If I were to open by describing my setting as a desk piled high with old issues of The London Magazine, the wine red May 1960 issue face down on top, rust-brown rimmed teacup marking the narrow No Man’s Land between the pile and my laptop, you would assume I were telling the truth. If I were to add that the red reminded me of blood spilled last week in rage and the brown rimmed cup of the plughole down which that blood spiraled, you would assume I was either lying or mad.
Review | Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde at The Barbican
The centrifugal drive behind much of the work featured in the Barbican’s new exhibition Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde is enunciated by Rodin in the first gallery: ‘I express in a loud voice what all artists think. Desire! Desire! What a formidable stimulant.’
Archive | Poetry | The Wiper by Louis MacNeice
First published in the May 1960 issue of The London Magazine (Volume 7, No. 5).
Through purblind night the wiper
Reaps a swathe of water
Essay | Defining my Jewish Identity by Leonard Quart
I grew up in the 1940s and ’50s when the city’s ethnic groups were more clearly divided and a lingering…
Review | Arkady by Patrick Langley
Patrick Langley’s Arkady is the story of two brothers, Jackson and Frank, who are drifting. They explore the city, a…
Review | Letters To A First Love From The Future by Andy Armitage
Andy Armitage’s pamphlet is among a number of new releases from the poetry press Half-Moon Books, which is based in…
Essay | Peas by Alice Dunn
One of the stand-out gardens at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show appeared to replicate the pea in its structure.…
Review | Lee Bul: Crashing at the Hayward Gallery
Lee Bul does not make art that is designed to comfort you. Her latest collection at the Hayward Gallery on…
Contributor’s Picks – June/July 2018
Introducing Contributor’s Picks! Recommendations for the very best in arts, culture and literature from the writers for The London Magazine…
Poetry | On His Deafness by Damian Grant
‘No-one has ever written a poem “On His Deafness”’; (David Lodge, Deaf Sentence). – – – – – – – –…
Fiction | Beloved by Roger Raynal
That morning, when Ryoji woke up, fired from sleep by a strident, but usual sound, he refrained from opening…
Fiction | The Sinners’ Corner by Mark Sadler
I returned to work on a dismal Tuesday morning, emerging from the main entrance of London, Fenchurch Street, railway station…
Fiction | Crete by Cameron Stewart
‘So. What do we want today?’ I’m sitting in my local barbers chair, caped up like a clown – my…
Review | Rainsongs, by Sue Hubbard
Sue Hubbard’s Rainsongs has a unique and beautiful emotive quality that shines through its delicately constructed prose in a love-letter to…
An Ode to Spectacles (Three Inches Thick)
She arrived right on time, smoking a cigarette round the corner, checking her watch between drags before popping in…
The Diaries of a Tragic Tory Leader
Sir Stafford Northcote, 8th Bt. FRS (1818-87) of Upton Pyne, near Exeter (a modest estate by Victorian standards of…
Castillo Olite
Some English show a pride in family who volunteered to join Spain´s Civil War, seeing it as an anti-fascist…
Quick as a Moth
Quick as a moth, rises the bird in the air, all rush of wings and glancing of sun from…
Train to Penrith
There’s a lot of England left Whatever glum people say – Acres and acres of it – but dull…
Self-Portrait as Eve
I never use a peeler. I prefer the sweet frisson of a paring knife chasing my thumb around an…
Interview | At the Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet with Michael Joseph
‘Beggars Banquet is the album that changed everything for the Rolling Stones,’ the band state on their official website, rollingstones.com,…
You Must Change Your Life – The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin by Rachael Corbett
You Must Change Your Life is an enthralling exploration of the complex relationship between two creative giants of art and…

















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