Posts under ‘summer fun’

Last night my friend Viv Schwarz had a launch party with Alexis Deacon to celebrate their new children's book A Place To Call Home. They had the party….

hard core blue skies waiting and watching There wasn't much fun being had in the Fun House and the ghost train monsters were so hungry they started to eat the train cars Some nice found type and some stars and stripes and something else

I always find fairgrounds to be full of joy and yet somehow a bit depressing. I think that strange dichotomy is probably why I like them. Well, that and the wealth of visual delights in the form of hand-painted lettering, bad portraiture, oddly dated pop culture references, and people-watching. Yesterday was a bank holiday, and [...]

A couple of weeks ago I visited L. Rodi (aka Cafe Rodi) in Blackhorse Lane, a place I'd wanted to visit for ages. It's a great place, full of character, and full of characters. While we were queuing up the entire cafe was being regaled by a jolly woman about her very busy life, and [...]

(despite whatever Dan Germain said about sunsets last year) Photos taken at the Thames Festival a couple of weekends ago.

Sometimes it's too easy to forget just how much there is to discover or revisit in London. Last week I went to a preview of a great exhibition of Hypercomics, which has filled Battersea Park's Pump House Gallery with magical mystery and multi-directional narrative.

Even though I didn't get to Brighton last week, I did go to Bognor Regis on Saturday. It's not the most exciting place in the world to visit, and there was probably a lot more going on down the coast in Brighton, where Pride was taking place, but Bognor has its charm, and its interesting corners, and it's not a bad place to spend a day mooching around.

Last weeek I was supposed to go to Brighton for the day. I'd planned to attend a sewer tour with the Brighton Flickr group, and hoped to see the Charley Harper exhibition and had booked an advance train ticket to save money (less than a tenner instead of over twenty quid). Unfortunately, due to the [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Mayfield Lavender Farm in Banstead. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this part of England was the centre of the world's lavender production, before urbanisation and cheap French imports did for it, so it's nice to have some back again in the same area. The farm has [...]

One good thing about the Shabby Seaside Appreciation Society us that it gives me a good excuse to finally get around to visiting loads of places I've been meaning to see for ages. A couple of weekends ago, I jumped on a train to Southend on a gloriously sunny day and had a lovely time. [...]