David Rosenberg’s Battle for the East End covers a tremendously important aspect of the fight against fascism in thirties Britain. While many books and articles focus on the left’s response to Oswald Mosley and the near mythic confrontation in Cable Street in 1936 Rosenberg highlights the specific, yet often ignored, role […]
In this week’s Sunday Sermon Jim Jepps wonders whether negative campaigning actually works. We are all doomed. In the long run everyone of us will die. At some point in the future even the human race will cease to be. And then, at last, the universe itself faces a slow […]
So you may have heard that we have just survived the annual, international No Trousers on the Tube day. Sunday was the third time that London has born witness to gangs of hipsters indulging their social, yet surreal, side so publicly. Apparently 59 cities around the world take part in […]
As we’re talking about the deities of London it would be an outrage if we didn’t mention China Mieville’s Kraken. Having almost nothing in common with the Rivers of London in style, meaning or intent they do share a sumptuous love of London which, rightly, finds its expression in the mystical. But […]
Although I enjoyed Ben Aaronovich’s Rivers of London I did find myself frequently stopping and thinking “do I like this? Really?”. A supernatural murder mystery set in today’s London of coffee shops, mobile phones and traffic jams might not be to everyone’s taste, but you may well want to give it […]
London’s 26th New Year’s Day Parade took place on Sunday. It was the first official event in London’s 2012 Olympic year and Big Smoke roving reporter David Mentiply took himself down there. According to the organisers, over 8,000 people performed, including more than 1,000 cheerleaders. Marching bands from the US […]
Currently the British Library has a compact and free exhibition on Dickens and ghosts. Just up the stairs inside there is a sweet little annex with deliciously rich ‘taster’ displays of books, posters and objects around Charles Dickens’ obsession with mesmerism, ghosts, and the unexplained. I’m sure we all know […]
I knew when I picked up Mark Steel’s In Town I was going to enjoy myself. However, what I hadn’t realised was that this was going to be the best book I’d read all year. Really. I do have a nagging feeling that the book was written specifically for me. […]
In this week’s Sunday Sermon the stupendous comedian and blogger Kate Smurthwaite takes on reality itself. What a joy to be asked to write a sermon. No wonder vicars and priests have for so many centuries ignored the tsunami of counter-evidence about virgin births and miracles and encouraged their “flock” […]
To my shame I’ve never attended a Mayor’s Question Time in person before Thursday. Obviously I’ve watched it online, seas on four is particularly good, but you get a much better feel for the thing when you’re in the room. There are lots to be said for the format itself. […]
Never noticed this before. As strolling past Trafalgar Square I saw the statue of Charles the first....
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