Category Archives: London

A bigger SPLASH

Posted on November 5, 2021 by j futrell

  The most important thing for Kim and I to remember today (November 5) is to empty the bath. It remains half full or thereabouts for much of the week and sometimes longer, depending on how infrequently either of us … Continue reading →

Posted in Dogs, gone west, London, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

no goodbyes

Posted on November 5, 2021 by j futrell

Friends and those on the fringes of friendship don’t walk out on you overnight, they just sort of fade away, like sunsets. Okay, there’s a handful of I would and have crossed to the other side of the street to … Continue reading →

Posted in London, travel, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ever been to south west London

Posted on June 3, 2021 by j futrell

…the riverbanks, avenues and playing fields, beat clubs and bars and clothes shops that were the architecture of my first twenty or so years; the first three in Manchester notwithstanding. An adolescence upon a  stretch of Thames that winds south … Continue reading →

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Passenger On Board

Posted on May 27, 2021 by j futrell

The first four hours are the toughest. Traffic from the West End to, well, wherever? People, hordes of them, with one aim – to escape, to get to the pub, to see the kids, to watch television, to kiss the … Continue reading →

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Kim and Sally at the Victoria & Albert Museum

Posted on February 8, 2020 by j futrell

Everyone is very excited because later this month one of Kim and Sally’s ‘yukata’ and ‘obi’ designs outfits, produced when they were the Bentley & Spens textile design partnership, is to be featured in Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk an eye … Continue reading →

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I remember monkey bottles, kangaroo tails, and Frank Ifield

Posted on November 28, 2018 by j futrell

  I am fortunate to have worked through a period in journalism when the gifts, the perks – the freebies to apply the correct journalistic parlance – were worth having. My diary is housed within a handsome Papyrus leather book … Continue reading →

Posted in gone west, London, media, Seashores, travel, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Mick Owens – the artful life of a generous man

Posted on March 13, 2018 by j futrell

Michael Owens looms disproportionately large in my life; a presence in four of the rooms of my home to be precise. For a man I shared a house with nearly 40 years ago, and whom for the past ten years … Continue reading →

Posted in London, media, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Vandals at work – the death of the bungalow

Posted on September 25, 2017 by j futrell

There soon won’t be any 1930s bungalows left. While conservation groups, local authorities and investors, watched closely by the likes of English Heritage, take pains to preserve ancient cottages as well as properties from the Victorian and Georgian eras anything … Continue reading →

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It’s A Family Affair: Twenty years of Robert Elms shows.

Posted on June 23, 2014 by j futrell

What does it take to get Sir Paul Smith, Gilbert and George, Nick Lowe, Gary Kemp, and very nearly Rod Stewart, into the same Soho jazz club at the same time? The answer, were you not tuned into Radio London … Continue reading →

Posted in London, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Ahem – The Age of Fashion

Posted on January 9, 2014 by j futrell

London Collections: Men brought a touch of elegance to an otherwise damp start to the New Year, and in their quiet, English, tweedy, home counties ways, both Hackett and Ted Baker  reset the fashion bar. Jeremy Hackett is a charming … Continue reading →

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