A kaleidoscopic look back at 2023’s most hackle-raising moments, experienced while negotiating London on foot, on the Tube and by car. However you travel in London, you’re bound to encounter something interesting. People are always getting into altercations. Or trying to blag stuff. Or saying weird things to each other. Or missing connections. This is […]
London Lucky Dip: 2023 transport special Read More »
A wine bar in Soho. On the wall, there’s a black and white portrait photograph of a well-dressed, elderly lady. She’s smoking a cigarette. One can imagine she’s probably wearing her best frock. Maybe she’s attending a grandchild’s wedding, in the East End. I stare at the picture for a moment, then I make my
London Lucky Dip: fireworks and a window cleaner’s eyes Read More »
Wherever I saw Oasis play in the 2000s, the atmosphere was reliably febrile and the band were often adversarial. This was not a short-term relationship. Across the space of ten years I attended four very different Oasis gigs: Old Wembley, Paris, Old Trafford, New Wembley. After the apocalyptic performance I revisited in part one, the
Oasis live: Gallaghers in Paris, a homecoming and the last hurrah Read More »
I saw Oasis play four times in the 2000s, at Old Wembley, in Paris, at Old Trafford, and at New Wembley. This was a decade that took the band from the lowest point in their history, through a period of gradual rehabilitation, and finally through to their sudden, expected end. There was a never a
Oasis live: ten years, four gigs and a Wembley disaster Read More »
The place is already humming with activity by the time we arrive. The temperature is in the high 20s this morning, and many South London families have made a beeline for the paddling pool, high on the common. The circular pool is secluded from the rest of the common, surrounded by a hedge and an iron
Crossing the Gates of Eden Read More »
A carpark in Croydon. Speaking to a male acquaintance with growing incredulity, a woman is relaying an urgent phone call that she recently took from a friend. “She said ‘I was repainting my flat, naked.’” The woman pauses, then poses the obvious rhetorical question. “Who paints naked?”. This seems a reasonable line of inquiry to
London Lucky Dip: painting naked and adopting house plants Read More »
The moment I walk through the door, I can sense something is awry in the gents toilets. I know this thanks to years of hard-won experience. Every man of my generation was expected to learn the skill of navigating a pub toilet successfully. Perhaps the trend to gender nonconformity and unisex toilets will one day
Laundering pranks for Lads’ Night Theatre Read More »
In which I make a series of disturbing discoveries on the way to the shops, and witness a surreal, theatrical dispute on the streets of Wimbledon… The pavement is deserted and dark at 5pm, slick with rain, which is falling in a light haze. Below the curb, between two parked cars, I spot a large
London Lucky Dip: Gutter Baby and Discount Prospero Read More »
The 1968 debates between Gore Vidal and Willam F Buckley have already been litigated in print and documented on film. What can be learned from bringing Best of Enemies to the stage? It’s said that politics makes for strange bedfellows. Best of Enemies, currently showing at the Young Vic, proves that it can make for
‘Best of Enemies’ stages a Buckley-Vidal rematch Read More »
Selected scenes from the capital: A smoker’s modest proposal. A mobile art installation. Cheap thrills in the sweet shop. A steam train cameo… Two men are smoking outside a supermarket in Balham. A slightly shabby man approaches them. “Can I get one of those fags?” he asks. “Sorry,” says one of the smoking men. “These
London Lucky Dip: Snapshots from Autumn-Winter Read More »
