Continuing our occasional look at eating places which might qualify as Old London, we come, as everyone wanting a quick meal in Central London does at some point, to Spaghetti House. This has something of a mixed reputation for food quality, but we cannot doubt its longevity. Founded in 1955 in Goodge Street, it is… Continue reading Spaghetti House [Old London]
Category: London
A tree grows in Southwark
At the heart of Betty Smith's 1943 novel A tree grows in Brooklyn is the image of a Tree of Heaven growing in harsh urban surroundings. The tree's survival in the heart of a grom part of the city is a metaphor for people's ability to flourish in the most difficult environments. [EcoBrookyn say the… Continue reading A tree grows in Southwark
Documentation and the museum object
A rather sad post for the first one after a break. CityLIS PhD student Christopher Serbutt sadly died last year, after a long period of ill-health, so that there was a posthumous award. Titled The changing place of information: an examination and evaluation of how the context in which an object is set affects the… Continue reading Documentation and the museum object
In further praise of dissertations
In a post of five years ago, I noted the academic quality and professional relevance of the dissertations produced by CityLIS Masters students, and the wide range of topics and approaches they include. Since then we have developed a series of virtual collections of dissertations in particular subject areas: art and artists, history, science and… Continue reading In further praise of dissertations
Remembering Mr. Kemp: Gardening in a ‘book-making age’
I have a long-standing interest in the Victorian information environment, which is many ways still influences our own. In particular, I have been fascinated by how information-rich was the world of botany, horticulture and the design of parks and gardens in that period. Several of the leading garden designers were also prolific authors and editors,… Continue reading Remembering Mr. Kemp: Gardening in a ‘book-making age’
Google’s Global Media Literacy Summit
A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to attend Google's Global Media Literacy Summit for 2019, in the shiny new surroundings the of Google's London headquarters at King's Cross. Introducing the day, Ramya Raghavan, head of civics and news outreach at Google, made a point that I often try to emphasise: that our… Continue reading Google’s Global Media Literacy Summit
Kew Maids of Honour [Old London]
Should you be visiting Kew Gardens, and feeling inclined to match the horticulture with some culinary history, call into Newens Original Maids of Honour tea rooms and bakery, on Kew Road opposite the gardens. It has a long history: developed from an earlier business in Richmond, established in 1887 in its present site on Kew… Continue reading Kew Maids of Honour [Old London]
Cosmoba [Old London]
Located in Cosmo Place, between Southampton Row and Queen Square in Bloomsbury, the Cosmoba restaurant has been run by the same family for several decades. It serves a varied clientele of locals, tourists from the nearby hotels, visitors to the nearby British Museum, and academics from the University of London. It is not the sort… Continue reading Cosmoba [Old London]
Simpsons-in-the-Strand [Old London]
Amid the churn and hype of the London restaurant scene, there are some places that qualify as Old London for their longevity as the same kind of restaurant on the same site. Among these, on the same spot since 1828, is Simpsons-in-the-Strand (yes, for the pedants among you, it's 'in', not 'on', the Strand). Aiming… Continue reading Simpsons-in-the-Strand [Old London]
Gutta percha: forgotten material of the communication revolution
Few other materials have had such a revolutionary impact on the world. And few others have been forgotten so quickly. (Ben Wilson, Heyday: Britain and the birth of the modern world, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 2016, p. xxiii) Describing gutta percha as "the vanished material that made the telecommunication revolution possible", Ben Wilson gives it… Continue reading Gutta percha: forgotten material of the communication revolution
The Occasional Informationist 