London

What’s this all about, then? A boat sticking out of a wall? That’s the first puzzle you encounter on entering St Magnus the Martyr. It’s just another research day in London. I was heading to a specific London location to see something few people bother checking out. Who, I wonder, is still interested in the city’s […]

Another research day, and this one takes me to Fen Court, where a new rooftop garden, better than the glorified food court at the top of the Walkie Talkie, is open to any and all, and affords terrific views of the city. And unlike the Walkie Talkie it doesn’t need to be booked for a […]

I’m out and about doing London research today, inspired by our erstwhile commenter Jan, who sent me a couple of shots of the Thames foreshore. (She knows her history but the camera could do with a bit of an upgrade). Jan points out that the beach of the South Bank runs parallel with Shad Thames […]

Dr Samuel Johnson once predicted the drawbacks of aviation. In his philosophical novel The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) he thought about the advantages of flying and concluded; ‘What would be the security of the good if the bad could at leisure invade them from the sky?’ While he was working on his dictionary […]

My local area of King’s Cross was traditionally connected to hunting deer, and the psychogeographic connection remains when you walk around the neighbourhood and spot the number of either accidental or deliberate references to deer and stag horns – they adorn buildings and pubs, often tucked into decorative motifs. Having just read Dr Matthew Green’s […]

  Well, none of us saw that coming! The makers of ebooks, touted as the biggest thing since actual books, have discovered that they have a finite audience. They’re mostly purchased by readers who buy more than the average number of paper books. I love ebooks, especially if I’m travelling or the book I’m reading […]

Sadly there’s no snow in Covent Garden (or anywhere else in the country). It’s warm and rainy here but to get us into the Christmas, Pagan or holiday spirit, depending upon how you live, here’s Anna and the Apocalypse, not a band but last year’s small-scale smash and one of the few Scottish zombie musicals […]

My Brother had a Big Birthday yesterday and although he does not enjoy coming up to London, he gave it a try for a city day out. It turned out to be a pretty good template for a chatty stroll in the short daylight hours. We started in Shoreditch at the Bike Shed, a warren-like […]

To commemorate Mr Trump visiting London with a thousand armed minders making sure that protesters couldn’t reach him, I thought we’d have a little number dedicated to the NRA. NB Not intended as a comment on US foreign policy.    

Yesterday morning London was filled with dense violet fog. Only later in the day did the dome of St Paul’s loom out, followed by the spire of the Shard. There are always a few days in November when London feels correctly autumnal, just as Christmas in the capital tends to arrive in January. Every year […]