where other broken people go

January 8, 2009Leave a comment

Still not finished with these sketches from London! A few weeks ago, I went out early on the Saturday morning before Christmas with my nephew anthony for a sketchcrawl around the narrow and interesting streets of Soho. It was perfect sketching weather, not too cold; did I mention that it never rained the entire time I was back in London? The entire time? In December?

It’s true. Back when I visited in Summer, it rained on every single day. I was actually preparing for rain-soaked sketching. “On a rainy night in Soho,” that might have been the title. It wasn’t even cold. So we began in Soho Square, and I did the picture above. Weekend before Christmas, steps away from the busiest shopping street in Britain, and it was calm, not busy. I grew to love Soho years ago, I learnt all its alleys and short cuts, appreciated all its quirks. In the mid-nineties, the post-club 4am stop was Bar Italia, on Frith Street (it was Italians who brought me there), the only time I ever drank a cappucinno (I am not a coffee drinker), and it hasn’t changed. Pulp sang a song about it once. There it is below, sketched as we sat in Caffe Nero (I always thought it said Caffe Nerd) opposite having soup (I know, I should have gone to Bar Italia rather than a chain cafe, but I wanted to draw the cool place; besides, going there in daylight hours without the echo of heavy music still ringing in my ears just seemed kinda wrong).

That clock is wrong by the way. And John Logie Baird used to live there. He probably couldn’t hear the telly for all the noise outside.

Part 2 to come…

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.

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…

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.

thousands of colours all fade into one

December 2, 2008December 2, 20083 Comments

The Belfry on A street (the street of the indefinite article). The colours of a blooming autumn (or whatever other expletive you wish to use). We are now foggy and grey so these enormous splashes of colour make a world of difference. I have drawn this building before of course, back in March, when the leaves that are now in the autumn or even winter of their lives were barely even buds. And look, I have drawn vehicles; I daresay there were probably vehicles parked here in the original, but I peteshopped them out. At least you can see the building in the original though.

I don’t know if there are any bats in this belfry. I remember when I first moved to Davis, and I read online about the bats of Yolo county, and how rabies was endemic in them. Yeah, that didn’t completely scare me. Funny things, bats. Their leathery wings always, for some reason, remind me of Lovejoy.

back in black

November 29, 20083 Comments

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! Except if you’re in the UK, in which case ‘Happy Last Thursday’. Or Canada, in which case ‘Belated Happy Thanksgiving’. Or everywhere else. Anyway, it’s the most turkey-ful time of the year, and why not. I love thanksgiving, for the food. The autumnal colours are always nice as well.

But the next day is Black Friday. Black, because of the mood after spending hours locked into the consumerist nightmare that is big box america, home of the all-you-can-spend strip-mall. Black Friday sounds rather like a good pirate’s name, “yarrr, Captain Black Friday, shiver me timbers.” In a way though, Black Friday is the captain, that is supposed to steer the ship of the economy back on course (but you wouldn’t trust ‘im, an’ he’s only got one leg, etc etc). Not for me the 4:30 lining up in the freezing darkness outside Best Buy – I did that two years ago as an experiment, and have no need to do so again. I popped down to the action zone later on in the day though, to see for myself the economy rumbling back into gear, and spent hours stuck there in the maelstrom (or the toy department of Target at least), coming away with not a clue and no bargains at all. I did stop to draw Best Buy though. Looks very peaceful, doesn’t it.

Speaking of autumnal colours, the day before Thanksgiving we actually had some rain in Davis. Weather.com said there was a Severe Weather Warning for the Sacramento Valley. Severe weather. Shit. I looked, and they said there would be Some Rain, 30-40% chance. Some rain. Well, I braved the severe weather and got a tiny bit damp, 30 or 40% damp on my jacket at least, dodging brown leaves as they fluttered gently to the puddle-spotted pavement, and drew the picture below. Severe weather, seriously.

By the way, I posted both of these drawings on Urban Sketchers this week. Good reminder for you to go and check that site out; it’s nearly a month old, with hundreds of urban drawings already.

hanging on the telephone

November 27, 2008November 26, 20082 Comments

No, this isn’t the magical forest where things from London just pop up between the trees, it’s the MU bus terminal at UC Davis, which has magpied a few British things to make them feel more like Londoners. Also at this terminal – it’s the only place in California where it rains, there are gangs of tabloid hoodies waiting to scowl at you from a distance, and there’s bloody Boris Johnson with his pointless competition for pointless new routemasters. Authentic. Actually no, you can keep those things, we’ll just take the phonebox, the lamp-post and the bus. Cheers.

Hanging on the Telephone… do you remember when Saddam was executed, and there were those guys filming it on their mobiles? I wonder if that song was running through their minds for a soundtrack?

On that note… Happy Thanksgiving!