by Matt Haynes
One afternoon in September, a bright-eyed young publisher walked into a small independent bookshop in South London with a large cardboard box containing copies of a shiny new book, and asked the manager if he’d like some. Sale or return, no money upfront, no risk. [read more…]
London Transport Apologises No. 4
Because of short platforms, passengers wishing to alight at Gipsy Hill should travel in the front seven coaches only. Passengers wishing to roll down the window and let the wind blow back their hair should speak to a member of staff. [see more…]
Waiting: Dartmouth Park Hill, Spring 2009 [see more…]
by Matt Haynes
The caffs round King’s Cross are full of downcast Scotsmen eating breakfast. Outside O’Neill’s, others stand in kilts and saltires, pints in hand. Soon, it will be time to cross the Euston Road and catch the train back home. [read more…]
by Matt Haynes
Out here, the river’s still allowed to undo its buttons twice a day and slob out across the mud with primordial glee. For one of the Thames’s more discombobulating quirks is that it’s wider upstream than down, where it’s been artificially banked and trammelled – no one paddles on the beach outside Lambeth Palace any more, not since Mr Bazalgette’s embankments went up in the 1860s and the Archbishop lost his deckchair concession. [read more…]
“Is this London?” she pouts, pressing a chocolatey face to the tagged and leaking window as their train waits at Worcester Park. “Daddy, when is it going to be London?”
On sunny lunchtimes, dress up as a giant duck and then sit by the lake in St James’s Park throwing torn off chunks of Ginsters pasties at tourists.
The sending of the first Smoke book to the printer is celebrated with a trip to Erith.
[see more…]
… it’s all been downhill since they stopped wearing capes, you know…
[see more…]
by Matt Haynes
Although obviously the stupid machine couldn’t actually see her. Probably a good thing too: right now, she must look every one of her eighteen-plus-forty-odd years. Such an awful day. All the financial stuff… she’d just never taken an interest. Never had to. And now here was this… this computer telling her she couldn’t buy a small bottle of red wine without “approval”. She hadn’t known they made them so small, not till she’d seen the display. [read more…]