by Matt Haynes
In the grass are, unmistakably, the ghosts of abandoned roads: cracked tarmac and kerbstones, carless and homeless, fading to brown and green. And here’s the thing: if you look in an old A-Z – one from the sixties, say – Burgess Park isn’t there. But those spectral streets are; and they have names, and purpose, and they’re drawn in hard black ink. There’s also a line of turquoise, running dead straight between them. [read more…]
by Andrzej Ryan
There is a bearded man in a pink dress behind me. He’s swigging lemonade from a two-litre bottle. For almost the entire year, the City of London is home to thousands of dark suits. Today, it belongs to flowing fabrics and shiny buttons. Today is the Pearly Kings and Queens’ Harvest Festival. [read more…]
by Kevin Acott
Normans from Bec ended up in Streatham, as everyone does, and settled on Tooting Common, building a swimming pool but running out of money before they could get the roof done. Eventually, they integrated with a local tribe of fearsome, though eternally disappointed, warriors known as Palisfans and, to all intents and purposes, disappeared, leaving behind only the name of the place and the infamous South West London shoulder shrug. [read more…]
WHAT IS IT?
WHAT’S IT FOR?
WHO PUT IT THERE?
IT LOOKS LIKE A BIG PILE OF FISH…
[find out more…]
by Howard Colyer
But Thomas Kowal was neither lunatic nor dirty. But the news of his lonely life on the Lee High Road had the power to unhinge my parents. And I went to the funeral. There were just the three of us – and one was dead. And the priest was glad to see me. [read more…]
London Transport Apologises No. 4
Because of short platforms, passengers wishing to alight at Gipsy Hill should travel in the front seven coaches only. Passengers wishing to roll down the window and let the wind blow back their hair should speak to a member of staff. [see more…]
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…]
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.
Anatomy of London
by Alex Farebrother-Naylor
Number 9: East Dulwich
[see more…]
