“He’s asked me to sing in a proto-punk band,” said the man in the suit on the phone in the sun on Piccadilly. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Jun 232014
West End
Jun 162014
by Steve Lake
But maybe my memory is playing tricks, for working at Foyles in the 80s wasn’t unlike a trip on some fairly serious hallucinogenic drugs. There was, for example, the story of the disgruntled employee sowing seeds into the specially moistened carpets of the rarely-visited Philosophy Department on a Friday evening and returning on Monday to find a small field of cress, ready to be added to his sandwiches. [read more…]
Apr 112014
JACOBVS SECVNDVS, Trafalgar Square by Matt Haynes
Don’t be fooled by the Roman garb. This effete nob with his toga tossed casually over his shoulder – part Brideshead, part Duran Duran circa Planet Earth – and his tunic hoicked over his knee like a Year 11 schoolgirl at a bus stop in Watford is, in fact, King James II, his body languidly bowed like a small fey banana and his upper limbs polygonically disposed as if to remind us that, truly, this was the noblest teapot of them all. [read more…]
Mar 272014
by David Riddell
What’s this? I’m… I’m falling. That’s what I’m doing. Must be. Wasn’t expecting this. Totally outside my experience. Don’t think I did anything to precipitate it, not that I can think of. Well now. I’ve done some daft stuff, but – nothing like this. I wonder what’s going on? [read more…]
Mar 242014
by Christopher Owen
She rummaged in her bag for cigarettes; then, remembering that smoking was not permitted, put them back. Her bag was always tidy. Mel’s, on the other hand, was always a mess. Stephanie had seen her trying to find a lost earring, pulling everything out onto her desk: old tissues, loose change, Tampax, brushes, mascara, lipsticks, sellotape, door keys, half-empty bottles of Evian. That had been the Friday before Christmas. [read more…]
Mar 102014
“Do I look like someone who needs a sorbet-maker?” he dolefully asks the bleary-eyed flotsam piled up on the N3’s stairs as birthday gifts are passed between strangers for appraisal.
Mar 032014
Traditional London Street Games
Number 3: Pigeon Hide-and-Seek
[see more…]
Feb 272014
Piccadilly Line
by Leighton Critchley
The man sitting opposite me on the tube
is reading Moby Dick.
He’s not quite
halfway through.
[see more…]
Feb 172014
PIGEONS IN PUDDLES No.8: Kingsway
by Matt Haynes
KEVIN PIGEON: Here you go, Em – d’you see what I mean?
EMILY PIGEON: This is what you’ve brought me to see?
KEVIN PIGEON: Yes. Don’t you just love how the leaf is, as it were, juxtaposed with the reflection of the tree?
EMILY PIGEON: It’s a leaf.
[read more…]
Jan 052014
The Twelve Days of Smoke
On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me…
[read more…]