What should Deptford become next? I spoke with Greenwich councillor @calumobm.bsky.social about family homes, traffic, public space, air quality, Watergate Street, and the Dog & Bell pub. deptford.org/003/calum

Shades of Hastings.

Apparently, Lenin, Austin Powers and Liz Truss’s husband all stand for the Greenwich Council election in May. greenwichwire.co.uk/2026/04/10/l... Dream team!

Spoke with brilliant Adam Wiseman about his project on documenting every one of 186 commercial frontages on Deptford High Street. Read the interview and see some of his photos here: deptford.org/002/highstre...

“It was Victorian Britain that pioneered the freedom of the seas,” said Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, urging Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. I hope that the irony of lecturing Asian nations using Victorian Britain as an example is not lost on her.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

A Greenwich Green councillor has defended his career in the oil and gas industry, insisting that his work over the past decade has focused on the transition to renewable energy. greenwichwire.co.uk/2026/04/07/l...

Waiting for Copenhagen at the Hampstead Theatre

Cming sooon in Croydon.

Spoke with brilliant Adam Wiseman about his project on documenting every one of 186 commercial frontages on Deptford High Street. Read the interview and see some of his photos here: deptford.org/002/highstre...

Beautiful 1930s map of London football and cricket grounds with nearby pubs. See the full version on Londonist: londonist.com/london/maps/...

Several Caribbean countries have no standing army at all. For example, Dominica disbanded its military in 1981 after two coup attempts against the island’s prime minister. hypertextual.substack.com/p/nobel-priz...

Had a great conversation with @calumobm.bsky.social yesterday. I’ll publish the interview on deptford.org soon.

Love how London can turn absolutely anything into a scene from a low-budget psychological drama.

Waiting for Summerfolk at the National Theatre.

Saint Lucia has produced more Nobel laureates per capita than any other country: economist Arthur Lewis won in 1979, and poet Derek Walcott in 1992. Becoming a Nobel winner in Saint Lucia looks more likely than being struck by lightning in a given year. hypertextual.substack.com/p/nobel-priz...

Brookmill Park herons feel they own the place.

Ghost signs of Aruba.

Bottom line of Deptford

Can you navigate Deptford with a 400-year-old map? My new piece looks at the earliest detailed map of Deptford, drawn in 1623, and traces what four centuries of demolition, rebuilding and neglect failed to erase: the street plan. deptford.org/002/1623

Ghost signs of Sint Maarten.

Old signs of Saint Lucia, Castries edition.

Time flies by on Curaçao.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Ghost signs of Aruba.

The response to deptford.org has been lovely: thank you for the comments, the DMs, and the collaboration ideas. A batch of new articles on Deptford history will be up by the end of March. In the meantime, the site is there if you haven’t looked yet.

Deptford has everything, including a mural of world leaders/warmongers surfing missiles around the planet. Four decades on, it hasn’t aged a day.

How do you mix up two giant pharaohs? hypertextual.substack.com/p/how-do-you... Behind-the-scenes look at a story that started with a statue and ended with me correcting National Geographic.

DNA analysis suggests that “Viking” was sometimes a job description: burial sites in the UK have uncovered individuals with no Scandinavian ancestry, while some people buried in Scandinavia had Irish or Scottish parents. hypertextual.substack.com/p/13-things-...

My first map storytelling experiment. The 1905 Deptford murders that changed forensic science were hyper-local: killers, victims, arrest sites all within minutes of each other. Once I had the coordinates, the map idea was obvious. deptford.org/001/fingerpr...

What the f...! When humans switched to softer foods after agriculture spread, their jaws shrank and adults kept the slight overbite. Soon, that tiny shift made “f” and “v” sounds easy to produce, opening up a whole new world of words. www.science.org/content/arti...

The result: deptford.org, with history, maps, data and stories from one of London's most impressive neighbourhoods. Have a look and share with a friend or ten. 2/2

In 2022, I moved to Deptford and got obsessed with its history. Three years and 100 walking tours later, I still can’t shut up about it. 1/2

Ghost signs of London, Greenwich edition.

Brilliant reporting from @theguardian.com. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f... “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said one producer at the network.

Ghost signs of London, Deptford edition.

Vandals damaged the most questionable part of the Peter the Great statue in Deptford in 2022. It’s been in a crate ever since. I won’t pretend I missed it. Apparently, someone did, though: the dwarf is back.

In 2022, I moved to Deptford and got obsessed with its history. Three years and 100 walking tours later, I still can’t shut up about it. 1/2

I love ghost signs as much as the next guy, but this one’s my favourite: “S” for shelter, arrow, “50 YDS”. Wartime wayfinding still on a Deptford wall decades after WWII. A perfect teaser for my new Deptford project. Stay tuned!

Layers of Deptford.

Herons of Brookmill Park.

Ghost signs of Birmingham.

“For too long, political parties without a vision for growth have allowed the Treasury tail to wag the political dog.” Lib Dems would replace the Treasury and the Department for Business with a new Department for Growth to create a long-term economic vision. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Possibly the best pub name ever.

Waiting for Shadowlands at Aldwych Theatre.

Ghost signs of London, Limehouse edition.

“Some people will say, “Not another [general election]!”… I have some sympathy. I’ll need new trainers for door-knocking; the wetsuit will come out of storage; I’ll have to check my bungee guy isn’t already booked up for the summer.” @eddavey.libdems.org.uk www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Pulled this tent out of the Ravensbourne during our regular river clean-up in Brookmill Park. Dear Londoners, can we stop dumping tents in rivers? And, while we’re at it, everything else too.

Isn’t it ironic that Keir Starmer could lose his job because he and his “advisers” scrapped Tim Barrow’s appointment as the UK ambassador to the US? He that mischief hatches, mischief catches.

Isn’t it ironic that Keir Starmer could lose his job because he and his “advisers” scrapped Tim Barrow’s appointment as the UK ambassador to the US? He that mischief hatches, mischief catches.

Ghost signs of Birmingham.