For 4 people a car service or taxi would probably be quite a bit cheaper than the Heathrow Express.

Soth Ken is a desert. There's nothing there apart from the museums. Only foreigns live there. It's an awful place to stay.

There's nowt wrong with Paddington - people are making it sound like you're in a different county. You're on the Bakerloo line which takes you into the centre in minutes. There's a million buses to everywhere (and you get to see the city that way).

As mensioned you're near Queensway which has, by reputatiopn, the bst Chinese restaurants in London, also Edware Rd is nearby which is a middle eastern enclave full of cafes and bars (some muslims are more muslim than others) and very good restaurants.

And should the mood take, there are the transvestite prostitutes.

As I said the area's problems are mainly situated around the holloway Rd and Paddington Green area - and there's absolutely no reason for you to go there.

CW - Has to go to Paddington Green for work from time to time. Doesn't like it.

CW: surely you've sobered up since last night, when your rabitting on about Holloway Rd could have been attributed to sampling some of Pal Q's paint (anyone know what's happened to him, BTW? You don't think he's trying the paint equivalent of cold turkey, do you?)

I understand your phobia of the North, and your snobbery about relatively new comprehensive schools. But confusing the Holloway and Harrow roads is - err, eccentric.

It's also offensive to the good people of Holloway, whose main thoroughfare is about as dismal as it's possible to be in north London (almost as dismal as the nicest bits of South London, it's that bad) not to say about as far from Paddington as you can get without needing a passport, but who are famous worldwide for their law-abidingness. A virgin might walk naked and unmolested along the Holloway Rd - and not just because Diary of a Nobody isn't fiction: it's a warts and all expose of life in Holloway.

Unlike the Harrow Rd, where even Mrs F's been mugged - though the culprit's reproductive future's been pretty limited ever since.

Ah bollocks, you're right. I did indeed mean Harrow Rd.

Well done that man for spotting the deliberate mistake that I put in to keep you on your toes.

Now keep calm and carry on.....

Flanner, Pal's been traveling: http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...m-dec-2009.cfm