Stuff

Here are five things you can do for free.

Visit a museum or gallery

It is well known that so many of the major museums in London are free. Not necessarily for a special exhibition, but just for general entry. We are blessed with so many large and free museums. It’s great that you can pop in for an hour, see a few rooms, then leave and not feel you did not get value for money.

But, they tend to vary between massively busy and jammed.

We’ve written about them before, but here are a few:

• Science Museum
• Natural History Museum
• Victoria and Albert Museum
• British Museum
• National Gallery
• National Portrait Gallery
• Tate Britain
• Tate Modern
• British Library

Here are five facts that will make your visit to London just wonderful:

• if you like cheese (we don’t) there are many nice cheese shops in and around London, including Paxton and Whitfield, but our correspondents tell us that the store with the best cheese counter is Selfridges
• escalator signs, especially on the Underground, say that dogs must be carried, but you really don’t have to carry a dog just to go up an escalator. Just stand on the right or walk on the left
• don’t give money to vagrants or beggars as they could be part of some crime ring, or con artists. If you wish to help the homeless, send money to a charity that will use it wisely and not just for drugs
• there used to be pigeons in Trafalgar Square, and buying food for them was a thing, as was being hit by birds, being pooped on or catching something nasty from the flying rats. They are mostly gone now, so don’t take any bird food and don’t feed pigeons as it’s illegal
• it’s fine to drink tap water, and in fact it’s very tasty, so ask for it (for free) in restaurants and don’t waste your money on the bottled stuff