“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.”
West End
![Please Pay At The Till](http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Foyles-T.jpg)
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…]
![London's Campest Statues No.11](http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CampJames-T.jpg)
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…]
![A Convert’s Zeal vs Nelson](http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/CableCarInRain-T.jpg)
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…]
![Dye It Red, She Said](http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/OxfordStreet-T.jpg)
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…]
“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.
![Traditional London Street Games No. 3](http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/PigeonHideandSeek-T.jpg)
Traditional London Street Games
Number 3: Pigeon Hide-and-Seek
[see more…]
![Piccadilly Line](http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/PiccadillyTrain-T.jpg)
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…]
![Pigeons in Puddles No. 8](http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/PigeonsKingsway-T.jpg)
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…]
![The Twelve Days of Smoke](http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/TwelveDayPigeon-T.jpg)
The Twelve Days of Smoke
On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me…
[read more…]