canals

A poet finds home in a patch of nettles

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Towards the end of a long relationship – ‘resolved to have a conversation about the Future, which meant Separating’ –…

How Algernon Newton made great art out of empty streets and dingy canals

6 March 2021 9:00 am

Quite late in life Walter Sickert paid his first visit to Peckham Rye. He was excited, apparently, because he had…

Defund theatres – and give the money to gardeners and bingo halls

5 September 2020 9:00 am

Why does the state fund theatres and not gardening and bingo, asks Lloyd Evans

The Grand Union Canal, a serene sanctuary amid the urban sprawl

26 October 2019 9:00 am

It was a Saturday afternoon in September, the end of summer, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I’d gone…

Canals and calm: Enjoying life in the slow lane

Britain’s real-life canals are as mystical and marvellous as Philip Pullman’s books

13 January 2018 9:00 am

Philip Pullman’s latest missal, La Belle Sauvage, once again features the boat-dwelling Gyptians. Rough and honourable, they emerge from the…

An alternative map of Britain: caves, canals, megaliths and ley lines

6 December 2014 9:00 am

Picture the map of Britain. Its strangely cadaverous shape, blobs of population and routes between them seem as familiar as…

As Green as Grass, by Emma Smith - review

17 August 2013 9:00 am

The title, the subtitle, the author’s plain name, even the jacket’s photograph of a laughing old lady in sunglasses: none…