Andrew Blackman
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"London life"
I learned recently of the demise of Prospero’s Books, my local independent bookshop in Crouch End. It made me very sad – it was a great bookshop, with knowledgeable staff who were always very supportive of me and of other local writers. I was even on their bestseller list for a while. The [...]
The cost of feeding the birds has gone up a lot. It only cost Mary Poppins tuppence a bag, but in Trafalgar Square today it’ll cost you £500, according to an aggressively-worded sign that confronted me as I left the National Gallery the other day.
Now I’m sure there are sensible, practical reasons for this [...]
Went to see an interesting exhibit recently at the Courtauld Gallery on the Strand. What I liked about it was that instead of just showing the paintings themselves, they built a whole exhibition around the artist’s process for these particular paintings, showing his preliminary sketches, talking about his ideas and motivations, etc.
The [...]
Just wanted to give a belated mention to a really good photography exhibition in Crouch End recently. It was a series of photographs of Hornsey Town Hall, an Art Deco listed building that has been minimally used for a long time now. After Hornsey was absorbed into the larger borough of Haringey in the 1960s, [...]
Went to see a wonderful exhibition recently at the British Museum called Kingdom of Ife – Sculptures from West Africa. It was a collection of beautiful sculptures, mostly heads like the one pictured, done in bronze, copper and terracotta, and dating from as far back as the 12th century.
The exhibition made [...]
It was one of those moments when you realise you’re old – or at least no longer young. I am working on editing the draft of my next novel, and decided to go to a cafe – somewhere I hadn’t been before, a fresh location for a fresh perspective on the manuscript.
All was [...]
I went to the Barbican recently for two exhibitions – Radical Nature and the Free Art Fair. I liked the first more than the second.
The Free Art Fair was a great idea: have am exhibition at the Barbican and give away the work at the end through a random draw. It was [...]
A few weeks ago, I walked past an Evening Standard vendor, and glanced at the headline: “WORLD’S FIRST AIDS VACCINE”. This was big news – a massive scientific breakthrough that could save millions of lives. My response was to shake my head and keep walking.
People think the Standard’s circulation is plummeting because of the [...]
One of the things I love about London is riding the double-decker buses. You see things differently from up there on the top deck. You notice things that you’d miss if you were just walking along the street.
For example, this television dumped on the roof of a bus-stop. What’s the story behind that? A [...]
My favourite cafe in Crouch End, the cafe where I wrote most of my novel On the Holloway Road, has just put up a notice saying it has fallen victim to the credit crunch and closed down. It was a shock to me. The place was perfect for writing. It had friendly staff, American-diner-style bottomless coffee, [...]
Recent Comments
- Kommunal ekosocialism | Svensson on “Social Ecology and Communalism” by Murray Bookchin
- Andrew Blackman on “Tail of the Blue Bird” by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
- Kwadwo on “Tail of the Blue Bird” by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
- Kwadwo on On the Holloway Road – free sample
- Andrew Blackman on “The Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes
