Blowing in the wind

On Saturday I hung my washing out on the line in the garden for the first time this year. Ooh the lovely smell of fresh, clean, air-dried sheets! On Sunday I helped to trim my neighbour's bush, but that's another story and would inspire a different collection of images.

Top row: De Beauvoir, Goldsmith's Row, Northwold Rd, Hornsey Rd.

Middle row: Crouch End, Chamberlayne Road, Coldharbour Lane, St Peters Street.

Bottom row: Kentish Town Road, Harrow Road, Prince of Wales Road, Kingly Street

Malcolm McLaren RIP

Malcolm died of cancer on 8th April 2010, aged 64.

As I write this I am listening to 'Waltz Darling' the wonderful album he made in the 80s with the Bootzilla Orchestra. It mixed together all sorts of different musical styles and time signatures. Something's jumping, jumping in my shirt... aah!

I remember a bizarre programme he did for TV over 10 years ago about Oxford Street* and its history which I'd like to see again. His version of Madame Butterfly is genius, though I don't know what this video has got to so with the lyrics. Very 80s!
Like him or loathe him, Malcolm was always coming up with new ideas and shaping a lot of what we now take for granted.

Except for the 2 generic King's Road pics the references should be fairly obvious:

Top row: Museum Street; The Rainbow; St Pancras Church; King's Road.

Middle row: Opera House; coal hole cover; Dog and Duck, Frith St; 100 Club.

Bottom row: Coal hole cover; Bayswater, King's Road; Willesden.

*This reminds me that I still haven't been along Oxford Street with my camera and done a definitive Jane's London version of it... what I need is a day when the shops aren't open... I miss those Sundays when everything except the corner shops was closed. I think we need that day off to recharge. And early closing one night a week too. Now it's all spend spend spend, buy buy buy!

This is one of the Best Travel Blogs about London

Well, so says The Travel Onion, and who am I to disagree?!

I was bemused when I got the email about it but am told it's down to giving a different point view of London that travellers might be interested in.

So I checked their site and there I am, one of only five sites listed in the London section the bottom.

Brilliant! Thanks Travel Onion!

Are you feeling frisky?

Are you full of the joys of Spring?

Well you should be, because today, 20th March 2010, is the Vernal Equinox which means it's Springtime.

And British Summertime starts next Sunday 28th, which means another hour of daylight. Well, not another one magic'd out of nowhere, but you know what I mean.

So, it's official. Time to come out of hibernation, peel off those layers, and get busy...

Top: Wenlock Arms, N1; Great Titchfiled Street, W1; Seven Sisters Road, N7; Willesden Green station, NW6.

Middle: Newington Green, N16; Harlesden, NW10; Goodge Street, W1; Kew Gardens, TW9.

Bottom: Thames Path, SE16; Great Portland Street, W1; Camden High Street, NW1; Essex Road, N1.

P.S. I was going to call this piece "In the Spring a young man's fancy..." which is part of a line from Alfred Lord Tennyson's Locksley Hall. I hadn't attempted to read the whole thing until just now. It's rather good, but about 20 lines in I noticed that it's rather long... hmmm... I'll read it properly some other time. Suffice to say it's about a soldier remembering a place he knew when he was a child. I have more important things to do, like looking at this or reading my pocket version of the Viz Profanisaurus.

Happy St Patrick's Day

Clockwise from top left:

St Patrick's International College, W1; ghostsign for Craven 'A' cigarettes, SW9; side alley of The Lamb and Flag, WC2; The Dublin Castle, NW1; Connolly's, W4 (and Robin Hood wore green!); The Green Man and French Horn (which he seems to have lost) and, yes, I do know he's a ref to England, not Ireland, but I couldn't find a pic of a leprechaun; Paddington coal hole cover; Guinness advertising board, SE1.

The Wonders of the Solar System

Last Sunday the first programme in the series 'The Wonders of the Solar System' presented by Dr Brian Cox, was aired on BBC2.

Due to him being in a few bands before getting his PhD, Brian has often been referred to as the 'rockstar physicist'. Never mind that, it's his far-too-good-to-be-true cheekbones and thick mop of hair that fascinate me as he is older than he looks!

His enthusiasm for his subject is infectious. I am hooked and really looking forward to the next four programmes.

And here are some London images that loosely tie in with the programmes.

Row 1: The Quays (previously The Half Moon), N7; Belgravia, SW1; Upper St, N1; St Lukes, EC1; St Pancras churchyard.

Row 2: Graffiti, E9; wall, Bethnal Green Rd; stink pipe, W3; Shoreditch High St; Thames Festival 2009

Row 3: Circumshpere, Deptford Wharf; coal hole cover; Crouch End Broadway; Paddington, W2; Cockspur St.

Row 4: (Mars) Marshalls, Dalston; (Neptune) closed fishmongers, W3; (Milky Way) Nestlé Milk, New Cross; (Venus) Lime St, EC3; (Saturn) doorbells SW1.

George the Imperial Great Dane

Last week there on BBC TV News there was an item about a Great Dane called George who has just got into the Guinness Book of Records as the world's tallest dog, ever.

What interested me was that the presenter said that at 43 inches tall George was 2cm taller than the second tallest dog.

Imperial and metric in the same sentence. Ugh!

But any excuse for a collection of themed London pictures...

Top: Marylebone, Bloomsbury, Hoxton, Stamford Hill

Middle: Islington, Camden, Belgravia, Soho

Bottom: Barnsbury, Tottenham, Smithfield, Bloomsbury

Less traffic lights in London

Due to the successful removal of traffic lights and pedestrian/pelican crossings in Wilts, overseas and at some junctions in Ealing there are now plans to extend the 'project' to other areas in London and re-introduce roundabouts.

It's been proven that far from causing accidents pedestrians and drivers are forced to be more vigilant and think for themselves rather than waiting for a light to tell them what to do.

I think it's a great idea – we've all sat and drummed on the steering wheel waiting for traffic lights to change when we can see that the way ahead is clear, especially late at night, so getting people to be responsible for their own actions; to use their brains and stop blaming everyone and everything else can only be a good thing.

Red: Acanthus pillarbox, Highbury Park; Holloway Road door; Rotherhithe bridge, Red Lion, Camberwell; Victorian pllarbox.

Amber: Entrance to Alexandra Park; Kentish Town graffiti; Shoreditch garage door; Fulham parish boundary marker; Sweetings kickplate.

Green: Shepherd and Flock, Goldhawk Road; Lock & Co, St James's Street; Kennington gasometer; Store Street shop; greengrocers' Askew Road.

Capture Kings Cross, a photo treasure hunt

On Saturday 20th February two friends and I took part in a shootexperience treasure hunt in and around the Kings Cross redevelopment zone. There were 70 teams in total.

The idea was to supply one picture for each of six clues to specified locations plus two others that were open to interpretation – 'The camera never lies' and 'Making tracks'.

Prior to taking to the streets we were talked through the process and shown a selection of winning photos from past events to give us some ideas. Then, at the end of the day all the submitted photos were shown as a slide show and winners were awarded prizes. There were some great shots in there but I was disappointed to see that all the portrait format images were shown cropped off at the top and bottom edges.

Shootexperience seem to favour images with props in them (hmmm), so there were a lot of photos of plastic toys positioned in front of the locations. Other images, even some of the winning shots, seemed to me to look more like snaps of creative ideas rather than good, well-composed photographs (especially having noticed some of the heavy kit a lot of people were carting about!). Perhaps this was because there was also a prize for the funniest picture. This kind of thing is so subjective.

Needless to say we didn't win any prizes but we did have a good day out. Below are the pics we took on the day; see them larger on Flickr. All the images taken on the day will be here sometime soon.

Brick Lane gates

Yet another stupid plan has been hatched... this time erect some gates at either end of Brick Lane apparently designed to echo the shape of a Muslim headscarf.

Oh gawd, no!

The media seems to be worried about which cultures and religious groups are going to be offended or excluded, but I think the real issues are that these modern metal monstrosities are unnecessary, a waste of money (£2million!) and, more to the point, very ugly and unsympathetic to the surroundings!

Pics all from in and around Brick Lane

Top: graffiti; modern coal hole outside school in Brick Lane; Mighty Mo graffiti on the bridge; ghost sign for Bernards/Lewis.

Middle: Huguenot window shutter fixing; old Sclater Street sign; Huguenot door knocker; Sweetoof graffiti.

Bottom: old Shoreditch station; Frying Pan pub sign (now an indian restaurant!); ripped posters; Huguenot boot scraper.

Ghostsigns archive

It's been a busy week for ghost signs. I found some 'new' ones in N17 and Sam and I have been busy checking the proofs for the postcards we have created for the launch of the archive.

Matt Monro, Born Free, in Shoreditch

Yesterday morning Matt Monro's daughter Michele was on BBC Breakfast talking about the book she has written about her father.

Matt Monro had the most amazing singing voice; apparently Frank Sinatra said of him, “If I had to choose three of the finest male vocalists in the singing business, Matt would be one of them”.
But Sian Williams likened him to Michael Bublé. That'll be Bublé as in bubble; as in full of air.
Silly woman; has she got something wrong with her ears?

Matt was born in Shoreditch in 1930 as Terence Edward Parsons, so here's a Shoreditch montage.

The lion cub isn't in Shoreditch; it's in N4. It's a ref to Born Free.

Ghost signs of Camden High Street

If you look up above the shops in Camden High Street you can see faded remnants of old signs painted directly onto the bricks between the windows of the upper floors. The classic one is the Boots sign, easily visible on the right as you look south from Camden Town tube station, but take a walk further down the hill and you'll find there are lots more.

The east side of the street, south of Lloyds Bank is particularly rich. Or should that be 'neglected', seeing as the reason these are probably still there is that the southern, Mornington Crescent, end of the street has been ignored over the years in favour of Parkway, the main Camden (Britannia) junction and the markets just to the north.

Boots sign at No.214; No.92's signs have been scrubbed away; No.84's panels remain but have been painted over; No.80... there are some letters still at the top, but I cannot make them out as yet; CS2 Art Shop at No.78 which only closed down about 5 years ago

Dining Rooms at No.40; Plumber at No.32; there just has to have been something on No.26, otherwise why bother to paint two storeys only?; I think it reads Decorator at No.24; No.s 20 and 22 have both also had the brown paint treatment; Makers & Repairers at No.18; very feint panels are all that's left at No.14.

From here turn towards Mornington Crescent station and just above it you can see a fab old advertisement for what appears to be a Jewish Breakfast food. I can't believe that I had never noticed this until last week! Though a friend suggests that the reason may be because the traffic goes in the wrong direction to view it. Sebastien's got some info on it here.

Another interesting building, which now houses Burger King is/was Bowman's department store. All the windows on the front of the building have decorative mosaic panels above them, but the ones on first floor are all individual and show what was in store and even the methods of transportation available. Note the random full points after some of the words.

See all the above Camden High Street pics individually here.

And whilst researching some of this I found some great comparison photos showing how much Camden has changed over years on Tim's myspace blog. I don't know Tim, but thanks Tim!

Insider London underground tour

I am a bit behind with this one...

On a recent rainy Saturday afternoon I went on a tour of the Underground led by Lisa of Insider London. We began at Farringdon Station where we learned all about the first stretch of the network which went back and forth from there to Kings Cross. I was astounded to hear that 27,000 people used the service in the first day. And when the line was continued round to Baker Street carriages were windowless padded cells and the trains sometimes only stopped for three seconds at stations!

Actually, I shouldn't write down everything of interest here otherwise it will ruin your own enjoyment should you decide to go on a tour yourself, which I urge you to do; it's a great way to spend a rainy day and Lisa has heaps of interesting stories and facts to share about the history, architecture, design and future of the tube network. Though, as Tom points out here, it's rather over-priced.

From Farringdon to we travelled to Kings Cross, then to Oxford Circus, and on to Piccadilly Circus via the ghost station of Museum, ending up at the 1984/Metropolis-like Westminster.

Top row: 1 Farringdon Station. I had been a bit concerned that the plans for a new bigger station would mean the loss of this lovely old entrance and canopy, however buildings have been demolished across the street and around the corner to make way for a new Crossrail terminal. 2 Lisa told us that each station has a different colour scheme to make them identifiable. I cannot now recall if she just meant the Piccadilly Line, but I am intrigued having not known about this before, so I predict a blog post on the subject in the near future. 3 The exterior of Oxford Circus station. Lisa was telling us about Leslie Green, the architect who designed these distinctive red glazed terracotta stations, but I got a bit distracted by the bad letter-spacing on the word 'station'. 4 Gloucester Road station shown here as an example of how in the past two rival companies (here The Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway to the left and The Metropolitan & District Railway on the right) would build right next to or on top of each other rather than share.

2nd row: 5 Lisa in front of the fabulous world clock in Piccadilly Circus station. Again, I cannot believe I have never noticed this before, as it is fabulous. 6 A close-up showing we were there at 3.25pm. 7 Maps of the underground post- and pre- Harry Beck. 8 The austere environment of Westminster Station. I'm not a fan. Referring back to my older post, it's not being maintained very well; everywhere you look there are exposed wires and dirty corners.

Holborn Midtown

Have you heard that there is a campaign to re-brand what is basically the Holborn area as 'Midtown'?

Egh?! What nonsense.

Estate agents have already been using the word for some time now – the idea might have made some sense if London already had districts called Uptown (girl) and Downtown (Things will be great when you're...).

The area affected resembles a bishop's hat (ironically it encompasses the Mitre pub which is in Cambridgeshire, EC1 and is designated by drawing a line up from Embankment to Trafalgar Square, then up to Kings Cross, down to St.Paul's ending up again at the Thames, i.e all of WC2, most of WC1 and bits of EC1 and EC4.

The reason given for this is that out-of-towners find this area of London to be a bit of a confusing no-man's-land and they can't cope with villagey names such as Bloomsbury, Clerkenwell and St. Giles. Bless em.

I am not alone; I really hope this idea is dropped just like when they tried to re-name Fitzrovia 'NoHo'. Oh no no no.

P.S. I have been quoted here.

Top row: Trafalgar Square, Little Italy, Bloomsbury, Blackfriars, Kings Cross.

2nd row: Cambridgeshire, St Brides/Fleet Street, Aldwych, Seven Dials, Covent Garden.
3rd row: St Giles, Strand, Bloomsbury, Lincoln's Inn, Russell Sqaure
4th row: Covent Garden, Somerset House, Smithfield, Temple, Paternoster Square

Litter ye not

My latest post for Londonist is a load of rubbish.

See all these pics individually here.

Thanks to this site for the David Cassidy pic. I used to have this poster, or one very similar on my bedroom wall in 1972, made up of the centre spreads from 3 consecutive weeks of my much-loved Jackie Magazine. I remember being disappointed how the colour varied from week to week and he looked more like a bee. Incidentally, I wasn't a big David Cassidy fan; I seem to recall putting posters of anyone and everyone on my walls.

Going Underground

Over the past few years I have been noticing how many tube stations on the underground network are being renovated. Especially so on the Piccadilly Line where beautiful old crackle-glaze tiles are being covered up with smooth modern facsimiles. LRT say this is because the old ones were cracked and dirty and in need of repair.

Er, excuse me, perhaps if LRT had maintained the stations properly and cleaned into the corners using something other than a motorised circular mop contraption, then perhaps they wouldn't have ended up in such a bad state! I just cannot understand how a good industrial strength clean-up by a specialised team cleaners armed with toothbrushes and bicarbonate of soda, headed up by those two women off the TV, might not have achieved a better result!

And if some day in the future some bright spark has the idea to bring all the old stuff back it'll be more like an archaeological dig and take decades.

Here are some pics I took of the platforms at Russell Square during the renovation process in August 2008. You can clearly see here how the grout and tile adhesive has been slapped straight over the top of the old tiles. Russell Square is a station used by a lot of tourists and I am pretty sure a lot of those people come to this city looking for glimpses of history between their trips to Mama Mia and the London Dungeon. Americans in particular love all the old stuff. Above ground, in certain areas of London, Holloway Road for example, the council is urging shopkeepers to maintain any old signage they might uncover, yet here we have LRT effectively sweeping history under the carpet. Or in this case, cheap machined tiles

I have just returned from a trip to NZ and on the way I stopped off in Sydney where I was really impressed to see the station platforms have been maintained just as they must have been when they were first opened. Shown here is Museum station.

Why, oh why, have we not done the same thing in London? We have one of the oldest underground networks in the world and soon there will be nothing left but glass and steel vis a vis what's happened to Shepherd's Bush station; old and new. I can understand that it needed to be expanded to deal with all the extra shoppers expected to go to Westfield (egh spit!) but could they not have retained some of the old frontage and ticket booths?

And don't get me started on the monstrosity of a waste of space that's being built above ground for Tottenham Court Road station; as my sister quite rightly points out, who is going to use all that glass space? Cleaners, that's who!

Anyway, I am getting off the point here!

Back to the platforms... I need to check out if Warren Street station is still has its lovely old blue tiles. And does this connecting tunnel at Charing Cross (formerly part of Trafalgar Square station) still look like this? And how long can my local station at Holloway Road hang onto signs like these?

I think I have made my point!

Seeing is Believing

Have you seen the latest Specsaver ad to commemorate the company's 25th anniversary? Their ads used to be good. This one featuring a lost sperm one is just plain silly.
Anyway, seeing it (geddit?!) gave me the idea for a small group of pictures on the theme of eyes and opticians.

Shown clockwise from top left: clock, New Kings Road; ripped poster, Covent Garden; opticians sign, Fleet Street; skull face in the peeling paint, Mount Pleasant; spectacles motif, Lower Marsh; plastic doobrey, Holloway Road – lots more found faces here.

All along the rooftops

Today's post is about looking up. Every now and then I spot some really interesting chimneys. Below is a selection of some of the best ones I have seen so far.

Clockwise from Hartleys, Bermondsey: Seven Sisters Road, Lots Road, Walton Street, Holloway Road, Lillie Road, from my back garden, somewhere I can't remember, Arundel Street, Liverpool Street, Brixton Oval, Hoe Street, Walcot Square, Stoke Newington.

Happy New Year

Here's to a great 2010. And here's to a more prosperous year.

And here are some lovely date stamps on buildings in London.

I have limited this collection to the 1800s. At a later date(!) I will put together a collection of the best ones I have for the 1900s.

I seem to have 'collected' more 1888 date stamps than any others, though this is probably because it really lends itself to a bit of creative typography. Or, coincidentally, perhaps that was a particularly productive year? But I have only shown two of the ones I have here.

Actually, I now think the latter statement is true, as a quick double-check shows that I have just as many for 1898 as for the previous year, and four of those are shown here.

I especially like the one here top left which is part of a fan light over a door; the date is 1898/9. And top right is also great with the word 'built' also with intertwined characters.

Oh, and the backwards 4, bottom right, is a nice touch.

Top row: 1898/9 Wigmore Street, 1894 Austin Friars, 1878 Blackstock Road, 1873 Seymour Place, 1898 Ferme Park Road.

Middle row: 1861 Clapham Road, 1899 High Street Acton, 1898 Charterhouse Street, 1888 Lower Clapton Road, 1884 Southwark Bridge Road.

Bottom Row: 1806 upper Street, 1888 Kings Cross Road, 1893 Holloway Road, 1898 Wardour Street, 1884 Fleet Street.

Christmas 2009

Here's my design for this year's Christmas card, though I won't be it getting made up as a printed item this time.

Last year I did my 12 pubs of Christmas and, because I got them printed, I think people didn't realise that I'd made them myself, as in past years I had been more active with the glitter or the sewing machine.

This year each letter here is from a brand name on a ghost sign in London.

Let me know if you recognise any of them.

Joy to the World and all that!

Jane x

Homeward Bound

Here we go again, the Christmas party season is upon us and the streets will be littered with vile drunken bodies and pavement pizzas. Then again, perhaps I might get some good shots of the latter for my Flickr set Textures and Patterns or be able to do an alternative set of these.

Anyway, what I want to say is, please make sure you get home safely. If you can't get a tube, bus, train or official black cab don't be tempted to get into an illegal minicab solicited by someone on the street or accept a lift from a kerb crawler. Only ever get in a mini cab if you or your company ordered it beforehand from a recognised company.

To emphasise my point TFL have released this rather unnerving video (for the over-15s only):

More info about the Cabwise service here.

Happy holidays!!

Top row: Old, now disused, entrance to Highbury and Islington tube station; taxis outside Tate Britain; Bakerloo line seats; taxi lantern, Millbank.

Middle row: Charing Cross connection tunnel; taxi cab hut, Temple; Kings Cross platform; bus stop road markings.

Bottom row: Bus on London Bridge; Holloway Road, Picadilly line tube station; Liverpool Street staion roof; 38 stock tube train, Acton depot.

On reflection

I popped into the Royal Academy courtyard last week to see the Anish Kapoor sculpture, though I haven't been in to see the full show. Anyway, I took some photos (more here) and it got me thinking about all the lovely shiny reflective stuff that has been around this year such as this year's pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery and that Jeff Koons pink thing that was in St James' Square.

So here's a collection of reflected stuff. Yeah, stuff. And things.

Top row: Anish Kapoor; Rising Sun pub, Tottenham Court Road; Albert Bridge; The George & Vulture pub, EC3

Middle row: Rules, Maiden Lane, WC2; Serpentine Gallery pavilion; Ibex building, Minories, EC3; The Hare & Hounds / Albert & Pearl, Upper Street, N1.

Bottom row: Sunlight in Holloway, N7; Sweetings, Queen Victoria Street, EC4; Piccadilly Arcade, Sw1; boot scraper, Great russell Street, WC1

Best London sunset suggestion – Win a 6 month Time Out subscription

There have been some beautiful sunsets of late; Monet skies, Turner clouds, mundane buildings looking all lovely, reflected in pink and gold. Here are few pics I have been lucky to get whilst on my walks, but being in the right time at the right place usually takes some forward planning.

So, apart from The Westway and any of the Thames Bridges, where would you say is the best place in London to view a good sunset?

Top row: Lupus Point, SE1; view from Tower Bridge; Isle of Dogs; Highgate from Holloway; St Katherine's Dock

2nd row: Turnham Green Station; weathervane SE1; Millennium Bridge; Blackfriars Bridge from Waterloo Bridge; The Strand.

Branded metal advertising signs

There are plenty of old advertising signs featuring brand names around London. I suspect a lot of them have been put up for tourists' amusement or to make a place look old and interesting; I especially wonder if those ones in Gabriel's Wharf have been put there just for effect.

But there are others around in hard to reach places that look like they have been there for decades. I am still kicking myself that I did not help myself to the old Michelin and Pirelli signs on a tyre shop that closed around the corner from here earlier this year. D'uh!

In areas like Camden and Portobello you can buy facsimiles of some of the old classics in the shops and markets.

Whilst looking through the fab stuff available on Urban Remade I found this modern equivalent which Peter Blake has designed featuring his logo heart. Affix it to your wall and watch it age gracefully.

Palethorpe's Sausages and Pears Soap, Highgate; Craven 'A', Camden; Liptons, Martini and R Whites, Good Year, Kensal Green; Esso Blue, Finsbury Park; Coca Cola, Drayton Park; Ogden's Guinea Gold, Homerton; The Sailor's Society, Limehouse.