I Dig it...

Bank holidays don't suit all and probably best to avoid the events which lead to traffic jams and crowds (or is that just me?)

Gordon Cookson on the left

Gordon provided the sign up above

A not so busy Kent Pub (actually an Ealing Pub called The Kent)

So far been quite nice weather wise for last few days - have been digging and tidying  on the allotment as well as visiting John Kaye 'Pavilion Gallery' (and The Kent pub which I've been to on and off for last 35 or so years).

less weeds (but roots remain)

Local Cafe moves to longer hours

Now serving Italian menu 

Do you remember when there used to be such things as a 'local Offie' (off Licence)?

I suppose the all powerful UK supermarket 'Behemoth'  has knocked this type of place on the head- and less and less variety will be seen in our local 'parades'.


Well Stowell's Corner on Argyle Road was such an establishment for many years.



For the last 4 or so years it's been a cafe/Takeaway  (Cafe Onik) and start of 2018 it was closed for a few months but now it's more of a restaurant and (having asked) I've found it's licensed.

{Onik is basque for 'Good}


Probably try it soon ...

And the opening times

Some of the dishes 

and London's SouthBank in the Sun

What could be more Yellow?

Well a side effect of looking at Photographs on Thursday was taking some more snaps myself and looking at these (and some other) photographs I see that I'm getting quite a number of pictures that have a Yellow thread (whereas I did Red a few years back).


I'm looking at the photo's I took and even when I hadn't noticed there are Yellows there - like the boat.



(oh yes this wasn't my camera)

How lucky we are with today's cameras

The Thames as a beach and the Yellow Boat.

And I saw this couple engaged (in conversation) earnestly but comfortably

The shoes and the rucksack

And a block of yellow stairs

It got louder in 1951 after the war

And more yellow here too

Hayward Signs

A revisit to the construction site

And a Small Yellow Car

Near the end of my walk I saw Skylark Gallery where  Viv Phelan is currently the featured artist, I'll be joining  Viv as part of her group at local art trail BEAT this September.

Skylark Gallery - well done Viv

The end of City TV in the UK

well one of Jeremy Hunt's big ideas when he first arrived in Government at Cabinet level was City/Local TV (or a derivative of it) - its' day didn't/hasn't really come (if it can't work in London I'd say it wasn't a starter) - The problem he's having at NHS with the latest foul up in Breast Cancer screening seems far worse - really odd that Tories didn't do even worse in Local Elections (they did badly but all parties did- low turnouts all round).

Shape of Light

Having got wet on Wednesday weather in London was quite different on Thursday.

Photography partially permitted  

Decided to make a visit to the Tate Modern's exhibition I'd heard trailed on BBC Radio 4's Front Row - 'Shape of Light'.


The exhibition used various Abstract artworks as starting points to look at some photographic 'take-ons' of Abstract art - to me though (perhaps because of the use of colour) the Art works by the likes of Piet Mondrian, George Braque, Jason Pollock and Kandinsky were, for me leagues away (and ahead) of the photographs.

The exhibition did though show how Artists have evolved and  become more open to using photography.

In fact visitors were only permitted the chance to take their own pictures in the last part of the exhibition but I'm not sure that this is a bad thing.

Plenty of Photograms (or Many Rays' versions, Rayograph).

From the final room - The idea behind Stan Douglas's 'deconstruction' of the jpeg process is an interesting one

A couple of Stans 

Inversion 2015

The Japanese artist Daisuke Yokota's Inversion 2015 to me  pretty much epitomises a certain type of minimalism - but is nonetheless  rather pleasing .


What I missed until the last room was photography really getting involved in 'Colour' and I'm rather nonplussed by this - I like Colour.


So here is the Colour there... (a Rock is a River) by Swiss artist Maya Rochat .

I engaged with this more - A Rock is a River by Maya Rochat 

London Villages Week 1 (in the wrong sequence)

Oddly I seem to have somehow lost my post about the first week (Islington) - so here I'll try to recreate it..

it was a hot day ..

Islington Green War Memorial 

Then onto the War Memorial, the memorial was completed in 2007, the design was from the artist John Maine his idea was a  twisted stone ring, like a wreath and  was accepted by a memorial commission,

 The stone for the new memorial was sourced from Fujian province in eastern China, and the 8 tonnes (8.8 tons) ring was carved in China before being shipped to England. An inscription on a nearby slab repeats the words from the original memorial, "In Memory of the Fallen".

The Plaque until 1958

There are  slabs bear the words "Land", "Sea", "Air" and "Home". The project cost £490,000, of which the stone for the memorial, and the apron and walls, cost approximately £100,000.

The Green - it might be where people grab a sandwich now but it used to be used by animals 

At the end of the green a building now a Waterstones bookshop is marked by a blue plaque, marking as the former Collins Music Hall which was still running in 1958 with such stars as Norman Wisdom and Gracie Fields entertaining there.

Paul  Sinclair (course leader)  talks about the theatre 

As we mentioned Gracie Fields - here's where the Lancashire lass  lived in Islington.

I don't think it was Pizzas then.

A beloved entertainer who spent much time in Capri

We walked on to what had been the building for the Tram generator/depot but is now a 'Sofa Centre'.
It shows itself to be based on prison design.

Not the greatest architecture

Not everyone knows that our Foreign Secretary and man who tends to speak before thinking (the wealthy Boris Johnston) lives in Islington and here's his house - in Colebrooke Row.

Boris runs and cycles from here

Not far from the house of BoJo is the Regents Canal reminding us how bulky materials were carried into the conurbations before Rail and the internal combustion engine - it's now used for leisure and also as a way that some, less financially secure than our 'tousle haired'  former mayor can afford to live.

Regents Canal

One of my favourite  sites on the walk was this- the Spontaneous City in the Tree of Haven.

A big bird house

The sign explaining

Then we saw a school, Owens Fields  bequeathed by Alice Owen - who was inspired following an Archery incident.

and here was Edgerunner by the British-Romanian artist Paul Neagu (1938 – 2004) who was something of an inspiration for Amish Kapoor.

Edgerunner by Paul Neagu 

The importance of water was shown during our trip - The Sadlers Wells now a famous Dance theatre was once a variety theatre - the theatre was associated with water which meant people congregated there.

The theatre now

The Sadlers Wells 

Sitting in the sun at the flats 

Municipal housing designed by Berthold Lubetkin was designed and built to provide the best accommodation for working people Spa Green Estate is an example of this (now it has many private tenants) .

Spa Flats designed by Berthold Lubetkin

Then onto Myddelton Square which was home for a while (despite the inscription he died at 99) to another Socialist (and pacifist) Fenner Brockway .

He is dead though 

 St Marks Church in Myddleton Square. 

We finished up the tour with a nice anecdote about wooden cobbles - apparently Lord Sugar was involved in the sale of some of these, heavily tarred they mad great (and profitable) fire lighters.

Lord Sugar has not got his hands on these ones.

Statue at the station

And then back to Angel Tube Station and a statue 'Angel' there by Kevin Boys.