Oct 172013
 
Paddington Chews It Off

Paddington Chews It Off by Matt Haynes
Paddington gazed dejectedly at the menu. Years ago, he’d persuaded them to add marmalade sandwiches, but they’d used “artisan bread” with the texture of damp compacted sawdust, and the marmalade hadn’t been marmalade at all, but something they’d called orange coulis – and THEN they’d had the temerity to charge him £5.95. He’d hidden it under his hat, telling them he’d save it for an emergency, and not mentioned the subject again. [read more…]

Jul 312013
 
Stepping Across The Thames

by Matt Haynes
Out here, the river’s still allowed to undo its buttons twice a day and slob out across the mud with primordial glee. For one of the Thames’s more discombobulating quirks is that it’s wider upstream than down, where it’s been artificially banked and trammelled – no one paddles on the beach outside Lambeth Palace any more, not since Mr Bazalgette’s embankments went up in the 1860s and the Archbishop lost his deckchair concession. [read more…]

Mar 042012
 
Ales of the Riverbank

by Matt Haynes
There is, Doctor Johnson once observed, no more agreeable a place for an Englishman to unexpectedly find himself stuck than within the four sturdy walls of a well-kept public house: “Sir, give a man a pint of strong dark ale, an audience of keen-witted peers, and the promise of a plump and willing wench at the end of the evening, and a simple and profound contentment will be his.” [read more…]