London Souvenirs By Embankment Station in Gift Box and Blimey Britain

 From Gift Box

Suitcases in several sizes featuring tube maps and other London, England and UK themes.

Socks from Gift Box.

Tote bags from Gift Box.

The windows show all kinds of mobile dolls with rocking, shaking heads. You can also buy bracelets. 

Opposite even larger is Blimey Britain.

Thomas Calvi umbrellas in animal spot designs.

Gift Zone (London's Gift Superstore): Located on New Goulston Street (near Aldgate and Liverpool Street, this is a massive, floor-to-ceiling warehouse-style shop packed with thousands of British souvenirs, football merchandise, toys, and traditional memorabilia. They cater to both retail shoppers and wholesale/

Cool Britannia: A well-known, large dedicated souvenir retail chain with stores in central London locations offering extensive selections of Union Jack items, London apparel, and classic memorabilia.

Crest of London: Established in 1990, Crest of London is one of the market leaders and most prominent souvenir shop chains in the capital, featuring large inventories of high-end and novelty gifts.

Fancy That of London: Operating as one of London's oldest souvenir chains, they run multiple stores stocked with traditional British gifts, heritage items, and iconic London city merchandise.

You can also get smart, pricier items from Fortnum's, Harrods and other department stores.

Gemini informed me of a few more:

Gift Shops

Attractions and Landmark Gift shops

The British Museum

London Museum

The Natural History Museum

Tower Bridge Gift Shop

Transport for London

Westminster Abbey 

Useful Addresses and Websites For Gifts From London

Gift Box

Embankment Place, London WC2N 5AQ.

The Gift Box UK online shop at the same address is only online and offers a different range of personalised goods.

https://coolbritannia.com/

Perfect and Vital Photos of Holiday Resorts, Business, family, friends, clubs

A welcome sign can be used to open a slide show or blog.
 

You can take photos on travels, whether on business or holiday, either for a purpose or as a backup.

These are the photos I take

IN ADVANCE - TICKETS & LUGGAGE & PEOPLE

If you forget, take luggage in transit or as you check-in at an airport.

Suitcases showing colour, style (hard side), size and brand, for identification in case of loss. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

1 TICKETS

Tickets and reservations. They may be on the internet but the internet could go down. They may be on my phone but the phone might need charging or not get a connection to show them.

The hotel, plane, or tour or restaurant might not recognize you. Your reservation letter would reveal that you are at the wrong branch of a Holiday Inn. Of an Asian hotel has listed your first name as a family name. 

2 BAGS

Photos of luggage. In case I need to search, send others to search at baggage claim, or fill out a form. If you lose luggage they ask the colour and brand. If you have eight items it is hard to remember, and if there is a query, or language problem, you can show a picture.

3 PEOPLE

Photos of your companions are useful. Lose your husband at an airport or meeting. In a large shop? Lose a child? Show the photo to an official or bystander.

DESTINATION

4 Destination photos. PLACES. 

First I take my hotel. If I get lost, I can show the picture to a local person. Even if I can't speak the language, or the cannot understand my accent, they can lead me to the end of he road and point to my nearby, yet seemingly elusive hotel.

Hotel Imperial, Valladolid. Spain. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

5 PEOPLE

Photos of people on business, or friends. Take a photo to add to your contacts. If you have six people called Marie, or Patel, or Ali, you will be able to identify the person who you promised to send the photos of the three of you at an event.

6 FOOD & DRINK

Photos of wine bottles, labelled food at a buffet, so you can ask for it in a local supermarket to take home as a souvenir or gift.

7 Photos of yourself. For a passport photo or visa or ski lift pass. Or in action to show your credentials as an expert, as a chef, of speaker, on a TV show, with the book you are selling.

8 YOUR FAVOURITES AT HOME

Photos of books or goods or restaurants you want to sell of recommend.  If you live in a well known place such as New York or Rome, you might meet somebody who says they are going there, so can you recommend a restaurant or hotel. Take your favourite hotel or restaurant or museum photo just before you go, so you can show it, and WhatsApp it to the person who asks you.

9 LOCATION NAMES

A name, phone, signpost, welcome design of each city or hotel. This helps you to identify cities, landmarks, churches, temples, people, hotels, every picture taken on holiday. Date each picture in the caption, with the country. It's obvious at the time. Three years later, it won't be.

10 WEDDINGS

Weddings. Photograph the invitation showing the names of the bride and groom, and their parents. Then the main people at the top table. Add those at the table where you sat. Any person you spoke to. 

Record the name of the caterer or photographer, if you wish to do business with them later. The official photographer might take only those at the top table. Ignoring your family, your best friend, or Auntie Sally from overseas who dies so you have no happy photo of her for the obituary because nobody else took a photo of an old lady, only of the teenagers dancing.

11 VIP Conference Speakers

 At a conference, photograph the speakers, people you meet, those given awards. A video of a speech if its brief and not using up too much of your camera or phone memory. Sometimes people are very grateful to have a record.

Remember to get your own speech recorded. And a photo of yourself being presented with an award. This is handy in years to come, including an end of year party for a slide show of members, or a celebration of a hotel or restaurant or club at the end of the first year or after ten years or twenty.

Birthday picture of Angela. If a photo is blurred, it can later be edited. Some software programmes which you can buy or get free will do this. I was offered a sharpening of photo service on one of the websites like ancestry com and 23 and me. In Jul 2024 my Samsung Galaxy phone started offering to save photos in higher resolution, which would take up more space on the phone because of increasing pixels if you did it for lots of photos. An alternative is to save special photos in the cloud or on a remote disc, on another phone, on another family member's phone. Or take more photos, checking which are blurred and saving the better ones.

A birthday or anniversary picture can be used to send to family overseas, or a montage of pictures for an anniversary, a screen covered by photos, the birthday of an 80 year old or somebody reaching 100 years old. A happy picture can also lift your spirits at a funeral.

12 DRAMAS

Accidents and dramas. Your photo could help with an insurance claim.

13 LANGUAGE

Learning languages is aided by photos of signs, menus, even laundry lists.

VIDEOS

You can also take a video of your walk from a hotel to a nearby shop or railway station. Then reverse it to find your way back, or to tell another family member or business associate or club member where to find you and the venue

PHOTO TIPS

Photograph food from displays, but not through glass.

Photograph yourself smiling. Unsmiling for passport photos. 

Without glasses and hats which obscure eyes. 

Cut or pin back fringes covering eyes for passport photos.

Unfold arms to look more welcoming for PR for yourself or a company. People think folded arms look more important. No. It just looks like you don't want to get involved with others. Or you have something to hide. Norwegians are serious people. The USA, UK and Europe go for the friendly smile.

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How To Secure your bags and pockets on trains - and in restaurants

Some people travel with their own helmets to go cycling, motorcycling or skiing overseas.

Before travelling, check your clothes pockets for security and your bags and locks and keys.

Pockets
I ordered a multi-pocket jacket. I was disappointed that it arrived with pockets which had no fastening. However, with a day or two to spare before my journey, I had time to add zips and press studs and even extra pockets behind the front pocket.




 Even if you are capable of carrying a large item, a bag which is too large to keep under your seat can be a security risk when you are travelling.

 
Most years I take at least one train trip. sometimes from London, England to Wales to a Writer's Holiday. Sometimes, from London up north to Derby to Writers Summer School.
 I remember my journey on a train within Switzerland. They had a rack with hooks for your coat to hang up.


I have also travelled from the airport to Philadelphia. I sat around in the airport for hours. All sorts of people, porters, waiters, people at the next table, tried to apparently help me by movin my bag our of my way and theirs to a position away from my table.

I never allow that. My shoulder bag and wheel on bag must be in front of me, visible, ideally attacheched to me by the shoulder bag handle looped around my arm or the chair leg.

I have a friend who have lost her bag which was by her feet at a large table for ten in a Chinese restaurant in London.

My husband lost his wallet and sunglasses from his coat on the back of a crowded restaurant in Prague, Czeck Republic, one New Year's Eve. In addition to the manager and waiters, people passing to and from included diners leaving. Would-be diners walked in to enquire about a table and leaving disappointed. We had a guitarist and his assistant with a cap for money approaching us and passing to and fro. A person selling flowers. Another collecting money for charity.People at the next table getting up to go to the toilet.

I don't let a coat out of sight either. A coat hanging in a cupboard can disappear. Unless it is on a hook on the wall behind your table and you are facing it or leaning against it, don't let it go.

I also have a distinctive cover on my phone. A black phone could easily be picked up by mistake by somebody else. Or left behind by you, not realising it was your phone, thinking it was somebody else's.

I get onto a train and the man who helps me onto the train wants to heave my bag onto the luggage rack by the door. My reserved seat, or the only empty seat, is further into the train with its back to the distant luggage rack.

Thieves' tricks
A well-known trick is for a thief to get onto the train just before it is about to depart. When the signal for departure goes, he grabs a nearby bag and leaps off the train. Even if you had a distinctive bag and were watching and saw this happening, by the time you have raced to the end of the carriage, the train is moving.

Porters
In some hotels the porter wants to take your luggage away and up to your room via a service lift. I don't allow that. I recall ariving at my room and can't clean my teeth because the bag is delayed whilst they wait for somebody else on the same floor to load their stuff onto the trolley.

I once decided to change rooms, because mine looked out onto scaffodling and rubbish bins (Americans say trash cans). I had not left my rented home overlooking a swimming pool to stay in a room overlooking a buldging site and rubbish. But where was the luggage. (Americans can baggage.)

If the porter insists the luggage must go in the other lift, go with the luggage in the other lift (if you feel safe), or remove the wheel on bag containing your lap top and keep that small item with you whilst they take the larger suitcase.

Or just take your own luggage.

What can you do?

Bicycles
Which rack is easier to watch, the one in front or the one behind?




1 Buy pickpocket proof clothing. (That's a brand name.)
2 Add inside pockets to your clothes.
3 Add zips to all pockets with flaps.
4 Add a second zipped pocket inside and behind the main pocket compartment.
5 Wear a second garment such as a jacket or cape outside your jacket.
6 Keep a social distance from anybody. Face them when speaking to them, watching for people standing alongside.
7 Keep your wheeled bag between yourself and others in a queue (Americans say line-up) so they are not right next to your pockets.
Turn your wheel on bag so the front zip comparment is towards you or on the floor with another bag on top.
Buy a wheel on bag with a compartment at the back instead of the front.
Keep only newspapers in the front zipped compartment.
Count your bags.
A jacket with pockets on the outside can be worn inside out. Remove the neck brand and size labels or cover with satin ribbon.

Useful Websites
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-in-1-Women-Pockets-Scarf-Convertible-Journey-Winter-Infinity-Scarf-
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Convertible-Scarf-With-Hidden-Zipper-Pockets-Bandana-Headscarf-Wool-Neckerchief

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer. Author of Quick Quotations and several other books.

See Lulu.com and Amazon.com 

Plastics? Leave Only Footprints

I  won through the first level of the contest of a speech about the environment. Then the second level.

Later I was called to speak on stage at a training for would be entrepreneurs to demonstrate the ability to speak in public to raise awareness for a cause or charity.

I said:

When I walk around a room like this or the street in a city, I notice all the debris that human beings leave behind, on tables and under chairs and in wastebins. We are like snails which leave behind slime, a trail of evidence of where they have been.

It doesn't have to be like that. You must have seen pictures of the debris left behind after a major event such as a rock concert in a field. Piles of trash left behind. It doesn't have to look like that next day. Every monring you can walk into Disney World and the place is pristine clean, because a group of poeple have cleaned up.

Seeing the place look clean has encouraged everybody to keep it clean. In Canada they found that even two pieces of litter on the ground was enough to make others think everybody was dropping litter and it was OK to do so. So do your bit.

If a million people in a city all drop litter we have a mess, and clutter in the ocean. If a million pople use recycling bins or better still take litter home, which everybody does in Japan, we would have clean cities and clean oceans. You can pick up a piece of litter dropped by somebody else.

When I walk past a shopping mall I see beautiful bags discarded in bins next to the smart shops. Big tote bags with lovely handles. If the bags are pretty and clean I rescue them. They can all be reused.

Most of the things we throw away could be reused. A discarded t-shirt which is old or stained or no longer wanted because it has last year's date could be made into a tee-towel. Clothes which don't fit can be changed. A top which is too tight can be slit up the sides and made into a tabard or tunic.

When I walk around the ground floor of both public housing and provate condos, I see large items of furniture abandoned by the bins. Chairs and tables have a missing leg or are chipped or need repainting.

Singapore flag

A Singapore resident told me that Singaporeans like to throw out the old and buy new. But those items, if taken to Malaysia would be used by poor people or owners of second hand shops. Old TVs and screens would be fixed.

All the small items could be reused in our homes. In the Sixties it was fashionable to conver a glass bottle into a table lamp and you could buy a top to fix to the bottle. A plastic or glass bottle can be cut in half and made into a flower vase or a  pen and pencil holder.

A cardboard cereal box can be cut diagonally and turned into a magazine holder. At Chrsitmas I have seen ceral boxes advertising that the box can be flattned and reused as a board game which is printed on the reverse of the box. I hope that one day we will all be able to reduce the mount of waste from a house or building to only the contents of one small box a year, as has been done by at least one family who experimented to see if it was possible. Yes, it is. That is my vision for my future, and yours and ours.

Author
Angela Lansbury.

Pick Pocket Proof Clothing You Could Or Should Buy

Problem
How do you stop items getting stolen when travelling? How do you avoid losing things which fall out of pockets?

Answers
Buy Pick Pocket Proof clothing. (That's a brand.) They are most secure having two sorts of closure, for example, a velcro or zip pocket and then another pocket with a zip underneath in the back of the inside of the pocket. Their website includes stories of how customers were saved from attempted pickpocketing attempts.

Look for
'cargo pants'.

You can also buy t-shirts with hidden pockets. Brands uncle Bastiat. You will find them on ebay and Amazon.
Underwear for men has concealed pockets.

You can buy multi-pocket jackets.
You can find other clothing and accessories by searching for
'hidden pocket'
'zip pocket' or
'secret pocket' or
'inside pocket' include belts.

Another phrase to search for is:
'stealth pants'.

Bags can have secret pockets underneath (designed for umbrellas - may be open at one end in which case sew on an extra zip or flap.

Before you throw away old shirts with fraying collars or cuffs, save the pockets to sew inside jacket or inside the outside pockets.

Tips
https://www.clothingarts.com
Their website has a video of the pockets within lockets in the women's pants. (In the UK we would say trousers - pants in the UK is what Americans call underpants).

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please share my posts. Thank you.

Seen On A Singapore Train - prayer beads in bags

Problem
What have these men got in their hands? Very pretty bags, colourful, embroidered and something moving inside. A chirp chirp sound. It looks like songbirds being carried home. I asked them but they spoke Hindi and I spoke English. I asked if I could photograph their hands. They were very happy, as amused by me as I was by them. They got off the train near Little India stop in Singapore.

Answer
Some hours later I looked at the picture again and decided to hunt for hand and bag and decorated and Hindu. Eventually I found the bags. They contain beads to count prayers. You are supposed to say a certain number of mantras.

What was moving inside the bags? The beads and their fingers moving the beads.

That is the same in other religions.

Also secular 'worry beads'.

Look carefully at the photo and you will see the word Krishna.

You can buy a Japa bead bag with a zip for as little as two or three dollars (plus post or packing to your country) for yourself, your friend or your religious or cultural groups.

Tips
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_prayer_beads
https://krishnastore.com/other-items-tulsi-japa-beads-om-69_72.html (Inexpensive beads around 3 dollars)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GOMUKHI-JAPA-MALA-BAG-FOR-MANTRA-JAPA-MEDITATION-HINDU-YOGA-WITH-RUDRAKSHA-MALA-/301129320512 From five to eight dollars with free shipping.
http://www.buddhistmala.com/?gclid=CKnh0NuKtdMCFVGhaAodzx8HJA (More expensive beads, about 45 dollars and up, USA etc, very pretty colours, for men, Buddhist prayers, etc)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.Please share my posts.

What's new in supermarkets, Waitrose, Tesco, M & S etc? Electric car chargers, bags, dry cleaning

What's new in Waitrose supermarkets? Pulling into the car park in your petrol or diesel fuelled car, you can see the electrical points for charging an electric car. Oh, wow. This really is the 21st century. As a child I never thought I would see such a futuristic thing in my lifetime.

I wanted to see the price but you can't tell. You have to tap the right place with a card, and then maybe the price you've spent comes up?

Next offer is dry cleaning and laundry from the Waitrose supermarket at the Harrow and Wealdstone branch.

You can also get free delivery from Waitrose if you order on line. The deal in October 2015 was £30 off your first online shop. Go to waitrose.com . If you are signed up online you get emailed the latest deals.

 Free coffee and a free newspaper (Sunday Times) is available if you have a Waitrose card and spend a specified amount on shopping at both South Harrow and Harrow & Wealdstone . (Check each outlet. They have changed the rules this year and it may depends on local circumstances. In one branch in South Harrow you now have to buy something to eat to get a free coffee because they have a very nice cafe which they claim otherwise gets too full with people just having the free coffee.)

Currently Waitrose have recipe cards. Looking at the October recipe card for pomegranate and honey mousse, I see that I can watch the video at waitrose.com/tv . The weekly magazine has not just recipes, but lots of articles, book and film reviews, and all sorts of news on cooking, restaurants, vineyards, wines, beers, baking and gardening and places for days out around Britain, seasonal stories, celebrity writers, and news from their suppliers around the world.

Finally, at checkout you must remember to bring bags. Otherwise you may have to buy one. Waitrose offered not just one bag but several styles. Waterproof, canvas, and silver-lining.

Pretty outside.

Inside silver lining, presumably keeps contents at controlled temperature.

Here's the waterproof version. 

Tiny bags

The tiny plastic bags which used to be free are now supposed to be 5 p but it cost 80p to buy the large carrier bag above. I now keep a couple of spare small plastic bags in each jacket pocket for a quick shop for a sandwich from a Tesco Express or Marks & Spencer. Waitress middle sized branches such as the one at South Harrow have a food to go section which has sandwiches and small size drinks and a combination meal deal. Tesco express also do £1 sandwiches and meal deals. So do Boots the chemist, for example in Watford's Intu indoor shopping mall. Another place for a £1 sandwich is Poundland in Harrow.  

And?
On the way home we stopped for petrol at a garage in Harrow and Wealdstone. (I have used the word and spelled out rather than the ampersand because sometimes the word Ampersand is transferred to the reader's post.)

Garage?
As a child I would never have needed to explain to readers of my blog post (blog posts did not exist) that a garage in the UK is what might be called a gas station in the USA. The garage offered lockers for picking up parcels, like the post office boxes in America from back in the 1980s when we lived in the USA.

24 hours
If you should arrive in London, at Heathrow, at some strange hour, and have a hire car, the Watford Tesco is open 24 hours. (I can't help humming the American hit, "I was only 24 hours from Tulsa ..." My parody is 'I was only 24 hours in Tesco'!)

Also look out for the superstore supermarkets on the outskirts of Windsor. Tesco and Sainsbury's are both giants. From the outside, passing in a car or bus, you see two levels of shopping plus the eating places inside.

But even the little Tesco express has a click and collect service. We are living in a dream world.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer, author, speaker.