As she said at the end of last week’s article, Fiona is on holiday this week so she hasn’t been able to write her weekly update. She’s asked me to step out of the shadows of my role as editor and provide my own version of the Wednesday Wrap.
I’m really just here to tell you all what’s been going on at Blue Badge Style while Fiona’s away in Cyprus. The Wednesday Wrap lifestyle of going for cocktails, dinner and generally living the high life isn’t normally what I get up to, a recent holiday to a music festival in Barcelona notwithstanding. But as a regular reader of her Wednesday Wrap myself, I thought it would be negligent of me if I didn’t, in some small way, try to replicate that more glamorous lifestyle.
It was with this in mind that last Friday my girlfriend and I found ourselves in the bar of Crazy Bear in Fitzrovia. I wasn’t reluctant to take the task on. The bar is downstairs, as was barely pointed out to us by the man on the door who appeared to never have seen a pair of trainers before and just stepped out of the way rather than showing it to us. The stairs provide a pretty big problem in terms of access because they would be quite hard to negotiate for somebody less able and there isn’t a lift. So this isn’t the best bar in the world for BBS but you never know until you try and I’m not averse to trying out bars.
We sat at the bar which is, confusingly, lower than the floor – something that took a while to get our heads around after entering such a dark space, from the bright sunshine outside. The barman seemed like a really nice guy and was very helpful.We enjoyed our drinks and the surroundings, although one of us kept being distracted by the Charlie Chaplin movie they had playing in the background. Crazy Bear was very cool but unfortunately the bar didn’t have great disabled access. We’ll have to find out if the upstairs restaurant is better.
That was a my bit of ‘Wednesday Wrap lifestyle’ for the week. Now onto what we’ve been doing at BBS and a few of things that are worth pointing you towards:
There’s an excellent article by Fiona that we posted on Sunday. It’s basically a summary of what Blue Badge Style is all about and her own life (sort of a more serious version of the Wednesday Wrap). It originally appeared in Living In Kew Magazine but they don’t have a website so we published it here. It really captures the ethos of BBS and is well worth a read.
Last Thursday, our April Fools’ Competition finally finished when the winners went out for their prize of meal for two. A few people from BBS popped along to meet them and take a couple of photos and it sounded like everyone had a great time.
Yesterday, we published our guide to accessible rooftop bars. I really like a rooftop bar personally and I think most other people agree that they’re just very cool. It’s so good to see the city from a new, peaceful perspective. We made a list of stunning rooftop bars to enjoy this summer. If you can’t be in Cyprus, a rooftop bar is a pretty good alternative.
The biggest news is that we are gearing up for the official launch of our BBS Ticks rating system and accompanying logo. You’re probably aware that the BBS Tick system – based on scores for accessibility, facilities and ambience, adding up to a maximum of 3 Ticks – has been around for a while. But with the official launch coming up, we’ve had a bit of a re-brand, designing a new logo which we hope recommended venues will display on their websites and on their premises in the near future.
Wouldn’t it be great if all you needed to do to find out if somewhere is stylish and accessible was to look for the blue tick sign? With a bit of luck that could soon be the case. The official launch is to promote this idea and to try and get our favourite, most accessible places to participate.
This coming week the BBS team are going to be looking into disabled access on UK train services. I’m sure you can imagine how much we’re looking forward to trying to get a quick and detailed response from them!! You never know – it could happen and I suppose the job can’t all be cocktails and holidays.
Thanks for reading my Wednesday Wrap. It’s been fun to write it. I’m not sure exactly who will be reporting back with next week’s wrap at the moment but have a great week and keep checking out everything else on the site.