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Danger: Void Behind Door

Writing by Matt Haynes

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Danger: Void Behind Door

Danger: Void Behind Door

A brief rumination on the fickleness of both women and space-time, and the possibility that access to some sort of infinite primordial darkness can be gained from the southbound Bakerloo Line platform at Waterloo.

Threnody on the Suicide of a Parking Meter in Dagenham Brook, E10

Danger: Void Behind Door

O dark devourer of the driver’s coin,
what broken dreams was this leap meant to fix?
What hope-denuded skyline did enjoin
you to cast off on this East London Styx?

The New Romantic Luge

Danger: Void Behind Door

Hackney’s lost ski-slope, and how Boy George nearly brought Duran Duran’s career to a premature end when, clutching a garish mojito, he hurtled down the dendix piste using Simon le Bon as a toboggan.

Threnody on the Death of a Street Lamp on Lollard Street, SE11

Danger: Void Behind Door

O noble lantern ’neath whose kindly fire
my love and I did oft together lark,
our bodies, lust-engorged, ’twined in desire –
why hast thou gone and left us in the dark?

I Was Just Trying To Be Nice

Danger: Void Behind Door

Across the road is a nail salon, then a jeweller’s, a florist’s, and – I stare at the words above the next doorway: Divine Money, Financial Services. Why is that so familiar? Obviously it’s the sort of name you remember, but – where would I be remembering it from?

Is This What People Do?

Danger: Void Behind Door

The lorries are starting to move now, rumbling across the deck of the James Newman and onto the ramps that shake and ring beneath their tyres. He is supposed to leave too; there is an announcement over the tannoy, every time a ferry docks, forbidding passengers to remain on board.

Iain and Will have a Cup of Tea

Danger: Void Behind Door

Two disconsolate psychogeographers reflect on how some of the ley lines that were dug up to build the Basketball Arena for the 2012 Olympics had been there since the days of King Lud.

Kensal Rise, Early In The Morning

Danger: Void Behind Door

A driver on the last remaining Routemaster service, the 159 from Marble Arch to Streatham, reflects on the relative inflexibility of women and buses.

Eton Mess

Danger: Void Behind Door

How I was abducted by aliens from South Harrow station and had the true nature of Boris Johnson revealed to me after being forced to mate against my wishes.

Helena Bonham Carter and the Thirty-Foot Elephant

Danger: Void Behind Door

How Josephine’s coquettish suggestion that Napoleon surprise her with something long and wrinkly led to a giant elephant being installed in the Place de la Bastille.

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Sifted by Ilk

  • Fiction
  • Non-Fiction
  • London
  • South East London
  • London in 30 Words
  • Smoke A London Peculiar
  • Transport
  • Politics
  • Poems and Parodies

“Oooh, Argos!” she squealed, teetering on the seat to press her face to the window as we ground up Kentish Town Road. Unamazed, her mother pointed out it was Poundstretcher.

Serendipity Doo-Dahs

The Hungry Cabbie

How Victorian philanthropists strove to fit thirteen grown men into a small green shed without recourse to contortionism, immodesty or facial depilation. And how an ill-advised sausage led to the discovery of south London.

Eton Mess

How I was abducted by aliens from South Harrow station and had the true nature of Boris Johnson revealed to me after being forced to mate against my wishes.

48 Hours In Vigo

In which I use a small trampoline to explain how Sir Francis Drake would have dealt with Ryanair’s “no aeroplane” interpretation of "no frills", and we find out what Galicians keep in their hold-alls.

Threnody on the Suicide of a Parking Meter in Dagenham Brook, E10

O dark devourer of the driver’s coin,
what broken dreams was this leap meant to fix?
What hope-denuded skyline did enjoin
you to cast off on this East London Styx?

The Unbelievable Niceness of Penge

How only Penge Homebase, out of all south-east London's DIY superstores, seems to have grasped that Christmas is an annual event.

Stepping Across The Thames

How the Archbishop of Canterbury lost his deckchair concession and why trammelling the Thames had its drawbacks. Or a history of London footbridges, if you prefer.

Kensal Rise, Early In The Morning

A driver on the last remaining Routemaster service, the 159 from Marble Arch to Streatham, reflects on the relative inflexibility of women and buses.

You’re So Quiet You Sound Like Aldershot

Why it’s not just the lack of an internationally renowned art gallery, good tapas and an occasionally murderous independence movement that distinguishes Leyton from Bilbao.

Ceci n’est pas un Wheelie Bin

René Magritte’s time with LT’s maintenance department didn't last long, as his playful signage at Stratford station provoked not only much philosophical debate in the canteen, but also a major hygiene problem on the southbound Jubilee Line.

Approval

The man at the neighbouring checkout was looking at her with something that might have been curiosity and might have been pity. Her cheeks prickled. It was years since she’d needed to tell the difference.

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