Monaco

July 30, 2024July 29, 2024Leave a comment

One of the reasons for coming to the South of France was so we could visit the tiny independent principality of Monaco. We last came here in 2022, but my son had never been and since we are such big fans of Formula 1, this was definitely a must-visit. Plus it’s another visited country off the list. We took the bus from the harbour in Nice, riding along the coast through Villefranche and Beaulieu, although the sky was still cloudy and the sea still grey. The sun started coming out later that day, but the glitziness of Monaco made up for lack of sunshine. I sketched the above after the sun was out, later in the afternoon, and spent a good time standing in the shade by the famous yacht-filled harbour (and what huge yachts!) overlooking where Formula 1 cars whizz by. We had just tried to go to the Monaco automobile museum, to see the Prince’s incredible collection of classic cars – but it was closed. Dammit, I should have checked. We first went to Monte Carlo, and walked down through the big sloping gardens leading down to the Casino. That’s the view below, which I started sketching but finished later (on the plane), as we wanted to get down to look at the all the flash cars. Outside the Casino, we’d never seen quite so many amazing expensive cars, including many Rolls Royces and Bentleys, the place was so full of money, and this was no Las Vegas imitation, this was the real thing.

We enjoyed walking around this part of Monaco, they really do pack a lot in. We walked down behind the Casino to the famous hairpin turn, the one you see on the TV. It’s amazing how narrow the streets where they race are. Monaco’s always a very difficult place to overtake, you can really see why. We sat and watched cars go around the bend, many super cars, and even some classic old 50s style open-wheel race cars.

When the sun came out it got pretty warm, and it gets tiring going up and down all the hills. We took a lot of photos, marveled at more cars, but we ate a less expensive lunch from the local supermarket and admired the boats. One day, one day, I’ll have a yacht, sit in the Monte Carlo harbour with my top hat and my butler, in my guitar-shaped jacuzzi, with a chimp playing a banjo on a skateboard, I dunno that’s what I imagine rich people have. I couldn’t be rich, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. It would probably involve Monaco though, and loads and loads of sketchbooks. My family went back to Nice while I drew the harbour; when I was done I got the train back. The platform at Monaco was enormous, but also absolutely rammed with people. It was like coming out a football stadium, it was so busy. When the train came, people tried to barge on quickly, almost causing an injury to the people getting off the train, to the point where some platform guards (or Monaco police?) actually came and started grabbing people out of the way to let passengers off. When I got on the train I had to stand on the stairs, there was such little room. Not a fun way to leave Monaco! Now I know why people come by yacht…

nice to see you, to see you nice

July 28, 2024July 26, 2024Leave a comment

We took the TGV from Aix to Nice. I do like taking the train in France, and the TGV – I mean, the ‘Ouigo’? – took us through Marseille’s mean quarters and along the rocky coast, which was a lot more grey than azure due to that weather we’d been having. I didn’t mind so much. The previous times I’d been to Nice I had taken a direct coach from Aix, because the regular trains were so slow, taking most of the day stopping at all those Riviera towns. We arrived in Nice in the early afternoon. I had forgotten just how big Nice is, it’s a huge bustling city with a lot of shops. We stayed near the old town a few blocks from the sea. I love being near the sea. The beach at Nice is pebbly, but wide and full of people enjoying the evening. We walked along the long Promenade des Anglais, the traffic intersections were a bit scary when we had to cross over, but it was nice being somewhere so different. I drew the scene above after the family had gone back to the flat, the daylight was still good even quite late, and I sat on the stone steps and sketched.

Before that, we were walking through the old town and saw that the England vs Denmark game was about to start on a big screen outside a tapas bar. Good place to grab some food and drinks and watch the football, it should be exciting. Well, the football may have been one of the most boring games I had ever seen (that is, until the first 94 minutes of England v Slovakia), but it was nice to sit and eat and sketch and listen to the people around us, there was a Danish couple who kept giggling whenever I would complain about how Højbjerg’s shooting and passing was, knowing him from Spurs (and yet, he got man of the match in this game, fair play to him, everyone else was terrible). Occasionally a few drops of Mediterranean rain splashed onto us, but it was fun sketching this and with the lettering at the top it reminded me of a comic book. England would be ‘The Fantastic Bore’. The old town was busy, but much busier on the second night, the same night France were playing against the Netherlands in a game that was equally if not even more boring. We didn’t watch that one out anywhere, not really wanting to be in a big crowd that went crazy after a goal, so we put that one on the TV in our flat in the background. We need not have worried, it ended 0-0. These Euros group stages, man.

I got up in the mornings and went for my usual walk-sketch-boulangerie routine. It was still cloudy on Nice, and I walked down to the old town and drew this pink clock tower, the Tour de l’Horloge, dating from 1718. One thing we were going to do but didn’t was to go up to the big hill with the castle on it, looking over the city and coastline from a great height. The views up there are breathtaking, but so is the walk up the steep staircase, and since the elevator was closed we said, nah we did that in 2002. We walked about the base of the big cliff though, got the same view but from lower down, and saw all the signage for the upcoming Tour de France which was to be ending in Nice this year (Paris being a little preoccupied with Olympics preparations). The sun was out by now, we took some photos and finally the sea was that shimmering azure.

I did get up early on the final day and walk over to that blue sea. The pink dome of the Negresco hotel looked lovely. I want to stay there some day. It’s very expensive, and I’ve stayed in some very nice hotels now but this one is classy. There are a lot of places along the Cote d’Azur I’d like to visit, or return to such as Villefranche sur Mer which I always loved, a short bus ride away. But Nice is far away from California, so who knows when next we will be back. It was easy to get to the airport on the tram, although the experience of waiting in the impossibly slow Ryanair check in line at Nice airport put us off flying through there for a while. I’m not done with my Riviera sketches though, as we did visit one other place on this short trip, somewhere that we as Formula 1 fans have wanted to got to for the longest time – Monaco!

rainy days in the south of france

July 26, 2024July 25, 20242 Comments

Provence is usually sunnier than this. I woke up one morning for my usual early sketch and pain-au-chocolat run, to the sound of heavy rain against the cobbles. We were heading to Nice that morning, but with this storm rolling over it looked like the Cote wasn’t going to be as Azur as we’d hoped. We get enough sunshine in California. Still a little bit of rain didn’t deter me. I remember that it poured down the last time I’d been in Aix-en-Provence, a torrential downpour that nearly caused me to miss my TGV to Strasbourg. Doesn;t stop me from sketching. I walked over to Place Richelme, where the mornings are alive with colourful fruit and veg stalls before being whisked away by lunchtime for the cafes. It’s one of our favourite squares in Aix, and I found a dry doorway to stand in and draw, and listen. People passed by me on their way to work in the building, each one with a pleasant “bonjour” to me on the way, this is how they do it in France, people say “bonjour” to each other, and I like it. Looking across the Place, I remembered there was a pizza stand on the other side years ago where you get big slices of Neapolitan style pizza very cheap, the ones so big you fold them to eat them, and we’d get those at night after a couple of drinks at the nearby bar Le Brigand, we had many evenings sat outside there. When I first met my wife we went there with some friends and I think I surprised her by having three conversations at once, one in French, one in English, one in German, with people I knew around us. I would struggle to have one conversation in English nowadays. Le Brigand is still there, unchanged. There was another place nearby called Happy Days, which is now gone. I would sing the theme tune to Happy Days as we passed, but in French, and deliberately bad French for comic effect. I hummed that to myself as I sketched the market. I listened out to the market people greeting each other, the thick Provençal accent I once heard described as ‘soupy’, or “le Parlé de Chez Nous” as my old barber would call it. “Dang dang dang,” they would say, meaning “Wait wait wait” (“Attends attends attends”), and “ah put-aing!” when they swore. “Vous dessinez bieng!” one man said to me as he looked over my sketch, I smiled in thanks. I love listening out for that southern accent. I drew as much as I could, and dashed off to get breakfast.

This church tower rises above the narrow and busy Rue Espariat, which sneaks uphill through the old centre-ville. This street always brings me right back to the early days in Aix, a sit was easy to get lost but here you knew where you where, more or less, and it is always a short hop over to the wide Cours Mirabeau. On this day, I had left my family at the shops to go and sketch, but no sooner did the sketchbook come out then so did that warm dusty rain, turning the air as soupy as the accent. I’m really doubling down on that word ‘soupy’. I still wanted to draw, so I stood tight against the wall and did my best. I had to go and sit down somewhere to add colour and shading, the raindrops were starting to glomp onto the page. I walked down to the Place des Augustins to a familiar old pub.

I do wonder when I write these posts, show these sketches, who is reading, is it anyone I know? Anyone that I knew from Aix, that has stumbled across all of this? If so, hello there, bonjour, I hope you’re doing well. My memories of people have faded a lot over the years, names and even faces, , though I still have a lot of old photos, and my year in Aix was during the time of physical photos that you had to get developed at a shop, then keep in a box in a cupboard, unseen. Anyway I went into O’Sullivan’s, a pub we all used to meet up in back in the old days, and it’s unchanged. I did last come here on that trip nine years ago and sketched the bar, just as I had done once in 2003, though much better. I didn’t want to sketch the bar this time, I just sat with a beer outside under the dry eaves, and I sketched a couple of people sat evading the rain opposite me. I remembered the street opposite, there was a little kebab shop I think, where my flatmate Emma and I would sometimes run into a local guy we knew called Corentin who played a djembe drum. He was a sweet guy, I remember he liked to climb trees. It was in that very little square that my future wife and I had our actual first date, eating tapas at a little restaurant across from me. We had met at my birthday party a few days before, on a much rainier night than this.

It was time to go and have dinner, but before meeting up with the family I had one more sketch, a fountain that I definitely also drew back in 2003, the one on the corner of Cours Sextius. I used to pass it on my way to visit my future wife, so it always reminds me of that walk. Cours Sextius is another tree lined boulevard, busy with traffic, well shaded, and I remember there was a club there called the Bistrot Aixois which I didn’t really like much, very popular with the American frat boys spending their semester abroad in France. I had never heard the term ‘frat boy’ before coming to Aix, an American guy I knew brought me to a party held by some frat boys. I remember having a lengthy discussion with one guy about how Robert De Niro is not actually a good actor, he just plays Robert de Niro all the time. There were a lot of American students in Aix, for many it was their first time outside of the US, and it’s not a bad place. I got to know a lot of art students while I was there, though I was only just starting to get back to drawing myself. And of course I met my wife, from California, and that’s how I am now living in Davis of course. This was a short visit to Aix, it was nice to see how the place is doing, though we’ve come a very long way since then. It was time to leave for Nice. Until next time Aix, jusque’à la prochaine fois.

the return to aix

July 24, 2024July 24, 20241 Comment

We took a few days away from London in the south of France. We went first to Aix-en-Provence, the very city where my wife and I met each other, 22 years ago. This was the first time we had been back there together in 21 years, and the first time our son ever went there. The last time I was in Aix was in 2015, I came here before my trip to Strasbourg, but it was great to finally come back here together, after all this time. The world is a different place now, though Aix hasn’t changed that much, give or take an Apple store and a lot less dog poo. It’s still a busy place, especially in summer, and we stayed in an apartment which overlooked the same street my wife used to live on when we first met, another flat up a steep narrow staircase. We ate dinner at our favourite old place, La Pizza, still there and still delicious, although the nearby Place d’Albertas has lost some of its charm, the little old fountain now looking clean and sterile. Aix still has a lot of character though. On our first morning I woke up early, as I always do when travelling, and went out to do some sketching. We were right by the Place de l’Hotel de Ville, and I had to sketch it, of course. It was here in Aix that I rediscovered my love of going out drawing, all those years ago before blogs and social media and Urban Sketchers. I remember doing a sketch of this on a trip back in the year after we left, 2003, and then again in 2015 on that last trip. An almost unchanging view. One day I’ll actually finish a sketch I do there! The town was setting up as I sketched, vans would occasionally park right in front of me, cops (‘les flics’) from the police station would greet each other with the little pecks on the cheek, restaurateurs would start slowly opening up their shades and putting out chairs. And then it was time for me to go and pick up pastries for the family, seemingly the one thing untouched by the beats of inflation, still the cheapest breakfast there is, and nothing tastes as good as freshly baked French pastry. When I lived in Aix, I lived above a bakery and the smell would waft up to my window.

The drawing from 2003, that was drawn in a Canson sketchbook I got from my favourite shop in Aix, Papeterie Michel. They always had the absolute best selection of art materials and sketchbooks, as well as everything I needed to make masks and costumes for the extremely silly play I directed. I am pleased to report, Michel is still there and even better than I remember. We all spent a long time in there, and I fought the urge to buy everything. I did buy new pens, many postcards, and a beautiful set of placemats. Elsewhere we bought a couple of new tablecloths, because we always loved the Provence tablecloths. Michel is on the Cours Mirabeau, the regal thoroughfare of Aix that separates the old town from the also old Quartier Mazarin. We walked around there, memories bouncing around those dusty old orange walls. The cinemas where we watched so many films; the first time I saw Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and of course where my wife took me to see Attack of the Clones on the opening night, playing only in French (VF) at the Cezanne because it wasn’t playing in English (VO) at the other place. People were dressed as Jedi and fighting with lightsabres (sabre-laser) in the aisles, we’d only been dating for a couple of months and she got me the tickets as a surprise. The music from that film still reminds me so much of those early days together in Aix. We walked down to the old Parc Jourdan, where we’d often hang out as it was halfway between centre-ville and the university where I worked as a ‘lecteur’. I didn’t walk down to the old Fac des Lettres building, I heard that it was knocked down and replaced with something more modern (and presumably, hopefully, a lot better). I also didn’t walk out to where my old flat was, our time was short in Aix, there were only so many memory lanes. I hoped to see some old men playing pétanque in the park but not today. So we walked back up to the Cours, mooched around Monoprix, and wrote postcards over cold drinks at a cafe. La vie can be pretty belle sometimes.

Our lunch was the thing I’d been wanting most of all, the fabled Poulet Frites, which I got from a very busy little kiosk called Le Regal which has been operating there since I lived there, although it’s across the street now and looks much changed. The poulet frites were still amazing though, fresh and hot, although my favourite ones back in the day were from a little place by where I lived. This one is by the Place de la Rotonde, which circles around a huge fountain, which I drew above. I did not quite finish the sketch, but didn’t need to. It actually started raining while I was sketching; it had been doing so on and off, very lightly, for a little while once the morning sunshine had, er, dried up. This rain though was not like normal rain, as you can see from the little orange splotches on the page, made by sand carried all the way from the Sahara. I remembered this would happen occasionally, either through warm sticky rain or just blown up on winds from the south (winds that were not as fierce as the fabled Mistral). It didn’t deter me for long. There were a lot of tourists in town, many being herded around by guides telling stories of the great figures of Aix, the capital of Provence and once ruled by a king called Roi Rene, whose statue stands at the end of the Cours Mirabeau. The entrance to the Cours is marked by two statues, one dedicated to the Arts and Sciences (which I sketched below), the other dedicated to literature or maths or something (if I didn’t draw it, I don’t remember it). Aix is a big university town, packed with scholars and students, a bit like Davis (but otherwise nothing like Davis whatsoever). Between 2001 and 2002 I taught English there, more a learning experience for me than any of the students in my classes. I wonder sometimes about all the people I met that year, though I’ve not been in contact with any for years (except of course my wife!). As I walked about the streets I remembered people I had not thought about in two decades, but that’s all part of life, the scenes and characters change and you’re in a new play. Now I’m a man pushing 50 who wanders about with a sketchbook trying to catch the places while I can.

The Cours Mirabeau has these odd little fountains on it, covered in thick green moss, that sit slap bang in the middle of the street. Aix has been called the City of a Thousand Fountains; I don’t know if there are exactly that many, it seems a bit specific, but there are a lot around here. Aix is built on a thermal spring – its name comes from the ‘Aquae Sextiae’, which means ‘sexy waters’ in Latin. Ok fine it doesn’t mean that, it means the waters of Sextius, who was a Roman consul back when they were beating up the local Gauls and founding the city in 123 BCE. This fountain comes right up from those hot springs, and is very old indeed, dating from 1667. It’s older than St. Paul’s Cathedral. It’s older than the USA. It’s older than (weak jokes about how old) Joe Biden (is). It’s called the Mossy Fountain (Fontaine Moussue) which I think you’ll agree is a good name. I drew it while my family were looking at clothes in Monoprix.

The most famous Aixois was definitely 100% without a shadow of a doubt the painter Paul Cézanne. Aix is wall to wall Cezanne obsessed. His studio was at the top of the town, uphill with a nice view of the big mountain, Mont St. Victoire, which I have climbed up twice, I never fail to tell people whenever we see one of his painting. “See that? Mont St. Victoire, I went up there, yeah easy, no sweat. Had to run down to catch the bus before it got dark though.” I make it sound like I rock-climbed up the face like that Free Solo guy, as opposed to just walk up the path along the less steep side, and peered over the edge. Cézanne loved that mountain though, he couldn’t get enough of it, drawing and painting it over and over again. I can’t relate to that at all, eh (Bike Barn, Varsity Theatre, Silo, these are all my Mont St. Victoires). Other famous people lived in Aix over the years, while I was there everyone kept going on about John Malkovich, “oh I saw John Malkovich at the market the other day”, “oh I sat next to John Malkovich at the cafe the other day”, “Oh I stood behind John Malkovich in the line for the toilet at the Red Clover the other day”, like let it go, Malkovich fans. I didn’t even know what he looked like, so I wouldn’t have known him from Paul Cézanne, but everyone had a Malkovich story. I was more impressed that the legend Nina Simone lived in Aix when we did, though she died in 2003. There should be a statue of her there. This statue of Cézanne though is nice, standing by the Rotonde outside where the old casino used to be, now knocked down and turned into a fancy shopping district. He’s there with his bushy beard and walking stick, and backpack full of art materials, so I had to draw him (though I did have to check I wasn’t unexpectedly drawing a statue of Malkovich). As a few more drops of sandy rain plopped on my page, I moved along. I have some more Aix sketches to show, even rainier ones, but that will be in the next post.

a few more corners of London

July 22, 2024July 22, 2024Leave a comment

Before I dive into my sketches from the south of France, here are a few more London corners that I caught between doing other things. Above, a quick sketch of Neal’s Yard, while my family were looking through shops in Covent Garden, I decided to pop in here to draw. It was nice watching people move by, tourists getting an ice cream, people out enjoying the June afternoon. It was warming up. One weird bloke came through yelling obscenities at random people, though not to me thankfully. After sketching, I headed to my favourite map shop Stanfords.

Above, a quick sketch of De Hems, a well-known old Dutch pub in London’s Soho. I was meeting my friend here on a busy Saturday evening, we were watching the opening game of the Euros, Scotland v Germany. Alas, Scotland lost big time. I think the Dutch in there were for Scotland mostly, but it was a convivial atmosphere with Scottish and Germans together. As full-time blew though, the pub did decide to play The Proclaimers ‘Letter From America’, bit of a low blow given they’d just been beaten 5-1 without I think an actual shot on target (their goal was an own goal). The Scottish fans were popular in Germany though, as in most places they play well with the locals, unlike a lot of times when England play abroad. My friend and I stayed in the pub for a good long time and an old catch-up, with plenty of beers along the way. Central London has always been busy on a Saturday night, but I’m not wrong in feeling that it seems a lot busier than it used to years ago. I mean, better than during the Covid years of course, but still it felt pretty crowded. Summertime though, footballs on, weathers nice, good time to be alive I think.

The last one is a quick sketch I did while we were down in Spitalfields, my family and I had just eaten lunch in Spitalfields market (a much trendier and modern place than the old Spitalfields Market used to be), and were looking around shops and stalls, so I popped out to the street and did a quick sketch of the Ten Bells pub with Christchurch Spitalfields behind it. It was a hot day, and I just wanted to draw quickly and sketchily in pencil, and just added in a couple of colours for a fun effect. After this we walked down to the Classic Football shirts store to look at some great old kits, have a cold drink, and wander up Brick Lane looking for murals and public art. London’s great.

typhoon and spitfire

July 22, 2024Leave a comment

We visited the Royal Air Force Museum in Colindale, London (RAF Hendon), a place I really like because it’s so full of historic old fighter planes, and also really close to where my mum lives, where I grew up. And yet a place I don’t go to often, even as a kid. It was always just there, over by Grahame Park. I am glad in a way though because every time I do go back, it always surprises me. Last time I was there was about five years ago when Urban Sketchers London had a sketchcrawl there, and I brought my nephew along. I love drawing the old World War Two planes. My family and I wandered through here, and I drew a couple of planes in pencil, the Hawker Typhoon (above), a small plane with some big guns, and of course, the Supermarine Spitfire (below). The Spitfire is the best, isn’t it, the most beautiful of planes. I used to call it the X-Wing of World War Two when I was a kid, but even the X-Wing isn’t this beautiful and iconic. There isn’t a better plane (and I love an F16) but to Britons, this is the plane more than any other that represents the British spirit, Battle of Britain and all that. I do love a Spitfire. It also has the best name. If there was a Transformer with the name Spitfire, it would be the most popular robot, more than Bumblebee or Jazz. Remember those little foam planes you could buy in the corner shop, for about 20p or so, they had all the old planes and you attached a little plastic propellor to the front and flew them until they crashed into a bush or under a car? You can still get those actually, I’ve seen them over here. The Spitfire was always the best one, flying against the Messerschmidts, Sopwith Camels and and the (hehe) Fokkers.

still alive on denmark street

July 20, 2024July 19, 2024Leave a comment

This is the acoustic guitar room upstairs at Hank’s on London’s famous Denmark Street. I love it in there, it feels like it hasn’t changed much since I would go in there as a teenager and early twenty-something in the 90s. The walls are covered with Denmark Street flavoured pages from old music mags, mostly Beatles ones, but the sheer number of guitars is incredible. Some of them aren’t that expensive, some of them cost a surprising amount of money for ones that are just displayed for anyone to pick up and strum on that old chair. I always watch my step. I was here with my son, who at 16 loves playing the guitar, and a guitar shop where he can just sit and quietly try things out is a little refuge in the busy city, and often a door into a new world of ideas. We weren’t in there too long, but I thought I may as well get my sketchbook out and start drawing anyway, so I drew the outlines of this scene until it was time to go (I drew all the smaller details while on the plane to France the next day, and coloured it in when I got home again). I would love to spend ages in there drawing every room, though I would also want to just sit and play guitars. I tried out a really nice Gibson acoustic. My son was trying out classical guitars and banjos. I wish I had space for many, many guitars. I am starting to think there is not such thing as too many guitars. Increasingly though there are fewer and fewer guitar shops on Denmark Street.

Why is Denmark Street famous? Historically this was London’s ‘Tin Pan Alley’, the busy hub of Britain’s songwriters and music publishers, musical instrument shops and recording studios. Famous names have been associated with here, the Beatles, Elton John, the Sex Pistols lived in a flat here, and the Rolling Stones recorded their first album here at Regent Sounds Studios, and music mags such as NME and Melody Maker were based here years ago. I always knew it as the place for guitars, and guitar shops would also line down Charing Cross Road as well, alongside all the bookshops making it my favourite part of London. It’s unquestionably the place with the biggest musical heritage in Britain, but slowly the tides of redevelopment have been pushing it all away.

Back in 2014, I went there to draw the row on the north side, and as you can see it’s still packed with guitar shops, music shops, and the 12 Bar Club is even still there. That was an interesting venue, so many greats have played in that tiny space. The last time I was in there was watching a friend of university play with his band, this is going back 20-something years. Macari’s in the middle there, I bought my beloved Hohner acoustic guitar not from that one but from their other branch on Charing Cross Road, around the corner, while I was on my break from Thorntons in Oxford Street on a dark December evening at the end of 1996, I still have that guitar with me in California. Both those Macari’s are gone now (but the company still exists, and they have a shop in Haywards Heath, which is a bit far for me; their website is macaris.co.uk, and, a side note here, looking at it I was surprised to discover that they used to be based on Burnt Oak Broadway back in 1958?! Right by where Iceland is now. That I did not know!). Below, the in-progress shot.

Ok, now look at that, from 2014, and look at the same scene now in 2024. Isn’t that heartbreaking? It is fitting that the black SUV in front resembles a hearse. Hanks is still there, down the street on the right (the photo curves even more than my panorama). Where is everything else, and what is in its place? About a decade ago it was announced that a lot of Denmark Street would be done away with completely, part of the redevelopment of the area for the new Crossrail (now the Elizabeth Line). Several older buildings nearby were demolished, such as the great London Astoria and the (even better) LA2, and it’s not all bad, the new Tottenham Court Road station is a lot more spacious than the old one. What price progress.

denmark st 2024

Below, this is what I drew a couple of years ago looking over to the south row of Denmark Street. Those places are all still there, though I was disappointed to find another couple I used to go into had now gone. It feels like Denmark Street is vanishing bit by bit, being eaten up by a world without character, and it’s not just Denmark Street. It feels like everything is going, old pubs, old shops, old ways of doing things, replaced by nothingness. It reminds me of the Never-Ending Story, where The Nothing comes and consumes all, replacing imagination with…nothing.

When I see a music shop, I see a place full of possibility. You might never be able to afford that guitar you really want, but you might find something you really love, as I did with my Hohner back in 1996, that cost me less than a hundred quid (on the wages of someone who packed boxes of chocolate on Oxford Street). You might not be able to play it that well, but every instrument is a gate into a more creative way of living. There they all are, waiting for you to unlock whatever is inside of them, or maybe it is the other way around. A kid who never gets to pick up a real guitar and try it out may never think to play one; we need independent guitar shops. The musician Yungblud (who I first saw in that series about Camden Town) wrote a song about Denmark Street called ‘Tin Pan Boy’ and said that it was the first place he picked up a guitar. I first took my son to Denmark Street two years ago, when he had never played a guitar before (and as I write, two years later, I can hear him upstairs with his electric guitar coming up with new chord progressions). The world keeps on changing, doesn’t it. But it won’t be as good as Denmark Street was.

primrose hill

July 19, 2024July 18, 20241 Comment

This might be the best view in London, and it’s been many years since I went up there. Primrose Hill, just above Regent’s Park. After a day exploring the Spitalfields area of London, we were all a bit tired so took the Northern Line home. I had to go to Hampstead anyway to get some photos developed (totally 90s thing to do), but I decided to get out at Chalk Farm and explore this area first. I really like the walk down from Chalk Farm station, the parade of shops in Primrose Hill, it’s quite a well-off area. I went into a little bookshop, remembered afternoons out down here years ago, and made my way up the much-steeper-than-I-remember Primrose Hill itself. I’ve not been up there in over 20 years, so that skyline has changed a lot! This was the first time I have sketched up there in over 30 years, and it was even more different then.

Back in early 1994, still doing my A-Level in Art (for which I got a final grade of D, hooray, thanks for that), I had to work on a project and as usual was out of ideas. When I am out of ideas for anything I just go and draw, which is always the best idea. On that January day though, after a visit to the galleries at the South Bank Centre in which I saw some interesting sculptures with branches and umbrellas, I took myself to Primrose Hill, climbed up and drew the same scene as above, minus the odd comedy-shaped skyscraper. I remember looking out over London Zoo there, drawing that same shape of the Aviary (which is now ‘Monkey Valley’ apparently), drawing the Telecom Tower (the ‘B.T. Tower’ formerly the Post Office Tower which is what people still called it when I was a kid; I read that it was sold earlier this year to a company that will turn it into a luxury hotel), and of course St. Paul’s Cathedral (which as yet has not been turned into a luxury hotel but give them half a chance). I believe this is one of the places in London that has a protected sightline to St. Paul’s, so no building big towers anywhere between Primrose Hill and St. Paul’s, that means you, Euston, don’t even think about it. Primrose Hill actually has two ‘protected vistas‘, the other being the Palace of Westminster, but that was just off the page in my drawing, my sketchbook’s a little narrower than the panorama books I usually use, then again it’s not high enough to be that prominent (my eyesight’s not that great). Oh dammit it’s a protected view and I didn’t put it in.

It was busy up there this time, and much hotter than in 1994 (what with it not being January), and I was starting to bake under my hat. At least I had a seat, and the time to paint. A man had two huge colourful parrots and was flying them around for the amusement of the tourist groups up there. Most people were just enjoying the view on a really nice June afternoon. The sort of afternoon that makes you glad to be in London. This drawing is a lot better than the one I did in 1994, and I didn’t end up with frozen fingers. I don’t still have that drawing, though I remember I transferred it onto a screen to print onto a piece of cloth, which I hanged between two branches similar to what I’d seen on the South Bank, something to do with nature holding up the city or some A-Level nonsense. It was a good drawing but that wasn’t enough. For me now, it is more than enough, the meaning is just in the actual doing and observing. If there’s a story to tell too, all the better. This one is about frozen fingers and a decision soon after not to pursue art academically any further, but take a different direction, which I did, and here I am years later up Primrose Hill drawing the same view. That’s a comforting thought.

Speaking of years, it was 20 years ago this year that my wife and I got married! And therefore 20 years since my stag party, or ‘stag do’ as we say. That’s what Americans would call a Bachelor Party; a Bachelorette Party is called a ‘hen do’ in England. I made the joke that parts of London on the weekends are ‘Hen do Central’ (a reference to the name of a tube station; you had to be there). Well my stag do was up here in Chalk Farm. We had a lovely dinner at the now long-gone Belgo Noord restaurant, before heading over to this pub, the Pembroke Castle. Its a historic old pub around the corner from Chalk Farm tube on Bridge Approach, next to the railway lines. Local lore has it that there are three pubs in the Camden area that are very close to railway lines and were for the railway workers who came from other parts of these islands, but they would often fight after a few beers, giving it the old ‘Scotland is better than Wales!’, and so local authorities set up four ‘castle’ pubs where they could each drink separately and in peace, the Irish at the Dublin Castle, the Scottish at the Edinboro Castle (it’s always been spelled like that), the English at the long-gone Windsor Castle, and the Welsh right here at the Pembroke Castle. It is of course most likely bollocks, for a whole number of reasons (why would the Scottish be happy about misspelling their capital?), but it’s a nice story for the tourists, and those are all that really matter.

I liked this pub though, it had a good outside area for a nice Sunday afternoon beer with friends. I think Liam Gallagher used to go here, not that I ever saw him in there (I never notice anybody famous at pubs or anywhere). Well my stag night in there was fun, I know that was where my friends started doing that thing they do at stag parties where you get lots of shots for the groom-to-be, and basically it’s lights out after that. I remember very very little from about this pub on, but photographic evidence shows we did end up at another place in Camden, probably the Camden Head, before crashing out at my friends place in Tottenham. It was quite the hangover next day, but it was a good month before the wedding so plenty of recovery time. I don’t think I have been to the Pembroke Castle since moving to America, and didn’t have time to pop in for old time’s sake here, but of course I had to draw it. I love those London skies.

parkway places

July 17, 2024July 18, 2024Leave a comment

I found myself once again on Camden Parkway. I always seem to end up here. It’s like a default setting, like if you lose something and it’s down the back of the couch, this is where you’ll find it, Camden Parkway is London’s back of the couch. It’s changed over the years as has everything, but it’s still itself and I went looking for the things I know. I didn’t draw (or go into) the Dublin Castle this time, although I did do a bigger drawing of it when I got home, along with a series of other London locations). Some of my old haunts have gone, some remain. I don’t think I ever set foot in the Parkway Delicatessen, I think I developed my taste for panettone in recent years (thanks Zia’s Deli in Davis!), but this was a sketch waiting to happen. So many old places seem to be kicked away these days, but I love sketching an old Italian deli. I stood outside an estate agents to draw this. There was a lot of traffic on narrow Parkway, isn’t there always. I thought to myself, what if I drew all of Parkway, as one big row of drawings? I could do it if I had the time. Sure I would be wistful about the places that are gone, but places there now still need recording. Camden Town is of significant cultural significance to London, and enjoy it while it’s there. I was glad to see the Odeon cinema is still there (it’s strange to think of a chain cinema being something you need to save but so many have been closing). The last film I watched there was The Force Awakens! I used to go there all the time though when I lived in London, often on the way home from university, in the evening I would get out at Camden, go and see a film, head home to bed. Across the street, the old sign for Palmers pet store is still there, though the petshop itself is long gone and now a cafe. I remember going in there as a kid with my dad. It might have been a different petshop actually but going in there in my 20s I seemed to remember that. My dad loves pets. I even have the word ‘pet’ in my name!

Another place I had to sketch was Jamon Jamon, a little Spanish tapas restaurant that has been on Parkway for ages. Although again, I never actually ate here. I don’t eat jamon, after all, so it probably felt like it wouldn’t be my thing, but I love tapas so I don’t know why not. I might give Spanish food a miss for a bit though, as I’m still sad from losing the Euros final, but I’ll get over it because I love Spanish food. Already I’m fighting the urge for a paella (how long did I wait in 2021 before eating Italian food? Two days, maybe?) I always wanted to sketch this place though. I stood just outside it rather than across the street, and the guy from the barber’s next door, Ossie’s, came out to have a look and said he liked it. I said I’d get around to drawing his shop as well at some point. I was worried it was going to start raining, he said if it did, just come inside! My hair was already very short though. I thought about going into Jamon Jamon for a bite to eat, but I knew I’d be meeting my wife for some dinner in Covent Garden before going to see Spirited Away later that evening. By the way, very important point here, even though this is really a 75%-finished sketch, with some colours and details missing (it’s enough for the general idea) I wanted to make sure I included the door on the right, because someone has written the words “I farted” on it, for some reason. Further down the street is Pizza Pilgrims, a newer chain you see around London that does some really nice pizza, I had some when I was over last year. I do remember a place called Parkway Pizzeria years ago that I used to go to, they had very nice pizzas, that was back when a sit down meal was a really big deal, rather than just the bag of chips in the rain or the reduced-price sandwich was Tescos. Every little helps. One place I was on that side of the street was a pub called the Parkway, which was later the NW1. I used to go there a lot, it was my usual meeting place for my birthdays, or to watch the World Cup, and even for my leaving drinks back in 2005, when most people I knew came out and shared several beers with me a few days before I was moving to California, a memorable night I still look at the photos of, how young I was, at the end of my 20s, about to start this new American adventure. Of course my last night out as a Londoner was at Camden Parkway, it couldn’t be anywhere else.

This last one was drawn that same day, much further down towards the park that the Parkway is named after, Regents Park. The buildings change from being the rough and ready Camden brick to the right regal Regent’s Park stucco. I was just wandering at this point. I considered taking a long walk through the park, listening out for the roar of the lion at London Zoo, but I just drew this old 19th century fountain instead, looking like the entrance to an underground world. It’s called the Matilda Fountain, on Gloucester Gate, and dates back to 1878. Leaf and stone, and doorways to the unknown, that’s what England is all about.

the towers of westminster

July 16, 2024July 15, 2024Leave a comment

This is Westminster Cathedral. No not Westminster Abbey, this one is a little further up Victoria Street, free to go inside, and according to the priest I spoke to a few years ago they have the best bacon sandwiches in London down in their cafe. Well, I’m neither a catholic nor do I eat bacon, but this is one of my favourite buildings in London. It’s often overlooked, not as old or famous as its big Church of England brother down the road, but it’s a spectacular sight, especially on a sunshiny day like that day. Well a London cloudy sunshiny day, my favourite type of day. We had just taken my mum on an Afternoon Tea bus ride around London, one of those ones bedecked in flowers and pretty colours where you sit at little tables upstairs and enjoy tea, cakes and even some sparkling wine, while being driven around the streets of the capital. The staff were very friendly, though it wasn’t a guided tour, but they sure filled us up with tea and sandwiches, while playing the usual Abba style music over the speakers. I had an idea, there should be a bus where the theme is cockney singalongs. I would love to be the tour guide on that bus. When we got back to Victoria station, we took a walk around to Westminster Cathedral. I actually first heard of it when I was a kid and my mum went there with the local Catholic church (the Annunciation) to meet Cardinal Basil Hume. It was many years before I went inside myself, but it’s really grand inside, with some glittering mosaic tiled ceilings in the adjoining chapels. I sketched it five years ago, on a rainy day when I actually took the elevator up that tower to enjoy the view. This time I stood in a similar position on the street opposite, not rainy this time, and the colours really popped. Victoria is so much more modern and shiny than it used to be, so many new big buildings I would not recognize, but they reflect the cathedral well. It was designed by the architect John Francis Bentley in a neo-Byzantine style with no steel frame, and opened in 1903. It was Friday afternoon, I went off after this for a walk around London before meeting up with my friend to watch Scotland lose to Germany in the first game of the Euros. As I write, I’m not quite over England losing to Spain in the last game of the Euros. Football, I don’t want to talk about it.

On a completely different day, when I was still quite lagged of the jet, we took a long walk along the Thames, my favourite river. I mean, it’s not like I have a bunch of other rivers that I’m ranking, it’s only the Thames that means anything to me. The Sacramento river? Please, I have to go to Sacramento for it. The Liffey? Yeah it’s ok, for the amount of times I’ve been to Dublin in my adult life (twice!). The Sambre in Charleroi? I used to avoid it when I lived there in case monsters came out of it covered in grease. No, I only really know the Thames, and I love that river so much. On this day we walked from down beyond Tower Bridge all the way to Hungerford Bridge, and my jetlagged head was thinking it needed a nap by that point, but as we took a rest before getting on the tube, I did a quick sketch of Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. (You have to say that in the voice that bellows “He-Man! And the Masters of the Universe…”). The South Bank is a must-do in London. Personally a big fan of it on very cold bright mornings, or misty evenings in November. Not a huge fan of that time I got stuck over there on a freezing cold snowy night in February in about 1996, when right after crossing over the river, the bridges and tube stations all got closed due to a terrorist bomb going off accidentally over in Fleet Street. Took me ages to get back over the river that night. I do remember one time coming down here when I was about 16 or 17 and drawing by the Thames, I drew pretty much this exact scene from this same place. This was long before the London Eye and all the river buses. There were a lot of homeless on the South Bank in those days, especially under Waterloo Bridge, and one guy who was from Liverpool started chatting to me while I was sketching, and we had a long conversation, he told me about how he’d ended up where he is, and that gave me a different perspective. I gave him the drawing I had done, and he was nearly in tears. I was poor as hell myself and couldn’t even afford to give 50p for a cup of tea, but he did appreciate that drawing, and the chat. I remember drawing another one (which I think I gave to my godmother) but this view does always remind me of that moment, decades ago.

Finally, another tower, this time it’s the Coliseum Theatre on St. Martin’s Lane. I drew this on the same day as Westminster Cathedral, having arrived in the busy Leicester Square area with some time before meeting my friend James. Interestingly enough, the last time I drew Westminster Cathedral, I went over and drew St. Martin’s Lane right afterwards; coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences, detective. The evening before, we had spent a wonderful evening in the Coliseum Theatre watching the current production of Spirited Away, adapted from the animated Miyazaki masterpiece. It was not a cheap, but I could not miss out on seeing it, and my son and I are both big Studio Ghibli fans. It did not disappoint! The theatre itself is an incredible place, it’s worth seeing something there just to be in the space. The puppetry, the performance, the music, the staging especially, it was all done so well, and it was all in Japanese! It’s a theatre company from Tokyo bringing the original show to London, so the actors are all Japanese. I have only ever watched Spirited Away in English (I did try to get a head start by watching it in Japanese on the flight over) but since I used to do sessions on ‘performing in a language the audience does not understand’ back when I was a drama student acting in German or French, I was interested to see how their acting and physical performance would tell the story; I wasn’t disappointed (although to be fair, I know the story). Nevertheless there were subtitles, displayed out of the way above the action as glowing words through the green foliage around the stage. I loved all the costumes too, especially of the various spirits, but like the film it really did transport me somewhere else for a while. If you get a chance, I recommend seeing it. Good theatre is well worth it.