Further Events for 2025

 

I'm busier with events this year than I have been since the end of COVID. Fortunately I'm not working on a book at the moment.

Mansion of Gloom will be available to buy at all of them.

AUGUST

Sunday 10 An Alien in London William Burroughs walk for the Sohemian Society. With Bill Redwood and Jim Pennington.
Some tickets still available here. Starts outside Westminster Reference Library WC2H 7HP

Sunday 31 Talk (around 4pm) on Netherwood guesthouse and Aleister Crowley at The Mint House Pevensey, East Sussex. Information here.

SEPTEMBER

Decadent London walk for the Sohemian Society. I'VE DECIDED TO POSTPONE THIS UNTIL NEXT SPRING

OCTOBER

Thursday 9   Decadent London online talk for the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art and Unnatural History. Hosted by Edward Parnell.

Tuesday 14 October Lecture for the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. Subject probably Horror on the London Underground. To be held in London, at the Horse Hospital.  RIP Roger Burton.

Thursday 30   Talk about the life and art of James Abbot McNeill Whistler for the Salon for the City. London Horse Hospital.

DECEMBER

Sunday 7 Goth Weekend Talk about Mansion of Gloom with Dr Emma Liggins at Guy's Hospital Chapel.

Thursday 11   A coffee house related talk for the London borough of Islington.

Many of the above are subject to confirmation so please check beforehand.

John Richardson

I've just learned of the death of John Richardson in May. Not to be confused with the biographer of Picasso, he was the founder of Historical Publications who published so many interesting books on parts of London and aspects of the capital's history. 

Four of these books: Subterranean City, London's Coffeehouses Folklore of London and Decadent London (first edition) were by me. I will be eternally grateful to John for getting in touch after reading an article (the first!) I wrote and having the confidence to ask me to write Subterranean City. I had never written a book before and this one took a lot of research. The book did extremely well (John printed a revised and expanded edition in 2010) and I was pretty much allowed to choose the subjects of my next couple of books. I was also impressed by the amount of freedom given regarding illustrations and cover etc. 

John was a lovely man who was fascinated by local history, particularly of Camden - he wrote a number of books himself and supported many local projects and enterprises. He wound up HP a few years ago and retired to Whitstable, where I visited him a couple of times. On one occasion he gave me the rights to all my work to publish myself and I duly republished Decadent London in a larger revised and updated paperback edition under my imprint Accumulator Books (which I may reprint this year).  My thoughts go out to his wife Helen and his children.

Reading for May

Sarah Bakewell At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being & Apricot Cocktails (Chatto & Windus, 2016)

Proteus and the Magician: The Letters of Henry Miller and John Cowper Powys ed. Jacqueline Peltier (The Powys Society, 2014)

David Douglas English Scholars 1660-1730 (Eyre & Spottiswood, 2nd rev ed. 1951)

Annebella Pollen The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians (Donjon Books, 2015) - reveals the significant influence of Aleister Crowley on this strange group, which I wasn't aware of.  Due a revival?  We camped with the offshoot Woodcraft Folk last year.

Ruth Scurr John Aubrey, My Own Life (Vintage, 2016) bought at the charming Harris & Harris bookshop in Clare, Suffolk.  I'd tried to buy it earlier at a Waterstones in Lincoln, but they'd never heard of it and couldn't find it on their catalogue, admittedly I couldn't remember the full title.  (It's been extensively reviewed and was shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Biography Award).  There are frequent mentions of various coffee houses in London, Jonathan's in particular, and Aubrey's meetings there with luminaries of the period (second half of 17c).  As he reports (p.297) 'I have the advantage of London's new coffee houses. Before they opened, men only knew how to be acquainted with their own relations or societies.  They were afraid and stared at all who were not of their own communities.'  I believe my book London's Coffee Houses in which Jonathan's and many others establishments are described, may have recently gone out of print (although the publishers have failed to inform me of the fact).

Philosophytown Revisited

Looks like I'll be speaking once more at the Philosophytown Festival in beautiful Malmesbury this autumn, probably on London coffee houses; previous speakers have included John Cottingham and Ray Monk.  Talking of philosophy (and related matters) the Radio 4 In Our Time archive is an amazing source of stimulating ideas - so far I've listened to talks on Neoplatonism, Schopenhauer, Existentialism and Epicurianism.

Coffee Houses and Catching Up

Andy Sharp, English Heretic, who shares many of my interests and contributed to the Netherwood book, is interviewed at The Quietus.   Anti-Heroes was one of their albums of 2013 - check it out.

During Soho investigations for next month's Burroughs walk I was shocked to discover that the green plaque formerly on the front of 59 Old Compton Street marking the birthplace of British rock'n'roll - the 2i's coffee bar - is no longer there.  I was present on 18th September 2006 when the plaque was unveiled - all sorts of early rock royalty was there - various Shadows and Skifflers.  I met Big Jim Sullivan and chatted with Cliff Richard, who, whatever you may think of him, was a gentleman throughout the event, signing stuff thrust at him by fans outside and unfailingly unruffled.  He graciously accepted a copy of my coffee house book - I wonder if he still has it?  The wine bar that was there at the time has gone, to be replaced by The House of Ho, a fashionable eaterie.  I do hope the removal is temporary.  [By mid-April the plaque had returned].  If not, it may be time for a petition.  Walker's Court, home of sex shops and the Raymond Revue Bar, just around the corner from Burroughs' 'portal doorway' in Peter Street, Soho (now site of a hideous replacement) has been given the green light by Westminster City Council for redevelopment - another local landmark erased (popular for band publicity shots - Felt spring to mind).

Another London coffee house related item.

Coming up:

Warpaint at Brighton Dome.

William Burroughs Walk (see previous post)

Yet another Underground London talk this time at the new Artizan Street Library in the City of London.

I'm not sure what's happening with the Sax Rohmer/Fu Manchu book now that the centenary has passed - it will be out sometime in the next few months I imagine.  It's out of my hands I'm afraid.  All future projects will appear under my own Accumulator imprint.  One of the contributors to the Fu Manchu book, Alan Moore, has an interesting (last?) interview here.  I can certainly sympathize with his reluctance to do public appearances in the future.

Lyons Lithographs

A lovely exhibition at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne showing the 40 lithographs produced by some of the finest British artists of the period (in the decade following the Second World War) in an attempt to brighten up the rather tired looking Lyons Tea Shops and Corner Houses that were a staple of the refreshment and relaxation business in that long-vanished England.  A lot of detective work must have gone into matching some of the prints with their original paintings and studies.   The catalogue for the first series Sixteen Lithographs by Contemporary Artists (1948) bore an introduction by our old friend James Laver.  I was also pleased to see two works by Michael Ayrton: The Spectators was not to my taste, but Life in Autumn was very pleasing - curiously this commission isn't mentioned in the occasionally over-detailed Ayrton biography by Justine Hopkins; there's also a very attractive John Minton Apple Orchard (see above), Kent.  Many might call it twee, but consider the contrast with today, when works of art are exhibited in restaurants to show how sophisticated (or not) trendy and wealthy the owners are - the Lyons lithographs were available to buy and employees got a discount.

One downer is that the small paperback catalogue, which I wanted to buy, costs an eye-watering £40!  It's not just the price of exhibitions that's becoming prohibitive.  I'm sure the Lyons lithographs regularly come up for sale - here's one at the Goldmark Gallery, for example.  See also an essay in The Guardian.   The other illustration above is Albert Bridge by Carel Weight, who painted many locations in the area where I grew up.  My book London's Coffee Houses has a section on the Lyons tea shops - see also an earlier post about the demolition of the very first one in Piccadilly, a photograph of which appears in the exhibition.

Philosophytown

It appears that I am going to be speaking at the Philosophytown Festival in Malmesbury after all.

If you happen to be in that delightful edge-of-the-Cotswolds town on the morning of Sunday 16th October at 9.30 (!) then you can come and hear me talk about the history of the London coffee house with added contribution about Joseph Addison from the festival organiser Michael Cuthbert.

The full programme is here.

Addison helped set up his wife's former servant Daniel Button in an eponymous coffee house in Russell St Covent Garden, just a few doors down from where Johnson and Boswell would meet many years later. He also visited coffee houses to get material for The Spectator.

Much more can be found in my book London's Coffee Houses. A short extract below:

'Some of the flavour of debate in London coffee houses is captured in Joseph Addison’s account of his visit, during the course of a day, to a variety of popular establishments, where he hoped to determine public opinion regarding a (false) rumour of the death of the king of France that was spreading across the capital. He started at the St James’s coffee house where,

“I found the whole outward Room in a Buzz of Politics. The Speculations were but very indifferent towards the Door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the Room, and were so very much improved by a Knot of Theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the Steams of the Coffee Pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a Quarter of an Hour.” '

Lost Lyons

Walking along Piccadilly at lunchtime today I was shocked to see a huge gap surrounded by hoardings where an attractive group of Victorian buildings once stood - the whole block down to Jermyn Street has gone; the shops had been shut for some time but I thought they were going to be refurbished, not totally demolished. The alleyway on the west side was very atmospheric, with its old-fashioned tocacconist and newsagent. The most significant loss is the building at No.213 which was once the very first Lyons teashop - see my books London's Coffee Houses and Decadent London - it opened on 20 September 1894. The distinctive fascia has been long gone, but it's a shame nevertheless that another piece of London's past has vanished.

On a similar note, Phil Baker tells me that No.124 Victoria Street, formerly the temple and headquarters of Aleister Crowley's A.A. Order is also about to disappear - I must get down there to take a photo before it's too late.

Birkbeck matters

I've only just found out about the death earlier this year of Barry Coward, eminent historian and one of my tutors on the Early Modern History MA at Birkbeck that I took around ten years ago. He came across as a genuinely nice and decent man, helpful and encouraging; he also wrote some important books on Early Modern English history. Obituary here and tributes here.

One of my other tutors Mike Berlin is organising an exhibition about the Partisan coffee house in 1950s Soho; it will take place in 2012, can't find the location yet. I wonder if he realises that the author of London's Coffee Houses was one of his students, although at that time it was Professor Michael Hunter who excited my interest in that direction through his seminars on Early Modern thought and belief.

Ida Kar and The Farm

Paid a visit to the Ida Kar exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery today. Worth seeing if you are interested in the artistic, literary and bohemian milieu of London in the 1950s and 1960s, as I am. One photograph in particular caught my eye - the caption referring to a coffee house I hadn't heard of before: The Farm at 14 Monmouth Street, run by Brian Robins (1928-1988) and his wife Susan.

When Brian Robins met Ida Kar and her husband Victor Musgrave he was apparently working as the last lamplighter in London; he was also a self-taught sculptor, who later became known for his kinetic sculptures. According to the catalogue (NPG No.68) The Farm was a short-lived coffee shop in the basement "which became a meeting-place for young artists and poets after the couple opened it on 23 June 1959. As well as selling coffee, its aim, according to Robins, ‘was to show works which the commercial galleries would not show…I felt that art freed from the purse strings would give it more scope and personality.’ Robins showed work by Gustav Metzger, Roger Mitchell and Susan Bryan. The last exhibit before the closure of The Farm in May 1960 was Robins’ painting machine, which produced a picture every twenty minutes.’"

Robins also helped Metzger publish the first manifesto of Auto-Destructive Art dated 4 November 1959 in which it was stated that, ‘Auto-destructive paintings, sculptures and constructions have a lifetime varying from a few moments to twenty years. When the disintegrating process is complete the work is to be removed from the site and scrapped.’

From 9-30 November 1959 Metzger exhibited 'Cardboards' a series of 'pictures’ made from cardboard boxes; he was interviewed by the Daily Express which published a story the next day with the headline, ‘Bearded man trips over a box and finds a new form of art…IT’S PICTURES FROM PACKING CASES’ (Museum of Modern Art Oxford 1999 catalogue pp24-28)

In December 1962 Metzger delivered a lecture/demonstration at Ealing Art College with slides and film entitled Auto-Destructive Art, Auto-Creative Art: The Struggle for the Machine Arts of the Future. One rapt member of the audience was art student Pete Townshend who acknowledged the effect of the lecture on his thought and later went on to play out his own auto-destructive art through his guitar smashing antics with the Who.

The artist went 'on strike' for a number of years (if only more would follow suit - Stewart Home was another fellow 'striker' for a time) and disappeared from view (although he would regularly come in to where I work) before being 'rediscovered' by a new generation.