For thirty years I bought dry roasted peanuts from Piyush to fuel my walk back up Brixton Hill. A rapacious rent increase has forced him out of business to be replaced by - what? - a souless unit flogging burnt coffee and sandwiches with a high faecal content.

Junction boxes in rural churches (1).

Is Florence Welch the first pop star to have researched themes for her songs in the library of the Warburg Institute?

This Is Tomorrow: a small parade of shops at Newington Butts glimpsed from the 133.

The skaters undercroft could do with a lick of paint. It’s got graffiti all over it.

A garage off Brixton Hill to brighten up your day.

Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you’ve seen with WOMEN lead singers: The Slits X-ray Spex Patti Smith St Etienne Florence and the Machine

The trend lines are down. I have just seen someone with a Sir John Soane Museum tote bag going into the KFC at the top of Atlantic Rd in Brixton.

An un-ironic pineapple hedgehog at the closing down sale of a chazzer on Queen’s Town Rd, Battersea + 2 packets of unopened tights from the 1970s.

Ralph Fiennes dancing to Iron Maiden’s ‘Number of the Beast’ enters the pantheon of great dance sequences on film: John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, JT again with Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, Anna Karina and mecs in Bande à Part, Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain, all Busby Berkeley’s routines.

The Shard from Brixton Hill (contrast fiddled with).

‘The HOPPING MATCH on CLAPHAM COMMON. JACKSON, the Runner exhibiting his Agility.’ H/t Lambeth Archives timeline of life in Lambeth in the window of their offices on Brixton Hill..

@jonfell73.bsky.social Do we know who bought the portrait of Paoli that was up for sale? Hope it goes on public exhibition somewhere.

Songs in celebration of Manet, born a hundred and ninety-three years ago today. Joyaux anniversaire Edouard! 🎨#NationalGallery

Share a TV programme that raised you…

Pavement short story, this time from Waterloo.

I have just met a woman in a café on Brixton Hill whose step-father owns land in Dumfries and Galloway where parts of The Wickerman (1973) were filmed. Britt Eckland told her aunt to ‘f**k off.’ #FunFilmFact

Without revealing your actual age,what's something you remember that if you told a younger person they wouldn't understand? Sandwiches spread with beef dripping.

The Majestic, Staines where I was taken to see Mon Oncle at the age of five. #CinephileTot

It’s one of those doppelgänger days. I have just seen a Keith Waterhouse leaning up against a fence on Acre Lane.

I was just dictating a note to myself about Pasolini’s short film La Ricotta (1963), and the title came out as Larry Carter.

From the side streets north of Acre Lane. 🪓💪🛒@tedvallance.bsky.social

Please take care everyone on Brixton Hill. The pavements on the side streets are incredibly slippy.

There must be a word, possibly German, for the embarrassment one experiences when you mistake a fellow shopper for a member of staff in a supermarket.

Ok, everyone, what book is sacred enough to you to get sworn in on?

Can anyone recommend a good book about swallows?

The beach from which Mary Q of Scots left for England never to return. Called Port Mary in her honour, it’s at the end of a firing range and so intermittently inaccessible.

A shovel and its shadow.

The place where we have been staying in Dumfries & Galloway has very low doorways.

Me contemplating the comparatively short distance between the Mull of Galloway and Belfast, and my daughter @irmuir.bsky.social contemplating the much greater distance between the Mull of Galloway and Senegal.

One of the loveliest places we visited in Dumfries & Galloway on the last day of 2025 was the memorial to Gavin - Ring of Bright Water -Maxwell overlooking the beach where he exercised Mijbil with the Bay of Luce beyond.

Happy New Year Justin.

The highlight of today in Galloway Forest Park was meeting a Polish family who had spent the night in a tent amongst the trees while engaging in paranormal research.

Inquisitive Scottish robin.

We have had to give up our attempt to climb the mighty Merrick in the Range of the Awful Hand (Dumfries & Galloway). Too slippery, too muddy, too steep. ☹️

Belted Galloways- in Galloway!

Eggs Over Easy Rider #EggAMovie

I have just finished Paris 1919 by @markdoyle.bsky.social a wittily written, penetrating analysis of John Cale’s 1973 album. He is especially interesting on Cale’s debt to Dylan Thomas, Dada and Surrealism, and the geopolitical consequences of the 1919 Peace Conference. Antarctica starts here…

A shrine by my daughter Anna to my favourite film makers; or as @irmuir.bsky.social wittily remarked, ‘Pearl & Pressburger’

“How can I resist a Quality Street proffered by a Bishop” is a sentence I have waited seventy-three years to say.

Happy Christmas dear BlueSky pals.

‘Why does War Exhist?’ My niece’s homework project c. 2002. 🥲 Happy Christmas @regretteruane.bsky.social

One of the glories of South London, the Brixton Chamber Orchestra here on the last date of their (free) estates tour. They are playing Mendelsohnn’s Fingal’s Cave to a packed Longfield Hall on Knatchbull Rd

Lambert Rd, Brixton. Home of the avant garde knitted Christmas tree.

Well now…. @stutheeditor.bsky.social

@mayeroflondon.bsky.social Good afternoon Catherine!

When I saw this deep shelter on Tottenham Court Rd for the first time in 1970 it was less than thirty years old #Methuselah

Monarchist graffiti on Tottenham St, W1. I-Spy 100.

There is a smell of grilling kebabs in Charlotte St like it’s 1971.