My life on this, and other, enchanted isles
Stuck for a plan for a day, or an evening out? Can I suggest you make your way to Scunthorpe steel works (or Appleby Frodingham to give its proper name) for a tour of the works. Leave time to find the assembly point – because it’s not easy. But somewhere near one of the admin […]
Read More Scunthorpe steel works – a great Northern day outFoxline publishing do a wonderful series of books (five volumes so far) on holiday trains from East Lancashire towns to the Coast (mostly Blackpool) – plus linked titles on Blackburn and Colne. Most railway books suffer from ‘rivet counting’ syndrome – but these books by Stuart Taylor immerse you in the life of those towns […]
Read More Colne – holiday trains to Blackpool in the 1960sSEMI-FICTIONALISED DISTORTION Acre lane? Jesus, that road is like a bad hangover. Sweating off another night of cheap larger down the Patrick Hamilton. Misdirected separated males. Litter swirling into the tatty hedges. Fluff from the laundry eddies round the Hopeless Wanker’s beer garden. Doesn’t make the place feel any cleaner though. I was pleased to […]
Read More Acre Lane, London SW9I’m selling my flat in Brixton after fifteen years or so of having it… On the wall of the flat I had these pictures framed with a quote from Gaston Bachelard that I’d found in a Newspaper magazine ‘…the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’
Read More Brighton Terrace, London SW9 – ‘the house protects the dreamer’Friesland, and neighbouring Groningen, are uncelebrated rural provinces in the North of the Netherlands. They are also home to some of the most interesting and provocative ideas about what a humane and progressive transport policy might look like. In November 2002 I spent a week in this big sky country doing some research for a […]
Read More Friesland and Groningen – what a humane transport policy might look like…
Enchanted Isle 