don’t judge a book just by its cover

January 5, 20092 Comments

…unless you cover just another. Burnt Oak Library, at the junction of Watling Avenue, Gervase Road and Orange Hill Road. And now, to my surprise, it has been painted black, and had a monstrous carbuncle of a tiled entranceway attached inexplicably to the front.

Which architect thought that was a good idea? “Oh it’s only Burnt Oak, nobody cares, that library is old and unwashed anyway, they should be grateful anyone wants to build anything there,” they probably thought. No, that new addition looks contrived. I thought they were new public toilets at first (as if). Yes, the additional CCTV cameras have apparently helped disperse the gangs of dodgy kids (apparently they now go just over the street). Apparently you can pay your council tax there now. There are lovely glass reliefs inside, because obviously Barnet Council has nothing better to spend that council tax on.

This is home, this is where I’m from, up that road snaking away to the right, though I now live on the other side of the planet. I spent many a day in this library nosing through the language books. there used to be these three great maps in the doorway showing Burnt Oak at various stages in history, from sometime in the 1800s when it was all farmland, to some time in the early 1900s when it was all farmland, to the 1960s when it was the metroland of the 30s, the Watling estate sprawling over red and orange hills (those are the names, forget colourful imagery, unless it reminds you of the brick and roofs). It was always rough, as long as I knew it, and it’s rough still (those phone boxes have pretty much never ever had glass in them), but it’s changed, it’s not the same, even since I’ve been gone. Everything must change. But you don’t have to paint the library black and put a colourful runway on the front of it. Just a few extra books would have been nice, and more useful.

cool for cats

January 4, 2009January 4, 20093 Comments

While in rainless London I found myself in Gough Square (named after a former Spurs player), a tiny back-place off Fleet Street, former home to Doctor Johnson, the man who wrote the first Dictionary of the English Language, an excellent and hilarious book, if slightly disparaging with regards the eating habits of Scots. That statue, that was his cat, Hodge (named after another former Spurs player). I don’t know why he didn’t just get a real cat. Cheaper to feed I suppose, and it never crosses your path or pees behind the telly. LBC used to be based here. I used to listen to LBC, back when I used to stay up really late (he says, writing at 1am).

is that concrete all around or is it in my head?

January 3, 2009May 27, 20107 Comments

About two and a half years ago I came back to the UK for the first time since moving to California. I walked up to Edgware, just up from Burnt Oak, where I used to go to school, and where I used to shop for records, books, guitar strings, and more books. I was stunned to find that none of the places where I used to get these things existed any more, and I lamented the downturn of this edge-of-town suburb. I wrote a blog entry about it, which even now people are leaving comments on, telling their own tales of Edgware past. Each time I’ve returned since it seems to have gotten worse, crowded with people who have little to do, with all the half-interesting shops disappearing before our very wallets, even the chains. HMV is now a pound shop, McDonald’s is now a cheap clothes store, and we all know about Woolworths.

While back this time, I went up on Christmas Eve to do some drawing, and squeeze through the purgatorio of The Mall (formerly the Broadwalk). I sat in the cold outside the boarded up Railway pub, a wonderful old hotel which has sat empty for a few years now, and drew the church opposite. I used to pass this way on the way home from school every day, years ago; even my old school has been knocked down and replaced with a brutal looking Academy. There’s an alley to my right that cuts through to the streets leading up to Deansbrook Road, and Burnt Oak, me and Tel walking down there telling stupid jokes every afternoon of our teenage years.

I finished this sketch and walked across the road, past the still-empty Music Stop – and was shocked to find, a few doors down, a brand new guitar shop! I went inside; the young guy who worked there told me they’d only been open four days, and that the bloke who worked in the old Music Stop now worked there, having been working down at another fave old guitar shop of mine in Crouch End (in fact, this new shop is a branch of that one, Rock Around the Clock). After a chat about Ibanez guitars in America I walked off pretty happy: did this mean Edgware was on the mend? Who knows, and maybe it’s just the view from a distance, but either way, it’s a new shop that sells neither cheap luggage or cheap cardigans, nor is yet another pound shop, and that’s a start. If I still lived there, I might even shop there.

it’s all over now

January 1, 2009January 1, 20095 Comments

Went out on the bright, cold and sunny boxing day for a walk, to show my baby son where I grew up. Sat opposite Woolworth’s in Burnt Oak Broadway to record this soon-to-be-departed store in the throes of its death. I think we all enjoyed Woollies at some point, particularly as a kid, when they had pick’n’mix, toys, records, chocolates, and stationery galore. Whose knees would not go weak at all those fountain pens and geometry sets? Plus it was the only place you could find to get passport pics done (the one in the tube station never worked), in a photo machine hidden inexplicably at the back behind the t-shirts and gym slips like some dark secret.

And by tomorrow, or maybe the day after, it will all be over, at the start of it’s 100th year. When I first saw the news reports about it online, there were people queuing for aeons just to get some nick-nack slightly cheaper, and then moaning about the lack of bargains to over-pressed staff who had all just been told, just before Christmas, that they were all losing their jobs. What will replace this bit-of-everything high street store? And who will go next? MFI, Zavvi (the old Virgin Megastore), Whittard’s, all closing shop. There goes the High Street. The times they are a-changing.

and a happy new year

December 31, 2008December 31, 20085 Comments

humpty dumpty

This is what I looked like on my first ever New Year’s Eve. Rather the lump I was. This New Year’s Eve, 32 years later, I look a bit more rough around the edges, but that is because we just arrived back from London, and a long and tiring journey it was. Gets more difficult every time. It is my son’s first New Year also, but he is thankfully fast asleep. I should be able to post a bit more regularly now I’m back in the US, after I’ve scanned the rest of my drawings from London and Belgium, but in the meantime enjoy your parties and your fireworks, I hope you all had an excellent Christmas, and I wish you a happy 2009. I’m off to bed.

jingle all the way

December 26, 20081 Comment

Twas two nights before Christmas, and all over the City, nobody about, not even a mouse…

Well there were a few post-work revellers lingering in the Globe pub in Moorgate where I met my friend Simon for a bit of late-night nocturnal urban sketching. I did this quickly in the pub before he got there (so that I was one sketch ahead, you see; we’re very competitive). We wandered off through the deserted streets, far from the madding crowd, and sketched in front of Guildhall, which remarkably I had never been to before. It was fun. It was dark, but the buildings were lit and there was a soft mist in the air. Do you know, it has’t rained once since I have been here? Considering my last rain-soaked trip in the summer, it is remarkable (while in California right now, rain rain and rain; “ha-ha” as nelson would say). We then wandered off in search of a pub that was actually open, and found one that was old and did Fuller’s beer, and we chatted and chatted away. I do miss chatting with my best mates.

(By the way, he ended up sketching more than I did)

But I have plenty more sketches I have been doing on this trip which I haven’t yet scanned…

charing cross road

December 24, 2008December 24, 20082 Comments

Merry Christmas!

Okay so here’s what I want, a black rickenbacker guitar (12 string would be nice), and you can get it from this shop, Macari’s. Ok, fair enough, a nice pair of socks will do. Anyway, I was out in Central London having a wander and I stopped on Charing Cross Road to draw the shop itself. It was here that I bought my acoustic gitar, the one I still play, 12 years ago.

So, Christmas. How many mince pies have I eaten this week? I’m eating one right now actually. As Santa’s representative on earth I get one on christmas eve. What’s going on in the UK? Woolworths, now that was sad, going in there today to look at empty cleared shelves, people rummaging through nothingness while the former best place to buy christmas gifts rolls over and dies, and as of today it takes zavvi (formerly virgin megastore) with it, which is an utter disaster for me. That big store on the corner of Oxford Street was a home away from home for me growing up. This downturn is just hitting so hard here you don’t know what will collapse next.

On that cheery note (what am I, the new Eastenders?), from a country where although you might hear the names Jordan and Peter Andre too often, you never hear the name Sarah Palin (and that is such a good thing), I wish you all a Happy Christmas.

(incientally, i drew this with a new pen I’d not discovered before now, a uni-pin fineliner 0.1, bought from paperchase – bloody god it was too)

while we were getting high

December 23, 2008January 5, 20093 Comments

I’ve been back in London almost a week now, and done a fair bit of sketching; but not much scanning or getting online. I did post this picture on the urban sketchers site though – it’s the Gatehouse pub in Highgate, an area I used to live in, and one which I love. The Gatehouse is right on top of the hill, and while the wetaher has been really mild and bright since we arrived, it was a little nippy while I sat drawing this.

I hadn’t intended on going to Highgate that day. I was on my way in to the City to go to an exhibition (This Tiny World, by my cousin, and it was very good) but the tube stopped in Golders Green (typical; welcome back to London). So I detoured to Highgate and had a little mooch around my old stomping ground: Highgate Village, Waterlow Park, Hornsey Lane, Archway. I used to go to this pub sometimes, but I didn’t on this day – I finished the wash in the warmth of the nearby Angel Inn. I miss this part of the world a lot.

did yer mama always tell ya that the old ones are the best?

December 18, 20085 Comments

It’s Christmas, here in Burnt Oak, back where i grew up, and here’s the big tree at my mum’s house, drawn this morning after the baby went down for a nap. It looks so Christmassy here! I haven’t been outside yet; it’s been sunny, and cold, and cloudy, and I just know it will rain when I do go out. Urban sketching! I turned on the TV last night, couldn’t sleep, and on came “Merry Cliffmas”. Yes, he is still around (I won’t write his name because the search engines will bring a load of people here looking for him), but I suppose he is at least someone I’ve heard of. The longer I’ve been gone, the fewer ‘celebs’ I’ve heard of here.

My son however discovered the Tweenies this morning.

down all the years, down all the days

December 16, 2008December 16, 20084 Comments

I’m re-posting an old one today: the heart of Soho, London. I used to tell people it was called Soho because it was South of Hoxford Street. It’s really an old hunting cry (like tally-ho), because it used to be a hunting ground (well, it still is really). The grounds used to be marked with blue posts, and that is where the name of this old pub comes from. This is from over a year and a half ago. I sat on the very dusty street and started a new sketchbook as people stepped over me, as Londoners do. I went off for a pint afterwards, as Londoners do, in the nearby Ship (an old fave of mine).

I’m posting this because tomorrow I’m flying back to London for Christmas, and I am going to go on a sketch crawl around Soho (and environs) this Saturday. I’ll start at Soho Square and follow my nose. If any London-based sketchers want to come along, I’ll be starting about 10:30am by that funny little shed in the middle of the square (even if it rains). So if you fancy it, do come along! I’m the guy with red hair and a scarf crouched over a moleskine holding his pen funny.

And if it rains, well there’s always the pub.