The first X-rated film I saw was The Long Good Friday. It was 1981, I was nineteen, and a little apprehensive about the promised violence that only someone of the age I had now attained was permitted to see. The opening scenes of the film were confusing. Money was being changed hands, clearly illicitly. TheRead More
How intriguing to find a temple to Mithras resting underneath a temple to Mammon. Having visited the Guildhall amphitheatre and the nearby remains of Roman walls the other day, I have got the taste for seeking out Roman London. And so to the Bloomberg building in Walbrook (once a river, now a road) in theRead More
At last I have been to Wreay. It has been a long ambition, but time, distance and transport have each played their part in making me put off the pilgrimage to another day. Last week, that day eventually came. It was a damp, overcast late autumn day, and I was staying in Carlisle. Wreay isRead More
For my talent is to give an impression upon words by punching, that when the reader casts his eye upon ’em, he takes up the image from the mould which I have made. Christopher Smart One of my favourite Kent walks is through the Fairlawne estate; those parts of it that are public, that is.Read More