On a bus, between Waterloo and Elephant. It’s raining. It’s rush hour. The bus is full of people in wet coats. All the windows are steamed up. I’m standing near the rear doors, just behind the space for prams and wheelchairs. A man, probably in his late 20s, gets on and stands in front of [...]

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. [...]

Just finished Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the next Millennium”, newly re-released as  a lovely looking Penguin Modern Classic. Calvino was due to give the Charles Eliot Norton lectures in 1985/6, but died before he finished writing them. This book is the collected draft versions of what would have been those lectures. Each lecture addressed [...]