Here is another drawing from the series I made after getting back from London. That afternoon when I went to Primrose Hill, climbed up the hill to look over the view I had not seen in many years, remembering my days struggling at A-Level Art, then drew the Pembroke Castle and remembered my stag night twenty years ago, well I also had a stroll through Primrose Hill itself, another of those villages within London, the sort of place the American lead might end up in a romantic comedy set in a version of London where people say “fuck” and “wanker” a lot more than we actually do (and we do say those words a lot). I remember coming down here years ago and going to a really nice pub, and my friend pointing out Chris Martin from Coldplay and referring to him as “Travis out of Travis”, and I’ve called him that ever since. The road curves around and there are some nice little shops, as you’d expect in this romantic comedy part of town, and of course there was a nice little bookshop too called Primrose Hill Books. As a small bookshop lover, I was drawn here like a magnet. It’s very small, smaller than the one I worked at in Finchley (the now sadly long-vanished Finchley Books, where I was the book-keeper in the office downstairs before moving to America). I recognized that small independent bookshop smell, very warm and snug, and got flashbacks of trying to pay invoices to Bertrams or Taylor and Francis. A lot of small bookshops, a lot of small shops in general, just never made it in the end, so it’s always nice to see a real bookshop out there. I knew I would have to draw the place, and when I passed by again across the street I started to, but decided to just take some photos instead and draw back in California, as I needed to draw the Pembroke Castle and get off to Hampstead to pick up some photos I had developed at Snappy Snaps (like it was 2003 or something). This one isn’t on the stairs yet, I need another frame. I used a gold pen for the signage, which you can’t tell here but in the flesh it does shine. I am thinking about all the other bookshops in London, and elsewhere, I want to draw. Daunt Books in Marylebone for example, that’s long been on my sketching list. Finchley Books is long gone, of course, having closed in about 2006 or 2007, I can’t remember now, I still think about them.