Follow Benny In London
What I love about London is it’s beautifully British mix of sensible and silly. Sensible because it’s not to hard to get around, as long as you don’t mind riding around on the tube like a hamster afraid of eye contact. There’s not too many sky scrapers which is nice, but they all have silly names like The Toaster, The Owl and Kim Kardashian.
In a practical sense, I like that London has these different neighbourhoods that each have their own distinct feel while still being part of London. For my day I really wanted to explore a few different areas and be a bit silly about it which is why I dressed up as a chav.
Allegedly standing for Community Housing And Violent, a chav is sort of like the UK equivalent of an Australian lad. Chain vaping, bit of a public nuisance and usually on the receiving end of some good old English prejudice. Chavs do what they want which is why I thought I’d give the lifestyle a go. Turns out I really don’t know that much about chavs but my God was it fun to dress up and act a bit stupid.
Here is my chavy day out in London.
Stop One: Brick Lane Vintage Market
Before my chavening.
We were staying right near Brick Lane, a street in East London, right near the infamous White Chapel, noted for Indian food, breweries and counter culture. This rough area ended up being where most of my day was shot.
The vintage market is a massive underground complex full of lots of little markets run by independent owners. Some specialise in jackets, hats or leather, but just as many do a bit of everything. As I learnt, vintage markets may sell second hand clothes but not at second hand shop prices. My Adidas jacket (a common type of item in the market) was around 45 pounds and the hat was about 15. Everything else for the outfit I had at home. I went home, got changed, walked back to the market and got the shot of me dressed as a chav before heading to stop 2.
Stop Two: Morley’s Chicken
Just think. I could have gone to the vegan/Italian/Korean restaurant next door.
This chook shop is a London original and gained a reputation after being featured in a Stormzy music videos, Chicken Shop Dates and about a million TikToks. Before going viral they made really good chicken and after going viral they still do.
I had a slight advantage here as Katie and I had walked past the Morley’s near our place a few times, expressed an interest but never went in. I knew that if I did a chav day out I’d want to go to a chook shop. We were about to walk past it and so I made the call.
How good is the chicken? We were in London for only a week and we went to Morley’s twice more, ordering a bit more each time. If you don’t eat at Morley’s Chicken we can’t be friends.
Stop Three: Hip Hop Sight-Seeing Medley
Start diggin’ ya damn graves.
I always recommend being creative while travelling and thought I should lead by example. Chavs love to rap and I didn’t used to mind it back in the day when I didn’t have a girlfriend and that.
The drive to do this was somewhere deep in my soul. It made shooting a lot more exciting, we got to see a lot of sites and it was even fun to edit. Of course all the iconic sites you can see in the video are very busy but don’t compare to the chaos of the next stop.
Stop Four: Abbey Road Crossing
Thought I picked a better photo than this. Ah well, you should experience it in person anyway.
The tube stop, St John’s Wood, has written directions on how to get to this famous location which involves a short walk through a quiet neighbourhood. It’s the sort of place tourists probably never would go to unless the greatest band of all time made it famous. Luckily for us, they did.
The Beatles are one of my all-time favourite bands and going to the Abbey Road Crossing where the rock version of The Last Super was created is the closest I’ll ever get to meeting one of them. It’s chaos. You’re sort of united with the other tourist amongst the idea that you all at least have a passing interest in The Beatles but they are also your rivals as only one group of you can use the crossing at a time. Just watch the episode if you haven’t, it gets it across better than I can.
Coming here is like seeing an old friend who hasn’t quite grown up but has some mental stories. Also, they don’t know how to cross a road.
Stop Five: White Chapel Pub Crawl
Been a while since I went on a spontaneous pub crawl like this. One beer per venue until you find your favourite place.
After Abbey Road, we popped back home for a production break and from there went on a pub crawl just on the one street. Out of the three pubs we visited, The Blind Beggar had the most going on. The ambience was good, staff friendly and they have a pub cat for goodness sakes, I love that guy! The clientele was surprisingly young but it was very laid back in a deliberate attempt to not become too modern and lose it’s charm.
It also is an interesting part of East London history as it was the pub frequented by London underground figures/two Tom Hardys, the Crays. Not only did they go there but one of them straight up shot a guy in there once.
Stop Six: Ponchokhana White Chapel
Think we were still waiting on one dish.
In my head, we were always going to finish with a curry, although I originally anticipated some Indian food on Brick Lane. While walking to Brick Lane, I looked through the window of Ponchokhana and was a little curious. Katie pushed me to go in stating Brick Lane isn’t rogue and that if I really wanted to be a travel writer I should look for the next thing. Correct call Katie.
Aside from the staff being nice enough that it was as if they were mistaking me for family, the food was amazing. All the meats were so rich, some arriving still on the bone and yielding beneath our spoons. Biryani was amazing and the chickpea based Chana Masala was a fantastic new find for me. Was pretty cheap too for this massive feed, maybe 25 AUD each and would have been cheaper if we didn’t order so much.
Getting a curry is the way to end any evening in the UK but this really put a bow on my chavy day out in London.
