Jun 142012
 

In a trackside back garden grainy with dusk, somewhere between Dagenhams East and Heathway, a solitary fat boy steadies himself, uncloses his eyes, and shoots one final, match-winning basket.

Jun 082012
 
A102(M)

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…]

May 302012
 
George Osborne Breasts the Surf

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…]

May 232012
 
Pigeons in Puddles No. 7

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…]

May 222012
 
I Was Just Trying To Be Nice

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…]

Mar 102012
 
Over The Water

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…]

Mar 092012
 

“Is the flood returning?” says the board outside Herne Hill United Church; but drivers descending to the plain below won’t be saved, for the temptations of Camberwell Green are many.