The Camera Man www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/se... Happy birthday to a gracious correspondent and a loving son

The Camera Man www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/se... Happy birthday to a gracious correspondent and a loving son

Follies de grandeur: Portmeirion turns 100 - Apollo Magazine. My piece celebrating a cheerful new book on Clough Williams-Ellis’ fun village

For diaries. Friday 29 May TOWNSCAPE65.Eventbrite.co.uk. Gordon Cullen examined, with a dash of Ian Nairn (from me at 3.30) to add laconic spice.

One week to go until Monstrosities Mon Amour LIVE at the Horse Hospital as part of Concrete Atlantis, a smashing Sunday afternoon of music and spoken word www.johngrindrod.co.uk/events

Monstrosities Mon Amour live! Recording a show in front of a live audience at the Horse Hospital, London, on Sunday May 10, with special guest the brilliant @gmdarksky.bsky.social Part of an amazing afternoon of music, readings and chat www.johngrindrod.co.uk/events/monst...

TOWNSCAPE 65 details on Eventbrite May 29. Talking about Nairn - and Cullen - and how they responded to the US cityscape.

I made a whole BBC TV series (2020) about the remarkable resilience of the people of Iran and their culture over centuries of threat and callous rule. You can watch it right here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Hail to this volume. Inexplicably under the radar but gold standard team work on the 19th monograph within the heroic Survey of London.

Hail to this volume. Inexplicably under the radar but gold standard team work on the 19th monograph within the heroic Survey of London.

Those hands. Caravaggio’s St Jerome in the cathedral in Valletta.

Think the (excellent) Grasshoppers, congenial hotel looking over the station rooftops, is safe? Please confirm if you can.

My in-house lawyer is with you

Fool alert. Within recent days I told someone, oh so authoritatively, that John Carr of York built most of Valletta. Turns out I meant Porto. If it was you, I grovel.

Remember Fleet Street? Spot the heritage building and public space [sic] and weep.

Shout out for bookishness and encouragement for scribblers?!

In Apollo Magazine, November 2018 I wrote about self loathing on the South Bank, the baleful failure to consider listing the Brutalist complex. Finally, I can breathe a sigh of relief.

In Apollo Magazine, November 2018 I wrote about self loathing on the South Bank, the baleful failure to consider listing the Brutalist complex. Finally, I can breathe a sigh of relief.

These boots aren’t going anywhere. Nice tale of Trumpian non delivery as reported by AFP.

These boots aren’t going anywhere. Nice tale of Trumpian non delivery as reported by AFP.

Honest repair?

today’s Times v today’s FT

35 years on and the Eagle Farringdon is packing them in on a clungy (old Suffolk dialect, fwiw) Monday lunchtime in February. Genius. Raising a glass to Mike.

So important. What they say is not the story. That is never the story. What happened is the story. Write what happened.

Demonstrators as far as the eye can see. Current status of the march in Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota for Ice Out of Minnesota. They are turning onto 3rd Street from 5th Avenue.

Jesse Armstrong, such a good DiD. Catch it.

Make sure you read about Temple Works, Leeds in my roundup of heritage at risk. It is a super important maverick building and is in urgent need of a sustained plan of action. It is my own favourite C19 building - call me eccentric why don’t you.

Just making sure that 2025 is definitely over

Here’s a New Year. The stove wins a special commendation.

Tiny panel painting, done on the spot. Young Constable did many of these - an instantaneous and vivacious record of where his eye led him. For me the Tate Britain Turner-Constable exhibition stand-outs. See what you think?

Erasmus programme returns to UK. Hugely welcome.

The glory that is Rousham garden. Be aware, its peerless landscape setting is facing a serious threat.

Just when I thought I couldn't admire the man more... 🎯 🎯 🎯 💯 💯 💯 👍 👍 👍

Terrific talk by Selena Daly at Camden Library (local history) on Cesare Bianchi, chef, who epitomised the experience of expatriate Italians in the UK through both wars.

Terrific talk by Selena Daly at Camden Library (local history) on Cesare Bianchi, chef, who epitomised the experience of expatriate Italians in the UK through both wars.

Backlisted - an anchor to intelligent life. Mine was the 28th, a wee while earlier.

Will Wiles in Apollo nailing Jim Stirling’s Cambridge History Library as it undergoes a careful refit. Lovely piece, kicking off with Summerson.

Read Colin Thubron’s eulogy to Gillian Tindall in Spitalfields Life. And celebrate her rare insight.

‘It would take us until the 22nd century to make the world noticeably fuller of people. But we can already see the way falling birth rates affect national politics and economics.’ David Runciman on the depopulation problem. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Rachel Cooke. Gone. I can’t believe it. Best of a very good bunch.

Boris Johnson says the idea that criticism of the BBC is being organised by the right is ‘complete and utter bollocks’, which makes me think there might be something in it.