Just over a year ago I posted this piece, about Dead Pubs of West London. It’s an updated version of something I created for a Quiz Night at my children’s primary school back in 2012. There are pictures of buildings where pubs used to be, and of old buildings that became bars at some point… Continue reading Dead Pubs update (June 2018)
Earlier this year, London’s free evening newspaper The Standard revamped its Puzzles and Games section. It now takes up two pages rather than one and has new challenges. There is a Battleships puzzle every day. (I haven’t got to grips with that one yet.) The Mini Codeword has returned after an absence of a year… Continue reading Planning journeys, and attention to detail on the London Underground
Earlier this month the Guardian website featured the following headline: “Almost 100 police have received psychological help after Salisbury attack”. The “Salisbury attack” in question involved a former spy and his daughter being poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent. You can read my own take on it here, in this piece about the word “Spy”.… Continue reading Coroners and Crooners, Framers and Farmers
Last Saturday afternoon my 13-year-old son and I took a trip to Croydon, about an hour’s drive away. Our destination was Flip Out London, “London’s only pinball club”, home to 30 different pinball tables in a unit on an industrial estate. You can check out their website here. It’s open most weekends, and for an… Continue reading Pinball binges of the 1990s
Harlesdon is a mis-spelling of Harlesden, an area of North West London a few miles from where we live. The correct spelling ends in “den”, like its neighbour Willesden. Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire, and Wimbledon in South West London, on the other hand, end in “don”. If you approach the junction known as Savoy Circus from… Continue reading Word of the week: Harlesdon
Happy St George’s Day to you. If you are planning the kind of celebrations that people like me sometimes indulge in on St Patrick’s Day, have one for me, and have a good time. I will be unable to join you, but I have been reminiscing about a St George’s Day back in the 1980s… Continue reading Drunk for 8 shillings
My mother’s funeral took place 21 years ago today, 18 April 1997, a Friday. In each of the last two years I have written about the anniversary of her death, 10 April, first in this piece, and then here, last year. I didn’t publish anything about this year’s anniversary and have instead drafted the thousand… Continue reading A funeral memory: knowing where the trouble will come from
Last month I recalled my childhood enthusiasm for London Transport and a week spent travelling to the outer reaches of the tube network, just before my 11th birthday. In recent weeks my 13-year-old son has also started taking an interest in London’s iconic tube map and the connections between the lines. Before his school holidays… Continue reading Holiday notes: the end of the line revisited
My subject is memory. Most of the things that I want to remember come to mind easily. Some of the things that I don’t want to remember also come to mind easily, which is a shame. Every now and then a name or word fails to come to mind and, when it finally does, I… Continue reading Cadby Hall
Today, just before 6pm, I paid a visit to our local Maplins, the electronics retailer, in King Street Hammersmith. It could be my last visit to one of their stores. The branch on Kensington High Street closed last month, the Hammersmith shop has big signs announcing its Closing Down Sale and the chain as a… Continue reading Farewell Maplins
The Compartments 