Month: December 2011

10 Reasons to Take a Running Tour

If I had a proverbial penny for every time I’ve had a bemused reaction to the idea of running/jogging tours, I’d be lazing by day at London Fields Lido, while dining by night on fine Argentinian steak at Broadway Market’s Buen Ayre. So in the spirit of enlightenment, here are 10 reasons why you –…

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When is a window not a window…(part 2)?

Here’s looking at you, kids. …when it’s part of an art project on a 1930s housing estate undertaking a long slow regeneration. The portraits of residents – the buildings look like they might be abandoned but are not – seek to provoke thought about how we use urban space, what we see; and how to…

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Abney Park: Stoke Newington’s Dead Centre of Dissent

“There’s no point complaining,” says Dave, any time you ask him how he is. And indeed, he doesn’t complain; though he has been known to have the occasional rant about the state of the country or the management of this or that. But like the other volunteers, slashing steadily at the undergrowth that has been…

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Dalston: Send in the Clowns

Every February, not far from the high street in Dalston, a highly unusual church service takes place. It’s a memorial service, but rather than dressing in black, this congregation sport every colour in the rainbow – this is the annual Joseph Grimaldi Memorial Service. During mass this most famous of clowns, whose actual grave is…

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The Black Helicopters of Hackney

It’s an unmistakeable sound – the deep thukka-thukka of giant counter-rotating blades missing each other by milliseconds at a rate that blows the non-mechanical mind. Silhouetted against a winter Clapton sky the Chinooks – heavy-lift double-rotored helicopters that often swing by here on an afternoon (always north to south, usually in pairs) work their way…

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