Archives

  • Camden Robocop FAQ

    Over the last couple of days we’ve had a wide range of responses to the video of the new Walker House CCTV camera that barks orders at you in an American accent. Many have been aghast and I’ve read the words “dystopian” and “1984” more times over the weekend than […]

     
  • Writing on the wall in Islington

    Whenever a small business shuts down someone should simply write their thoughts on it. They don’t have to be earth shattering, in fact the simpler the better. Every small business grave should be marked in some way.

     
  • Having trouble with the RSS feed?

    If you follow Big Smoke on RSS you *may* have experienced a problem with ghost posts or reposting. We’re sure this is really annoying and we apologise. While we get to the bottom of the problem we have a work round fix which is a new RSS that works just […]

     
  • Sunday’s London Links

    Tube boss criticises ‘selective and partisan’ documentary. Mayor Watch. Stop HS2 focuses on the campaigns in the capital. Making the marriage between schools and libraries work. Michael Rosen. Deptford calling sees dead people. And takes some lovely pictures. I do like maps, even weird and whacky ones but this one […]

     
  • This is snow time for bad weather

    And… it’s that time of year again when we get all excited as if we’ve never seen snow before. Do not expect to be able to use public transport or to read a paper without being told how the nation is losing money.   We’ve also been tweeted a few […]

     
  • Who the hell do Camden Council think they are?

    Just getting home from a photo-taking expedition in the snow and my neighbour points the camera out to me. Now, the flash camera has been there for a while, we’ve complained about it before and we’ve been told the objective is to move people on. Seeing as this is our […]

     
  • Preparing for a grassroots fight: Friends of the Earth regional gathering

    Today, Saturday, Friends of the Earth held a regional gathering for activists in London and the South East to help bolster the oganisation’s capacity on the ground. The well attended event held near Finsbury Park saw activists share skills, discuss experiences and train up to help their day to day campaigning work. […]

     
  • Covent Garden Walkway

    I’m a great fan of overhead walkways. One of my, many, irrational desires is that we should have far, far more of them. This is a fine example in Covent Garden.

     
  • Just Boris: sad, lonely and ineffectual

    David Mentiply has been reading Just Boris: The Irresistible Rise of a Political Celebrity Back in 2009, City Hall blogger Adam Bienkov branded the Mayor ‘Boris the Boring’. This is perhaps not the first caricature that springs to mind when people think of Boris, but it actually turned out to […]

     
  • Saturday’s London Links

    There is a Bikes Alive logo contest – why not try your hand at an inspiring image? Tut, tut. The Southwark Mayor is double parked. South London Press. Lewisham News Shopper reports that unions are up in arms over library transfers. There’s some great underground footage at Londonist. The Camden New […]