luck trying ot find it, we had trouble, even in the old days.  The Marquee - in Wardour Street, but it bears little resemblence to the original.  The Cafe Des Artistes is still there I believe, just off the Fulham Road (at Redcliffe Gardens I think).  The Ham Odeon is now called something else, Labatts Apollo I believe.  The other places have long since been eaten up.  However, a trip to London wouldn't be complete without visiting Denmark Street, the original Tin Pan Alley, and a place where all of us wandered up and down at various times, dreaming of stardom, recording in Regent Sound (where the Stones made their first recording), buying stage clothes in Cecil Gee around the corner, making a coffee last an hour in La Giaconda (keeping a look out for a famous face), and knocking on publishers' doors in the vain hope that we may get discovered.  It's probably not much of a street now and most of the landmarks are probably gone, but if any street has ghosts of the music business past, it is this one.

Also worth a look: Abbey Road.

For restaurants, your best bet is to wander around Soho. As well as the dozens of Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, you'll find plenty of fairly cheap but still decent restaurants of various different persuasions.

If you're a tourist or a hippie-wannabe, or just somebody who's so deprived of physical contact that pushing your way through huge crowds of people seems like a fun way to spend an afternoon, then sure. Oh, and it's pretty good for Oasis bootlegs.

Go to Camden Town tube station. Let yourself be carried along by the masses of teenagers in floaty "ethnic" clothes and patouli oil, and you'll find yourself there in no time. (Where "no time" means anything from 5 minutes to 1 hour).

The Company of Snakes gig on September 24th has been postponed until October 14 or 15 (if possible) as singer Robert Hart is busy songwriting in the US with Aerosmith. There are other UK gigs scheduled for early October.

Sorry!

Neil Murray