The Ytterbium Eastercon Convention 2019 Thursday 18th April 2019 Pre-Con Exploring London

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While Wednesday had been a full day and evening to explore the capital, the eve of the Easter weekend gave me until about 4pm to travel round the city taking photos, before going to the Park Hotel venue for the convention, to meet up with friends there. I set out from the hostel early, and started my tour in Acton, which proved to be a suburb of urban decay and industrial trade parks, though the town centre was lovely. From there I got a bus out to Shepherd’s Bush, a famous area for movie and TV production. I walked back from here through Chiswick, Turnham Green, the edges of Brentford and back into Hounslow, ready for the evening switch over to science Fiction Convention fan-mode. I took in lots of lovely bars on this lovely walkabout, with a particular liking for The Old Pack Horse in Turnham Green as one where I stopped for a beer. However for pub signs and names the prize discovery of the day has to be The Defector’s Arms, named uniquely after the fate of members of the spy ring known as The Cambridge Five, a group of high ranking British agents who were secretly working for the KGB against British interests at the height of the Cold War. The sign depicts a tape recording devise of a kind a spy might use to secretly record information of interest to his or her paymasters. Arthur Chappell