by Matt Haynes
As the doors shut and the train accelerates away from the station, the boy’s father holds the palm of his hand six inches behind his son’s back. The same conversation, almost word-for-word, has occurred at Devons Road, Langdon Park and All Saints (for Chrisp Street Market). Soon, almost certainly, it will occur at Pudding Mill Lane. [read more…]
Number Three:
Lemna Road, Leytonstone [see more…]
The small boy in the red-white-and-blue hat looks up at the skies, looks back at his father, looks out to the river. “Is she the lady off of CBeebies?” he asks, gummily. The gold boat glides past Blackfriars. “She’s not as good as Mr Tumble, Daddy.” [see more…]
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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