Goya’s Pilgrimage to St. Isidore’s hermitage often comes to mind when I hear P J Harvey’s ‘The Last Living Rose’ A lyrical story of a similar kind of mad parade, this one though tottering through the faded glories of a lost, misremembered past, in a rotting, dank, defiantly not European England.
In the last half century, visions of Dalston have been refracted in many different ways, from cult 1950s novels, 90s Yardie tales, angst-ridden millennial films to the clean windows of hip coffee shops. But for me, as an ex-resident, its pulsing, vital heart remains the stalls and sounds and crush of Ridley Road Market.
I’ve always found bus drivers to be rather surly to say the least. But conductors were always a little different. There was a fascinating Arena documentary on TV the other night, all about five different, famous – in their way – conductors on the much missed London Routemasters. One of them – Duke Bassie –…
A rant.
Grrr vs Ahhh during the London Olympics.
Imagine a map that grew and shrank, advanced and retreated as we lived out our lives. This map wouldn’t simply chart every building, street and pavement encountered, this map would change according to the weight and resonance an individual gave to a place.
Landscapes, places and routes that meant more to you personally would be given greater prominence.
Equally places you had never visited, or didn’t care, for would shrink in relative size, or disappear altogether. This would be an emotional map, a map of the inner world as much the external one.
I’ve just returned from a three-day visit to the Port Eliot Festival, in St Germans, Cornwall. It’s hard to put into words just how good and right the place and atmosphere felt. On the last stage of the drive you wind through a series of roads that alternately give views across small fields that are…
Magpie Tales blog invited people to submit a poem or vignette based on this picture. She’ll get you in the end, Stretched out and unaware, Or watchfully expectant, She’ll come, she always does. Unable to resist, you’ll slip Down gradually, gratefully, Allowing sky blue water To do its work. Hag-like at times, she crouches, Opening…
Granville Road Spinney is a short walk from Finsbury Park tube. Just minutes from busy, grimy, North London is a place where bats, hedgehogs, frogs and foxes and more can be found.
Very sad to hear that Nora Ephron has died. ‘When Harry Met Sally’ is one of my favourite films. Her script, along with the excellence of the two leads, make it one of a very limited number of pitch-perfect romantic comedies. In a genre that’s dominated by knuckle-chewingly bad, syrupy nonsense, with typically one dimensional…
The beauty of books is that you can read them anywhere, at any time.
But is there an ideal place to do it? Indoors, outdoors, under a tree, in a favourite chair, on a train, or on the loo?
Landscapes, imagined and remembered, have always played a central role in literature.
The fascinating relationship between writers and the British landscape is currently explored in a new exhibition at The British Library: Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands. Here are some thoughts it inspired.
You can now you can explore John Peel’s personal record collection online at this charming site.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-0s4l4Ydjo
What a song. Used up my Spotify quota and have now ordered the LP/CD from here http://www.fencerecords.com/shop/
It’s great.
Once upon a time a young woman opened a bookshop…
If only more ads were as good as this. This American commercial for Audi Quattro is excellent. Based on a strong but simple idea, it draws inspiration from Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’, but here it is a Great White Car rather than a Whale that is pursued by a man obsessed with hooking the thing. (What…
Is there anything beneath your surface?
Maybe you’re all surface?
Hello…Hello…Hell No,
No ripples on your vacant face
The dust has settled and the shoot-out at the literary salon is over. Julian Barnes has outgunned The Sisters Brothers and the rest of the not-so-magnificent five. The critics and literati have grumbled and sniped, whilst that endangered breed, the booksellers have rubbed their hands with glee at a welcome boost to their sales.
Just entered a Guardian blog challenge to try to make poems from book titles. My effort’s below. Here’s the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/oct/06/compose-a-poem-from-book-titles The Poetry of book titles As I walked out one midsummer morning Neither here nor there Dreams of leaving Linger awhile Landscape and memory, Like water for chocolate, Different Seasons Clinging to the wreckage…
Well, this hasn’t aged well. I did used to enjoy the old place. Nov 2022 Update. Now there’s a title I wouldn’t use anymore. But for me, most of the following still stands, ego maniac, conspiracy spouting billionaires not withstanding. One obvious caveat, I’m white, male and not at all famous, so attract bile and personal…
Although I’m from Bristol and therefore, in Cricketing terms, ought to support Gloucestershire, to me Yorkshire has always seemed to be the spiritual home of English cricket.
In numbers terms alone it makes sense. In the Vale of York, just one local league amongst many the Nidderdale League features 54 teams, including the likes of Alne and Beckwithshaw, Kirkby Malzeard, Masham, Newton-Le-Willows, Raskelf, Spofforth and Whixley.
But only one team in this league has ever lost so badly that their local shame became national news.
Richly Evocative 