‘Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire’ has been shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize, which will be announced at a dinner on Monday, May 24.
My Athens piece, ‘The Calossus of Maroussi’, has been published in the current issue of the London Review of Books (27 May). I’ll let you have 2 extracts that were cut from the essay, for the website.
Iain
Also see this article (thanks to Lenore).
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just bought a 2 hand copy of london orbital, and reminded of the impression the film made a few years ago now.
i spent a few years in the 80s hitching around so quite familiar with the lurid yet fascinating world of the motorway siding. but i agree M25 has a strangeness above most others.
but my experience most similar to that of lon.orbital was when i was studying events in paris of 1870-71.
a trip to a prittified capital where even the commune is on the tourist trail. but back in london
by chance i stumbled on a privately printed copy of an account of the siege, virtually unknown. i resolved to find out more. the author was a priest called rev. brine but very little else was known apart from his place of deceasement, which turned out to be a forgotten church by the westway, all the exiting traffic thundering past oblivious. but he didnt seem to be the vicar there, so another mystery. i went in to enquire further and got yelled at by a tour guide who thought id tried to sneak in with her troupe. an odd day out, not much solved, and very sad.