Tag: British

Golden nuggets of London

Some say London is paved in gold. That is not quite true. There are ways one can experience it and they are, in truth, golden. They are the walks, in a safe city, at all times of the day or night, revealing architectural marvels, historical corners, oral histories retold, under the bridge communities, housing estates, street art and corporate communes wrapped around a few blocks from each other. They may not always live in harmony with each other, but they certainly demand each others existence to enrich their own. This is not gentrification, or poetics of urban spaces but a slow crawl of inverted commas on concepts undefined, yet golden for their moment in time.

Just off Bank of England
The walkie talkie
A pub on the edge of the City of London
Backstreets of the Tower of London
Back off the Tower
Cable Street on one side, to Wapping and the city on the other
Street Art of what’s left behind
Lit Shadwell through the generations
Bird and the tower of canary wharf
Cable Street studios grafitti
Off to Limehouse
Rotherhithe Tunnel from above

New year’s Bethnal Green

New year new start. Can’t help but look back a little, and yet remain grateful for today.
Today I’ve gone back to Bethnal Green where I lived at for thirteen years.
Bethnal Green is a strange yet warming place. If you were to look it up online, it looks quite grim. 2 up 2 down level terraced rows of workhouse housing, surrounded by loads of high rise social housing estates built in 1800s to the 80s dotted on every corner, with a through road high street.
I must admit, I had some of the funniest and most learning times growing up here in my 20s and that’s purely down to a local and transient mix of people and pre war and post war architecture.
Imagine in one day hanging out in a 1900s pub, a high rise tower block built in the 1970s, trekking on cobbled streets and through grafitti glad Victorian alleys. It’s pointless going into any detail on this as this is my story.
But perhaps sharing these pics from today, will give the platform from which to imagine a constant of stories intertwined.
From the housing flats, to the terraced houses, the odd patches of greenery, the mix of bengali, cockney, underground arty, and now poshy touristy and transient peeps, this is the Bethnal Green in 2022. Many will pass through and many more still remain. Yet, new year’s memories to come may remain similar to past.

Thames River Apprentiships

A few months into the latest UK covid related lockdown it’s a good time to highlight some fantastic opportunities connected to the river Thames.

Charities AHOY Centre and London Youth Rowing both have coaching apprenticeship opportunities listed here: https://www.lifetimetraining.co.uk/apprenticeship-vacancies/sport,london,,/, supported by Coach Core.

The Thames Skills Academy support two Level 3 apprenticeships (Boatmaster and Maritime Engineering). There’s an impressive range of career opportunitiesin the Maritime sector, adding more to the economy than rail and aviation combined. 

Spread the word & hopefully some teens will be perkier as a result on top of having the opportunity to experience a slice of cockney history.

Random stories in metal

Andrew Baldwin’s open air metalworks automaton exhibits are warmly welcomed at a time when everything is in lockdown in London.

The playful sculptures, moving parts and colourful lighting tell fantasy stories, a parallel universe within deep winter’s energy of colourful skies.

Located in Trinity Buoy Wharf, earthbound figures matrix into a melting pot of sensations made in fairy tales.

Winter wonderland materialised.

Hoy! News From Watermen’s Hall

30 July 2020 By Tim Koch Tim Koch on coat, badge and facemask. When Thomas Doggett instituted his eponymous race in celebration of the accession of King George I, he stated that it was to be held ‘on the first day of August forever’. More than 300 years later, the exact date has proved to […]

Hoy! News From Watermen’s Hall