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Secret London: torture at the Temple 12 Aug 2013 | 08:21 pm
In some parts of London you can travel in space as well as time. Take the Temple. This characterful cluster of medieval buildings, gardens, courts and alleys wedged between Fleet Street and the Thames...
Mick Farren: dead good Deviant 29 Jul 2013 | 12:24 am
‘Sure the underground was elitist: we were an elite. We were the cutting edge of ongoing bohemianism at that point.’ Mick Farren in Days In The Life by Jonathon Green The last time I spoke to Mick Fa...
Exploring the lost Lea Valley with Saint Etienne 15 Jul 2013 | 05:20 pm
The BFI have just released a fantastic DVD for London fans. A London Trilogy: The Films Of Saint Etienne collects the three documentaries Saint Etienne and director Paul Kelly made between 2003 and 20...
Banking on Sherlock 9 Jul 2013 | 01:42 am
When Abbey National opened their grand Art Deco headquarters at Nos 219-229 Baker Street in 1932, they didn’t quite know what they were getting into. Because it sat in the spot where 221b should be, t...
At the Poll Tax Riot 2 Jul 2013 | 05:20 pm
I attended the Poll Tax Riot by accident. I was at the theatre with my family on Charing Cross Road when the lights came up at the end of the performance and the house manager told us there had been a...
The Post Office Tower: now you see it… 24 Jun 2013 | 07:19 pm
Now you don’t… This stamp of the Post Office Tower from 1965 is superb, even if it misses out the Post Office Tower itself due to a printing error (thanks to @stampmagazine for the image). In fact, ...
Guns and strippers: in the crypt at Kensal Green Cemetery 13 Jun 2013 | 06:54 pm
Photographer Sean Smith has an exhibition in the crypt of the Dissenters Chapel in Kensal Green. It’s an evocative location, with Smith’s dramatic, very beautiful but often gruesome or unsettling phot...
Opium pipes in London 2 Jun 2013 | 10:52 am
In 1899, Earl’s Court offered interested Londoners the chance to pay 6d to see a Hong Kong ‘opium smoking parlour’, filled with ‘living Chinaman’ and ‘true to every detail’. This reflected an ongoing ...
Secret London: inside Wapping’s abandoned Tobacco Dock 28 May 2013 | 06:33 pm
It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was the mid-1980s, the economy was booming and Docklands was on the up. Tobacco Dock, an old Grade I-listed warehouse off East Smithfield in Wapping, seemed ...
London’s strangest race: meeting the Tube Challenge 18 May 2013 | 12:40 am
‘s It’s probably London’s strangest race. The Tube Challenge first took place in 1959 and since then hundreds of people have attempted to visit each of London’s 270 tube stations on the same day – it’...
