More Than a Pinch of Salt - Exaggerated Online Customer Reviews

In yesterday's Observer there was a piece by Jamie Doward about the influence of exaggerated online customer reviews. The gist of the article was that research from the Economic Journal had found that where there were lots of reviews on a product or service, there tended to be a greater amount of extreme (positive or negative) reviews, as those posting the reviews vie for influence and cut-through. The report recommends that a more unambiguous, binary system of yes/no or for/against would be more effective (after all that's what we use in a referendum) and that we should more dismissive of extreme reviews where there are plenty of comments on a product or service.

While this is interesting, does it tell us anything new? I would suggest that most consumers who shop, book and reserve online are pretty savvy and take extreme reviews with at least a pinch of salt or are already inclined to ignore them. The overtly gushing hotel review on TripAdvisor that comes from an anonymous source and appears to conveniently counter every criticism leveled is as transparent as tracing paper; sticks out like an ugly sore thumb and in the end does the hotel more harm than good. Similarly, a scathing review of a restaurant needs to be viewed in the context of all the other reviews to see how it stacks up. Was it just an off night or is the restaurant consistently being shot down?

As for a simple binary system, I can't see this working for goods like books and music where taste and preference is so subjective. Allowing people to give some colour to their choice provides an opportunity for the nuances behind the thumbs up or thumbs down to be better understood.

The fact that we can all be AA Gill or Mary Portas means that brands, goods and services can no longer hide behind marketing and PR spiel. Those that do are soon rumbled. Brands that walk the walk should encourage their customers to hold them to account and share their experiences. This means being gracious with the good and humble with the not-so-good. The worst they can do is to counter negative reviews with a pretend fan or worse than that, delete anything that is less than positive. What goes online, stays online and the evidence can never been completely erased.

Ultimately, you/we filter; we figure it out for ourselves and we make choices based not only on those anonymous reviews but increasingly on those opinions that originate within our own online and mobile communities which are seen as more trusted. That way, we get the real flavour without the need for any salt - and that's much healthier for all of us!

Caffe Vergano, Charing Cross Road

I recently changed job and moved from North Fitrovia which, besides the chains on TCR, doesn’t have that much in the way of quality coffee establishments, save for Sardo’s recently opened café which serves up a good morning brew. These days I’m in Great Newport Street and I’m spoilt for choice. GNS It’s one of those streets that you’ll have walked down often but without the need to know its moniker, except if you work or live there, that is. The area has a feel of border country to it, being neither Covent Garden and with Charing Cross Road as the boundary line that cuts between the two. GNS is pretty nondescript, linking as it does Charing Cross Road with Long Acre and it's claim to fame is being home to the Arts Theatre and also the Photographer’s Gallery before it moved over towards Oxford Street.

Round the corner from my work, bookended on either side by the few bookshops that stalwartly remain on Charing Cross Road is a Caffé Vergnano 1882 (to give its full name), and with “Coffee Shop of the Year “ proudly proclaimed from the pavement board, it had to be checked out. On first impressions I wouldn’t give it top marks for atmosphere; it’s certainly not somewhere you’d feel like cosying up with a book and a coffee for a while, rather, it’s functional and more suited to a pit-stop.

Perhaps the most characterful feature, besides the owner’s Mum who works there, is the wonderfully ornate Elektra coffee machine which is freshly gleaming from having been back to Torino for an expensive service and which now sits brazenly on the counter as you walk in. I have to say, the machine looks impressive and it really does produce a great cup of coffee. My Americano was excellent, rich, dark, not over-diluted but still with some light froth (crema) remaining on top. I didn’t have any food but it all looked delish; toasted focaccia etc and the cream stuffed connoli definitely caught my eye. I managed to resist this time.

This part of Charing Cross Road is not the most attractive, particularly due to the early 80’s red brick block on it’s east side with a motley bunch of shops, bars and restaurants lining the ground floor arcade. Thankfully, on this side of the street a number of the bookshops for which the street is famous have survived, preserving some of the historical character. A recently restored Hippodrome has also helped to upgrade the area and the little Caffé Vergnano is also a welcome addition to this border country.

http://www.caffevergnano1882.co.uk/

Google Maps Link - Here

Part 3 - ...and finally The Museum of London

On approach the museum doesn't look that enticing, located as it seems in the middle of a dingy roundabout at the end of London Wall, but this belies its actual scale and ambition. Walking into the museum, one is greeted by a large welcoming, broad space with friendly reception staff waiting to point you in the right direction or advise you about upcoming tours.

The museum is a tardis; it's big and in fact it's not inside the roundabout, it's around the sides and underneath. Indeed, it occupies an odd space which as been used to great effect to house a museum which tells the story of London from its earliest times. And in a way it is appropriately positioned adjacent to a section of the old city wall (built on Roman foundations) which can be seen from inside the museum.

I did tag on to a free tour that was just setting off from the foyer but the guide's delivery style grated so I peeled off and went my own way, heading down the sloping floor and into the exhibition.

It starts right at the beginning, before anyone was there except for the dinosaurs. Fragments of bone and fossilised skeletons are in display cases with descriptions of what the land looked like before humans made their mark. This moves on to evidence of and artifacts from the early settlers. Lots of flint, spear heads, amulets as well as the remarkable Battersea Shield, a beautiful iron age ceremonial shield that was discovered in the Thames by Battersea Bridge. There's a lot to see here and too many small pieces each with their own description and labeling. In retrospect, I spent a bit too much time here and should have scooted quickly through to get the where the interesting stuff starts, with the Romans.

"What have the Roman's ever done for us?!" Well, quite a bit it would seem. The exhibition gives a real flavour of what the city was like in Roman times and all the principal buildings and infrastructure that the city acquired during these times. There's an original mosaic floor which is wonderful and lots of statues and other pieces of building. Despite it being so long ago and so built over, this is a remarkable insight into Roman London.

Post Roman times, the city moved west to Westminster and the old Roman city where the current City of London is today was largely abandoned. Eventually life moved back to the old city and the two were united. During following centuries.

All the major events that shaped the city and it's inhabitants are covered off; The Black Death (14th century), The Great Fire of London, The Plague of 1665 which was followed by The Great Fire in 1666 - Pudding Lane and all that. Plenty of beautiful palaces and other great buildings were built at this time but are sadly no longer here; The Palace of Whitehall of which only the Banqueting House remains and Northumberland House (aka Suffolk House) which, built in the early 1600's held out until 1874 when it was pulled down to make way for the new roads from Embankment to Trafalgar Square. Shame.

There's a wonderful arcade of original Victorian Shop fronts - all very Charles Dickens. The exhibition moves towards the 20th Century; the Suffragettes, the Roaring Twenties and of course the two world wars in particular, the unimaginable physical impact of WWII. By this time I was running out of time and moving quickly through the building. The original sign from the Savoy Grill is there along side the art deco interior of one of the lifts from Selfridges.

The 60's to 80's covers off the rise of multicultural London as well as increasingly vocal minorities supported by the GLC; the demise of industry in London and the rise of the service industries, especially banking. I could see the end in sight now! But not before the final section which was series of photographs imagining what London might look like in the future; favelas in St James's Park; the entire city part submerged and a tropical Hyde Park Corner.

All in all, it's a great place to visit for a comprehensive, visual and fascinating history lesson of founding and development of London over more than a thousand years. Just make sure you give yourself enough time to do it justice.

Part 2 - Smithfield Market, Worst and Coffee

If you walk through Smithfield Market along the Grand Avenue, there is a series of story boards that provide the back story of this historic market place. I learned that it was the site where William Wallace was hanged, drawn and quartered. His head was stuck on pole at London Bridge and his body quarters sent on tour of the Scotland and Northern England. Apparently there's a plaque somewhere on the wall of the market which records the fact, but I couldn't find it. I love the building and it's ornate, baroque exterior. It seems over the top for a market but then they were important centers of commerce and trade. The fact that it remains a fully functioning meat market is wonderful and if you've ever been to Fabric you'll see how busy it gets in the wee small ours of the day.

In the roads around the market are some great restaurants, St John's, Club Gascon, Fox & Anchor to name a few but I was on the look out for something more low key and basic; a small cafe or independent coffee shop. I checked a friend's London foodie blog for suggestions and found one nearby called Dose on Long Lane (south east corner of Smithfields). On arrival, I notice another cafe next door which looked a like it had a spare table and a bigger selection of lunch food. It's called Kipferl and reckons it's the only Austrian deli this side of the Rhein. While it is indeed a deli selling Austrian food and drink, it's also a cafe with five or six tables squeezed into a pretty small space. On offer were various types of worst (sausage to you and me) served with kraut as well as salads, soup and sandwiches. I went for the aforementioned worst (with cheese inside) and kraut, served with rye bread and all of which was delicious. This was followed with a lovely rich cappuccino served in true continental style with a small glass of water and a chocolate and to that I added a piece of Linzertorte (Bakewell tart, Austrian style). I found out that the deli is soon to be moving to Camden Passage and was days away from shutting before the move. So my chance find is moving on - probably to a bigger space and away from the Crossrail building site blights to other side of the street. Islingtonites, go check it out; what is Smithfield's loss will be your gain.

Part 1 - London Wall to Smithfields with a little love and music

(I've got quite a bit to get through, so I've split this post into three parts)

I finished up work last week and am lucky enough to have a two week break before starting the new job on 1st March. I've decided that week one of this employment limbo will be devoted entirely to London, the city I have called home for nearly 20 years. Usually I'm either too busy, too knackered or just too plain lazy to take advantage of the bewildering amount of things to do in London, but here's the perfect opportunity to do some of things I've been meaning to do for years.

My aim is to experience one main event each day, but I also want to allow room for chance and serendipity to feature. So, yesterday, being Monday, I kicked off my "London Love-in Week" with a trip the museum dedicated to the capital, The Museum of London.

Emerging from the Moorgate tube station, I made my way down London Wall in the direction of the museum. I haven't been to this part of the City for a while and the first thing that struck me were the new buildings that now line the street. It's a very urban space with raised pedestrian walk ways that skirt the boundary of the Barbican Centre. 125 London Wall (designed by Sir Terry Farrell and occupied by JP Morgan) straddles the road below and along with the adjacent buildings it blocks the western skyline, making it feel more like a downtown US or Japanese business district. It also has a Pizza Express that is literally suspended from the building's underbelly.

One of the new buildings that caught my eye was One Coleman Street near the junction with Moorgate and London Wall. A Swaine, Hyden, Connell building, it has angled contradicting windows set into a precast concrete panels with stainless steel trim. Not your typical smooth glass exterior, it definitely has as retro feel and its oval shape provides a softer edging to both London Wall and the public space that sits next to it on Coleman Street. It's a fantastic addition to the street's architecture which already counts buildings from venerable architects such as Richard Rogers' 88 Wood Street, with it's coloured vents (a visual reference to Rogers' iconic Pompidou Centre in Paris) and more recently the Norman Foster designed One London Wall at the western end. These are all on the south side of the street while the north side is blessed with scatterings of the original London wall fortification: amazing to see given the amount of continual rebuilding that has taken place over the years. These fragments, while not completely hemmed in, are dwarfed by the colossal Barbican Centre and 140 London Wall, aka Bastion House which is a 70's modernist style belter. It looks like something you'd find in central Nairobi and to be honest I'm surprise it's still there at all. That said, the raised walk way, another throw back to modernist planning offers up a fine view of the street's ancient namesake and is worth the effort of climbing the stairs.

I wasn't in a hurry to arrive at the museum and decided to head over to Smithfields for some lunch before history lesson of London. On the way, I passed through Love Lane (it was Valentine's Day after all) and the ruins of St Mary's Aldermanbury. It's now a small park dedicated to the Shakespearean actors who first published his works and it's ruins were shipped out to Fulton Missouri after WWII. From there I went on to discover the charming St Anne's Lutheran Church, a small square red brick and white stone church designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1680.

Inside, it's a simple symmetrical space, said to be styled on the shape of a Greek cross. I entered to find a lunchtime recital already in mid flow with someone playing the French Horn accompanied by the piano. I guess the church was hoping to appeal to the hoards of bankers and lawyers who fill the surrounding offices by offering musical and maybe even divine respite during their lunch hour - a kind of spiritual off-set. Instead it was half full of retired folk who appeared more interested in the tea and biscuits laid out on a trestle table at the back of the church than the lady puffing her way through Haydn at the front.

Perhaps if I worked nearby I might become a regular to St Annes, but today I stayed to listen only for about ten minutes before continuing on my way to Smithfields via the warren of lanes and small alleys that lead through St Bart's Hospital complex and Cloth Fair.

Serendipity and Porridge - Notes & Music Cafe, WC2

So far so good! I’m managing to stick to the 6 alarm clock, dragging myself out of bed and off the gym while it’s still dark. This morning was another tick in that box but it wasn’t all plane sailing especially when the Northern Line’s involved. Showered and changed I walked to Waterloo tube station to make my way to work only to find it was being evacuated (I’m not sure why). “Ok” I thought, that’s not all bad. It’s a sunny morning and I’ll enjoy the walk over Hungerford Bridge and catch the tube on the other side. It’ll make a change to my routine.

Once across I thought I’d carry on the theme of change and instead of the tube, take a Boris bike. It wasn’t to be. My attempts were thwarted by not one but two docking stations; or was it my key fob? Who knows? While walking along Craven Street between the two stations I noticed a blue plaque on one of the Georgian town houses saying that the author of Moby Dick, Herman Melville, had lived there. He’s in good company with his fellow countryman Mr Ben Franklin up the other end of the street.

No tube and no bike; might as well carry on walking and headed towards St Martin’s Lane. And that’s where I came across Notes and Music Cafe. Not your usual coffee shop format so I decided it was worth closer investigation.

I guess it takes it's musical inspiration from it's proximity to the Colluseum, home of the English National Opera. It's right next door. Inside, it’s a lovely welcoming space with small tables at the front and long, sharing tables at the back beneath and big skylight filled with a chandelier made of standard lamps that looks a bit like a giant spider. Besides selling coffee, they also have a decent selection of classical CDs and “world cinema” DVDs for sale. All in all a really calm and relaxing vibe.

For breakfast they offered the usual selection of pastries, savoury and sweet croissants as well as filled baguettes. There was also a big bowl of fruit salad. I was in the mood for something heartier and it just so happened that they also served porridge. Of course, being a Scot, porridge is the food of the gods along with haggis, shortbread and irn bru! This would be a good test. Will their porridge and their coffee stack up? I plonked myself at one of the big tables at the back and waited for both to arrive while surveying the DVD titles in the rack next to me. The Draughtsman’s Contract by Peter Greenaway, a strange film from the early 80’s starring Anthony Higgins and Janet Suzman, caught my eye. I never was able to work out the plot of that one. Also in view was a compilation DVD of Wimbledon and Love Actually. Phew – not so out of my depth after all.

Coffee (a black Americano) and porridge arrived minutes later. I was struck by the decent sized bowl of porridge and the coffee looked like a good’n – a rich dark colour with a little bit of lighter coloured froth on the top. A sturdy cup too. A dash of milk in the coffee and a good dollop of honey in the porridge and I was good to go. Both were quality. I’m sure I detected a pinch of salt in the porridge, as it should be after all and the coffee was spot on; as good as you’ll find in among any of Fitzrovia’s finest. Unfortunately I couldn’t hang around too long as the transport cock ups earlier had made me late for work. The good news is I’ll soon be working close to Covent Garden and look forward to making Notes and Music a regular haunt.

Image Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamrhoades/5182482151/in/photostream/

Benjamin Franklin's House - A Small Museum to a Big Name in History

Craven Street is a pretty Georgian street sandwiched between Charing Cross railway station and Trafalgar Square. There's no real reason to walk down it and its entrance from The Strand has been pavemented across for some time, so I imagine that it largely goes unnoticed by those who walk past it. The fact that it is still here I find surprising, given the amount of development that hast happened in this area over the past 150 years, from the railways and war to urban planning. My experience of Craven Street takes me back a few years when I used to go clubbing at Heaven. At the end of the night one was turfed out, not in the Arches where one came in but rather at the back into Craven Passage which lead on to Craven Street. I always found this discombobulating though my mental state at the time probably had something to do with that.

I've known about the eponymously titled museum for a couple of years and I made it my mission on Saturday to pay it a visit. On arrival, it looked shut up. The front door was closed and I had to ring the bell for attention, indeed I wondered if I'd arrived at the correct address. Tours are scheduled; it's not possible to wonder around the house, due to the way the story of the house is told.

So, with ticket in hand I made my way down the stairs to the basement and waited for the show to begin. A short film provided some historical context for the tour as well as a brief introduction to the family who owned the house at the time that Benjamin Franklin came to live there. Despite having been a hotel and offices in the intervening period, the house has managed to retain the majority of its original features including fire places, paneling, plaster work and kitchen range.

After the film, in comes the daughter of the house Polly Hewson in period costume and sporting a strange looking gray wig that looked a bit like a dead cat. The tour then takes the form of part theatre and part audio visual experience. Clever use of lighting, projection and audio helps to tell the story of Franklin's time in the house in an original and engaging way. Polly interacts with the audio as if she's having a conversation with Franklin himself. She talks about the people who visited him, the scientific work he undertook and we also hear from his children and wife who remained in America during the revolution.

I learned that not only was he a signatory to both the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, he was also a prolific man of letters, invented lightening rods, charted the Gulf Stream and devised a strange harpsichord contraption that used glass bulbs to make music. Enlightenment Man in every sense.

The house has loads a character; worn wooden floorboards and fine fireplaces. That said, it's devoid of furniture and an account of the AV the windows are all shuttered. Because of this, I thought the format was an ingenious way to bring the story of the house to life. As the website says, it really is a little gem of a museum which tells the story of a remarkable man living in extraordinary times. It's a fascinating and imaginative portrayal that's worth taking the detour from the busy pavements of central London.

Footnote added 3/2/11 - coincidentally, I walked up Craven Street this morning heading for Boris bike and noticed a blue plaque detailing that Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, lived at the other end of the street for a year in 1849. Who'd have thought that such an unassuming street had such grand connections with the US!