London Bloggers

A really great site below; a lovely idea beatifully realised. Like a lot of people who grew up in London I don't feel the same starry affection for the place as a lot of people who were raised outside it, and for whom it was always exciting. I was pleased to move away to Brighton when I did. But the tube map I find impossibly fascinating, somehow, with its wonderful graphics, lop-sided geography and ability to still throw up unfamiliar station names after all this time. Similarly of all the yba art from a years back, Simon Patterson's The Great Bear was always one of my favourites, up there with Chris Offili and Sarah Lucas's best stuff. Anyway, take a look at the link below.

London Bloggers

I've actually got a real backlog of stuff I've recently read online which I want to link to; perhaps I'll put tomorrow aside as a links day. In addition to the site above, then, here are a couple of entertaining links to get started with.

- Two great responses to The Streets's still-sounding-fabulous 'A Grand Don't Come for Free' from Jakester and Tim - is it just me or has, for all the hyperbole lavished on Wiley and the Junior Boys, Mike Skinner's LP provoked by far the most intelligent, thoughtful and creative music writing online?

Jakester: The Uncertainty Principle

The Rambler: did I link to this post already? Maybe

- There have been some interesting interviews in the Guardian recently; the Kilroy-Silk one I mentioned earlier, and Zoe Williams' take on Robert Smith, which is interesting stuff even if you don't rate The Cure. Zoe Williams will write nine annoying articles out of ten without losing her breath, but occasionally she is spot on.

"It's not a control thing", Smith pleads. But Williams interjects - "Oh, here we are again. It is! It doesn't mean it's a bad thing, but it bloody is a control thing.. Her involvement, her interest gives the article bite.

Elsewhere John Harris even makes Paul McCartney come over as an interesting subject and Hattie Collins pens an article which does the opposite for the usually dependable Ice T.

Casting all the pop aside, there is a fascinating interview with Clive Stafford Smith in G2 today; Smith gave up a career in journalism for law and has defended hundreds of death row cases (remarkably, he has only lost on 6 occasions) and will shortly begin acting for 45 Guantánamo Bay detainees. He is a remarkable man.


Lastly, and rather closer to home, I've been reading the blog of a fellow Brighton resident and Spurs fan over at the gratuitously named 'The World is Full of Pisswits'. It is, and her blog is good reading - witty, intelligent and self-effacing. We're as one on Ledley King, and miles apart on Sarah Lucas...