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The Thames path, Westminster to Putney
I talked about the juxtaposition of the C19th Gothic of Tower Bridge and the genuine medievalness of the Tower of London: not, in my opinion, one of the great planning decisions in the history of...
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A London particular
And a peculiarly London sun – against which nothing could be said except that it looked bloodshot – glorified all this by its stare. It hung at a moderate elevation above Hyde Park Corner with an air...
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Herba Parietis or the Wall Flower
The text reads: Herba Parietis or the Wall Flower As it Grew out of the Stone Chamber Belonging to the Metropolitan Priſon of London Called NEW GATE. Being A History Wch is Partly True Partly...
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China hoist by their own petard
BBC News: “Thirty-five arrests have been made after clashes between pro-Tibet protesters and police as the Olympic torch made its way through London. Of course, in the parallel world of the Chinese...
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Peter Doig & the Camden Town Group at the Tate
I went to Tate Britain today, mainly to see the Peter Doig, but while I was there I also had a quick look round the Camden Town Group exhibition. Doig is a contemporary painter, born in Edinburgh in...
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The Thames path, Putney to Kew
And two months later, I get back on the Thames Path again. One exciting addition to the routine: sunscreen. Yup, proper sunny weather; spring turning into summer. And it made for a very pleasant walk;...
View ArticleThe Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
This is one of the great novelistic portraits of London: a London full of smoke and fog, seedy backstreet pubs, horse-drawn cabs, and gaslights. That’s what I like best about it, really, the London it...
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Billys and Charleys | MetaFilter Great post at Metafilter: 'In 1857, hundreds of strange objects suddenly started appearing in London antique shops: coins and medals, vases and statues, all made out...
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Multicolr Search Lab – Idée Inc. Fun tool: 'We extracted the colours from 10 million of the most “interesting” Creative Commons images on Flickr. Using our visual similarity technology you can...
View Articlefor reverence of his Sabot day
I downloaded a reader app for my iPhone and, browsing around Project Gutenberg for something public domain to read, I came across A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483, as transcribed and published...
View Articlefrom The Spectator
The original Addison and Steele version of The Spectator from 1711, that is, which I downloaded from Project Gutenberg to read on my phone. I thought this was amusing: As I was walking [in] the...
View ArticleAnother iPhone application I would pay good money for
Time Out on my phone. I could only find one iPhone app with UK cinema listings and it didn’t have my local cinema listed, so that’s one thing I’d pay for on its own. But if I could get something with...
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43,000 people and 2,000 vehicles an hour: why Oxford Circus is being re-built | Design details | Architects Journal This looks like a brilliant plan. Can't wait. (del.icio.us tags: London ) Some...
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Barnes birding
Had a nice day’s birding at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust place at Barnes. Didn’t manage to see or hear the Lesser Whitethroat which was apparently there this morning, but I did see Little Ringed...
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The Thames Path, Kew to Teddington
I know it has been nearly a year since I last did a section of the Thames Path, but I always intended to do at least one more bit, and I finally got round to it. Incidentally, here’s a trivia question...
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Lovely Richmond
I said in my last Thames Path post that, if you wanted to go a for a walk in that part of west London, you’d be better off going to Kew Gardens. Well, I can now add: you’d be better off going to...
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Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 1: Red-breasted Goose
The first bird for the calendar is… Red-breasted Goose, Branta ruficollis. Because I saw some in St. James’s Park today and they are just gorgeous little birds. I’ve never seen them in the wild, sadly....
View ArticleChristmas food debrief, bitterns etc
I should note in advance: the bitterns are not part of the food debrief. I daresay they turned up on Henry VIII’s dining table, but not mine. Food notes: the fruity stuffing was good, the pistachio one...
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Touch Up London #100: London In Space – Londonist 'The image is all to scale and shows just how enormous the near-complete International Space Station really is. A traditional Routemaster bus, at a...
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The London Film Festival
I went to the last of three films I had booked at the London Film Festival yesterday (notes on which at the end of the post). The LFF, for those who don’t know, is the antithesis of a festival like...
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The Hooligan Nights by Clarence Rook
Interesting one, this. Lee Jackson of victorianlondon.org decided to use some of his archive of digitised Victoriana to raise a bit of money to help support the site and put this for sale as a Kindle...
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London riots
I suppose I ought to make some kind of comment about the fact that London seems to have suddenly gone nuts. But I don’t know what the fuck to say. I certainly didn’t see this coming, so I can hardly...
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Riots, again
There was a story on the front of the Times today (I’d link to it, but it’s behind a paywall), about a young woman, recently graduated from university, who was passing a looted store on the way to get...
View ArticleDaily Life in Victorian London by Lee Jackson
This is an anthology for the Kindle compiled by Lee Jackson, proprietor of the website The Victorian Dictionary, which anyone who has some interest in either Victoriana or London will surely have...
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Needling camels
I think it’s fascinating the way that, quite accidentally, the Church of England has been drawn into a debate about the state of capitalism. Because the protestors were not targeting the church; it was...
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Londoners by Craig Taylor
To give it its full, ludicrously long title: Londoners: The Days and Nights of London as Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Long for It, Have Left It and Everything Inbetween. This makes a...
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Voting system geekery: London mayoral edition
I’ve just been along to vote in the elections for mayor of London. It’s a kind of alternative vote system; you can pick a first and second choice (but not a third and so on), and after the first round...
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The Thames path, Crayford Marshes to Charlton
Crayford Marshes is a patch of grazing marsh on the south bank of the Thames east of London — Dartford, roughly. I heard about it as a birding spot, and a few weeks ago I went to check it out. But it’s...
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Birds in London by W. H. Hudson (1898)
I downloaded this from Project Gutenberg after reading Hudson’s novel Green Mansions. The novel — a rather peculiar romance about a wild girl found living in the Venezuelan jungle — has has not aged...
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Exhibition roundup: History is Now, Marlene Dumas, & Cotton to Gold
The South Bank Centre is marking 70 years since the end of WW2 with a collection of events entitled Changing Britain. The Hayward Gallery’s contribution is an exhibition History Is Now: 7 Artists Take...
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