South East

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.

Jan 302014
 
The Banker and the Thief

by Alex Cary
It never ceases to amaze me how fast the Elephant is gentrifying. There he is, late forties, full mac, three-piece suit, a tie pin, designer glasses and a briefcase chained to his arm. I can almost touch the aura emanating from his bonus. When did these people start leaving Chelsea? The lift stops. We’re only at the first floor. Another exercise dodger? No, great, it’s a kid, hood up indoors, the height of August. The banker freezes. [read more…]

Jan 232014
 
London's Campest Statues No.15

Yuri Gagarin, Greenwich Observatory by Matt Haynes
When, at 06:07 on the morning of 12th April 1961, Lieutenant Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin of the Soviet Air Force strapped himself into the capsule of Vostok 1 as it waited on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and uttered the words “Let’s go!”, thus inaugurating the history of manned space flight, it always seemed likely that, should he return safely, he would be fêted around the world. [read more…]

Dec 192013
 
Mascara in Sapphire

by Nicolette Loizou
Totally without friends, Giles would frequent the Venue on his own and I was so pretentious and unloved that I thought we could form something of a nihilist pair. He thought so too. On our first night together he scraped all my hair from my face and said, “Well, you’ve got nice eyes.” He had a special chair in the club under which he would stash hummus and pitta bread just in case he got hungry. [read more…]

Nov 282013
 

Again he thuds into Percy Ingle’s window; she sighs, scoops him up, tosses him back into Lewisham High Street, and tidies the London cheesecakes; tiny pigeon footsteps dent coconut strands.