Spotted in Sloane Square Tube station. PICTURE: John Cameron/Unsplash
LondonLife – Signs of the Times (V)…
LondonLife
LondonLife – Covent Garden says hello…
PICTURE: Kevin Grieve/Unsplash
LondonLife – The Shard under a mackerel sky…
PICTURE: Bex Walton/licensed under CC BY 2.0)
London mourns – Vale Prince Philip…
Piccadilly Circus. PICTURE: duncan c (licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)
LondonLife – Blossom, Camden Road
PICTURE: Samuel Regan-Asante/Unsplash
LondonLife – A wall for remembrance…
A memorial wall for the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic has been established on The Queen’s Walk outside St Thomas’ Hospital. Bereaved family and friends on Monday began to paint the first of tens of thousands of love hearts – representing those who have died of COVID-19 – on the wall which faces the Houses of Parliament across the Thames. The memorial, which is expected to stretch for hundreds of metres, is the work of the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group which has called for a public inquiry into how the government has handled the pandemic. Co-founder Matt Fowler, whose 56-year-old father, Ian, died last April, was the first to paint a heart on the wall on Monday. “This is an outpouring of love,” he reportedly said. “Each heart is individually hand-painted; utterly unique, just like the loved ones we’ve lost. And, like the scale of our collective loss, this memorial is going to be enormous.”
LondonLife Special – Marking a year since the first national lockdown…
Remembering the more than 126,000 lost. A candle is lit outside 10 Downing Street on Tuesday night to mark the first anniversary of the first national lockdown. PICTURE: Pippa Fowles/No 10 Downing Street.
LondonLife – Inspiring stories from a pandemic…
A new outdoor exhibition celebrating inspiring stories of community, action and solidarity during the year of the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen in Camden. Created to mark a year since the pandemic began, Isolating Together features the work of artist Karishma Puri who was inspired to capture the images after establishing Covid Mutual Aid – a WhatsApp-based community group – in Kentish Town to help neighbours support one another and overcome isolation. The images, seen at 18 locations across Camden, highlight the vital role that local businesses like Truffles Deli have played in the community during the pandemic as well as personal stories like that of Nafisa who started a support system that ensured people in the local Somali community had a steady supply of free fruit and vegetables during the pandemic. Run in collaboration with Jack Arts and No Ordinary Experience, Isolating Together uses billboards, community spaces and local shop windows to create a vast outdoor gallery with its centrepiece displayed across a 14 metre wall at Number 19, the home of community action in Camden. The exhibition can be seen on a self-guided walk until 31st March. A map and more information is available at https://isolatingtogether.co.uk/exhibition.
LondonLife – Tunnel of colour…
Adams Plaza Bridge, Canary Wharf, Docklands. The colourful crossing, which links Crossrail Place and One Canada Square, was created by artist Camille Walala as part of last year’s London Mural Festival. PICTURE: Samuel Regan-Assante/Unsplash
LondonLife – Women’s history inspires comedians for International Women’s Day…
The world observed International Women’s Day on Monday and to mark the occasion, the Museum of London has launched an original video series featuring five female comedians performing short original pieces inspired by objects in the museum’s women’s history archives. The first of the videos features comedian Thanyia Moore responding to a Henry Grant photograph of a female bus conductor from the mid-1970s when London Underground first officially employed women as bus drivers (pictured right). Further videos – which will be rolled out over Women’s History Month – feature comedians Samantha Baines, Jenny Bede, Jen Ives and Leila Navabi responding to objects ranging from a commemorative toilet roll created by First 100 Years to mark a century since the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act made it illegal to ban people from jobs based on their sex in 1919 (pictured below) to a recruitment letter from Sainsbury’s seeking female staff to work in their shops during World War I. To watch the first of the series head here.
LondonLife – Award-winning Thames views…
Andy Sillett’s Misty Morning was the overall winner of this year’s Thames Lens competition. The Thames Festival Trust received more than 350 entries to the competition between July last year and January this year which was held under the theme of ‘Thames Unlocked’. As well as submitting new images, photographers were encouraged to consider past photos for submission given the impact of coronavirus related restrictions. Other notable images, which were selected by representatives of the Thames Festival Trust and Port of London Authority, included Fraser Gray’s LV 21 and Royal Terrace Pier Gravesend (the runner-up – pictured below), and Sarah Gannon’s highly commended image Costa del Rotherhithe (pictured far below). For more, see https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/read-watch-listen/thames-lens-2020/.
LondonLife – Looking down Whitehall…
From the Trafalgar Square end. PICTURE: Johen Redman/Unsplash
LondonLife – Shoreditch High Street…
PICTURE: Samuel Regan-Asante/Unsplash.
LondonLife – Tower Bridge crossing…
Crossing the Thames on a cold winter’s day. PICTURE: Lubo Minar/Unsplash
LondonLife – A splash of colour in Docklands…
Cabot Square, Docklands. PICTURE: Tom Podmore/Unsplash
LondonLife – Signs of the Times (VI)…
Seen in Oxford Street. PICTURE: Samuel Regan-Asante/Unsplash
LondonLife – On the Thames Path…
LondonLife – Signs of the times (V)…
COVID vaccination stickers seen in Putney. PICTURE: John Cameron/Unsplash
LondonLife – Back in lockdown…
LondonLife – Vale John Le Carré (but George Smiley lives on)…
News this week that spy turned novelist John Le Carré has died at the age of 89. His family reportedly confirmed the author had died of pneumonia at the Royal Cornwall Hospital on Saturday night. Born as David Cornwall, Le Carré worked as an intelligence officer for the British Foreign Service and, drawing in his work, began writing Cold War spy thrillers under the pseudonym of Le Carré with his first, Call for the Dead, published in 1961. It was in this novel – Le Carré went on to write others – that his most famous character, George Smiley, made his first appearance. Initially a minor character, Smiley went on to become a star in three novels published in the 1970s, the most famous of which is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Smiley’s last appearance was in a later book, 2017’s A Legacy of Spies). In tribute to Le Carré and George Smiley, pictured is 9 Bywater Street in Chelsea, the fictional home of Smiley (albeit a very real property!)
