Impressions of poverty – A Dublin Story

If you’ve ever listened to the song Running to Stand Still from U2’s Joshua Tree album you will have heard about the Dublin neighbourhood of Ballymun in the lyric, “I see seven towers but I only see one way out.” Located on the northern periphery of Dublin city, Ballymun was at one time Ireland’s largest and…

Cure the Sunday blues

I haven’t had much time to write recently as we have just moved into our new house in Chiswick; this task involving a significant deal of packing, lifting, unpacking, rearranging, realising it doesn’t look quite right and then throwing away altogether. I saw this sandwich board while we were walking through Hamstead last week. After…

I am an Emperor

Simon & Garfunkel sang in The Sound of Silence that “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.” I don’t know much about all that, but I happened upon this poem chalked onto the boarded up window of a condemned building on Camden High Street this afternoon. The grammar certainly leaves a…