Tag: Dirt

  • Howies: Tales of the City

    by

    OK, so Howies opened a store in Carnaby Street – their first in London. Which is great. I hope they do well. But I have to admit their attitude to the city – and to London in particular – has been mostly negative. Indeed, their catalogues in the past have regularly been virtual tracts for…

  • Dump

    by

    Still on holiday here, and doing some clearing jobs around the house/garden that have been building up for a while. Which means I’ve had to go to the dump today – one of the finest, most joyous experiences in the urban environment. You go heavy loaded, driving slowly, suspension almost topping out… and leave it…

  • Has Old Father Thames Lost His Virility? | Sacred Rivers

    by

    Last night I went to hear Peter Ackroyd speak on the South Bank (pictured here), ostensibly about his new book: Thames, Sacred River. It was a fine lecture on the thread of the sacred throughout the history of humanity’s interaction with London’s river, followed by a hilarious Q&A led by the Times’ Literary Editor, who…

  • Hidden Trees and Weeds | The Interstitial Jesus

    by

    I have been reading, sitting quietly with, meditating on Richard Deakin’s wonderful book, Wildwood – A Journey Through Trees. Having previous written of his swims around England, this book is simply a series of reflections on the transformative power of this ‘fifth element’. Much of it is taken with stories of sleeping out in the…

  • The Human Dress | Signs Launch

    Thanks to everyone who helped out to give Signs a fantastic launch last night. It was great to phrase it as a time of worship; the guys from the Bridge imagined different sections in terms of doing laundry. Out of that I wrote this piece, meditating on ‘the human dress’, beginning with a quote from…

  • The Dead Console the Living?

    I am reading through a manuscript for a friend which is partly a memoir of his growing up during ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland. As I’ve been doing so, I was reminded of a quote by the Irish journalist Jack Holland, who wrote that “the tragedy of Northern Ireland is that it is now a…