This is the 44th set of photos in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, and is the second set recording a journey I made, one sunny Sunday in July, with my wife and son from our home in south east London, through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, up the western shore of the Isle of Dogs, which is infested with high-rise housing developments, and on to Limehouse, Shadwell and Wapping. Here the great wharves that dealt with the imports of Britain’s global trade during the heyday of Empire, and of the London docks, were converted into apartments during the Docklands development programme in the 1980s and 1990s. The first set of photos is here.

Money doesn’t scream, the way it does in Canary Wharf, in the narrow strips of former wharves in Limehouse, Shadwell and Wapping, although obviously most of the wharf living is aimed squarely at the rich, and elements of this are obvious — the matt grey Aston Martin that, for instance, almost ran me over at one point, driven by some young idiot who obviously believed the words of Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel: “Matte cars are cool, they come across as a bit aggressive.” Read the rest of this entry »

In my quest to catch up on posting some of the photos that I didn’t manage to post before my family holiday in Italy in August, this set and another to follow record a glorious Sunday in July when, with my family, I cycled from our home in Brockley, in south east London, down to Greenwich, through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel and along the western shore of the Isle of Dogs to Limehouse, and then on to Wapping, where our objective was to visit the Wapping Project, an art gallery and restaurant housed in Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, which was built in 1890 and closed in 1977.

This is the 43rd set of photos in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, which is progressing extremely well, despite my inability to post the results to keep up with my photographic journeys, as I have 160 sets still to post, with more on the way on an almost daily basis. Come rain or shine, I am out on my bike, having discovered, after my illness last year, when I gave up smoking after 29 years, that being healthy, and relentlessly exploring this fascinating and sometimes infuriating city I live in, by bike, is the perfect antidote to years of imperilling my health by smoking like a madman and working obsessively on Guantánamo. Not that I’ve given up on Guantánamo, of course, as I still write regularly about the ongoing horrors of indefinite detention for the men still held there, and, just this week, published an exclusive article based on notes from a lawyer’s meeting with Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, which Shaker wanted to be made available to me. Read the rest of this entry »

My 42nd photo set in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by  bike brings together a few disparate elements, photographed in July, and united under the umbrella title of “Green London” — firstly, a few photos from Mudchute Farm and Mudchute Park, on the Isle of Dogs, which I had put aside when I posted a set of photos of a journey around Canary Wharf to which these were the green prelude.

The second group of photos — 12 photos of Crystal Palace — were taken on a rainy afternoon, and had been sitting around until I decided to join them up with the “Green London” photos — not just the Mudchute idyll, but also some photos taken locally to me — in Ladywell Fields, a popular spot by the River Ravensbourne, which, further downstream, feeds into the River Thames at Deptford Creek, and on Hilly Fields, the wonderful hill-top park near my home, with its wonderful views out over south east London and beyond, and, at strategic points, its glimpses of Canary Wharf and the O2. Read the rest of this entry »

In my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, which I began in May, the extent of my cycling, and of my photography, has far exceeded my ability to upload the photos to my Flickr account. I have over 160 photos sets to upload, of photos taken before my family holiday in August, and in the six weeks since my return — photos from the West End, the City, from east London, north London, west London and south London.

As autumn continues, and the days get shorter, and the weather — presumably — will become less conducive to photography, I will no doubt find more time to make these photos available, but for now I’m dipping in and out of the archive, uploading whatever draws my attention, and to that end this latest set features photos from a visit I made, with my son Tyler, to Blackheath, the big, high plateau to the east of where I live in Brockley, in south east London, on August 1. This was when the Olympic Games were in full swing, and Greenwich Park, accessed from Blackheath as well as from the centre of Greenwich, at the foot of the hill, was the venue for the equestrian events, which I initially photographed here. Read the rest of this entry »

This set of photos is the 40th in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, which I began in May, and it follows on from three previous sets recording a particular journey I made on September 3, 2012, when I cycled from Tottenham Court Road, up Hampstead Road to Mornington Crescent, and then along Camden High Street, through busy Camden with its many lively markets to the Regent’s Canal.

From there I cycled along the tow path of this wonderful artery that avoids the traffic-choked chaos of London’s roads to St. Pancras Basin and King’s Cross — or, to be specific, the King’s Cross development project that is currently underway, which, it seems to me, is rather dangerously at odds with the spirit of the canal, as a place of calm, and an antidote to the clamour of money that is so incessant elsewhere. Read the rest of this entry »

Out of London’s many attractions, its wonderful canals are relatively unknown, which is, to be honest, inexplicable, as they are an endlessly fascinating — and generally very soothing — antidote to the capital’s often stressful roads.

Both of London’s major canals — the Regent’s Canal, and the Limehouse Cut — feed into the Limehouse Basin, between Tower Bridge and the Isle of Dogs, which was once so busy that it was said that it was possible to walk the whole way across the dock from boat to boat. It opened in 1820 as the Regent’s Canal Dock, joining the River Thames to the whole of the national canal system in the decades that followed. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the 38th set of photos in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, and follows on from the previous set, recording a journey from Tottenham Court Road and up Hampstead Road to Mornington Crescent on September 3, 2012. The following two sets will feature a journey along the tow path of the Regent’s Canal from Camden Lock to King’s Cross.

Unusually, this set features photos from just one street — Camden High Street, which I followed from Mornington Crescent tube station in the south to Camden Lock and the Regent’s Canal, shortly after which it becomes Chalk Farm Road. Read the rest of this entry »

On September 3, 2012, as part of my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, inspired by a journey from Triton Square through Fitzrovia to Oxford Street and Soho Square that I had taken just three days earlier, I returned to central London, to the giant Crossrail project that has currently devoured the junction where Oxford Street and New Oxford Street meet Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court Road (known as St. Giles Circus), and cycled north, up Tottenham Court Road, across Euston Road and up Hampstead Road to Camden Town.

Photos of Camden, and of the journey I took along the Regent’s Canal from Camden to King’s Cross, will follow soon, but this set focuses on the great artery north, technically the A400, that takes its name from a manor house just to the north west of the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, which, during the time of Henry III (1216–1272), belonged to William de Tottenhall. By the time of Elizabeth I, it was known as Tottenham Court, and now, as Tottenham Court Road, it is a busy shopping street, with electronics shops at the southern end and big furniture stores further north, although, as with most things to do with the retail environment, these certainties are generally in flux, and shops come and go with the whims of fashion, the ludicrous ease of internet shopping (consigning young people to work in warehouses in the middle of nowhere), and the state of the economy. Read the rest of this entry »

“Little fluffy clouds,” famously, was a quote in an interview with the wonderful singer/songwriter Rickie Lee Jones, which was sampled by art pranksters The Orb for their 1990 single of the same name. This is the exchange:

Interviewer: What were the skies like when you were young?

Rickie Lee Jones: They went on forever. We lived in Arizona, and the skies always had little fluffy clouds in ’em, and, uh, they were long and clear and there were lots of stars at night. And, uh, when it would rain, it would all turn — They were beautiful, the most beautiful skies as a matter of fact. Um, the sunsets were purple and red and yellow and on fire, and the clouds would catch the colours everywhere. That’s, uh, neat ’cause I used to look at them all the time, when I was little. You don’t see that. You might still see them in the desert. Read the rest of this entry »

This afternoon, on my way back from a disturbing bike ride around Mayfair, where money is almost literally oozing out of every orifice of those who find it easier than ever to enrich themselves at the expense of society as a whole, I arrived back at Charing Cross, to catch the train back to south east London, where I was confronted by the front page of the Evening Standard announcing, “London Squatter First to Be Jailed,” which threw me into an angry depression.

The squatter in question — actually a 21-year old from Portsmouth, Alex Haigh, who only arrived in London in July — is indeed the first person to be jailed for squatting since the law on squatting was changed on September 1, transforming it from a civil to a criminal offence, punishable by a six-month prison sentence and a £5,000 fine.

Haigh was given a 12-week sentence after pleading guilty to squatting a property in Pimlico owned by the housing association L&Q (London & Quadrant), which, ironically, is supposed to be in the business of providing homes to those in need, like all providers of social housing. He is now in Wormwood Scrubs, where his accommodation for the next three months will be provided by the British taxpayer. Depriving people of their liberty costs, on average, between £27,000 and £29,000 a year, and £2.2 billion is spent in total on the 80,000-plus prisoners in England and Wales. Read the rest of this entry »