I have an ongoing fascination with the Thames. The strap to this blog was originally “Tales from the riverside”. And my  first proper blog entry was one such tale. A lot of it comes from working in Vauxhall for 3 years and getting to spend at least a few minutes by the river most days. [...]

Broken glass (shards, smoothed, bottle necks, bottle bottoms) Broken ceramics (red, porcelain, embossed) Broken spectacles (missing arm) Embedded metal (rods, girders) Embedded concrete (upright) Wood (complete finished plank segment, rotten timbers, broken branches) Plastics (2L container, binding rope, bag)

Went to Tuesday night’s talk on ‘The Whale’ (known to its keepers, even conversationally, as the above*) which swam up the Thames last January. Richard Sabin, curator of mammals at the Natural History Museum, was in conversation with The Guardian’s Ian Katz. There was something bordering on macabre about sitting next to the glass encased [...]

There’s this bloke who I often see while lunching by the river. Tall, slim, probably in his early 40s and bit haggard looking. Like an unpampered Jeremy Clarkson. While most of the regulars down there will squeeze into the last chink of autumn sunlight that manages to get past the buildings, eat a sandwich and [...]