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A parallel in pictures to the world of Persephone Books.
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13 February 2018
The normal life of Cochin’s fishermen has continued unchanged since David Gentleman was here.
12 February 2019
From Alleppey north to Cochin. Some of it it still like this. (More details on the Persephone Letter next weekend.).
11 February 2019
One third of the office is in Kerala this week. The go-to artist for us is, as ever, the sublime David Gentleman and his 1994 India. This was Alleppey then and nothing much has changed: an eight hour ferry journey from Kollam to here and a 24 hour houseboat trip from Alleppey and back is a slice of heaven. PS yes, we know the name Alleppey has changed, but it’s SO hard to remember the new name. It’s Allappuzha and in a few years maybe we’ll have got it.
8 February 2019
A cheerful scene of rebuilding. The Great Hall of the Charterhouse in Clerkenwell was built in 1571, one wall being part of the old Carthusian monastery. The Charterhouse still survives and one can go on a tour, details here. It’s twenty minutes walk from Lamb’s Conduit St so could be combined with a visit to us!
7 February 2019
South Square, Gray’s Inn, five minutes from Lamb’s Conduit Street. Dickens started his working life here, at number 1.
6 February 2019
St Paul’s again, and is it surprising that it became such a symbol? Even now the committees and groups of concerned Londoners who try and preserve Hampstead Heath remain angry that the new buildings given permission by a nod from Boris Johnson (it is sick-making to have to mention his name on the Post but it’s important people know that many of the terrible new skyscrapers being built at the moment did not have actual ‘planning permission’ – what a quaint, old-fashioned concept – but were nodded through by him when he was Mayor), these new buildings now spoil the view of St Paul’s from the Heath. Go up to Parliament Hill and look and you will see that more damage was done, aesthetically, in 2015-19 than in 1941.
5 February 2019
‘It would have been almost impossible for the average man or woman to picture to themselves the inner secrets of London’s famous buildings but for the damage caused by enemy action.’ The House of Commons, all but destroyed on May 10th 1941.