by Alice Bower
I didn’t know you could access the underworld from the school. It’s just not something they told me when I applied for the job. “Nice school, challenging area, good pay” – that’s what they told me. They never once used the words “passage to hell under the large apparatus in the school hall”. But then I guess that might put a lot of people off, mightn’t it? [read more…]
I had a bit of Nadine Dorries moment at the Cutty Sark last week while looking at a display of ships’ figureheads; for George Osborne, it seems, has cocked a snook at all this trendy defogeyfication and had himself immortalised not simply on canvas, but large-as-life in carved and brightly painted wood. [read more…]
by Jude Rogers
On the way to Ferry Lane, you find a car park outside the industrial estate. Blue, red, white, silver, gun gold. Two teenagers are in the front seat of a Hyundai Sonata, kissing. They break off; the girl bites his ear just below the earring. The boy laughs, brushing steam off the windscreen. [read more…]
by Meg Green
A swan is preening in the four foot. Another is standing on one foot on the iron railing. Although Bill has seen swans on the line before, he always finds the whiteness of their feathers startling. They are bigger than he thinks is reasonable for a bird. He draws the power brake smoothly back, bringing the train to a stand before the swans. He knows it is illegal to touch swans. They belong to the Queen. [read more…]
No. 7 South Bank
I think we all know the story behind Coldplay’s Yellow but, in case you’ve forgotten, it seems that frontman Chris Martin was absent-mindedly looking out his window one afternoon when he saw something – the sun, a daffodil, Gwyneth Paltrow, nobody’s entirely sure – which made him stop and say to himself: that’s yellow, that is. [read more…]
by Matt Haynes
Across the road, a window is piled high with what look like stacks of pillows. Grubby white letters on a green awning above it read: Victory Food Stores, Jesus is Lord, Phil.2:11. Beside the food store is a nail salon, then a jeweller’s, a florist’s, and – I stare at the words above the next doorway: Divine Money, Financial Services. Why is that so familiar? Obviously it’s the sort of name you remember, but – where would I be remembering it from? [read more…]
photo by Roger Till
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by Jacqueline Downs
It was the summer of 1976 when we set fire to David McIntyre. Round the back of Brockwell Lido, bushes hiding us from the expanse of the park. Every now and then it comes back to me. [read more…]
Glue a cheap Woolworths light-switch to each lamp post in your street along with a small printed note saying “Please turn off after use”.
by Matt Haynes
It’s hard to believe that it’s over ten years now since I first found myself gazing out wistfully over the Ethelred Estate from the top floor of a house just off Lambeth Walk still part-owned by Lambeth Council and wondering why there seemed to be so many helicopters around these days. [read more…]