But there are so many travel blogs; my travelling for 250 days of the year comprises riding on the Docklands Light Railway to the sterile skyscrapers of Canary Wharf; and in an age of heightened environmental angst, trumpeting world travel no longer seems very acceptable. Plus, the best blogs always document the specific and the local - albeit with a global reach.
So it struck me: write about what's on the doorstep. So this is a micro-travel blog - about you what find without actually leaving home. And in Clerkenwell I couldn't ask for more complex subject matter. Its history is long and tumultuous, populated by characters including John Oldcastle, Oliver Cromwell, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Berthold Lubetkin. More unusually, its present is no less compelling. Clerkenwell has some of London's best bars, clubs and restaurants; a clutch of the world's greatest architects; some of the best contemporary city dwellings; a plethora of interesting characters; and one of London's village-iest areas.
To forestall cavilling at a later date: this blog won't observe geographical boundaries too closely. Clerkenwell is a conveniently nebulous area. If there's a good story, a great building or a must-visit pub in Smithfield, Islington or Mount Pleasant, it won't stop me poaching it to write about.
To write this blog I'll be visiting libraries (how fortunate that the London Metropolitan Archives are just a few streets away); poking my nose with justification into local businesses; badgering luminaries; and sampling local hostelries. And if anyone ever reads this blog and wants to append their own thoughts, I would love to hear from them.
I can't wait to find out more. A baby blog is born.
