I must have driven past the turning for the A4180 a hundred times before finally flicking the indicators and directing my car away from the busy lanes of the A40. Previously, my desire to either get to, or escape from, the congested delights of London had always persuaded me to speed past the west and east bound road signs which point towards Yeading and Ruislip. Delightful as these towns may...Read More
‘Nazi dog buried in West End’, sounds like a headline which would once have appeared on the editors’ desk of the ‘Sunday Sport’. But unlike ‘Statue of Elvis found on Mars’, or ‘Gazza’s face grows on white cliffs of Dover’, the story of a fascist canine interned in central London is true, at least in parts.Read More
It is amazing what people can get accustomed to. Locals living in Headington, a quiet suburb on the eastern edge of Oxford, don’t seem to notice the 25-foot-long headless shark embedded in the roof space of an otherwise undistinguished terraced house.Read More
Even some of the most experienced south Londoners will furrow their brows and scan their mental A-Z’s in vain when you mention a visit to Nunhead. Despite being firmly lodged in zone 2 the area possesses a spymaster’s flair for anonymity. Perhaps its low profile can be ascribed to the Post office decision in the early twentieth century to lump Nunhead and Peckham together within the SE15 postcode. Since being...Read More
It’s not unusual for buildings to be deemed a danger to public safety. Dodgy slates, crumbling brickwork or loose panes of glass often result in blocked pavements, stripy warning tape and cheek sucking workmen. However, In the history of remedial works there must be few examples of an erection being declared unsafe due to the threat of falling penises. In the late 1930s number 429 Strand, a building dogged by...Read More
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