PalenQ

So let's make it clear - if i want to replicate a photo of the road and crossing from the album cover i go to EMI Abbey Road studios but how do i know i have the right crossing - which street corner is it on.

And are the Abbey Road street signs still pilfered so that it's hard to see an Abbey Road sign?

thanks

Hershey

I highly recommend the London Walks tours, as others above have done. There are two to choose from:

THE BEATLES MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

This a chance to Imagine Beatlemania and the Swinging 60s. It's a Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles" London haunts: their Apple offices, where they played the famous rooftop session Paul McCartney's headquarters; and the world famous Abbey Road Studios and the Abbey Road crosswalk.

The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour takes place
every Wednesday at 2 pm,
every Thursday at 11 am,
and every Sunday at 10.55 am

THE BEATLES IN MY LIFE WALK

"There are places I'll remember all my life", sang the Beatles in one of their most evocative songs. Many of those places are in the "London Town" of this walk...so get back to the film locations for A Hard Day's Night and Help, the registry office where two of the Fabs were married, and the apartment immortalised by Ringo, John and Yoko. ...also see the house where Paul lived with his glamorous girlfriend, actress Jane Asher. Those were the days...for it was in that house that John and Paul wrote I want to hold your hand. And to cap it all you'll go up to St. John's Wood to see the legendary Abbey Road studios and crosswalk.

The Beatles In My Life Walk takes place
every Saturday at 11.20 am
and every Tuesday at 11.20 am.

Josser

The traffic may be heavy but vehicles by law have to stop if there is somebody on a zebra crossing (that's what the "painted striped crosswalk" is called).
The local motorists must be thrilled to bits when tourists have their photos taken on it.

flanneruk

Ah...

But the only way you can take the Abbey Road photo is if the photographer ISN'T on the zebra crossing. So there's no legal requirement to stop for him or her.

And you get more points the pricier the camera.

Josser

But Flanner, isn't the photographer taking pictures of his mates or kiddiwinks actually on the zebra?
You are not permitted to squash them although I suppose that you could use psychological warfare, screeching to a halt at the last minute.

PalenQ

<So there's no legal requirement to stop for him or her.>

well i think there is - if a car wantonly runs over a pedestrian even in the middle of the street the driver would no doubt be charged with negligent homicide if the pedestrian was just standing there. Even a non-public school grad would surely know this? (By the way one Fodorite grad of a public school in a cathedral city beginning with W on another thread said
that Madeira was in Spain, so flanner i'm getting in tune with your 'rich and thick' motto)

Jim_Tardio

Go to google.com, click on images, type in Abbey Road and you'll find lots of tourist shots, as well as the Beatles original cover

W9London

There are actually two zebra crossings near EMI studio on Abbey Rd. The zebra at the corner of Grove End Rd is the most popular one--graffitti and constant tourists et al--though I've heard the actual photo on the record album was the next one at the corner of Hill Rd. BTW, Paul M lives a few blocks up the road along Cavendish Ave or Elm Tree Rd, if I remember correctly. Also don't forget St.John's Wood (on Jubilee Line) is in ZONE 2!

audere_est_facere

So let's make it clear - if i want to replicate a photo of the road and crossing from the album cover i go to
And are the Abbey Road street signs still pilfered so that it's hard to see an Abbey Road sign?>>>>>

Yes they are - and the council has given up a losing battle so the street sign is now painted on a wall.

It's not just Beatles fans who go there. Pink Floyd recorded there and recently so did Oasis - so you get their fans too (although they are greatly outnumbered by Beatles fans).

Also Spain and Portugal are just different names for bits of the same country - like USA and Canada or Australia and New Zealand.

jjkbrook

Im just going to throw it my vote and say no.
Unless you want to be in this area for other purposes, its not worth the bother. We visited friends who lived nearby, saw it and its an "eh". There is so much in London to see, its such a huge cultural destination, if you've seen the picture, youve seen it.
That cant be said of many other sights in London, from the City Churches to the John Soane museum, to the many great art collections, the parks, St. James especially (if you go to Abbey Road, why not walk through Regent Park for a bit), nice neighborhood village streets like Marylebone, which give you a taste for older London, the Transit Museum and a ride on a double-decker, St. Pauls and Westminster Abbey with the Nelson memorabilia (the Nelson effigy in the abbey museum is riveting,a ride up or down the Thames (the ride to Greenwich is nice and the Naval Museum there and the town are excellent tho I heard Cutty Sark just burned - stand on the line for Greenwich mean time at the Naval observatory - thats a good photo op) with a train back its a good half day excursion.
the Victoria and Albert - the fashion collection is wonderful, among many wonderful things there
the Department Stores and their food halls - I like Liberty for their fabrics and oriental knick nacks
theatrical stuff including - is it the New Globe on the South Bank?
so much to do Abbey Road isnt up there

PalenQ

<Also Spain and Portugal are just different names for bits of the same country - like USA and Canada or Australia and New Zealand>

is that what they teach in Public School? And probably Scotland and Wales are just names for bits of England?

fnarf999

Practically everyone who's ever made a record in England since 1931 has recorded there, not just EMI artists. And not just the Beatles' "Abbey Road", but almost everything they ever did. And many of the biggest film scores from the past 30 years were made there, from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to the "Harry Potter" series.

But you can't see the important part, which is the studios. They're hidden behind a wall, with no tours. You can kind of see in the gate a little, but it's not a highlight. Neither is the zebra crossing, to my mind; it's the site of a photograph, not an album. There are thousands of Beatles photograph sites in London. Sadly, the coolest of them all, the EMI headquarters at 20 Manchester Place, whose staircase is seen on <i>Please Please Me</i> and the Red and Blue albums, is gone, as is the original door to Apple Headquarters at 3 Saville Row, as seen on the back of Ringo's <i>Rotogravure</i> album (the building is still there, and is also an important Beatles recording site).

audere_est_facere

And probably Scotland and Wales are just names for bits of England?&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

Yes. They are the names for the wet bits full of moany people who are rubbish at footie.

PalenQ

&lt;people who are rubbish at footie&gt;

are you talking about the Spurs?

Now that a Yank is rumoured to take his 14% or so stake in Arsenal and buy majority ownership the gap between these two teams will be bigger than ever.

ex-Spurs fan who got off the bandwagon before it broke down in Cardiff. Now ManU fan - another 'american' team.

audere_est_facere

I would like yanks to buy all our rivals - they saddle them with vast unrepayable debt.


The Glazers (owners of the Manchester Rowdies) are looking to sell the club as they can't make the sums work.

PalenQ

NPR had a discussion on the American investment in english football - saying that many clubs rarely turn a profit due to high salaries needed to attract star players because of the weird (to us) system of where teams can be demoted to a lesser league with a poor season.

Thus owners pump money into getting talent and there is no salary cap apparently like in US sports per team. Thus my team, ManU is a perennial top tier team whilst my ex team the Spurs are perennially worried about being demoted to the bush league.

And the report said that a team that was demoted, such as likely it would seem with Spurs, loses an average of 40,000,000 dollars because of it.

But it did point to American owners wishing to capitalize on football's worldwide lure with team fan clubs in places like China, Japan, US, etc. and that branding these teams with a product name may be the real reason to invest. Not changing the nicknames but perhaps renaming stadiums like in US where every team it seems has sold naming rights to its stadiums.

I can just see it now - Spurs playing at Whole Foods Stadium! (And then maybe we'd get sushi at the snack stands or veggie hot dogs.

fnarf999

There is no team in English football called &quot;The Spurs&quot;. They are Spurs or Tottenham or Tottenham Hotspur. No &quot;the&quot; involved.

And far from being &quot;likely&quot; to be relegated, Spurs haven't been out of the top flight since the single 1977-78 season, and are one of only seven teams to have played every season since the Premiership was established in 1992. Their string of uninterrupted top-flight football is almost as long as your Man Utd's (who were last relegated in 1974), and much longer than Chelsea's (last relegated in 1988).

So, no, Spurs do not live in fear of demotion to the &quot;bush leagues&quot;.

Nor are there salary caps in all American sports; baseball doesn't have one. The salary arrangements in soccer are completely different than in any American sport, because of the mysterious world of &quot;transfer fees&quot;, whereby players are bought from their current club for amounts often many times their actual salary.

The big lossmaker from relegation is the loss of TV revenue. For a smaller club, getting into the Prem is an advantage in terms of ticket sales, when teams like Man Utd come to play in their stadiums, but it pales next to what Sky Sports offers them.

PalenQ

the Spurs, Spurs, Tottenham Hotspur or Tottenham still means mediocre - a record of mediocrity in recent years unmatched in the long history of English soccer, which began when King Harold, to celebrate the beheading of an enemy ruler had him and his men kicking the severed head around the pitch. Not quite as bloody now, though that depends on how one uses the word 'bloody' i guess.

But i'll take not about it should be Spurs are... and not the Spurs

fnarf999

I can name dozens of clubs with a more mediocre record than Spurs. Even if you take &quot;mediocre&quot; to mean &quot;the middle of the Premiership&quot; and not &quot;the middle of the FA&quot;. And King Harold, give me a break. You're simply wrong on the facts, and it's kind of insulting, you know? I'm not even a Brit and I take a bit of umbrage.

As for your last statement, I can't even figure out what it means.

flanneruk

Ther are few things that offer a casual observer greater pleasure than watching Americans' inability to grasp the concept of a free market.

Such as PalQ's description of relegation as &quot;weird&quot;. Or toleration of an industry where company owners are allowed to run a cartel suppressing workers' pay. A cartel that rigs recruitment rules so each business gets a &quot;fair&quot; proprtion of emerging talent (ie prevents the best talent from getting the salary they're worth).

Is there any wonder that American &quot;football&quot; in most of the world is just a sovereign cure for insomnia? While the Premiership is simply the most viewed, and valuable, sporting institution ever?

As long as American &quot;football&quot; is run as if Karl Marx had been called in as management consultant, it'll stay that way forever.