Six of the Best 582

George Osborne's budget announced the biggest appropriation of Church land since the Reformation, as John Elledge demonstrates.

"As anyone involved in the fight to save London’s council housing knows, the boroughs at the forefront of the social cleansing of our city over the last fifteen years are Labour boroughs." Architects for Social Housing are not taken in by Labour's rhetoric.

Michael Gerson says the Republicans are staining themselves by sticking with Donald Trump. 

Exposure to nature makes people happy and could cut mental health inequalities between the rich and poor, argues Natasha Gilbert.

The decline of Ricky Gervais is itemised by Joe Bish.

Dirty Feed shows that the first episode of Fawlty Towers was originally filmed as a pilot. That version differs significantly from the broadcast version: "In the reshot section, Danny’s grapefruit is far larger and has a cherry on top, compared to the rather meagre offer on display once we cut to the wide shot." Such obsession is to be applauded.

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Irate Frenchman hurled Camembert at manager of Chelsea Waitrose

I spotted it. A reader nominated it. The judges love it.

The Evening Standard receives our Headline of the Day Award.

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East London fox 'tried to pull my trousers off'

Our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Evening Standard.

Readers in East London are warned to take extra care.

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The Foundling Museum, Brunswick Square

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After visiting Old St Pancras I wandered down to Brunswick Square and the Foundling Museum.

As its website explains:

The Foundling Hospital, which continues today as the children’s charity Coram, was established in 1739 by the philanthropist Thomas Coram to care for babies at risk of abandonment. Instrumental in helping Coram realise his vision were the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel. Their creative generosity set the template for the ways in which the arts can support philanthropy.

It also claims to be Britain's first children's charity and its first public art gallery.

The image above shows the original building, with its girls' wing, boys' wing and chapel in between them, which demolished in 1928. The current building, once the headquarters of the charity, was put up in 1937.

When I went round last week their was an exhibition of children's book illustrations in the basement, a cafe and heartbreaking exhibitions about the charity's history on the ground floor, and exhibitions of art by the institution's 18th-century patrons on the floors above.

It was an odd combination, but somehow a compelling one.

When the Hospital closed in 1926, the children were moved first to Surrey and then to a new building at Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire.

An account of its later days (it closed in 1954) shows it was one of the barrack-like institutions that children's charities insisted on running early in the 20th century. Their disappearance after the second world war marked a long stride forward.

I did, however, come across one fact about the Foundling Hospital's history that may be of interest to someone I know.

It seems that fashionable London would flock to see the children (or at least the girls) eating their Sunday lunch.

I shall suggest this to Lord Bonkers as a nice little earner for the Home for Well-Behaved Orphans.

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A lost line: GWR to Uxbridge

Another video from Londonist.

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Mary Wollstonecraft's grave at Old St Pancras church

Before I went to Round the Horne I had some time to spend in London.

The first place I went to was Old St Pancras, the little country church that stands in the shadow of the railway station. I was pleased to find it is now open to the public every day.

As it was International Women's Day I sought out the grave of Mary Wollstonecraft. She was buried in the churchyard there along with her husband William Godwin and his second wife.

Her remains were moved by her grandson Percy Florence Shelley to his family tomb in St Peter's Church, Bournemouth,

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Round the Horne: 50th Anniversary Tour

You'll have to hurry to catch it, because it closes on 12 March, but I can thoroughly recommend the Albany Theatre Company's Round The Horne: 50th Anniversary Tour at the London Comedy Museum.

In the 1960s the radio comedy Round the Horne was extraordinarily popular and this production puts you in the place of the audience at the recording of a couple of episodes of the show.

Much of the script was filth (if only in the listener's mind) but the writers Barry Took and Marty Feldman got away with it because the show was centred on the urbane, establishment presence of Kenneth Horne.

Here are a couple of examples of the humour. Kenneth Williams as Rambing Syd Rumpo singing The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie above and the opening of the sketch Bona Law below...

HORNE: Can you help me? I've erred. 

SANDY: Well, we've all erred, ducky. I mean, it's common knowledge, ennit, Jule? 

HORNE: Will you take my case? 

JULIAN: Well, it depends on what it is. We've got a criminal practice that takes up most of our time.

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Stewart Lee on his new series of Comedy Vehicle

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We have seen Stewart Lee talking to Will Self and Alexei Sayle.

Here he is being interviewed by The Quietus:

Have you noticed a similar change happening in comedy? 

SL: I have. If you went to the alternative night with all the weird acts, which 25 years ago was downstairs at the Market Tavern on Islington Green on Essex Road, you'd see Simon Munnery who is the son of a plumber. Or Johnny Vegas, who is not a member of the upper classes. 

The same thing now, which is the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society at the New Red Lion, is a very good night, but there's a higher proportion of people whose parents bought them a flat. Inevitably, because you can't do that sort of stuff that doesn't pay, unless you've got some sort of fallback position.

The interviewer, Simon Price, takes Lee Terribly Seriously, but then maybe we should.

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The 1888 Jack the Ripper scare in Market Harborough

The Macabre Observer quotes the Market Harborough Advertiser of 20 November 1888:

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER.

A man suspected at Market Harborough. 

Some excitement was caused in a certain part of Market Harborough on Friday on hearing that a man answering the description of the Whitechapel murderer had come from London that afternoon and had taken up his abode with a Mrs Green, near the British school. 

The police were communicated with almost immediately and a watch was set on his movements. During the evening the man went to the station (followed by officers in plain clothes) and returned with his luggage - a portmanteau. 

On his reaching home again the police entered the house and searched the portmanteau, but nothing was found to connect the man with the crime of which he was suspected. He said his name was Dietrich and that he was a doctor at one of the London hospitals and gave his address at 22, Howland Street, Tottenham Court Road. He wore spectacles and his overcoat was trimmed with astrachan. Not being satisfied with this information, Supt. Bott placed a cordon of police around the house and telegraphed to Scotland Yard for instructions as to whether the man should be detained or not. 

This was about 9 o'clock and an answer was expected within an hour or two. At 11.30, however, no reply had been received and it was not until 5.10 on Saturday morning that an answer was handed to the police. This was of a somewhat vague nature, but the police were on it's receipt withdrawn from the house and no further notice was taken of the matter. 

One thing which had excited the suspicions of the neighbours and the police also, was that the same man was in Market Harbough about three weeks ago and stayed at the same house. His movements were then considered peculiar and the neighbours were actually alarmed about him. While here, no murders occurred in London, but after he had gone back, the latest horror was perpetrated."

The British School still stands in Fairfield Road next to Old School Mews.

My own pet theory is that there was no Jack the Ripper. A number of East End murders were grouped together and sensationalised by the press, with the result that we are still talking about them today.

This Skeptoid page and podcast gives some reasons for taking this view.

One figure who turns up regularly in the more imaginative conspiracy theories in this field is the medium Robert Lees. Read about him in my post Jack the Ripper: The Leicester connection.

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Six of the Best 578

Mary Reid has been reading a report from the Manifesto Club on Public Space Protection Orders.

It's not Bernie Sanders that Jerermy Corbyn resembles, but Donald Trump. Lance Parkin draws parallels between the woes of the Republicans and the Labour Party.

"Our heritage, our history, our quirky collecting natures are being eroded and erased by the need to make financial savings, to economise, to pare down and re-shape." Tincture of Museum on the threat to our smaller museums.

"All this promises well for Mile End, does it not? Think of all the comfortable and respectable suburbs of London, from Norwood to Golder's Green, and try to find one with a series of concerts like this." The Guardian recently republished a 1921 interview with Adrian Boult about his plans to bring classical music to the East End.

The Gentle Author on two unlikely neighbours: Handel and Jimi Hendrix.

The Nottingham Post has a gallery of 30 photographs of the city's Victoria station.

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Mirror alleges Tories exceeded spending limit in 9 Lib Dem seats

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This morning's Mirror takes up the Channel 4 News investigation of alleged Conservative overspending at the last general election.

Its report says:

A Mirror investigation today reveals how 24 Tory MPs failed to declare thousands of pounds spent on their election campaigns in marginal seats. 

None of the MPs we name below declared the party's controversial RoadTrip battlebuses in local budgets, with Tory HQ picking up the tab instead. 

If the estimated £2,000 cost of the bus had been included locally, some of the MPs could have breached strict spending limits. 

Five Tory RoadTrip battlebuses crossed the country to help handpicked candidates in the final stages of last year’s election campaign, with head office picking up the tab. 

The total cost of this campaign has never been published, but the Mirror has found invoices indicating it was more than £2,000 a day, including pay and expenses for volunteers and promotion costs.

It is striking that 9 of the 24 seats the Mirror has identified were held by the Liberal Democrats:

• Wells
• Chippenham
• North Cornwall
• Thornbury and Yate
• Kingston
• Yeovil
• Torbay
• Cheltenham
• Sutton and Cheam

There's more about this story on the Channel 4 News microsite.

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Look at Life: Down London River

This film from 1959 shows London poised uneasily but attractively between tradition and modernity.

More about the Look at Life films on Wikipedia.

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Six of the Best 577

Tim Holyoake says remaining in the European Union is the proud, patriotic choice: "Why would we want to throw away all of the advances we’ve made as proud Britons over the last few decades? Why would we choose to leave the EU and sacrifice our security, prosperity, freedom and sovereignty to an uncertain future in an uncertain world?"

"A ... recent Canadian academic study ... found not just that architects disagreed with the public on what was an attractive building but that they couldn’t predict what the public would like." Nicholas Boys Smith argues that we need to make new homes more popular.

Gabriel Rosenberg examines how preserving the 'family farm' became central to American politics.

Mimi Matthews on Jane Eyre's encounter with the legendary gytrash.

"Of the many bridges that span the River Thames in London, Hammersmith Bridge must certainly rank as one of the most picturesque." Flickering Lamps looks at its history.

Anders Hanson visits Wakefield.

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Six of the Best 575

Photo: Andreas Trepte

"This government is a bullying government. It preaches localism and practices centralism. As a localist I defend local decision making and local accountability." Richard Kemp on the government's intention to ban local councils from having ethical investment policies.

Labour MP Jonathan Reynolds explains how he learnt to stop worrying and love Basic Income.

John Field visits Osea Island, home to a government work camp and a retreat for wealthy addicts.

"I’ve tried to imagine how the view towards the Minster might look from the A59 end of Water End, where the road crosses the railway. Somewhat blighted, I suspect." York Stories examines plans for a major redevelopment in the city.

"Curlews are long-lived birds, they can reach the grand old age of 30. It seems that our British population is ageing and not reproducing, making the future look dire. As the UK holds 25% of the breeding population of the Eurasian curlew, this is an alarming state of affairs." Mary Colwell-Hector on the threat to this wonderful bird.

SlideShare introduces us to Mike, the cat who guarded the British Museum between 1909 and 1929.

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Jonathan Meades in Nazi Germany and Shoreditch

Time to catch up with one of this blog's heroes,

At the start of the month Jonathan Meades had an article in the London Review of Books reviewing two books on Nazi Germany:

• Hitler at Home by Despina Stratigakos
• Speer: Hitler’s Architect by Martin Kitchen

Unlike many earlier authors, neither Kitchen nor Meades tries to exonerate Speer of his crimes. Meades writes

Speer’s earliest war crimes were largely restricted to evicting Jews from properties that Nazis coveted or which might provide shelter for bombing victims. He also effected the demolition of many homes to make way for the bloated white elephant of Germania, Hitler’s new capital. 

These clearances were paltry put beside the consequences of his work on concentration camps. He had no part in running them but it was part of his brief to get them built, to quarry and fire the materials. He was close to Himmler and enthusiastically subscribed to the Reichsführer SS’s dauntingly simplistic policy of Annihilation through Work.

Turning to Hitler at Home, he writes of the construction of the Führer's public image:

The note that ... dutifully credulous journalists struck was remarkably consistent and testifies to the manipulative efficiency of Hitler’s publicity machine. The same words recur: destiny, toil, youth, culture, music, authentic, sacrifice – oh the sacrifice. 

That publicity machine was also sedulous in courting useful idiots, none more useful than Lord Rothermere, who happened to own a newspaper and whose potential as messenger boy to the British establishment Hitler exploited, just as he exploited the New York Times Magazine, which on 20 August 1939 enthused about his love of chocolate and of gooseberry pie and his rapt attention to the petitions of ‘widows and orphans of party martyrs’.

Then came news that in April Jonathan Meades is having a one-man show of treyfs and artknacks at the Londonewcastle Project in Shoreditch.

Treyfs? Artknacks? You will have to follow the link to find out.

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Six of the Best 572

Mark Pack and David Howarth have published a second edition of their 'The 20% Strategy: Building a core vote for the Liberal Democrats'.

Michael Oakeshott is an important 20th-century British Conservative thinker. Aurelian Craiutu reviews his notebooks.

Richard Gooding looks at the trashing of John McCain, which helped George W. Bush win the Republican nomination in 2000.

Like Ray Gosling and Alan Moore, Jeremy Seabrook is a product of working-class Northampton. Here he writes of growing up gay in the town in the years after World War II.

"Robert Mitchum considers The Night of the Hunter one of his most impressive roles. Gentle, subtle and seductive, but deranged and psychotic, Mitchum’s character is one of the scariest villains in film history." Cinephilia & Beyond on the only film directed by Charles Laughton.

"It was while working on Time Out’s annual pub guide in 2000 that I heard the tale of the Camden castles. A reviewer claimed that there were once four Camden pubs with castle in their name – the Edinboro, Windsor, Dublin and Pembroke – and these had originally been built for navvies digging Regent’s Canal." Peter Watts gently explodes a myth.

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A lost line: South Acton to Hammersmith and Chiswick

A brief video about a brief and long-forgotten line. I traced its course myself when I was living in West London around 30 years ago.

For more on the line, see the Disused Stations pages for Hammesmith & Chiswick.

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Six of the Best 569

In a thoughtful post, Mark Mills reminds us that there can be pessimistic liberals as well as optimistic ones.

Matthew d'Ancona puts his finger on Labour's problem: "It is New Labour, or what remains of it, that needs to admit its faults, dismantle itself and rebuild from scratch."

"By the Victorian era, however, the formality of cat funerals had increased substantially. Bereaved pet owners commissioned undertakers to build elaborate cat caskets. Clergymen performed cat burial services. And stone masons chiseled cat names on cat headstones." Mimi Matthews on a forgotten corner of social history.

London was once powered by a vast underground hydraulic system, explains Andy Emmerson.

Tess Reidy shows us what happens to night clubs after they close down.

Adam Covell explores the landscape of M.R. James' A Warning to the Curious.

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Modernity, High Speed Trains and opening doors

As this video shows, British Rail introduced their new High Speed Trains on the Great Western mainline in October 1976.

They were a powerful symbol of modernity and I remember being regarded with envy when I travelled from Paddington to Swansea and back on them early the following year.

Now I commute on HSTs every day. I like them better than the other stock used on the Midland mainline as they are more spacious.

Time moves on, however.

This morning I got on an HST and walked the length of the carriage looking for a suitable seat.

At the end of the next was a young woman. "Please can you tell me how to get off?"

To get off an HST you have to open the window in the door and turn the outside handle. To a generation raised on pressing buttons, this must seem extraordinarily old fashioned.

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Six of the Best 568

"There is only one conclusion that we can possibly draw ... if nothing changes radically between now and 2020, Labour is headed for disaster." Public Policy and the Past tells it like it is.

Zaid Jilani argues that our celebration of Martin Luther King today is based on a simplistic view of him that passes over his more challenging views.

"David Litvinoff was, by nature and temperament, a wanderer between worlds: between the Chelsea set and hardcore criminals, between Soho and the East End, between the Scene and Esmeralda’s Barn, between Lucian Freud, George Melly, Peter Rachman, the Krays, John Bindon, Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger." Jon Savage reviews a biography of a central but elusive Sixties figure.

What makes music sad? Ben Ratliff tells us, with particular reference to the songs of Nick Drake.

Lynne About Loughborough selflessly investigates the Leicestershire town's pubs.

"Not far from London’s Euston station is a slightly spooky old derelict building. The former London Temperance Hospital on Hampstead Road." Flickering Lamps takes us there.

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