A roundup of tasty morsels we’ve found floating around the internet
Skipping in Scarborough, North Yorkshire (1974), by Homer Sykes
Gurning, dunting and skipping: the BBC shares a collection of images by photographer Homer Sykes, which document a range of customs, folk and otherwise, from across the UK in the 1970s.
On Somesuch Stories, Lucy Jones gives an astounding, candid account of her experience of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. ‘Time folds and unfolds like a concertina. We are knitted together, even though we are not combined physically anymore. My attention is never fully held by anything else, for everything is seen through the gauze of her needs. Some days I feel obliterated by the loss of agency. I am melting into her, and she into me.’
Modern Mooch looks at the 1962 film adaptation of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey, and its visual portrayal of the North. ‘We the viewers are left with a cloudily clear, black and white world, a pervasive construct that the North and Manchester is eagerly beginning to casually shuffle off. Where streets are no longer paved with Eccles Cakes and whippets are hip.’
The ever-excellent Bill Drummond interviews David Keenan, author of our Book of the Month This is Memorial Device (which is available in our shop here).
Rob Kulisek for Indoek
Surf lifestyle publication Indoek presents the fruits of their 27 Frames project, for which they asked a selection of professional photographers to fill a single disposable camera each. The resulting shots are numerous, hugely diverse, and pretty damn nice to look at. Settle down and flick through.
In this article from 2005, Alice Oswald talks river poems, chaos, and four-leaf clovers with The Guardian’s Kate Kellaway.
Over on the Wales Arts Review website, Sophie McKeand ponders the role of a poet in modern society: should artists speak up, or stay silent? ‘How can artists remain authentic and earn a living? I’ve heard a number of people state recently that our poets are not political enough these days…it’s not okay to throw this criticism at the feet of poets then walk away. We need to examine why this is – how is the political framework within which our poets are working silencing their voices?’
Julian Hoffman stands at the intersection of natural and military history, referencing the 1924 broadcast of cellist Beatrice Harrison’s duet with a nightingale, and its subsequent wartime significance.
Plateau on Plateau chats to Cécile Schott, AKA French electronic/ambient extraordinaire Colleen, about her birdwatching hobby.
In this archival Tate Etc. piece from 2006, Michael Bird, Anthony Frost, Andrew Lanyon and Rose Hilton discuss the lesser-known ‘subversive and anarchic’ figures of the post-war St Ives art scene.
Geoff Nicholson and Travis Elborough take a walk around Itchycoo Park to discuss the latter’s recently published Atlas of Improbable Places: A Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Corners for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
On his blog, Peter Watts draws attention to the River Effra – the lost London river that now lies beneath the streets between Norwood and Vauxhall.
Using tree data made available by London’s local authorities and Transport for London, this map provides the locations and species information of over 700,000 trees across the city.
Roger Deakin‘s much-pined-after ‘Cigarette on the Waveney’ has finally been reinstated on iPlayer Radio. Part narration and part soundscape, delight in the sounds of otters, moorhens, kingfishers, herons, and the occasional hissing swan as Deakin glides through the reeds in Cigarette, his Canadian-style canoe.
And finally, thanks to Will Burns, we’re now familiar with Fiona Benson‘s Marcela Sonnets. Lovely.