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Spies Of London
Apparently this “drab” office block in St James’s was for many decades a London base for GCHQ and is now being sold off to developers. It reminded me of the time I was writing an article that briefly...
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Secret Rivers at the Museum of London Docklands
It feel as if the underground is heading overground. At the London Metropolitan Archives, an exhibition celebrates London’s subterranean treasures. Robert Mcfarlane has recently applied his golden Iain...
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Farewell to The Borderline
I have a short piece in the current issue of Uncut about the Borderline (and another longer, very good, piece about the Flamingo). The Borderline is due to close this summer after a rich history as a...
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Inside Brixton Prison
Although I’ve lived about a mile from Brixton Prison for over a decade, the closest I’ve ever got to it is the view from the top of the nearby Brixton Windmill. From there, the bleak wall of the...
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Morrissey and I
There is a tendency to romanticise the past, but looking back on it, I got into Morrissey at precisely the wrong time. The Smiths split before I was 12 so passed me by, but in August 1992 I belatedly...
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Dead butterflies – 50 years since Rolling Stones at Hyde Park
It’s 50 years since the Rolling Stones played their famous free gig at Hyde Park. The show was their first with new guitarist Mick Taylor, and was given added poignancy as Brian Jones died a few days...
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Save the canal’s statue garden
When I lived on the canal in Lisson Grove, we would often head west along the canal towards Kensal Green and Notting Hill, either by foot or narrowboat. Whenever we did, we’d pass a small sculpture...
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Kate Bush’s guide to South East London
I have written the cover story for the current issue of Uncut about Welling’s greatest daughter, Kate Bush. The piece looks at Bush’s formative years from her first musical compositions to the release...
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London street signs
Imagine London without its street signs? They are the sort of thing we take completely for granted but which, at some point in the past, required somebody to sit down in an office and settle upon a...
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In the nick: Bow Street police museum
I recently made a rare visit to central London to see the opening of a new museum, the Bow Street Police Museum in Covent Garden. This tiny independent museum hidden down a side street off Bow Street...
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Ghost signs
I first met Sam Roberts around ten years ago, when he cycled to my house in south London from Stoke Newington to discuss the possibilities of him writing professionally about his love of ghost signs....
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Book review: Raving Upon Thames by Andrew Humphreys
I’ve often wondered why three of the 60s most acclaimed rock guitarists – Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page – all came from the same small corner of Surrey. And why a nearby section of suburban...
View ArticleThe triumph of the Barbican
This is an article I wrote about the Barbican in 2015, which I am posting to mark the 40th anniversary of the Barbican’s completion “How can anyone reconstruct a town from its cellars?” asked travel...
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Third generation rock and roll
That headline is not a phrase you hear much of – or in fact at all – these days, but in 1972 it was a much-discussed concept that attempted to define the music and performance of the early 70s as...
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There was only one Tony Elliott
When I started freelancing at Time Out in 1998, originally on sport and then with the TV section, I often sat on the “Channel 5/cabsat desk” – the desk for the journalist appointed to review the best...
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“The building doesn’t represent or resemble anything other than itself.”
I was delighted to be sent this excellent article about Battersea Power Station by Richard Garvin, who introduces himself as a writer and retired English professor with an interest in architecture....
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Crowley’s London
Several years ago, I commissioned a writer at Time Out to go and explore what we then described as one of occultist and writer Aleister Crowley’s few remaining London homes – an apartment at 73...
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London’s Lost Music Venues
The most depressing thing about Paul Talling’s new book, London’s Lost Music Venues, is that this is the second volume. The first volume featured on club-sized venues, including the likes of the...
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Performance in Powis Square
Performance is probably the greatest London film of all time. When this strange and unsettling fusion of counterculture and crime was finally released in 1970, it was accompanied by a novelisation – a...
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Time Out special edition
Time Out ceased publication – in physical terms at least – a few weeks ago. However, there is a special one-off final issue on the street today, which looks at the history of London over the past 54...
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