Tag Archives | london

“Saturday” by Ian McEwan

27 April 2011 · Reading · Comments { 1 }

Not my favourite McEwan – that is Atonement by a long way. This was OK, a more meditative book, full of long meandering passages from the head of Henry Perowne, a successful neurosurgeon living in Marylebone with his successful wife and talented blues-musician son, awaiting the return from France of his beautiful and talented and [...]

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“Brick Lane” by Monica Ali

9 March 2011 · Reading · Comments { 4 }

Not sure what to write about this. I enjoyed the story and it was well-written, but to me nothing special. Hated the ending – don’t worry, I won’t give it away, but the last line just sounded so corny I was quite shocked. The book as a whole is not simplistic, but the ending made [...]

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“Incendiary” by Chris Cleave

9 February 2011 · Reading · Comments { 2 }

A well-written, poignant look at terrorism, both cause and effect. [Warning: spoilers further down, don't read on if you don't want to know the ending] The effect comes first – a British woman suffers the loss of her husband and son when a suicide bomber kills a thousand people by detonating a bomb in the [...]

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“The Buddha of Suburbia” by Hanif Kureishi

19 January 2011 · Reading · Comments { 4 }

I grew up in Beckenham, the exact part of London suburbia in which this novel is set. To my knowledge it’s the only time a novel has ever been set in Beckenham – in fact, it’s probably the only time a novel has even mentioned Beckenham in passing. So I very much enjoyed the opening [...]

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Pigeon-feeding inflation

22 December 2010 · Thinking · Comments { 2 }

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 [...]

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Art at the Barbican

31 October 2009 · Living · Comments { 0 }

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 ruined, though, [...]

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Why the London Evening Standard is dying

17 October 2009 · Thinking · Comments { 1 }

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 [...]

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London, Glamour and Grime

16 June 2009 · Literary events · Comments { 0 }

I’ve been asked to judge a short story contest run by the London Bridge Festival. Entry is free, word limit is 1,000 words and the theme is “London, Glamour and Grime”. More details and entry requirements available here.

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“Anarchy” by Errico Malatesta

3 April 2009 · Reading · Comments { 0 }

With the G20 protests engulfing London this week, and anarchy briefly replacing terror as the bogeyman du jour, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at what anarchism is really all about, according to Errico Malatesta, a leading anarchist thinker of the late 19th and early 20th century. Anarchy is [...]

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Night Bus published

25 January 2009 · Published work · Comments { 0 }

My short story Night Bus was recently published in issue 13 of Smoke: A London Peculiar. Among all the young, drunk people on the top deck of the night bus, one quiet, middle-aged man stands out as different, and starts to attract unwelcome attention.

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