A police car and a screaming siren
Pneumatic drill and ripped-up concrete
- The Jam: That’s Entertainment, 1981
Better stop dreaming of the quiet life
‘Cos it’s the one we’ll never know
- The Jam: A Town Called Malice, 1982
Gritty urban realism. Recession.
That’s how it was then, and this is how it sounded. The Jam captured the mood of Britain at the start of the eighties. The loss of hope and the mindlessly brutal banality of an existence with no glimpse of economic rescue or absolution. (more…)
Summer drifts across these hills. And on warm June days, this is where you’ll find me, the lazy afternoon lagging heavily at my heels all along this steady climb to reach the Downs.
I leave the grey town streets along the old familiar path and follow its narrow cut between the houses. Up ahead, across the road, the first field opens up beside me, but there’s still some work to do. (more…)
The rain is falling softly beneath a grey and weeping sky.
Dull, wet, oppressive sinks the afternoon, through a rising restlessness I can’t define. Puddles beneath my feet. Familiar streets chiding my every turn.
Northeastwards from here in Epsom, the city stretches wide. Twenty miles to London Bridge, and as many reaching out beyond. The megalopolis, looming heavy in the rain. (more…)
Rain. River. November. On the long-awaited day that Paris came closer to London.
As I step on to the platform under a damp grey sky, there’s a farewell party in full swing around the station.
After thirteen years, the last Eurostar will depart here in a few hours’ time. And in the morning, when the first train arrives at a gleaming new St Pancras across the Thames, Paris will be just two hours and fifteen rail minutes from London.
‘Fog in the Channel – Continent Isolated’. So read the famous newspaper headline of yore. Not any more. This rapprochement is almost complete. (more…)
The streets of London deserted … except for a million people lining the roads.
A Brit leading the Tour de France halfway through Kent, and pulling on the King of the Mountains jersey, later that same evening.
The best weather of the summer.
The Tour de France - in London, for the first time ever.
Truly, the weekend of a lifetime. And we were there, too.
On Saturday afternoon, we wandered happily from Green Park to the Serpentine, watching the cyclists flash by. The speed of the racers was simply unbelievable - Hyde Park Corner hasn’t seen traffic moving so quickly for many a long year. (more…)
In southern England, as in much of Europe, straight lines most often record the course of a Roman road.
2,000 years later, Roman roads form an important part of our transport network, even today. Their arrow-straight trajectories define the traces of many of the modern roads which radiate out of London.
Even in this wildest and most remote colony of the Roman world (and perhaps especially here), the Roman legions had to travel. Trade needed to flow. The effective linking of the farthest outposts of Empire was necessary not just for military protection, but also fundamental to the process of Romanisation.
The traveller passing from Dover to London along the A2 and continuing northwestwards on the A5 from Marble Arch to St Alban’s is following Watling Street, all the way. (more…)
The oldest regularly-held sporting event in the world reached its 153rd edition in London last Saturday, and I was lucky enough to watch the coverage along with millions all around the globe.
The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, from Putney to Mortlake.
Rowing - it’s a sport I know so little, which taught me so much of what I know.
Now I could tell you that sport is all about fitness. I could tell you that it’s about improvement, and dedication and companionship. I could relate the heightened mental acuity felt by the long distance runner, show you the slow-motion symmetry of a perfect iron shot towards the flag on a silent summer’s evening, or try to describe the sound of a mountainside half-shrouded in cloud.
Sport might really be about all of those things. But I know that’s not true.
It was rowing which taught me that lesson. It was the summer I spent doing this. The summer when I learnt that sport is all about fear.
A police car and a screaming siren
