My new book, the second of the London Trails series, is out now. City of Song: A London Sixties Music Trail takes the reader on a walk from Chelsea to Soho, stopping off at twenty-four locations that hosted significant musical performances, encounters and happenings in that decade. Read More
‘Brutalism is an ethic, not an aesthetic…the moral crusade of Brutalism for a better habitat through built environment probably reaches its culmination at Park Hill.’
(The New Brutalism – Reyner Banham)
The gaffer sits by a lantern with his tools:
hammer; rivets; hood; a pot of tar.
He anoints the face with a thick brush,
stroking against stubble, sealing mouthand nostrils. It’s like caulking a boat
he says. He dips the brush in,
sweeps down the eyelids. A further
thick layer all over and he’s done.They lift him again and put him in the iron,
snapping a finger and flaying some skin
from the thumb. Finally he’s in,
the rivets hammered home.(‘His Body is Put Up at Dead of Night’ – Rob Hindle)
Kentish field flecked with flint.
Farmer picked the flint from field,
Planting piles along the fringe. Read More
Brutalist architecture mostly leaves me cold or repulsed but I’ve always had a liking, verging on an affection, for the Barbican Estate, perhaps because I worked there for six years and got to know its vastness, its labyrinths, and its hidden byways. I’ve always thought that if there was one structure in London that would survive nuclear war or natural catastrophe it would be the Barbican. Read More
A shipbroker is a kind of enormous shopkeeper for ships, and by far the most important item he supplies to them is the fuel on which the ship’s engines run. In those days fuel meant only one thing. It meant coal. There were no oil-burning motorships on the high seas at that time. All ships were steamships and these old steamers would take on hundreds and often thousands of tons of coal in one go. To the shipbrokers, coal was black gold.
My father and his new-found friend, Mr Aadnesen, understood all this very well. It made sense they told each other, to set up their shipbroking business in one of the great coaling ports of Europe. Which was it to be? The greatest coaling port in the world at that time was Cardiff, in South Wales. So off to Cardiff they went, these ambitious young men, carrying with them little or no luggage.(Boy – Roald Dahl)
He came back to play Friars with the proper Ziggy look in January 1972. He had completely altered his persona, and having told so many people that the new stage show was going to be outrageous, the place was buzzing. Everyone was so excited. I was backstage before the gig and remember Mick Ronson being very unhappy that he was being asked to wear his gold jumpsuit.
(Kris Needs, quoted in David Bowie: A Life – Dylan Jones)
