CAETANO VELOSO – “London, London”: “A group approach a policeman / He seems so pleased to please them” – Veloso wanders in London, alone, knowing nobody, slightly melancholy but safe. The song drifts like its write[…]

[…]

Skateboarding near the Thames — a brief observation today on how world culture functions. I still remember the first time I was at the Royal Festival Hall — trying to remember who was on that night, Jarvis Cocker’s one off Touch of[…]

Great London Books #1: Nairn’s London by Ian Nairn (1966)
“Nairn’s London” is perhaps the about-architecture version of the music book of my (our?) dreams. It’s smart and its funny and it doesn’t bother second gues[…]

London Submerged: “It is a vast stagnant swamp, which no man dare enter, since death would be his inevitable fate.”: short extracts from After London, by Richard Jefferies, a post-apocalyptic Victorian novel which imagines the city choked[…]

“If you wish to see your son thoroughly depraved, send him to a Judge and Jury Club”: forgotten menace of bygone London! The Victorian London site as ever illustrates but does not interpret: as far as I can tell the notion was a drinking […]

The only living American boy in New Cross (not necessarily true) — as I mentioned yesterday, I had reason to be in New Cross for two of my London trips, and while I can’t say I got to know the entire area or anything like that, for me, fo[…]

A LONDON SONGBOOK
SHAM 69 – “Red London (Live)”: Did you know that in their first ever review Julie Burchill wrote “Sham 69 play rock’n’roll in the manner that American negroes fight, not for fun but for existence&[…]

Perhaps I was a little harsh on the quality of some of London’s riverside architecture. Especially when you consider that once upon a time the good people of Battersea could have been given this[…]

Metropolimbo
Perhaps the biggest disadvantage with growing up in a surburban satellite such as the towns within the Zone 5/6 boundary is that while you feel comfort in being able to experience both urban thrills and rural bliss quicker than most, you[…]