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“If there were water…
If there were only water amongst the rock…
If there were the sound of water only
TS Eliot, The Wasteland
The Walbrook River was one of the largest and most important rivers in London. A Roman river, the Walbrook takes us back to ancient London, when south of the river was a group of islands, and much of what we now understand as this city was more marsh than land.
The Walbrook has been lost for over 5 centuries. With the help of a dowser, artist Amy Sharrocks has re-mapped this river, and is attempting to reclaim this great body of water with a huge public walk along its course.”

Amy Sharrocks has re-mapped the ancient buried Walbrook River from its source in Islington its mouth at the River Thames. Participents are asked to wear blue and be llosely tied at the waist, the idea being that this will be a process of re remembering the boy of water using a body of blue people!!!

A lovely Idea, I really hope they get a good turn out…

Details:
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Wherever you go in London, even in the poshest, trendiest, most-upcomingest areas, you will find little secret corners of urban decay and neglect.

Maybe they are in use, but not tarted up. Maybe they are areas that are subject to dispute between contending landowners. Maybe they are owned by someone who doesn’t give a shit. No matter. They are interesting.

I like to think of them as London’s subconscious. London Dreaming. Maybe a taste of what London would be if we all move out to The Country, or turn to zombies and eat each other, or fly to Mars.

Here, with the (in)famous Clissold Leisure Centre in the background (cost: at least £32,000,000!!!!), a lovely bit of crumbling concrete, rampant creeper and weeds.

Looks like no one has been there years. Yet it’s actuallly on super-trendy Stoke Newington Church St.

So, I go see a film (Burn After Reading – pretty good), and I walk out of the cinema thinking about the end of another Coen Brothers film, Fargo, with all that snow, and I hear people going “Oooh – look”, and what do you know – it’s snowing like hell! Totally unexpected. I love that.

I spotted this attempt by a local resident to make the world a better place, by replacing the dogshit and fag packets around the base of some road signs with pretty plants. Applause!

More coolness here, on the Guerilla Gardening Homepage

A storm over the Thames this evening proved once again who runs the lighting around here. Once the rain let up after supper, this full-arc (sometimes double) rainbow sprang from (according to where we stood, anyway) the Tower over the HMS Belfast and Tower Bridge to bury itself behind City Hall. (click any of the images to enhugify).

More after the jump … (more…)

North side post rain – click for the bigger picture!

Doing some location scouting for a gig with Spencer up near Muswell Hill. Is this really London?

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We have entered that springtime phenomenon known (by me) as crazy fucked-up bug mania in London time. It’s when there seem to suddenly be a million bugs everywhere. Each new year, a new range of bugs going procreation mental.

It’s a great thing we can all bond over. “What is with all the frickin’ wasps this year, man?” “No kidding! It’s like killer wasp attack central!”

This year it seems to be moths and some medium-sized flightless black beetle that I’ve never seen before. I’ve literally never experienced moth damage, and now they are eating my shiznit. And the beetles are, for some unknown reason, obsessed with my bathroom and will break in by any means necessary. (I swear my house is clean.)

Usually I am all Ghandi about bugs and gently relocate them, but this time of year it wears me down and I start killing them in some fruitless attempt at persuasion. “For every one of you that comes into my bathroom, I will kill ten beetles in your village!”

Photo courtesy wurzeltod via Flickr