man city v madrid at the mixer

July 15, 2023July 13, 2023Leave a comment

While in London I was doing a fair bit of remote work, which was usually done in the late afternoon and into the evening (and occasionally into the wee hours after midnight, since California time is eight hour behind London time). On one day I worked throughout the afternoon and had an early evening meeting which happened to finish around the same time as the Champions League semi-final was beginning. Back in California I might have (a) cycled home to watch it over some lunch, (b) sneekily put it on my iPad and watched in the meeting, or (c) not really cared that much since it’s not Tottenham playing. On this evening I fell more into the third category, since the meeting ran into the game time and I couldn’t bring it up on my mum’s TV anyway, but I had a feeling it might be an interesting game – Real Madrid vs Manchester City – so after the Zoom meeting ended I decided to go out and watch at least the second half at a pub if I could. I wasn’t sure where; I don’t know which pubs show football any more, and I didn’t really want to go to any pubs in Burnt Oak. I jumped on the tube, thought about Hendon, I remembered watching a football match in a big pub there (wait that was in 1996), considered Golders Green, again wasn’t sure, so I just headed to Camden. I knew the Earl of Camden showed football, so I headed there. Thing is, I don’t really like that pub much, it’s always a bit uncomfortable and packed. And it was too – nowhere to sit, screens in awkward places, there was a guy in a 1998 Real Madrid away shirt which was cool but other than that, I didn’t fancy it. The first half was just ending so I thought, look for somewhere else. I didn’t expect the Good Mixer would be showing it, but I passed by on my way to the High Street and sure enough, they had it on in there, and it wasn’t full of big football lads. I like the Mixer, it was always one of my favourite places to hang out in the 90s and early 2000s, me and Terry used to go an play pool there (well, he would play pool, I would lose once and then sit there watching him beat everyone for a couple of hours). I found a seat with a good view and watched City completely demolish Madrid in a “please make them stop!” sort of way. It was a bit like watching Terry play people at pool. (I remember one night, I think it was at the King’s Head in Crouch End, this cocky guy challenged him to a game of pool, the guy had a special expensive pool cue in a hard case, he got it out and was polishing it and chalking it, and gestured to Terry as a joke if he wanted to borrow his cue; Terry declined and picked up probably the shittest pub cue from the rack, and proceeded to wipe the floor with him, the guy didn’t pot a single ball. He then beat him a few more times in clinical fashion, I just remember the guy standing there furiously chalking his cue waiting for a go.) Real Madrid were taken apart, although in this case City have the most expensive cues and the hard cases. I sketched the pub in my little Stillman and Birn Alpha mini book, just a quick one in Pigma Graphic pen and what waetrcolours I brought with me (a small set of about five colours in a tiny stormtrooper-helmet tin, fits into my pocket easily). It’s one of my favourite bar sketches though, it captures the mood well. The game ended, some people celebrated (it’s an English team getting to a major European final, albeit one funded by a rich nation state), I remembered my old friend Rob who supported Man City back in the 90s when they were pretty crap (though they had amazing Kappa kits), and how this is for those fans who put up with all that back then. I went to the little chip shop next to the tube station where I’d always get my chips on the way home, and headed back to bed.

the railway tavern

July 14, 2023July 13, 20232 Comments

Here is another sketch from my home area of north London. This is the Railway Tavern, which is up Hale Lane, which is in Edgware, or is it Mill Hill, or can we even say Burnt Oak? It’s kind of all three, and none of them. We used to call this area ‘Green Man’, people probably still do, because of the large old pub on the corner of Hale Lane and Dean’s Lane, which was the Green Man. On maps I think this area gets called ‘Hale’ or ‘The Hale’ though people rarely say that out loud (the name goes back to the 13th century). I think of it as Edgware, really. It’s near enough to the main part of Edgware, and technically Burnt Oak is Edgware too, though we all know different. My address growing up was ‘Burnt Oak, Edgware, Middlesex’, yet we were in London (Greater London, the big urbanized county, Zone 4 on the Underground) because Middlesex no longer actually existed. Our postcodes for Edgware and Burnt Oak are holdovers from the pre-Greater London era, being HA8 (confusingly the HA is for Harrow, we are in the Borough of Barnet), while nearby Colindale and the more countrified Mill Hill got London postcodes (NW9 and NW7 respectively). Never try to make sense of London postcodes by the way. You get ‘NW’ (north-west, easy), N (north), W (west), E (east) SW (south-west), SE (south-east), BUT no ‘S’ for South, and no ‘NE’ for north-east. You do get EC and WC for the cities of London and Westminster but don’t think they all correspond exactly. I remember the jingle from the old 1980s adverts, “Pass On Your Postcode, You’re Not Properly Addressed Without It!” Then there was the phone code – 01 for London, that’s what made sense, we were all in that. Then they decided no wait, let’s change that up a bit, you people on the inside can be 071, you lot around the edges can be 081. Then they phoned back a few years ago, wait wait, I’m not done yet, make that 0171 and 0181, yes that makes more sense. Then they phone back a few years later, wait wait wait, let’s make that 0207 and 0208, ok we are definitely done now. Then they said no wait, we have some more changes to make. By then everyone was like, sorry, they have invented mobile phones now, we don’t care. London eh. But this is the Railway Tavern, and where exactly is it? Well the postcode says NW7, so it’s officially in Mill Hill, that settles it. Their website however says they are in ‘the heart of Edgware town’ which is quite interesting. ‘Up Hale Lane’, that’s all that matters. Besides, there was another tavern called The Railway in Edgware near the station, which closed many years ago (the historic building is still there, being allowed to fall to pieces; I drew it eight years ago: https://petescully.com/2016/01/14/the-end-of-the-railway/). This pub however is still open, which is good to see. I actually have never been in here as an adult, but came in several times as a kid with my family. It was a good pub to bring the kids to, because there was a good garden out the back which had swings, and there were always other local kids to play with. I remember kicking one of those plastic footballs around here when I was about 11, and it kept going into a neighbouring garden, while parents drank in the pub inside. Those days always remind me of the taste of Coca-Cola in a glass bottle, not very cold, and salt and vinegar crisps. I thought about coming up to this pub in the evening while I was back to draw the inside, but didn’t get around to it. I have wanted to draw the outside for years though, I really like the shape of this building. I love a triangle.

Why is it called The Railway Tavern though? There is no rail line nearby (the closest being way down at Mill Hill Broadway), and it’s not by a tube station, which is a good mile away down at Edgware. Well, actually there used to be a rail line near here, passing through Dean’s Lane down the hill, going between Edgware and Mill Hill East. When we were kids it was long closed down, and the area was known as the Old Bomb, I presumed it had been bombed in the war and never rebuilt. In fact they did originally plan to have a line that ran between Mill Hill East, passing through this way and not only up to Edgware but well beyond, but it was never built. Ever wondered why there’s that bit of the Northern Line that squiggles out to Mill Hill East for some reason? Jay Foreman’s excellent Unfinished London video explains this whole thing much better than I can: https://youtu.be/jjuD288JlCs. The pub does apparently date back to the 1890s, but I think the building is later than that. This page on the London Borough of Barnet website gives a little history of the are called The Hale, and it mentions the ‘Railway Inn’. Next time I’m back, I should pop in for a pint.

Monumental

July 13, 2023July 13, 20233 Comments

I went up The Monument. “The Monument? Which Monument? I hear you ask. Aha, The Monument. That’s all Londoners call it, and it has its own tube station called simply ‘Monument’ so that’s that (it joins up with the station called ‘Bank’ which is named after The Bank of England which we never call “The Bank”). I could write a whole book on tube station names, but it’s probably been done, I would only be using it as an excuse to draw pictures. Anyway, the full name of The Monument is actually The Monument To the Great Fire of London, and yes, it is exactly that. And I went up it, for the first time since I was in my teens. I’ve not had much of a reason to go back up there in all these years, and I do muddle up my old your guide stories about it occasionally (no it is not 365 feet high and no it does not grow a foot in leap years, that is St.Paul’s as everyone knows). It was created by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke as a huge column topped with a shiny golden ball of flames and an observation deck, so people can climb up the narrow spiral stair case (all 311 steps) and look out over the rebuilt city that Wren had created. Well I wanted to go up there and draw. The City keeps on changing, and since the last time I saw that view from that angle was in the early 1990s, it was bound to have changed a bit. The first time I went up I was about 15 or 16, and I remember getting to the top, and finding myself still looking up at buildings, while also being at the top of a very narrow stone column with just some bars stopping me from plummeting. They do say that if The Monument ever fell on its side (presumably at the exactly correct angle) it would hit the spot where the Great Fire began, in Pudding Lane. Since it had never happened, there was no chance of it toppling over, but as I reached the very tight confines of the top, my knees went all “Ossie Ardiles 1981”, and I nearly bottled it. I forced myself to the top platform, and hugged the wall with my back, edging slowly around. There was a German couple up there taking loads of photos oblivious to the height, and I thought, well Pete you better get to work on this sketch. So I whipped out my Fabriano sketchbook and my HB pencil and drew the view as well as I could. The idea was that I’d add in the pen up there, and maybe colour it in later.

Another man joined us on the platform and he like me was just edging around the column slowly in a state of terror. “Me too, mate” I said reassuringly. Despite the very sturdy looking barriers, I was convinced that I would drop my pen, and it would plummet down to the streets below, probably taking out someone’s eye and impaling them in the neck, and I would have to get a different pen. So as far as I got with the penwork was drawing Tower Bridge and a couple of other details. It started getting windy, and hello, that was it for me mate. I said Auf Wiedersehen to my brave German friends still taking photos (actually they had left long before so I was basically saying goodbye in German to a pair of American tourists) and went back down that long spiral staircase, hoping that nobody passed me coming back up.

When I reached the bottom, to my surprise they gave me a certificate that certified that I had climbed all 311 steps of The Monument. That was nice. I then went to buy some new pants. Only joking. It did remind me though of that first time I climbed up here (no certificate in those days, at least not for me) and I said something about Wren being “a nutter” to the attendant, who grumbled a possible agreement, and I had this idea about doing a project where I drew and wrote about all of Wren’s buildings in the city, and it was not until the 2010s that I did something along those lines, when I organized two big Wren-themed sketchcrawls, the first one in 2014 starting at The Monument and ending at St.Paul’s, and the second one in 2016 doing the reverse, culminating in a big group photo outside The Monument after we as a group had drawn every single Wren building in the City, all in one day, an achievement so big I’ve never got around to organizing another London sketchcrawl. Read about that sketchcrawl here. I’m still into Wren though, and I’m glad I went up The Monument. I decided to finish the inking of that drawing over the top of the pencil sketch, using what photos I dared to take as reference, and that’s the complicated panorama sketch at the top of the post. I’m very pleased with that one, click on it for a closer view.

mile end afternoon

July 10, 2023July 9, 2023Leave a comment

I was done pretty early with exploring Queen Mary University of London on my first day back in Mile End in over 20 years. I walked round the corner to Burdett Road, and decided to draw this old building that was mostly boarded up, I do remember using the post office back in the late 90s. I didn’t live in Mile End while I was at university, I stayed back home in Burnt Oak, so I would commute in on the tube. I knew quite a few people who did decide to live locally, or a bit further out, and there would always be parties in those days. I took a lot of Night Buses as well, the old N25. Fall asleep on that, it bounces you back from Trafalgar Square right out into like Essex or somewhere. I stood by Mile End Park to draw this, but only got as far as the outline, because I was getting hot, so I drew most of it later on. I had another part of Mile End to look for.

A couple of years ago my wife (who is American) and I were looking at this impressive family tree document that her great aunt had put together many years before, and I noticed that there was a ‘Sir’ on there, Sir William Morgan, Earl of Tredegar. It was exciting to discover, and it turns out the Morgans are a pretty storied family, both from their Welsh aristocracy days, through the British Civil Wars and subsequently those that emigrated to the US and became big names in the fledgling country (founding the city of Springfield MA for one thing). In short, it turned out my wife had some pretty interesting ancestors, the Earls of Tredegar, and then all of a sudden I started seeing that name everywhere (we even chanced upon William Morgan of Tredegar’s memorial in Westminster Abbey last month). Pretty much the same day we were looking all of this up, my friend Simon (an actor and and former QMUL alumnus) told me about a film he’d just appeared in, Once Upon A Time in London, so I watched that, looking out for him. One of big scenes involved being beaten up in a pub, anyway right afterwards the gangsters involved walked out of the pub and it was called “The Lord Tredegar”, of course. I had to look up the pub – and it was in Mile End, very close to “Tredegar Square” and “Morgan Street”. Presumably the family had owned land round here. Well I found the pub – it’s in quite a nice part of Mile End, some impressive old houses around here – though it was closed, so I drew the outside, although I didn’t bother finishing all the colour later. A block away, there was a lovely post-box dating from Queen Victoria’s reign, which I drew with the Morgan Street sign in the background. This was right by Tredegar Square.

I was done with exploring Mile End, and decided to head back into central London, but I saved one last very quick sketch for Mile End tube station. This is where I’d come in and out every day while at university, after an hour-long packed tube ride from Burnt Oak. Another tube station sketch for the collection, I think I expected more stories to come flooding out of this one, but not really. I do remember one thing, it’s opposite the Territorial Army (TA) centre. Back when I was doing Richard III in early 1998, I was charged with arranging for props for the production, and asked for a bunch of army materials, including an army table. How I thought I could do that given that I had no car or means of transporting it, I do not know, but I was resourceful enough. There’s a big TA centre in Burnt Oak near where I lived, so I went there and kindly asked to borrow some equipment. To my surprise they said yeah sure, just bring it back. I got lots of army cups and hats and things like that, and a table, a big heavy green wooden table. Like, really heavy, like impossible to actually carry heavy. Carry it I did, halfway down Deansbrook Road, like an idiot. I would have called my dad, if we lived in the era of the mobile phone, but we did not just yet. I think I ended up leaving it, coming home, and then having one of my parents come and help me get it in the car. And I was going to bring this to Mile End to use in a play? What, on the tube? That wasn’t happening. I felt a bit stupid, but I had the other props, Richard III was just going to have to make do with a regular table to plan his battle with Richmond. Anyway the next day I came to Mile End station, walked out and immediately saw the TA Centre across the street, which I had hitherto never noticed. I didn’t bother going to ask them if I could use a table, I’d give myself a bad back carrying that, I’d end up looking more like Richard III myself. So, I do think of that when I think of Mile End station.

well it happened years ago

July 9, 2023July 9, 2023Leave a comment

One of the ideas I had for my short May visit to London was that I would try to go back to places I had not been in a long long time, especially places that mean something to me. I couldn’t quite believe that I have not been back to Mile End since I graduated from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) back in 2001, but sure enough, it’s been that long. On Tuesday morning (after sketching down at Embankment) I took the District Line up to Stepney Green, and walked up the Mile End Road towards my old uni. I went to QMUL – actually it was QMW, that’s ‘Queen Mary Westfield’, when I first started, though it was already part of the University of London, they had a slight name change during my tenure there – between 1997 and 2001, including a year abroad in Belgium. I studied French and Drama. In those days I did not get the tube to Stepney Green, rather I would go to Mile End tube station, which was on the Central Line and a quicker change from the Northern, and closer to the Arts Building. I went the reverse way today. I walked through the Student Union area, many an evening spent there, past some of the on-site dorms, not much had changed, but there were a few impressive newer buildings such as the Mathematical Science building (swankier than our one, though not really any bigger). I reached the People’s Palace and the Great Hall, which is where I spent a lot of time in my drama days, and even made my way inside to use the toilets by our old drama studio – still in the same place – and ate a sandwich in the lobby, trying to remember all the performances we did there back then. I often took care of the lighting in those days, getting to know the tech rigs and all that, but occasionally performed myself. In the Great Hall of the People’s Palace, which is a storied old east London venue, I remember doing Richard III back in early ’98 (I certainly wasn’t playing Richard, I was just part of the production team, I handled some of the artwork and helped with stage management, the latter being just quietly barked at when to open doors). Most of my memories have faded; I can’t remember most people’s names any more. When coming to old places like this to draw, I always do it with the intention of telling stories, but sometimes the stories are all a bit too jumbled up. I wanted to draw one particular building, the Queen’s Building (above). I stood outside the old pub across the street, chatting a little with the landlord who was sweeping the pavement, to draw the iconic clock tower with the magnificent white Queen’s Building behind it. I do still have memories of this building, spending many evenings in here using their computer labs, taking exams in the Octagon. Mostly this reminds me of my graduation day, taking photos outside here with my family and some of my other graduating friends. As I did French and Drama, most of my main friends (some of whom I am still close friends with) were in Drama, but they had largely graduated the year before in 2000. As a French student I got to spend a year in a francophone country – in my case Charleroi in Belgium – so I graduated in 2001. I still had friends in that year though, and many of them I’ve not seen since, but I have some warm memories from that day. I remember in my photos I wanted to turn my head more sideways, because I had recently gained a large scar on my face and didn’t want it showing up as much. Afterwards, my mum and dad and younger sister and I all went for a nice dinner. At the end of that summer I moved out to France, along with one other of my cohort from the French degree (Emma) to spend a year teaching in Aix, arranged by the university as a post-degree work placement. I do remember coming by Mile End a couple of weeks after graduation to those dorms down the road, because I was asked to lead a walking tour of London for visiting international students, but since then I have never actually been back to QMUL at all. It was bizarre to think about. I finished my sketch and explored the campus.

Right, so that took about ten minutes. I remember the Mile End campus as being this large sprawling place, stretching across East London from Mile End to Stepney Green and having to run between classes and always being late for my Performance class because I would be in French Literature just before. It’s actually not that big at all. Having spent the best part of two decades on the UC Davis campus which is an actually huge campus (we have an airport), QMUL felt like going back to my old primary school. I was a little disappointed by the lack of branded merchandise, hardly anything compared to a US university. I found the big library in the middle where I spent so many late nights (often watching old German films in their video labs for my German film course), the cafes where I’d eat my snacks, lots was new, a lot was still the same. I sketched the building above, which was I believe a chapel, I seem to remember it forming part of a logo for QMW but I’m certain that’s a mistaken memory. I do remember knowing some people that lived here though. Very close by is this phone box. I am sure I used that back then – I went in the days before most of us had mobile phones, they were only starting to become a thing. By the time I left, most people had one, usually a great chunky old Nokia thing, but when I was there, the payphone was still the way to go. I did have a Pager which I would use up until about 1999 but I didn’t really like it much. It was liberating, looking back, not having a phone always on you. You made plans and pretty much had to stick to them (I was always late anyway). But there were phone boxes, if you happened to have some change on you. I spent a lot of time broke back then. I ate chips a lot, and Super Noodles (no change there then).

I did go to the Arts Building, which is where my undergrad programs were based. I walked about the building – a lot had changed, but a fair bit was the same. It was an unusual feeling, like sliding back in time, I felt like an interloper. I recognized pretty much none of the names on faculty doors – well I did recognize a couple, who were not there to recognize me back, thankfully – and I didn’t stick around too long, as I was starting to worry that I had homework overdue. I enjoyed my years at Queen Mary, studying French and studying Drama, but I didn’t fancy sticking round to draw anything else, so I explored Mile End a bit more. It was a hot day, I considered going into the New Globe pub for a pint, our favourite watering hole next to the Arts Building, by the canal, but that’s called something else now, so I thought never mind. I walked underneath the huge ‘Green Bridge’ (which opened while I was there, in fact I took part in a special performance piece to mark its opening, along with the Art Park gallery nearby) (I had to pretend to be a room in a house, and then I had to pretend to be a tree, my arms hurt) (Drama student, yeah). I did some more Mile End sketches, but I’ll post those next time.

monday evening in covent garden

July 7, 2023July 7, 2023Leave a comment

Later that day – sorry, I realize several weeks passed by in between writing the posts for my London sketches from Monday May 15th, but I had another trip back to London in June, which included an eight-day trip to Scotland, and now suddenly we are a week into July and my ears are still ringing from the plane – anyway, later that day, I walked over to Covent Garden to do some more sketching. The previous Saturday night I had spent a very fun evening out around here with my old friends Roshan and Frenchie, which involved many laughs during dinner, ending up at the Nag’s Head pub which features in the background of both of my sketches here. Incidentally this is not the only Nag’s Head pub that I would sketch on that trip in May, but the other one will be posted later. I decided to take up position opposite Covent Garden tube station (one of the beautiful oxblood-tiled Leslie Green tube stations), to draw a two-page panorama, which I like to do. There were a lot of people around, being about 5pm on a Monday. In the place where I sketched there happened to be a group of Hare Krishnas who were out chasing people up and down Long Acre asking “have you thought about meditation?” One of them was very enthusiastic, following people like an eager salesman. Nearby, those pedal-cab things were congregating as they do. People were out shopping, this is one of the best shopping areas of the city. One of my favourite shops, Stanfords (they sell maps and travel books) is very close by. Posters advertised musicals like Frozen and Mrs Doubtfire: the musical. I swear, going by all the posters I saw in London, there is nothing that city will not turn into a musical. I’m waiting for “Urban Sketching: The Musical”. Taxis pulled up, letting people in and out, on their way to see a musical probably. People hurried by me on the pavement to get to wherever they were going. I used to be one of those people; I would pass by this corner on my run (I would literally be running) from the 134 bus stop down to the King’s College campus, when I was doing my Master’s in medieval English almost two decades ago. Now, I just focused on my sketch, on all that perspective. I think I had intended to make this full colour, and I had the time and the daylight, although after a while not so much of the energy, so I left it as is. Getting the sky in was important. It was a really lovely mid-May day, the sort where standing out on a London street is pretty much the right thing to do. I was in no hurry, I did not need to be back anywhere, I had no plans. But I was getting hungry, so I went to a nearby Pho place and had a delicious big bowl of pho. I’m going to put a picture of it here just to make you hungry.

IMG_2189s

And then I went to Floral Street, and did one last sketch of the day, a block over from where I did the first. I stood outside the White Lion pub, looking towards the Nag’s Head again (in the top sketch the Nag’s Head is in the far bottom left of the scene). There were many drinkers outside the pubs; again I had intended to colour this in, going as far as adding in some yellow blotches for the flowers, but in the end I didn’t have time and didn’t fancy adding it in at home, as I was a bit tired. I didn’t stop into either pub though; instead I went over to the Lamb and Flag for a quick pint before grabbing some food from Tesco Metro and getting the tube home to bed. A very productive day of London urban sketching.

from tottenham court road, down charing cross road

June 16, 2023June 16, 2023Leave a comment

I had another sketching day out down in central London, going down to Tottenham Court Road station on a Monday morning in mid-May. This area has changed so much. This was always my go-to stop when heading down into central, most of the things I wanted to do were near this station. The Virgin Megastore, the big record store on the corner of Oxford St and Tottenham Court Road, I spent a lot of time in there throughout my teens and early twenties, now of course a distant memory. The British Museum is just a short walk from here, I would go there a lot. The Hellfire Club, later ‘Metros’, and other night-time places we’d go like the Astoria, LA2, Plastic People, Borderline, Marquee, all those were right here, all gawn now. I worked at a chocolate shop (Thorntons) just a little way down Oxford Street, back in 1996. All the music instrument shops at Denmark Street and down Charing Cross Road, some of which are gone, some still remain, all right here. Charing Cross Road itself, I loved all the bookstores down there but I loved Foyles the most. There is still a Foyles and it’s still big, but it’s not in the same place, it’s a little further down, and very clean and well organized. The Foyles I remember was massive but everything was crammed in, literally, and the upstairs was a labyrinthine jumble, and I’d go there looking through all the books on language and travel, I loved it. Now I pop into the current Foyles to see if they have any of my books (they didn’t). And then there’s the tube station, which before was a claustrophobic little station with secret passages and loads of different exits, which was always fun when saying “meet me outside the entrance to Tottenham Court Road”, a rookie mistake. Now, with the Elizabeth Line which brought so much architectural change to this corner of London, the newer version of the station is much bigger, modern, with spacious exits including a large one outside Center Point, which is where I stood to draw the sketch above. I looked north-west to the rooftops that haven’t changed at all, with the interesting blue and cloudy London sky above it. At ground level, a pub called The Flying Horse, which was called The Tottenham when I was younger, often called the only pub on Oxford Street (which is true, other pubs are just off it). There’s a shop next door called BasicMart now, which wasn’t there before and is quite handy to grab a chocolate bar and a fizzy drink when peckish, and seems to be open all hours, as I discovered when coming home late one Saturday evening (on the ‘Night Tube’! You can now get a tube in the wee hours right back up to Burnt Oak from here, a zipping 30 minute trip rather than wait for the packed, slow and usually awful Night Bus). Along those rooftops, I always liked that little golden dome. All the bits in between, all the windows and details, I was going to draw but decided not to spend the time doing so, it looked better in that unfinished state, let the mind fill in the gaps, I drew the bit I wanted to. Time to get moving. I wasn’t going far, just spending the day walking about an area I love. It was a day off, I wasn’t planning to do any remote work that evening (the time difference with California means I did a bit of evening work on this trip, a few meetings and such). So I headed down to Denmark Street, and spent a lot of time playing guitars.

Around the corner from Denmark Street is New Oxford Street (it runs up to Oxford Street and drops the ‘New’ bit when it reaches that junction with Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road) (we have to say the whole names of streets in London, it’s not like San Francisco where you’d just say “Market” or “Columbus”, though we do have a lot of one-name streets in London such as “Piccadilly”, “Lothbury” or “Strand” (not “The” Strand, though we are allowed to add a “The”) (imagine saying “The Piccadilly” though! You’d be laughed all the way to the M25, which by the way is just called “M25” but we say “The M25” or “That bloody M25”). The thing I wanted to drawn on New Oxford Street is James Smith & Sons, a famed and historic umbrella shop, established in 1830. It’s one of those old London gems that will hopefully always be here. I mean, it’s never going to stop raining, is it? Maybe with global warming and dryer summers, but come on this is Britain. Sure, many Londoners will always be like, I don’t need an umbrella, and that’s how I was when I lived there. Umbrellas were more trouble than they were worth, once you got on the tube or bus and folded them up, they would just be dripping everywhere, so I rarely carried one, but I must admit umbrellas are useful. Plus it’s what we British people look like in films isn’t it, an umbrella and a bowler hat. I’ve always wanted to draw the interior, after seeing a great drawing by Karen Neale in her book, London in Landscape. I love those books she produced of London sketches in two-page spreads, especially as I’ve done quite a few myself over the years, it gave me some inspiration to keep that up. Anyway, I stood across the street and leaned on one of those electric boxes you get, perfect leaning height, and drew as much as I could. I had to stop though because my X-Ray vision didn’t extend through double-decker buses. So much traffic on this stretch, so many buses stopped in front of me, I could only draw about half of this, if that, before giving up and going somewhere else. So I drew in the rest later. The people were drawn pretty early on, and that woman passing by did have a red poncho, and that person at the lights was wearing a little red scarf, so I was like right, matching those into the big red ‘umbrellas’ sign. I should have drawn a red bus in the way too.

I cut down an alley and reappeared in Charing Cross Road, opposite Foyles. I walked down to where Macari’s Musical Instruments used to be, until it closed a few years ago. I loved that shop, it’s where I bought my current acoustic guitar, back in the tail end of 1996 while I was on my break at Thorntons. I had been wanting an acoustic for years, only having my old electric, and I saw this one, a Hohner, which was not very expensive but had a lovely dark matte wood colour and a lovely dark matte wood tone, and I knew this was the one. It still is the one, I brought it out to America a couple of years after moving here, back when it was a bit easier to just bring your big guitar into the main cabin of the plane. Well Macari’s is gone. I wanted to draw the green stripy building across the street, the one above the Harmony adult store. I might have sketched it before but I don’t remember, though another artist I follow, Liam Farrell, did an amazing oil painting of it a few years back, and then another one in watercolour. I have drawn the pub opposite, on the corner of Old Compton Street (a street by the way which it is perfectly acceptable to just call “Old Compton”, I guess, without people laughing you to the M25). Last time I drew it though it was still called Molly Moggs.

Further down Charing Cross Road, towards Leicester Square tube station, are the few remaining old bookstores. I first went into Fopp, a store that sells these old things called ‘CDs’ and ‘DVDs’ which people used to use before everything became instantaneously available to us at all times with no surprises. I was amazed to see it still there, it was a thing that rose up from the days when the Virgin Megastores all fell. I also popped into the Orc’s Nest, a little games shop that has been there for many years, and with the popularity of modern board games I was glad to see doing well. I remember buying a little metal minifigure here of ‘Death’, the character form the Terry Pratchett books, back when I was about 18. They didn’t have any this time. So I walked down to see if the old bookshops were still there, and there they are, the token bookshops, probably allowed to remain in existence so Charing Cross Road, historically London’s old bookshop street, could still pretend to be so. Most of the other shops here are basically the 21st century writ large, so these old shops stand out. I didn’t go into any as I didn’t need any old books for anything, but I did remember coming here with my friend Tel (mentioned in previous posts), we were about 17 maybe, and out exploring London, going to the National Gallery and Chinatown. I was into buying second hand books then, I would read a lot, but he decided that he wanted to buy a bunch of books cheap to put on his shelf “so that girls would think he read a lot”. (I never let him forget that! But hey, when we are teenagers that’s what it’s all about, see also me playing the guitar). So he bought about 20 or 30 books, can’t have spent more than about a tenner tops, and I had to help him carry them in flimsy carrier bags all around central London. None of the books were ones he would ever actually read, mostly cheap fantasy or sci-fi, but we lugged them all back up on the Northern Line to his old bedroom. It’s funny, eventually he became a buyer and seller of books, many of them rare and valuable that he would find in old stores or in auctions or online, and I think back to that afternoon carrying around all those cheap books, that’s probably where that started. Anyway back to 2023. I decided to draw this one shop, Any Amount Of Books, while traffic slowly ambled past blocking my view. At one point, a huge white van did stop in front of the shop for an extended period, at which point I just abandoned it and went off to Covent Garden, finishing the rest of the details, the brickwork and all that hatching, while eating some dinner. I still had a fair bit of sketching left to do that day which I’ll put in another post, but this was my walk down Memory Lane (actually it’s called Old Memory Road, you’d better get it right).

little shop on deansbrook road

June 15, 2023June 15, 2023Leave a comment

This is a little newsagents on Deansbrook Road, Edgware (at the edge of Burnt Oak), near the side exit to the hospital where I was born. It’s not on a row of shops and nowhere near the parade of shops on the other end of Deansbrook, it’s surprising that it is still there. I used to pop into this shop on the way home from school, walking home with my friend Terry we would pop in here for a Mars bar or a Panda Cola, which was a generic tasting fizzy drink in a small bottle with a panda on it, that would only be about 15p (there were other ‘Panda Pops’ drinks such as orangeade or limeade, we would get hose from the school canteen at lunchtime). It’s near the corner of Fairfield Avenue. You walk up there from Deansbrook to get to the alley that leads into Edgware. Well, actually we would cut down an alley further up Deansbrook into Fairfield Crescent, before cutting into the alley to Edgware, so missing this shop entirely, but on the way home we would go this way to get a Panda Cola from this little shop. Panda Cola was all I could afford. If you came out with a Coca Cola or a Pepsi, people would look at you going, ooh look at flash bollocks there, off to his mansion.

Those alleys I mentioned a minute ago, they are still the shortest route walking from Burnt Oak to Edgware, and have been since my Mum was a girl. Despite having walked them a million times, I’m always wary. It had a dodgy reputation in the old days, you never knew who was hanging out there, and with so many dodgy people around these days (as everyone always tells me), you have to keep your eyes open. For me though I always think of one thing, a little dog called Rocky. When we were schoolkids, me and Terry would walk down the little alley, and if we were lucky, it would be empty, and we would pass through on our journey. It’s like playing an adventure game, roll a dice to test your luck. If we were unlucky, a little dog who lived in the adjoining house and whose name was Rocky (we learned from the dog’s neighbours, who went to our school) would be there at the end of the alley, he would see us and immediately give chase, forcing us up the badly-kept steps and out onto the busy Deansbrook traffic. Rocky was unrelenting. Rocky would not simply “let you pass by”. Rocky is long dead by now, but I bet his ghost haunts that alley. Terry and I still talk about him (if “do you remember Rocky” “the dog or the film” “the dog” “yeah” counts as talking about him).

50p down the market

June 13, 2023June 12, 20232 Comments

Saturday morning, London, I didn’t have any concrete plans for the day but was meeting old friends in the evening. I had the whole day to explore and sketch, but wasn’t completely sure where I’d go yet. I had a list of places I wanted to sketch on this trip, places in London that I had not been to in a very long time. I decided to head for Notting Hill Gate, and walk down to Portobello Road Market. I honestly cannot remember the last time I went there, maybe once when my wife first moved to England 21 years ago? I know I went there with my mate Terry once in about 2001. In the mid-90s I used to come to Notting Hill a lot as I had a friend who lived here, though even then I didn’t really go to the Market very often, usually because it was always so busy, and I didn’t really like crowds. Also I worked on Saturdays, didn’t I, back then? Memory fades. Still it had been a really long time since I was even last in Notting Hill, so it was an interesting experience to be back, and there is lots to sketch. First of all, the Central Line was jam packed, and everyone was getting out at Notting Hill Gate tube. Portobello Market is a really popular tourist destination, and it seemed like most of the voices I heard were Italian or American. After a little wandering about I walked down to the Market, past all the little vintage clothes stores and antique stalls and colourful shopfronts. I ate an early lunch at a place that does eggs called ‘Eggslut’ and paid like thirteen quid for a salmon and egg sandwich. Thirteen quid. Prices in England are through the roof right now. When I was a kid, my friend Terry used to help out his Grandad at Portobello Market on Saturdays, his grandad Charlie Bonello (who was Maltese and a great laugh, he used to tell us silly jokes) had a market stall down here, and there was one phrase he would always say whenever Terry would buy something his grandad thought was overpriced, he’d say “50p down the market!” So that became out catchphrase (one of them) for years since. I thought of him when I was paying thirteen quid for a salmon and egg sandwich, I could hear him telling me “Thirteen quid?! 50p down the market!” Except this was that same market. Times have changed since the late 80s, I guess.

I found a spot next to a big fruit and veg stall, overlooking the crossroads with Colville Terrace and Elgin Crescent, next to this trendy looking tea shop, and stood for a long while drawing the scene as it snaked towards me. There were a lot of people around, so I drew passers-by in that usual way, not really drawing anyone in particular but mixing and matching bits of different people as they went by. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is entirely coincidental, although someone did pass by with that exact mohawk and beard combination, so he had to go in the book (he probably wasn’t wearing a massive white shirt but I was tired and lazy with my observations. First drawing of the day, and I was tired already? Well I’d been out late the night before, but I was standing here for quite a while and my legs were hurting. My legs hurt even looking at this drawing. I didn’t want to sit, you need a better view. I coloured most of it in later (except for a few parts I’d started), but there was a lot of ink drawing to do on site, and that Fabriano watercolour sketchbook really makes your pen work on that paper. I had ‘pre-prepared’ the paper a little bit this time, adding a thin wash of paint over the pages the day before, and that helped the pen move a little bit faster but still not as smooth as in the Moleskine. Still I love to sketch a market, and now I’ve finally sketched Portobello. If you want a print of this, well it will be more than 50p down the market, I need to offset the cost of that sandwich somehow…

At the entrance of Portobello Road itself, where it curves into Pembridge Road, there’s this big yellow pub called the Sun in Splendour. I’ve never been in there actually, and didn’t on this day either, but I wanted to draw this colourful corner so I stood over by the e-bike stand on the other side of the road. The first thing I drew was the pile of orange rubbish bags on the pavement. They were soon taken by the garbage trucks. Why keep those in you ask? Well I have my reasons. Look at all the people making their way to or from Portobello Market, I didn’t colour those in as I went along, and you can see there are four people in red, almost entirely evenly spaced out, which is weird. Anyway one thing I wanted to do was try out my gold gel pen for the pub name. I did this a few times in sketches on this trip, and sometimes it didn’t really stand out as much, but in this case it did. I had to remember not to spell ‘Splendour’ in the American way. It did remind me of the sugar substitute they use in the US.

Around here, I saw a lot of references to the 1999 film Notting Hill, the one with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts which should be considered very cheesy and a bit naff, but in fact I love that film, I’m a fan of lots of the people in it, and sure it’s definitely cheese, but who cares. I remember one night at university when I was doing drama, I wasn’t feeling that well and had worked late on drama projects, I forget exactly what we were working on, but it went on really late and I was pretty exhausted. In those days I had a very long tube journey home back from Mile End to Burnt Oak, and was not massively looking forward to it. Sometimes I would stop halfway and get out at Camden Town, and go and see a film at the Odeon on Parkway before heading back to bed. On this one night I didn’t even get to Camden, I popped into a cinema in Stepney Green (which is probably long gone) and watched Notting Hill, and I have to say it totally cheered me up. Sure that silly Elvis Costello rendition of “She” was crooning all over the place, but the soundtrack was pretty great, and I dunno, it just put me in a good mood, and I was ready and up for things again the next day. Doing a drama degree was pretty exhausting, London was pretty exhausting. In fact I went back to Mile End on this trip, visited my old university, did some sketching; more on that in a later post.

Further up Pembridge Road, the little shops lining the street up towards Notting Hill Gate are colourful and worth sketching. That fish and chip shop across the street was busy, next to a vintage clothes shop. There have always been those little shops around here. I’m not really into old clothes or fashion, with the obvious exception of football shirts, of which I’m a football fashion afficionado. I did notice that many of the people in the street were wearing light puffer jackets, it wasn’t cold but it wasn’t that warm either. I stood against an iron railing and drew them, while people sat on steps next to me eating their lunch and smoking. There seem to be a lot more smokers about, and loads more of those bloody vapers, with their little plastic vapes and huge clouds of sticky sickly vapor. At least with smokers you can see the puff of smoke coming when walking behind them, with vapers it just appears as you’re walking by and fogs up the narrow sidewalk, gross. Definitely worse than it was a few years ago. Anyway I moved down a little bit towards cleaner air and sat on some steps to add some paint. As I did, someone came up and said “this is going to be an odd question but can I film you while you draw? Just for a few seconds.” I was like, sure why not. At least you asked, which is nice, I wouldn’t really have cared. Then about five minutes later, I swear, a girl came up and said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?” I said, to her surprise, “You want to film me sketching?” “Yes!” she said, “Is that ok?” She did have her phone in her hand as if ready to shoot so it was a good guess, but I said “Sure no problem, it’s just funny ‘cos you’re the second person in five minutes to ask me!” I suppose people like to see people sketching the world. I love being a tourist.

The last thing I drew that day was an old pub I have been in before, the Prince Albert, but not since about 1997 or 1998 I think. It’s changed a lot since then, but it’s still there round the corner from Notting Hill Gate tube station. It’s pretty swanky inside with its fancy food; I popped in to use the toilet after sketching outside for a while, my legs getting very tired by this point, and ended up staying in for a pint and to add some of the colour. That red car outside, it was stopped in traffic for a little bit and I drew it very quickly, probably not very accurately but it seemed appropriate for the area. Yeah I got a pint, it was £7.10, and not that nice (I didn’t even finish it). “£7.10” I said, “50p down the Market”. Turns out £7.10 is a pretty average price for a pint in London these days, it’s gone up a lot since even last year. Everything has, food, transport, energy. It’s a good job the Buck is still strong against the Quid. There was a big screen on in the pub playing one of the play-off games, I think it was one with Notts County playing Chesterfield at Wembley for a chance to return to the Football League (wait, neither Notts County nor Chesterfield were in the Football League? I didn’t realize). I didn’t stay for the whole thing but there was a group of Aussies (in a London pub, you are never very far from a group of Aussies) watching the game and discussing their careers in the music industry, from what I could gather, I wasn’t really listening, could have been Jason Donovan for all I know. It was nice to get off my feet for a bit though. I love wandering and sketching, but you need to stop and rest. After this, I wandered Notting Hill for a bit more, walking down to the Churchill arms on Kensington Church Street, which was a pub I used to really enjoy evenings out in years ago, and is on my bucket list to draw, but I didn’t have time to sketch on this occasion. I took a quick snap (for a from-photo pub-drawing to be done later) and headed to Leicester Square where I’d be meeting up with some very old friends for an evening of dinner and drinks and laughs. It was fun to wander around this old haunt for a bit though.

norwich walk again

June 11, 2023Leave a comment

Back in the Walk. I flew back to London for a little bit, one of my oldest friends is getting married in Ireland this month (he lives in Dublin), and so he had a stag party (that’s a bachelor party to my American audience) in London a month before, which is just about enough recovery time for us forty-somethings, and so I flew out to London to take part in that. My Mum was going to Spain during the same time though, so I went a little bit earlier to spend some time with her, which meant I got a week or so in London to (a) work from home in the evenings and (b) see friends and family and (c) do lots of London sketching. So I did lots of London sketching, and as always I start at home, looking out of my old bedroom window in Norwich Walk, Burnt Oak, which is up the northern end of the Northern Line at the edge of the north part of London. Zone 4, so not that far out. Takes about 30 minutes to get to Tottenham Court Road on the tube. I always wake up early on those first few days, though after a long journey I did arrive in Burnt Oak quite late in the evening. On this particular day I did an early morning sketch as the daylight was rising in the east above Watling Park. I showed it the old fellow who lives across the street in that house. I’ve drawn this view across the street since I was a kid.

Here are a couple of drawings I did for my art homework looking across the street in the evening in (checks dates) November 1988. That was a very long time ago.

I’m not going to show all my drawings of this street but here’s another one from more recently, 2014. You will notice that in between 1988 and 2023 there was at one point one of those pointy trees growing in front of the house across the street, and another which looks like a bush standing on a pole, which have both gone now.