Malcolm McLaren (1946 – 2010)
Posted: 8 April 2010 Filed under: London Life, Music, Obituaries | Tags: Music Leave a comment »When I was walking to the Tube this morning, I was listening to The Clash’s Clampdown from the London Calling album and thinking how I still can’t quite believe that Joe Strummer is dead.
Well now, here’s another, with the news tonight that Malcom McLaren has died in Switzerland. Mark Borkowski on Channel Four News tonight called him a “Showman, a PT Barnum” and I don’t think he’s overstated it there.
Ever one with an eye for showmanship, publicity and opportunity, he is famous for his colourful management of the Sex Pistols at a time of massive flux in seventies Britain. Entrepreneurship was always at large: he had previously (in 1975) run the boutique called SEX in the King’s Road, Chelsea. After the Sex Pistols, he experimented with hip-hop and opera.
I was listening to him only a few days ago, narrating Parnes’ People for the BBC Radio 2 documentary about another inappropriate favourite of mine, Larry Parnes (1960s impresario and manager of Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, Eddie Cochran and Georgie Fame among others). The choice of narrator was highly appropriate: McLaren was arch, lending a knowing air to the programme.
Tonight I’m reading that Malcom McLaren will be flown back here and buried in Highgate Cemetery. If that’s true it’s a very fitting resting place.
Maundy Thursday
Posted: 5 April 2010 Filed under: History, London Life | Tags: East End, History, Libraries Leave a comment »Echoes of the East End, Venetia Murray (1989)
We get Maundy Thursday off work so I headed to Barbican Library to catch up on some reading and writing. This book was on the ‘Returned Today’ shelves (I always like to look at these shelves – you never know what you’ll find).
Echoes of the East End contains chapters from ‘ordinary’ people describing their lives in the East End of London in the early years of the twentieth century. We meet girls who grew up on ‘The Island’ (area of housing demolished in 1970) in Clapton E5 and others who lived in Hoxton N1. This is an East End still receiving heavy immigration and a mix of communities finding their feet with ‘native’ Londoners (some of these a generation or two from elsewhere; some of them with deep roots to the area in which they lived).
Some of it is is grim in its description of grinding poverty, inevitable hunger and seemingly endless threats of violence. It seems clichéd to say that these tales are tempered with heart-warming tales of community and neighbourliness, but they are. And there are scholarships won to the local grammar school and birthday celebrations and street parties held on the occasion of King George V and Queen Mary’s Jubilee (1935).
There are also fabulous pictures and descriptions of work and church outings. Much as in the pictures at the Tate Exhibition (in my earlier post Disappearing London:1) these pictures tell us so much of the social history of the time and I sit and pore over the faces and clothes of those lined up for the picture.
Writing Spaces
Posted: 1 April 2010 Filed under: Literature, Local London, London Life | Tags: Libraries, Literature, The City, Writing 5 Comments »Over the last few weeks I’ve expanded my living room by looking for other spaces in which to write. This has led me to those apparently unsung heroes: libraries. All the boroughs have a number of libraries, with a couple of larger ones in each of them. You used to have to live or work in the relevant borough to get a membership card, but no more! Now you only need a UK address to join any of them.
I have mentioned earlier the lovely reference libraries and writing spaces at Marylebone, Paddington and Westminster Reference Library (all part of City of Westminster Libraries). Now, I have added City of London Libraries to my list of Spaces. I spent some time at the Guildhall Library, which has a brilliant and extensive specialist collection about the history of London and is a great space in which to write: modernity among so much history. Lovely bookshop too; I bought a postcard of Fleet Street from c1905.
Similarly, the Barbican Library has a splendid London collection and a huge range of books covering hundreds of other subjects. The Barbican itself is intriguing (an iconic 1960s living space and arts centre built on the ruins of the bombed area of Cripplegate). You wander along the Moorgate Highwalk to get to the arts centre and are entering a special concrete space.
The thing that’s struck me about all the different libraries is just how well-used they are. Westminster’s are busy on Sundays with teenagers doing homework and noodling on laptops. The City’s libraries have a broader range of people there at any given time than I had anticipated. So, you might need to wait for that desk or one of the computers. But this is a good thing, right? These are important public spaces that are being well-used by, well, the public. Long live it. It seems the libraries are not such unsung heroes after all.
I plan to investigate the Bishopsgate Institute next. These spaces are important.
Anyway, it’s nearly Easter. The weather is (inevitably) somewhat blustery and rainy. And the libraries are closed for four days now.
Disappearing London: 1
Posted: 15 February 2010 Filed under: Exhibitions, History, Literature, London Life | Tags: art, Paddington, Photography, Tate 1 Comment »In the library, I found a fabulous quote about London by Henry James:
It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent.
From the window of the bus at Paddington, I saw a woman in a long dark fur coat, perhaps aged about sixty. She hurried along with a slightly care-worn look. She had no luggage, so I presume she lived locally. She seemed adrift and slightly out of time; a person one sees increasingly rarely almost as if they are disappearing from London. People like this fascinate me and have long been one of the things informing my writing: Who are they? What were they? What are they?
A couple of years ago I saw an exhibition at the Tate in Pimlico called How We Are: Photographing Britain. It affected me enormously, much more than I could have anticipated. The photographs therein not only form an important document of changing social history, but there, staring out at us, are faces and types of people that are disappearing and that we may never know again. I remember one series of photographs about a factory works outing from the 1950s, with lots of women lined up in front of the coach. There were fearsome matriarchs among them who had a look about them that was absolutely of the era and of their time. Not only are they almost certainly no longer alive, but these women as a particular type no longer exist.
Alexander McQueen: 1969 – 2010
Posted: 11 February 2010 Filed under: London Life | Tags: fashion 1 Comment »The death of Alexander McQueen today is horrible news. Too often these days people are feted without discernible talent or genius. Alexander McQueen was not one of them.
An enfant terrible without ever being immature. A bright star, a big loss and a bloody shame.
Lady Gaga wears his completely mad and utterly fabulous lobster shoes in her Bad Romance video.
The Guardian‘s obituary is here and The Times has its obituary here.
Research in Westminster
Posted: 7 February 2010 Filed under: Literature, Local London, London Life | Tags: Bayswater, Libraries, Literature, Marylebone, Paddington 3 Comments »Now that I’ve been bitten again by the writing bug, it’s good to explore other writing spaces and to research ideas. So this week I joined Westminster Libraries (one of them is a good research library too). Off to lovely Marylebone to collect my card and explore the facilities. The upstairs has an extensive research collection and study area and I sat for a while reading up on John Dickson Carr and locked room mysteries.
Then I hopped on the bus to Paddington to look in another of the borough’s libraries. All fab again. Both are in lovely old buildings. I shall look in the Charing Cross one and the Westminster Research Library this coming week or at the weekend (although I have an LSE lecture and a friend’s play on Saturday).
This is intriguing, too: Westminster’s Archives Centre is serialising an 1846 diary written by Nathaniel Bryceson, a Victorian clerk in Pimlico. His mother was born in 1797 and Nathaniel himself died in 1911. That’s just two generations crossing a very significant period of time. Incredible. I look forward to reading the entries.
When I left the library in Paddington, the day had become suddenly spring-like.
Gloucester Terrace, London W2
Porchester Square, London W2
And there’s more…
Posted: 13 January 2010 Filed under: London Life | Tags: cooking, Winter Leave a comment »The snow is back, announced the radio this morning. I was expecting a fine dusting, or nothing at all. 
In fact, a fair amount had accumulated overnight. Nothing on the scale of last week’s snow (and just as we were getting used to walking around safely), but a decent amount of fluffy stuff to trudge through. I took this photo (left) outside Euston station. The snowy branches make striking patterns.
Further on (right), Bloomsbury was dusted with a decent coating of snow, lending it a silent air, as in this picture looking towards Gordon Square.
Tavistock Square (left) with the statue of Gandhi visible beyond.
Russell Square with frosted trees (below).
I’ve been cooking and eating splendid soups all week. Tonight: leek, potato and pepper with a smigeon of chilli.
Battersea Park, 4 January 2010
Posted: 5 January 2010 Filed under: London Life | Tags: Battersea, Birds, Winter Leave a comment »
View from Battersea Park to houses on Chelsea Embankment
Peace Pagoda, Battersea Park
Close-up of Buddha on the Peace Pagoda, Battersea Park
Close-up: Peace Pagoda, Battersea Park
Frozen lakes on the Grand Vista, Battersea Park
Frozen lake in Battersea Park with Battersea Power Station beyond
More frozen water, Battersea Park
Bandstand with Peace Pagoda beyond, Battersea Park
Birds ponder the frozen lakes, Battersea Park
Henry Moore's 'Three Standing Figures', Battersea Park
Waders in the frozen water, Battersea Park
Afternoon dazzle, Battersea Park
Sun on the frozen lakes, Battersea Park
Winter ice glade, Battersea Park
Pump House, Battersea Park
Pump House with waders on the frozen lake, Battersea Park
Low winter sun, Battersea Park
Birds walk tentatively on the ice, Battersea Park
Low light, Battersea Park
Swans carve out a space in the ice, Battersea Park
Covent Garden, Friday
Posted: 29 November 2009 Filed under: Food and drink, London Life | Tags: Food and drink Leave a comment »It’s been a while since I was out and about in Covent Garden on a Friday night (and after posting that I don’t often do Friday night pubbage…)
We had some great Prosecco in the Globe, which was thronging with a pre-theatre crowd. The streets outside were busy with people heading to theatres and restaurants. Buzzy, busy and full of purpose. It’s good to get that feeling of ‘going out’ in the proper sense. I think when you go out after work in London, you are often quickly freshening yourself after the day and heading out. Being off work this week, I had time to soak in the bath, potter about doing domestic stuff while drinking cups of tea and just get ready to go out in a way I don’t have when I’m at work.
In Loch Fyne, I had potted shrimps, which I’ve never had before. They came set in mace butter with crusty bread on the side. Really lovely. Then the salmon with a mushroom, whiskey and horseradish sauce. Unusual-sounding sauce, but it didn’t disappoint and none of the ingredients overpowered one another and the dish came with new potatoes (very grown up!). My pal had the whitebait followed by the mussels.
Back to the Globe for a brandy to finish, then we walked back to the Tube, among the chill, the striding people and the rickshaws.
Chips, Texts and West London
Posted: 25 November 2009 Filed under: London Life | Tags: Fulham, Shepherd's Bush, transport Leave a comment »I’ve managed to start my Christmas shopping in November, which is impeccably organised for me. After mooching in bookshops in Fulham, I headed to Shepherd’s Bush and the delights of Westfield. I bought some things for my parents, and cards to thank friends for the lovely weekend. I also tried on some coats, including a lovely Betty Jackson one.
I caught the bus from the shopping centre. The top deck was packed with schoolchildren on their way home, which was a revelation. I’ve got a week’s annual leave (brilliant!) but it’s amazing how quickly one forgets that others are still going about their usual routine. The growing darkness outside made me assume that everyone was home from school. Of course they’re not, and they’re standing in the stairwell of the bus where they shouldn’t be, and shouting across the top deck and eating smelly chips and texting their mates. And the feisty girls are shouting back at the boys on the seats behind. Way to go. Noisy, alive and fearless. And not full of the harm that we like to imagine.
The bus across this area is the way to go. On the Hammersmith and City Line of the Tube, you just get flat slabs of warehouse West London land across Royal Oak and Latimer Road stations. The bus always reveals more.
I really must make a decision on the winter coat, though. The weather really is decidedly nippy now.
