Durrty Dozen +2 offical threak

[Paul T]

lady t left some of that area in, whereas baby t is more careful with the cropping, in case my identity is picked up by security services, international terrorists etc. Hope the area in question didn't put you off yer lunch.

[Maynard Friedman]

I thought it was the lower half of one of those Ronald Reagan masks!

[roy6]

lady t left some of that area in, whereas baby t is more careful with the cropping, in case my identity is picked up by security services, international terrorists etc. Hope the area in question didn't put you off yer lunch.

The area in question seems fine.

Good for Lady T. And now a precedent has been set, hasn't it.

[Paul T]

Sorry I haven't updated this thread... lots of work meetings, and I had to postpone a trip to a happening place, hopefully next week.

Anyway, yesterday I wandered thru some of London's interesting nooks and crannies on my way to a meet, and took my camera with me.

After arriving in the west end, I cut thru to Bloomsbury - the area where writers traditionally hang out - via Denmark Street. This is London's Tin Pan alley, a centre for the music industry since the 1940s.

The street is still full of music shops...

This was once a famed coffee bar, La Gioconda, now reopened as a restaurant. Being right next door to many of the city's publishers and agencies, this was the prime musicians' hangout in the 50s and 60s - David Bowie, Marc Bolan and Steve Marriott would nurse coffees here for hours.

Next door was a well-known booking agents, Kings. About a year ago I went to a Denmark Street reunion of people who worked there back in the 60s. Lots of great stories of gay sexual encounters with famous stars, and also the background of the notorious murder of Reg Calvert, one of the founders of the Kings Agency, who launched a pirate radio station based in an abandoned fort on the Thames (more of which later, I hope).

Back in those days pirate radio was huge, because the government-owned BBC wouldn't play pop or rock'n'roll music - stations like Radio London and Radio Caroline spring up in response, broadcast from offshore. Calvert, boss of Radio City, was shot dead by Oliver Smedley, an ex-paratropper and liberal politician, who owned a rival station, Radio Caroline.

This is the home of Calvert's agency, Kings...

ANd a few doors down is VIntage and Rare guitars. It's housed in a really old building, I guess from the 1750s, still with its original wood panelling, on which are hung old Gibson and Epiphone semis, you name it...

I like the SG JUnior... the Dan Armstone plexiglass is, sadly, a reissue. I interviewed Dan Armstrong once in some little town in, I think, Orange County. Mad as a bag of badgers. Brought his blonde manager wife and a teddy bear. If any questions were particularly difficult, the teddy bear would answer.

Another two doors down is Regent Sound studios - where the Stones recorded their debut album. It closed as a studio decades ago, but they've now added a new retro look sign and a blue plaque to mark the spot.

On the other side of the street is what was long a famed guitar shop called Andy's, which specialised in vintage acoustics. (Lady t once dropped a wooden angel on my 1960s EPiphone acoustic, and got it repaired here, surreptitiously. I think it's lucky to have an angel-damaged guitar).

The shop was bought by a rival a couple years ago & is now known as Music Ground.

Some of their prices are a joke. Framus guitars look cool, were traditionally funky, cheaply-made instruments, like say a European Danelectro, that sounded shit but had a home-made charm all their own. Now they're supposed to be worth £1999? Maybe I missed the decimal point, in which case £199.99 ain't too bad...

Just around the corner is an area long known as St Giles' Rookery. Rookeries were dodgy areas ruled by criminal gangs in the 1700s and 1800s, where the police wouldn't even try to enter. (Do you have rooks in America? Carrion-eating birds that roost together in trees and make a hell of a racket). Mostly the old rookeries were bulldozed to get rid of their residents, but this grimy old building still gives you a feel of the old place. It's covered in hoardings, because they're building a swish new office building opposite. That's what I love about London, the way the old and new are in permanent face-off.

[almostnice]

i feel really guilty for not responding much!

Paul, you do an awesome and really interesting job for your leg of the tour.

your last updates puts me back to shame:at the tender age of 12 i made a horrible mistake which i will regret till the end of my life-i joined a marching band,playing the large snare.seeing all the guitars and basses makes me want to kick myself for not learning to play a real drumkit in my juvenile days...cant listen to "when the saints go marching in",makes me want to puke.

very belated answer to a question from about 2 weeks ago:

Paul should be #6.who is next?

[tg76]

very belated answer to a question from about 2 weeks ago:

Paul should be #6.who is next?

im sure it was mentioned somewhere, but i have been wrong 99% of my life

tv shooter??? for october

then ??? for november

id like to have them mid December / January

[almostnice]

yesss for tv,even though he is in need of some real endorsement!

[tg76]

urggggh, i was wrong

jimmy then mr tv

are you in the line up for this tour?

if not you should be

tg- i think people are tired of seeing me, my dog and my two year old running around town. . .but hey, ya nevah know. . .

Almostnice- you've taken this tour to the next level. what size are the jeans?

TV shooter - they are a 32 - should be right up your alley..if Paul T is still up for the next leg and JimmyC is still willing to take these to India in September - I would love seeing more dog and snipper pigs in October/ November powered by TV shooter...

... then to tg for december cause ill be on holiday for 6 weeks and actually out and about doing stuff... like tramping around stuart island for 3 days

[almostnice]

jimmy is in india already,it would be far more easy for paul to handle them over to tweeds/syb in london-that is if they are still in.(just my 2 cents)

[tg76]

true... even if they are only in for a cameo, it would be nice to see them both

then tv then jimmy then me ?

[beatle]

sounds good to me....if Jimmy ever returns from the ashram....

[Paul T]

Cool. When? I'm hoping to take an interesting trip next week, then happy to hand them over asap!

[beatle]

just pm tweeds and find out what works for him..thanks so much for showing us so many parts of your day to day life - and I can't wait to find out what they look like by now...

[tweeds]

back in london next week, we could make it happen with Sybaritical on board

[sybaritical]

I vote we kidnap & torture hipsters.

[Lendo]

I vote we kidnap & torture hipsters.

Clean shaves and loose fitting pants for all!!

[Lendo]

I vote we kidnap & torture hipsters.

Clean shaves and loose fitting pants for all!!

[Paul T]

Probably my last week with the MF. I will miss them. Feeling guilty I haven't been anywhere exciting in the last few days.

The biggest thrill over the weekend was when we dropped in at the city farm and the nipper got attacked by an emu. Here he proudly displays the scars...

Back home for a quick play with some recent birthday presents, namely a gyro remote control helicopter. It's hard to reists playing with this during workdays...

After running around with various kids over the weekend we decided to head for our fave Brewery, featured on here before, set among buildings like this:

With boats lazily meandering up the Thames:

Maybe lady t was happy to head for this college complex because of who's filming here:

Blackbeard Production is preparing to shoot a sequence of the next Pirates of the Caribbean here. Sadly for lady t johnny depp hasn't arrived yet. He doesn't know what he's missing...

This could be the biggest set we've seen assembled here, and there's been a lot:

[Paul T]

Probably my last week with the MF. I will miss them. Feeling guilty I haven't been anywhere exciting in the last few days.

The biggest thrill over the weekend was when we dropped in at the city farm and the nipper got attacked by an emu. Here he proudly displays the scars...

Back home for a quick play with some recent birthday presents, namely a gyro remote control helicopter. It's hard to reists playing with this during workdays...

After running around with various kids over the weekend we decided to head for our fave Brewery, featured on here before, set among buildings like this:

With boats lazily meandering up the Thames:

Maybe lady t was happy to head for this college complex because of who's filming here:

Blackbeard Production is preparing to shoot a sequence of the next Pirates of the Caribbean here. Sadly for lady t johnny depp hasn't arrived yet. He doesn't know what he's missing...

This could be the biggest set we've seen assembled here, and there's been a lot:

[Paul T]

As usual, one quick drink became a few quick drinks. So when we walked back it was dusk - autumn is coming. And our hands are getting shakey...

Still, an hour late means the dough had risen... time for pizza and chianti.

The flour hasn't affected the dungarees too much, honest!

[Paul T]

As usual, one quick drink became a few quick drinks. So when we walked back it was dusk - autumn is coming. And our hands are getting shakey...

Still, an hour late means the dough had risen... time for pizza and chianti.

The flour hasn't affected the dungarees too much, honest!

[almostnice]

quality update (as usual),Paul.looks like you had a merry night out.one day we will have a beer (or 5) together.

[almostnice]

quality update (as usual),Paul.looks like you had a merry night out.one day we will have a beer (or 5) together.

[Paul T]

THis was my last day with the MF.

I wanted to go somewhere new; my friend Carl and I discussed going out to a surreal abandoned futuristic fort in the thames estuary, but we couldn't get a boat out on the right day.

Then he had a great idea: Dungeness, this beautiful, ugly, abandoned location in Kent. In fact, without Carl, there'd be only a couple pictures here; I had a memory card fail, so only a couple of these photos are mine.

I've had my old car for nearly 20 years, but it's been in the shop for much of the last 12 months. But we thought, fuck it, let's travel in style.It didn't miss a beat.

It was maybe 90 minutes drive, south east out of london. After we left the motorway the roads got more winding; there were kestrels, their wings beating hynotically in the breeze, keeping them floating in the sky so they could spot their prey.

This corner of Kent was where the RAF was long based, along with many plane companies, and there are quite a few odd little museums. This is one of them, run by a bunch of enthusiasts. THey were painting the interior, too busy to open. We chatted for a bit, over the top of a practice bouncing bomb - pulled out of the sea near here, at Reculver, a wonderful location where there are fossilised shark teeth on the beach, a ruined Roman fort that was later converted to a church, which was also long a location for aircraft tests. HEre, the dork in the car is me; behind us is a Vampire, one of the first Brit jets. Its body is mostly made of plywood; these planes first flew around 1943 - but ironically were never used in action over France, in case their technology fell into the hands of the opposition.

This is our main destination: Dungeness itself. It's marked by a huge nuclear power station, a desolate pebbled beach full of cabbages - which apparently store plenty of radioactivity - plus an old and a modern lighthouse. The drum-shaped building is made from the base of an even older lighthouse.

the power station is on the left; here it looks small, but it looms large over the whole area, threatening but impressive, with its own functional beauty.

We got there around 10.30 and had breakfast. Maybe you're lucky I lost the photo of my English brekkie - it looked like something from a horror show and I'm not sure the sausages featured meat from any earhtly animal. Mauybe it was made of radioactive mutants...

Walking around the beach, there's an amazing bank of fog horns - essentially, like huge PA stacks, made of concrete, standing like sentinels against the sky. Further down the beach was an abandoned shed, surrounded by 'No Entry' signs. It was owned by Racal, the electronics company, who used to experiment with radar and other techology out here. Again, I lost my shots; this was another nearby abandoned building, filled with detritus, beautiful in its own way. Around us there were plants with small berries - deadly Nightshade, the favoured means by which Livia, the wife of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, would despatch her enemies - later, it's used by Juliet to kill herself, in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee..."

there's a weird abandoned Church nearby, made out of an old concrete warehouse, with added Gothic windows and stained glass. It's next door to an ammunition store for the anti-aircraft guns they used to have out here. Then there are dozens of houses, most of them wooden shacks; a couple of them are made from old railway carriages. There are a few more modern buildings, that look like stealth bombers in comparison, matt black, severe and self-consciously cool. One of them was owned by the film-maker Derek Jarman, who created a beautiful garden, of spikey succulents and sculptures wrought out of twisted, abandoned steel found on the beech.

From his house we had a beautiful clear view of the nuclear power plant - and in front of it, a little lady hanging out her washing.

This is me, capturing a clichéd composition of washing fluttering on the line, with the foreboding nuclear plant behind. A work of art, obviously, now lost to humanity. The house on the left is made from an old 1940s railway carriage.

LAter had lunch; a good pub, the Britannia, sells Shepherds Neame beer, the most popular of which is called SpPitfure. I did have a good photo of a garish old red white and blue poster which said: "Spitifre. Like the Luftwaffe, downed all over Kent." Sorry, Markus, you'll never see it now. As we ate our fish and chips and whitebait we could hear a constant rumbling noise, like distant thunder. It came from a nearby Army base, an entire fake town which the SAS or marines use for practice in storming houses, employing live amo. I guess they need to keep in practice.

Further over from the pub is this line of old railway sleepers, fading into the distance. Again, it's quite desolate. Just nearby is the memorial to two Polish pilots, Mieczyslaw Waskiewicz and Boguslaw Mierzwa, who both died here in 1940, a long way from home.

On our way home we stopped at the end of a council estate, parking by a 1960s house that had a WW2 propeller chained to a tree in its front garden; bits of aero angine were scattered around its front lawn. Walking out into the fields we reached a series of lakes, surrounded by trees and bullrushes, teeming with birds, including this Swan. Swans all belong to the queen - recently there was a furore in the Right Wing press here, with claims that Polish workers, who they love to demonise, had eaten and roasted one. There was widespread outrage. Ultimately, of course, the story was another urban myth, used to sell newspapers.

There's an Island in the middle of the lakes... marked by these three imposing structures that loom out of the trees. These are 'sound mirrors' - constructed in early experiments in tracking invading aircraft. THe operator would sit in a booth underneath, picking up the sounds with a stethoscope-type device, which s/he would rotate, to find their direction. They were all built between 1938 and 1930, until it was discovered that Radar would do the same job, better, and would be more resistant to bombing. There's one other similar device in Malta; apart from that, these are the only remaining examples. They were recently restored by English Heritage, the same people who look after imposing stately homes. They removed the bridge to the island, so you can't reach them now.

In the flat, beautifully bleak countryside they look dark and majestic, like the Easter Island statues. In hundreds of years, I am sure people will stare at them in the same way, wondering what secrets they hold.

[sybaritical]

Really nice final update.

I did a lot of work at Orford Ness back in the mid 90's & the awkward military architecture & bleakness of landscape was strikingly similar. Less buried ordnance and murky scientific weirdness at Dungeness though

[ranonranonarat]

beautiful post paul, everything seems so scenic. can't rep but im sure you'll understand. the picture of the little lady hanging her washing is so weird though, since her head appears so squashed it looks almost like she is some mutant alien.

there are so many beautiful places to visit and it often makes me wonder why when people go to the UK they say they want to visit harrod's and H&M and topshop and dover street market and they make it seem like those are the only places to go to when in fact there are so many beautiful places such as these and so many lovely (but i have a feeling, sometimes dingy) alleyways, where there is so much history and stories even right on the gravel they are stepping on. the quaint little stores, the warm and welcoming bookstores, the lovely places to sip coffee. that's the image in my mind. not huge conglomerate fashion stores. funny how the mind paints pictures of places we have never been to. i might be proven wrong in my future travels but i'd like to keep that image for now.

love the adventures you bring us to, paul. thank you.

[Paul T]

thanks, ran, that's much appreciated.

Sadly, there are still many people aiming to bulldoze old buildings and replace them with H&M/Starbucks/TopShop so that everywhere looks the same.

[ninja07]

great post as usual paul.

Soon after I graduated I used to work in a London architect's practice and we worked on the design of a beach house on dungeness. Was wondering if you'd seen a black rubber cladded modest looking beach house with blond, pine wood interiors along the shingle beach, perhaps with a 50's aluminium airstream caravan parked somewhere in the front of the property? Ring a bell? That place is just so surreal.....

[Paul T]

great post as usual paul.

Soon after I graduated I used to work in a London architect's practice and we worked on the design of a beach house on dungeness. Was wondering if you'd seen a black rubber cladded modest looking beach house with blond, pine wood interiors along the shingle beach, perhaps with a 50's aluminium airstream caravan parked somewhere in the front of the property? Ring a bell? That place is just so surreal.....

Indeed. It looked great. We noted the rubber cladding, the blond wood, minimal interiors with long benches within, and the airstream, all with mild jealousy.

[beatle]

Paul - thanks so much for excellent updates and a very entertaining leg of the tour ...

any plans on the personal hand over to Tweeds ?