Friday 30 June 2017

BOOK FAIR ALERT! SUNDAY JULY 9th – 






































Next weekend sees the revived/regenerated/resuscitated London Artists' Book Fair - allied to the mighty House of Illustration and offering many visual and textual riches at Granary Square in the similarly revived Kings Cross area.

I will be exhibiting my own work and the gorgeous creations of my partner in crime, Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck.

The event is for one day only and will be an excellent antidote to the dreary last-ditch power plays of Westminster, and the droning of Andy Murray from the television.
It'd be a tonic to see you!


Thursday 15 June 2017

Heroes



A JPEG of a screensnap of a Retweet.




And true, too.

Sunday 11 June 2017

Borough Market - A Week Later: Sunday 11th June





The bells of Southwark Cathedral ringing, the heartache of another parting, the tidal surges of change and shift and all that they might bring.
A full stop ends a sentence but how we shape the words before that always offers hope.

I had to ask a heavily armed policeman advice on the best way back to London Bridge, where young Muslim women were handing out red roses to add to the latest impromptu memorial to events.





Sunday 4 June 2017

We Are London? - Saturday 3rd / Sunday 4th June 2017





A morning to reflect and savour - dismiss death cults for what they are; the weakness of cowards who fear life.
The long-playing album 'The Liberty of Norton Folgate' by the band Madness to be played, loud.

My brother Andrew and I walked down to the Thames at Wapping the other week, looked down at the churning, brown, unlovely waters. Took a pint between Eastern and Western horizons.

A hangman's noose drifted in the breeze and it was a little cold.





++++++++ 


"We Are London"

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na

From Regent's Park mosque on to Baker Street
Down to the Cross where all the pipesmoke neat
To Somerstown where somethings never stop
The Roundhouse, The Marathon Bar and Camden Lock

You can make it your own hell or heaven
Live as you please
Can we make it if we all live together
As one big family?

Down to Chinatown for duck and rice
Along Old Compton Street, the boys are nice
On Carnaby you still can get the threads
If you wanna be a mod, a punk, a ted or a suedehead

You can make it your own hell or heaven
Live as you please
Can we make it if we all live together
As one big family?

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, we are London
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, London's talking
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, we are London
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, London walking

In all the nightclubs, strip joints and the bars
From it's poorest paid to it's highest stars
The poets, plumbers, painters, spreads and sparks
From it's inner city to it's furthest parts

You can make it your own hell or heaven
Live as you please
Can we make it if we all live together
As one big family?

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, we are London
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, London's talking
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, we are London
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, London walking
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na

                                               



by Cathal Smyth