Civil Service Club Restaurant - praise for proper, large size chips

 

Chips (short for potato chips) at the Civil Service Club, London. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Chips and Crisps

For the benefit of any Americans reading this, in the UK, the British word chips means what you see in the picture above. What the Americans call chips or potato chips are known in the UK as crisps. The thin (potato) chips with a square cross section, about half the width of the ones in the picture, or cut even finer, can also be called French fries. 

The club is conveniently between Charing Cross train station and Embankment station. You can visit it if you are a member of the Civil Service,  a former member, or a member of an overseas club which has reciprocal arrangements.

The restaurant sections and private rooms are rented out to other clubs, such as wine tasting clubs, holding wine and dine dinners, reunions and Christmas parties and other events. 

If you order fish and chips in the Civil Service Sclub restaurant, you are likely to get proper size proper British chips like this. If in doubt ask the person taking orders and serving. If you are still confused, show pictures.

Cheese Platters

The cheese plates we ordered were served on large platters, big enough for sharing. If you, or your guests, are concerned about Covid or general hygiene, ask for extra plates and for the food to be divided, and/or supplied with serving cutlery. Also ask the guests not to touch food in communal plates with hands, but to use cutlery.

Useful Websites

https://www.civilserviceclub.org.uk/

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Photos and Privacy: Are You Followed As Photographer And Your Subjects Safe?

Photo Problem

What does your photo reveal?

How Data Can Help You - Locate You In Emergency

I have looked at lots of photos on Wikipedia which show the type of camera and place. They get the place from a GPS reading built into the camera of smart phone. That's really handy. If you are floating out to sea and need help, lost in a snowstorm, trapped by an abductor, in a car which rolled off a road into a gully, your photo will tell anybody you send it to where you are.

Revealing Location Of Valuables
What about your own photos? Supposing a film star or a friend is showing their diamond engagemnt ring? You take a photo.

They change their mind and say, "I don't want my photo taken."

You agree not to put it on Facebook. Then you decide to just show the lovely ring but not the face which would reveal who it belongs to. The photo data might reveal the jewellery shop, the hotel, or the country.

Marketing Fusion and Ages

Marketing organisations use fusion. They piece together a mosaic of their customers. They know that elderly people buy walking sticks, that mothers buy nappies, that large families buy giant packs of rice. No surprises there. Older people read the Help The Aged magazines, whilst young mother are likely to read Mother and Baby or Parents. The readers of car magazines and bikers' magazines form another subgroup. Some categories overlap. Others are separate.

It doesn't happen every time. You could be buying goods or magazines for somebody else. But it happens more often than not.

Government Data

The UK government has already sold off your address to marketing companies. I once filled in a library car application. My name was mis-spelled, on their computer. My library card was printed with a C instead of an L. Years later I started getting information from companies spelling my name with a C.

Marketing Areas and Journals

The marketing people also know that the seafront in one remote resort has small bungalows; another area has opulent Hollywood mansions. They know that Irish people read Irish newspapers; Indians read newspapers in their language. Technical journals are read by people with Phds. By asking you two questions about yourself, they can guess another fact, or track it down from another survey.

Seasonal Buying

Sellers, insurers and burglars know that people buy gifts at Christmas time. The same applies to other national holidays. The same goes for weddings. Birthdays also attract advertisers. I am very a happy to be emailed by Café Rouge offering me free Champagne or sparkling white wine if I book a table for four or more, better still if the offer has no minimum persons requirement. Otherwise, if one person is ill with flu, we cancel the dinner, postpone it, find the voucher has expired and never go.

Hotel Customers

It is the same sort of piecing together information as is done by the shopkeeper who ask a tourist, 'which hotel are you staying in?' If you are staying in the five star hotel, he gets out his more expensive goods. If you are staying in a youth hostel, he find you something in your budget.

GPS

When my photos are stored on my computer, it's quite handy to have the rough location. Sometimes the location is wrong, off by a few miles. The GPS is at fault.

We were looking for a cemetery for a funeral in the car. The GPS was wrong. We were in the adjacent road, separated from the cemetery by a road of houses. The entrance was around the corner and down a side road.

Delay

However, I am getting increasingly wary about which photos I show. I often put up photos a week later, after I have changed location. I no longer feel guilty that my pictures are no longer news, that I have not shown a photo taken right this second. I am not into 'news'. I am into features.

Wikipedia warns about photos:

 A photo taken with a GPS-enabled camera can reveal the exact location and time it was taken, and the unique ID number of the device - this is all done by default - often without the user's knowledge. Many users may be unaware that their photos are tagged by default in this manner, or that specialist software may be required to remove the Exif tag before publishing. 

For example, a whistle-blower, journalist or political dissident relying on the protection of anonymity to allow them to report malfeasance by a corporate entity, criminal, or government may therefore find their safety compromised by this default data collection.

In December 2012, anti-virus programmer John McAfee was arrested in Guatemala while fleeing from alleged persecution^[15] in Belize, which shares a border. Vice magazine had published an exclusive interview on their website with McAfee "on the run"^[16] that included a photo of McAfee with a Vice reporter taken with a phone that had geotagged the image.^[17] The photo's metadata included GPS coordinates locating McAfee in Guatemala, and he was captured two days later.^[18]

According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA is targeting Exif information under the XKeyscoreprogram.^[19]

The privacy problem of Exif data can be avoided by removing the Exif data using a metadata removal tool.^[20]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5448389/Facebook-personal-data-files-Australia-inquiry.html

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Discounts, deals and finds in hotels in London

PROBLEM
How to find a reasonably priced hotel reasonably near central London.

ANSWERS

HOTELS, BUDGET HOTELS

Regarding hotels, you need to decide your budget. (If necessary, work out the exchange rate.)

IS BUDGET BEST?

When is a bargain a bargain? When is a bargain not a bargain?

The one star hotel chains are good value but can be a walk from the station. I used them when visiting the World Travel Market at EdExcel in the East End of London. Under £100. 

BREAKFAST INCLUDED?

The first night it was a nuisance not having breakfast in the hotel. I dashed off. The second night I found the eating place across the car park and discovered that I did not have to wait around but could buy a takeaway coffee and a bun from a cabinet just to grab when racing off to an early morning meeting. the third day, when I was checking out, I had saved  food from the day before.

The best deals are the week before on the late booking sites. 

STORIES

Years ago we did a tour of the Lake District in England. I insisted on stopping to see a hotel and restaurant which were way beyond our budget. I looked about, saw the menu, photographed the view, said were were travelling elsewhere but might come back another time, and left my card. 

Next spring we were posted or emailed an offer of a break of three nights for the price of two, or was it two nights for the price of one, accommodation and breakfast and dinner included. Lunch, a packed lunch, was also a bargain price. To my amazement, my budget conscious family did some calculations on the cost per night and the cost per meal and we went off to my dream hotel for a lovely stay.

This year (2017) we made a booking for an anniversary trip to Cambodia, as a side trip from Singapore. We found a reduced price deal on airfares, then booked a hotel through booking.com. The price for the hotel, three floors with no lift, just a little more than we wanted to pay, for what looked like a night in a hotel with a swimming pool, and free collection from the airport (not free return) turned out to be the late deal price for all four nights! (Lemongrass and Ginger hotel - I have more information in another post and on TripAdvisor.)

BOOKING SITES
Booking.com lets you choose the location and budget.
I find it a nuisance when I am browsing to have to fill in a date, especially if I don't yet know the date of travel. On the other hand, you might change your date if you can get a great deal on hotels a week later, or early, or at the weekend, or midweek, by hotel hopping, or by booking a minimum number of nights in one hotel.

You also want to consider whether you want to be in a hotel where you can chat to other tourists over breakfast (included), or would like an all suite hotel for privacy and the chance to cook your diet food, order food delivery or keep takeaways and store pills and leftover food in a fridge. You might also consider whether you want the predictability of a hotel chain, or something person and surprising such as a boutique hotel, a historic house hotel, or a home stay.

You might also want to have a getaway on the outskirts of the city after a busy week in the centre. If you are going back to Heathrow, you might pick a hotel near a station, on a line which connect to Heathrow, or near Heathrow, or even somewhere miles away with a coach connection to Victoria, such as a hotel in Watford, which has a museum - check opening times and days. Speaking of Watford, you might pick a central London hotel near an all attractions, such as Oxford Street or Kensington, or Watford for going to see the Harry Potter studios tour.

LATE

www.lastminute.com/hotels/cheap

www.laterooms.com

CHEAP

www.timeout.com

moneysavirngexpert.com/treavel/cheap-hotels

www.hoteldirect

a i r n b (spaces inserted because - spell checker keeps changing what I type)

LOCATION

ukhotels.com

staycentral.

HOTELS BY STAR RATING
PREMIER INN three star

IBIS one star

PRICE COMPARISON SITES

www.traveloka.com

hotels combined.com

triage.com

BOUTIQUE HOTELS WITH CHARACTER

My art teacher friend stayed in a hotel in London, England, near Oxford street based on illustrator and humorist Lear, more character than a chain but very expensive unless you get a last minute deal.

UNKNOWN HOTELS
I looked at Edward Lear Hotel in Oxford Street and up popped Seymour Motel, from £37, marble Arch Inn £55, Point A hotel, £56. Don’t know any of them. Another area with lots of small hotels is Notting Hill Gate, famous for featuring in a couple of films. Near the park.

ROOM CHOICE

Ask to see two rooms on arrival.  Decide if you want top floor or ground floor, front with lively street view, or quiet at back. Are you willing to pay more for top floor and/or room with view? Or for a hotel with an indoor or outdoor swimming pool?

You might want to swim. Even if you don't, you might like to sit by the pool and sunbathe or entertain a friend to cocktails by the pool.

TRIP ADVISOR DEALS
If you write a few reviews of restaurants or museums or hotels on TripAdvisor in your home town before leaving you will be offered discount deals and promotions on the TripAdvisor website. 

LOYALTY SCHEMES

You might also like to join a hotel loyalty scheme. Sometimes I have joined a loyalty scheme and been told that I only get reduction on my next booking, or I have to wait until I am posted a card. Check out loyalty schemes which work from your first visit, or which you can use to book a hotel as soon as you get the number.

Some loyalty schemes will give you upgrades to a club lounge floor. We once paid less than £25 to join a loyalty scheme in a hotel in Seoul in Korea. When we were told we had to pay to join the loyalty scheme, we said, "No thank you."

I asked, "Just out of interest, who we get?"

We got:
an upgrade to the club floor with a larger room with a better view,
the use of an English speaking concierge to help me book taxis and answer any questions,
plus a breakfast buffet,
all day coffee,
and evening cocktails and nibbles from 5 pm until 7 pm for both of us - for a week.

We said, "Yes please!" Five lots of coffee for two in the downstairs restaurant would have cost as much as joining the loyalty scheme.

We missed at least one of the breakfasts by dashing off early on business and on a day trip. We also missed a couple of the evening cocktails because we got back late or went off to dinner early.  Even so, just the room upgrade would have made it worthwhile, transformed our stay.  

AIRLINE DEALS

Your airline may offer a discount at a hotel at the destination of your journey or a stopover.

LUXURY BEYOND YOUR BUDGET
If you really like an expensive hotel or restaurant, it's worthwhile getting on their mailing list. Drop in and put your card in their restaurant's bowl. You might be offered a free meal, or a meal with a bottle of wine included. I had a free bottle of wine from a London restaurant.

ALPHABETICAL CHAIN & Group LIST
NB Some hotels are owned by one group and managed by another; some independent hotels of a certain type or character group together as consortiums for marketing.
Best Western
Britannia Hotels
Copthorne Hotels
Crowne Plaza
Days Inn
De Vere Hotels
DoubleTree by Hilton
Hampton by Hilton
Hilton
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn Express
The Hotel Collection
Hyatt
Ibis
Ibis Budget - cheap, from £32+
Jurys Inn
Leading Hotels of the World
MacDonald Hotels
Marriott
Mercure
Novotel Hotels
Old English Inns / Hotels
Park Plaza
Premier Inn
Q Hotels
Radisson Blu
Ramada
Relais
Small Luxury Hotels (SMH)
Sofitel
Thistle Hotels
Warner Leisure Hotels

CHARACTER, TYPES, STYLES, SWIMMING POOLS
Michelin Guides classify hotels with symbols for quality of food, countryside, views
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/the-best-london-hotels-with-a-pool/

RATINGS & CLEANLINESS
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/articles/Britains-best-and-worst-hotel-chains-named-in-Which-poll/

More Information
http://www.theaa.com/hotel-services/members-area/ratings (How they AA rates hotels, with VisitEngland VisitScotland and VisitWales)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer,a author and speaker. I have several more posts on London, hotels, museums, statues on stations and countries around the world. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts. 

Keeping Track of Your Photos

Problem
How do you remember where you went and when?

Answers
Group your photos by location, starting and ending with a sign of the name of the place. In theory if your photos carry a date and time, you can also use that to check the location. If you left Hotel A at 9 am and reached temple A at 10 am, you can identify the hotel and the temple by the date and time alone. You might have a gap of an hour between the last photo taken at one place and first photo taken at the next location.

Tips
Keep a log of places in your diary whilst waiting for your food to arrive at mealtimes. If you don't want to be writing or on your phone when at meals, you can make a one line note of the location from the brochure or address card each time you go to wash your hands before meals.

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