^^^
Michelle. I agree with Suzy that Highgate is worth a visit but assuming James is still living west of London, it can be a pain to get to. In my opinion Kensal Green is a much better option – in fact I think it is better than Highgate. It is wonderfully overgrown and is now managed as a nature reserve. Either on a grey March day or a sunny one it is a very interesting place. It is London's oldest cemetery and most of the dead British aristocracy reside there alongside the likes of two of my heros - Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Charles Babbage (at Uni we were taught with his lesson plans/notes from 1835/6 in the very lecture room he used - he was way ahead of his time). The mausoleums are incredible.
Here’s a link to the Cemetery
http://www.kensalgreen.co.uk/
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensal_Green_Cemetery
And here are a couple of photos I saw on Flickr – I didn’t take them.
The benefit of Kensal Green is that you can pretty quickly get from there to Portobello Road (for the market) and then of course you’re in the heart of Notting Hill which is worth a visit. Adjacent is my borough, Holland Park and you can cut through there (20 mins walk – worth seeing Sir Richard Branson’s house) to get onto Kensington High Street and Harrods etc if you turn right or the Albert Hall/Buck Palace if you turn left.
James will have the week planned I guess so I wont recommend anywhere else but try and catch a few of the older pubs. American bars (and certainly Kentucky ones
) just aren’t the same as an old fashioned English pub. If you get near Holborn there are a couple around Lambs Conduit Street that still put fresh sawdust on the floor each morning and have changed very little over the last 300 or so year.