Why is Lewisham rolling out unproven expensive 'tech'? Filters built in roads to suck out car pollution, by a one man shop, w/o scientific evidence Excellent story from @dorothystein.bsky.social on @salamandernews.org www.salamandernews.org/unproven-unb... #greenwashing #pollution #lewisham

Surrey Canal station is considered a "critical enabler of 8,400" new homes. But developers aren't waiting. @tomilyn.bsky.social finds a new neighbourhood forming ... www.salamandernews.org/surrey-canal...

Construction on the A2 today effectively demonstrates how much safer Amersham Road feels w a bit of redesign. Construction is mostly on white marked lines where vehicles not allowed, but when just paint cars speed through dangerously. Today they slow! @london.gov.uk and @lewisham.gov.uk take action!

A nice day to admire the Royal Naval Allotments in New Cross #newcross #londongardens #allotments

My article up on @salamandernews.org about why Blackheath Station Carpark is a perfect brownfield site for new homes, & an example of the pressure and opposition Lewisham faces at even gentle density increases, despite housing crisis www.salamandernews.org/blackheath-s... #Blackheath #housingcrisis

Car dependency is not the answer for our climate- and this doesn't even account for tire particle pollution!

"I smiled blackly through the windscreen, my mind on the neon lights of the West End. That illuminated cemetery." Enter Ghost, by Isabella Hammad

Lovely existing 4 and 5 story buildings in Blackheath, & carpark where millionaires launched a celebrity campaign saying building a 5 story building and 3 story townhouses would ruin historic Blacheath...(don't worry, the farmers market wouldn't go in the development). What's Jude Law so afraid of?!

Really enjoyed this thoughtful piece of reporting on the eviction of small businesses in Elephant and Castle at @londoncentric.media. Retaining businesses was one of the regeneration promises, but backdated electricity bills used to wiggle out of the deal www.londoncentric.media/p/elephant-c...

A treat to visit a similarly urbanism minded friend in Dublin, and get new cycle & pedestrian infrastructure and freshly planted street trees pointed out on a sunny weekend walk.

Please to have a new piece of fiction out with The Table Review today! Second in my series of short stories set around Overground Stations, this one starts on the CS4 with very length waits at traffic signals. thetablereview.org/2025/09/18/s... #shortstories #booksky #litmags

New story @salamandernews.org about cycle lane in Deptford: despite not opening till November, it is already abuzz with journeys. It connects to the C4 and C10, and could form part of 'Lewisham spine' cycle path www.salamandernews.org/deptford-chu... #londoncycling #cyclinginfrastructure #deptford

UK could raise nearly £2bn by taxing SUVs in line with European countries, study shows

Offered to be a cycle buddy to a colleague and neighbour who's nervous but curious about commuting by bike, with strike as perfect opportunity to break the routine and try. Alas, the lift being out at Greenwich foot tunnel still has put her off, as we would have to carry bikes several flights.

I wrote up a few of the excellent options for #openhousefestival and some bonus sites not listed. Surprising how few participating sites there are in Lewisham, despite a lot of great architecture. Still, grab your cycle and see some very cool self-builds.

Today Lewisham Council has cancelled planned part-time pedestrianisation of #Deptford High Street, focusing instead on graffiti removal.

"Life had been unkind to her, but I didn't come to this country to be a parable, an example or comparison. I didnt take the long journey to be put in a museum for English people to come to remind themselves that life could be harder." The Seers by Sulaiman Addonia, an absolutely transfixing text

The London Assmebly @londonassembly.bsky.social invited a panel of experts in late July to discuss funding options for infrastructure (i.e. Bakerloo extension) that don't require a grant from Central Gvmt. I report brainstormed solutions @salamandernews.org www.salamandernews.org/bakerloo-lin...

What a thrill to see Sofrito performed at Greenwich Theatre last night as part of Deptford Scratch! Amazing team that made Ayesha and I's script come to life, and another sold-out show.

Love, loss, and parsley. Come see my play Sofrito next Sunday at Greenwich Theatre, part of The Albany's very fun Deptford Scratch Night. It's showing alongside 5 other excellent shorts. greenwichtheatre.org.uk/events/deptf... #Greenwich #Londontheatre #newwriting #southlondon

New article out! Could this long boarded up stretch of New Cross finally see change? Goldsmith's Vision of becoming open to the community with an enterprise hub permanently shuttered. #newcross #goldsmiths

"for whatever reason, in that concrete coffin of a room, curtain drawn across the door, across the day, no company but for the occasional tiny arms of those portentous twins next door - I'd watched and watch and watch this man buy and sell and buy and sell" Goodlord by Ella Frears is fierce + great

New article up. This time on the disappointing Healthy Street Scorecard results: Lewisham has dropped several places and falls behind everywhere but school streets. Particularly grim on cycle casualties! Time to do better.

So pleased Spfrito got its first review and a positive one at that! "Deft" and an "admirably light touch and just the gravity needed" Come see it in August at Greenwich Theatre!

Lewisham Council is consulting on a new active travel strategy, & I pulled out a couple of interesting bits for @salamandernews.org if 60 pages of documents is too much work for you (although Lewisham did a great job making the strategy readable) www.salamandernews.org/5-key-takeaw... #activetravel

Sat in on rehersal last night, very excited for these actors and director to share their version of Sofrito next week at Deptford Lounge. Plus always a thrill for a bookworm to sit in a library after closing. www.thealbany.org.uk/shows/deptfo... Come watch on July 3! #scratchnight #newwriting

Immediate fallout from Rachel Reeves' spending review for Lewisham. (But we will get the Bakerloop bus.) www.salamandernews.org/bakerloo-lin...

"To hell with God," Fern said. "I'm worried about the Internet." - The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

"A story is a frank, intimate conversation between equals. We keep reading because we continue to feel respected by the writer. We feel her, over there on the production end of the process, imagining that we are as intelligent and worldly and curious as she." George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond

Although this will be a great improvement to cross Old Kent Road, absolutely wild to keep a seven lane road on OKR when literally hundreds of homes have been built at this intersection. Lane deletion needs to take place.

7:30pm on a perfect Friday evening and Spring, and with cars lining both sides of Deptford High Street cyclists struggling to move through. Fingers crossed for pedestrianisation...

Come to Deptford Lounge on July 3rd for Scratch Night: 6 new 10 minute plays including one I've co-written! Sofrito is a short about grief, garnishes, and gardens. Bonus, it's pay what you can www.thealbany.org.uk/shows/deptfo...

So many residential towers with minimal parking going up on Old Kent Road (yay!), but absolutely mind boggling it's still a busy 6 lane road in many parts with pedestrians making dangerous crossings and zero bike lanes. It shouldn't wait 20 years in hopes of Bakerloo extension, but be addressed now

I've written an op-ed in @salamandernews.org on why building housing is key to fighting gentrification in Deptford, not making our neighborhood car-choked and worse to live in: www.salamandernews.org/deptford-hig... Less than twelve hours to have your say #deptford #pedestrianstreets #urbanplanning

So pleased to be a finalist for the Porter House Review's 2025 Editor's Award with my story Wapping Station, judged by Rebecca Makkai. The winning story by Peter Schlachte was absolutely wonderful, fantastic crop to have been up against! And thanks to Kathleen Morrish, fiction editor, for the nod.

"Beyond those, the days that accumulate, the sex that happens and happens or doesn't happen, the comforts and modest raptured, the small decisions collaboratively made about what to eat, what to watch, where to go--that is a vast, imprecise flatness." Your Love is Not Good by Johanna Hedva

A nice way to while away a Saturday afternoon, writing from the charming (and indie press championing!) Morocco Bound Books who kindly waived their no laptop on the weekends rules when we said it was for fiction.

"The same pages in the same order, over and over again. I looked for hits in different regions, in each region separately, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. I didn't skip one single country. This was an addiction, an obsession which frightened me" Yugoslavia, My Fatherland by Goran Vojnoic, Istros Books

I've got a short essay about the time someone stole plants from my very polluted front garden and other related lily-based failures out today in Vernacular Journal. vernacularjournal.com/Three-Attempts

So pleased for my friend Patrick's publishing debut! If you're interested in stories about the modern world of humanitarian aid, or growing up neuro divergent in the UK, it's the (very compelling) book for you: bookguild.co.uk/bookshop/aut...

Really pleased to share I have my short story, Wapping Station, is now live on #PorterHouseReview. In it I weave my obsession with the many modalities of @transportforlondon.bsky.social, and the many modalities of illness. Please give it a read! porterhousereview.org/articles/wap...

"Oh England, England! The thing you do best is tell a story about yourself. Graham Gore went to the Arctic believing that a noble death is possible because of all those stories and then he became a story. Oh England, you wanted to make stories out of me." The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Under repair or a guerilla, and timely, bit of public art? In Trieste.

"At the same time, it was hard to rid oneself of the impression that Lukas despised others. This contempt was like a skeleton; without it he might have collapsed and dissolved like a melting snowman." The Empusium, by Olga Tokarczuk, where every sentence is perfectly constructed.

"Your memory, which is engraved in my mind, has all these holes in it. Am I forgetting parts of what you told me, or were the things you said incomprehensible? I was very young when I started listening to your stories." Ibtisam Azem, The Book of Disappearance

"The service managers at the various local authorities had got together and come up with a brilliant idea for dealing with austerity: as budgets decreased, so paperwork would increase." - Shady Lewis, The Greenwich Line, an excellent sendup of bureaucratic coldness in London

"She crosses the avenue, eyes fixed on the zebra crossing, which suddenly looks like a flight of stairs that could trip her up at any minute. Her father is in Benidorm. She'd call him if she knew his number. He's never given it to her" Spanish Beauty by Esther Garcia Llovet- great so far

"I tried to write a novel that put the background in the foreground" Really enjoyed the very candid Vincenzo Latronico talking about Perfection

"Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced." James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

Loving Hisham Matar's "My Friends". "...the true nature of what he was embarking on suddenly felt exposed: the fantasy that he could go to America as though it was another planet and none of the old ghosts would be able to follow him."