JKL

Sep 192013
 
Whitechapel in Time and Space

by Jude Rogers
Whitechapel station, for some time now, has been a peculiar place. Try to find a train northbound for Dalston Junction, or southbound to New Cross, for instance, and you’ll chance on a sign for the Overground, a name that might suggest futuristic monorails or fresh-air outdoor thrills or the glorious sunniness of above-the-earth transport. [read more…]

Sep 082013
 
Rodent Rovings

by Jess Sully
“Nah – they’re docile,” he replied, and proved this by bending and twisting the ferret into strange shapes. It was as if he was trying to create a balloon animal. The sight of a ferret being manipulated would, in itself, have been enough excitement for me, but then the owner’s young daughter insisted on showing me her party piece. She opened her mouth and the ferret put its head in, a modest variation of the head-in-lion’s-mouth circus trick. [read more…]

Aug 262013
 

On the delayed 22:34 to Dartford, a boy with an earring and pair of Hoxton glasses pores over a musical score, humming intermittently. The carriage look on with benevolent confusion.

Jun 242013
 

At Bow Church DLR, the bride boards, cream heels delicately minding the gap. Her right hand grips a posy, her left curls itself around a handrail, silver ring glittering.

Jun 132013
 

Removing his coat, he breaks through the buses and levers himself over the railing that divides Upper Street. Dismounting, he smiles at me drunkenly, then jigs into Angel’s welcoming mouth.

Jun 062013
 
The Tenner

by Joan Byrne
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m in the sanctuary that is Tate Modern Members’ Room. I’m enjoying an elevated feeling of oneness with life and art, and loving the view of the City with St Paul’s at its centre. Sipping a coffee, I watch people come and go. Many of them are works of art themselves, but not this man. He’s dead ordinary, mid-sixties, impassive face, bland dresser. With him is a girl, aged about fourteen. [read more…]

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Apr 092013
 
It Grows On You, Like A Rash

by Jess Sully
A known introvert from a town with wide skies and a vast, shimmering expanse of sea, I didn’t think I’d be happy among the hemmed-in crowds. What I didn’t realise then is that within the anonymity of the ever-flowing throng, those shoals of fast-moving fish who swoop and turn as one entity, I could move silently, unobtrusive and unremarkable. And now I know, too, that sometimes at low tide the Thames smells of brine and seaweed. [read more…]

Apr 012013
 
Poppers and Opal Fruits

by Jack Pandemian
School nights have no meaning until September so we roam, my friend and I, within the boundaries of our Zones 4-5 school bus passes. Brixton is too far, Zone 2. Camden is unimaginable. But out here there is a club above a pub where every Saturday the walls run with snakebite sweat, and where the carpet sucks lecherously at your boots as you lift one foot and then the other to the jangling sound of L7. [read more…]