Open House London

For the annual Open House London event some people come from as far as Devon to visit some of the most interesting buildings of London usually closed to the public.

I took the chance to visit, among others, 120 Fleet Street, the former Daily Express building. It's a classic Thirties building boasting a cinema-like reception with a starburst ceiling in gold and silver, deep black marble and a wave pattern floor of blue and black rubber.

Staircase of 120 Fleet Street

The visitors were deeply impressed, and so was I.

In the evening I watched a film titled Britain's Really Disgusting Drinks. I couldn't believe the story behind a drink called Buckfast. And this is how the story goes.

At the end of the 19th century, Benedictine monks brought an ancient recipe for a tonic wine from their homeland France to the Buckfast Abbey in Devon. Since then the abbey produces and sells this wine and becomes more and more successfull.

Today this tonic wine called Buckfast is a wine with 15 percent alcohol and, above that, has a very high caffeine content, with an equivalent of eight cans of cola in each 750ml bottle.

In an area around Glasgow, Buckfast is connected with a lot of aggression and crimes. Quite a few politicians and even the Archbishop have tried to discuss the effects of its product with the abbey.

But all the monks do is what every profit seeking company would do. They deny the dangers of their tonic wine and keep on producing the stuff... Another story that shines a light on the real Catholic church.