A couple of weeks back we decided to take a couple of dice and go for a day out in London, throwing the cubes to let them choose where we went for the day, here is what happened.
Back before Smart Phones and even YouTube there was a TV Show called The Dice Man, a guy called Russell Harris would turn up at a station and throw a dice to decide where to travel – in the World – I (Ash) loved this show, it was so unpredictable and different and then a few weeks back, while scrolling through TikTok i came across a video by @maxnotbeer where he did a similar thing but in Seoul, South Korea and the idea was planted. His plan was to visit three locations in the city, 1st for coffee, 2nd for lunch and finally for a cocktail. This seemed like a good idea!
So a couple weeks back we headed to King’s Cross and just inside the barriers threw down (a dice that is). The process was to throw a four sided dice to choose a direction;
1-North, 2-East, 3- South, 4-West.
The triangular die landed on a 3 and we pulled out to 6-sided stone and repeated the process, 1-6 for the stations that pass through the station.
1-Hammersmith & City. 2-Circle, 3-Metropolitan, 4-Northern, 5-Piccadilly, 6-Victoria.
The die landed on the 6, so Bob dropped the cube again for the stops to travel and it came up on 6 again! – So a maximum number of stops going south on the Victoria line from King’s Cross.
There were only the two of us for this, not knowing where we would end up we couldn’t chance having a dog with us and too much walking for the injured one would mean a lot of carrying (no change there!).
Starting at midday we avoided the rush hour and took seats on the Royal Blue Line and headed down to Pimlico. I (Ash) have lived in London all my life (mostly) and yet I can honestly say I’ve never been to Pimlico, I have passed through it and did go there once when I was 10 on a school trip, but that was on a coach and more on that in a minute. Departing the station via a ramp that could be very dodgy late at night we suspect we emerged next to an Edwardo Paolozzi Art Piece covering a Ventilation Shaft of the Tube, Paolozzi was a big influence on my Art when i was at Art School, so had to be mentioned here.
So, we were in Pimlico – apparently the poor cousin of Belgravia! Yes it is, we can now vouch for this description, it’s all well-appointed, but it’s just lacking and lacking the purpose of our visit – Coffee.
Do you know there are NO COFFEE SHOPS! In Pimlico?! Well technically there is a Costa Vending Machine in a newsagents and one walk through Pret, but other than that, nada, nothing, not a bean!
But there is (apparently) one thing in Pimlico, The Tate Britain, they must have coffee, right?
So that’s where we went, we followed the signs, all the signs say Tate Britain in Pimlico (not Tate Modern, don’t get confused!) Pimlico is not the home of anything, it has nothing, not even Tate Britain.
We measured the distances you have to walk following the signs from the station to the Gallery and it’s 9minutes from Pimlico and 7minutes from Vauxhall across the bridge! But eventually we got there and found – ART!!
Well, we found Rachel Whiteread Stairs and some other interesting pieces, but overall there is a lot of Modern Art that is, well for another time, we were here for Coffee, but we did tour the ground floor and the Turner exhibit first, which was worthwhile and the Hogarth Room too, but then we found The rather pretentiously named Djanogly Café and you can see what we thought of that via the link! We took our brew on the lawn! and then decided where next to go.
Having walked from the station we agreed to not return, instead we decided to take the bus from the main road, The Dice were pulled out and a simple decision. Odd numbers we head West, even number and East.
Bob threw and once again rolled a 6! So East and then how many stops? Roll again and…
6! (We assure you this isn’t a loaded die!) We headed to the bus stop and waited for a number 87. And we waited and waited and waited and waited. 25 minutes in all. But we got on to go the full distance of 6 stops, – we could have walked it in the time we waited, but that wasn’t the idea. The bus set off, one stop, two stops.
We kid you not. At Parliament Square the bus was curtailed, because the driver needed to take a break, so off we got and walked to the next stop and tried again, we threw another dice and for a five (see the die isn’t loaded). We got on the first bus to come along and after nearly an hour we departed on Charing Cross Road!
Here we found a quiet space and tried the dice again, this time for food, we needed lunch and the junction of Cambridge Circus gave us a range of options, using an 8-sided dice to give a better throw, we picked directions doubling up on N-towards Tottenham Court Road, E- to Covent Garden, S back towards Piccadilly and Chinatown, or W- into Soho and threw a 7 to send us west into Soho in search of the first Veggie friendly, in budget (£15pp) restaurant. After a few minutes of discounting pubs and coffee shops, meat-sentric burger bars and the like we found a Tonkotsu in Dean Street, the Japanese Restaurant chain was an easy choice for a quick stop.
We ordered a Bowl of Seafood Ramen and the Veggie Ramen and two lemonades as the ‘craft beer’ was lager or nothing! The waiter was not the friendliest! And the empty restaurant still took 15-20 minutes to deliver the food, which wasn’t bad in the end.
With bellies filled we stopped on the side of the road to chuck another dice and pick the last choice for the day, somewhere to get a drink. we counted off 8 pubs, two in each compass direction from where we stood and threw a 4, which led us back to the Circus and a good choice, BrewDog on the corner of West Street.
We studied the board and picked our choices, as usual diverse as we could, a Black Heart Stout and a Something very sour! (Oh and an order of Spicy Saitan Wings to go for dinner Bob’s favourite!) With beers in hand we took to the strange past-time, afternoon drinking and sipped our brews and contemplated going home!
Well, that was something different for a day out and some new locations for us, that proves you can always find something new to do in London, no matter how long you’ve lived here. This is something we plan on doing again – we have even bought big dice to make it easier! So watch this space for more Dice Adventures in the Capital and you could even suggest start points!
Plus see our adventure on YouTube.
Climbing Moss 