There is, not far from Clapham South station, a thing I've seen nowhere else. It's this. (1/6)
It's a wall, next to a three-storey house, on the grounds of a rather grand Victorian villa which is now a school. (2/6)
When I first saw it, I thought it was odd to leave a wall standing after demolishing a building. And the more I thought about it, the odder it seemed. (3/6)
So I approached a local historian to see if he had any skinny on it. And he did a bit of digging. And the story is MADDER than I could possibly have imagined. (4/6)
Once upon a time, there was a wealthy Austrian-born jeweller called Joseph Lindner. He lived in the grand villa, the very edge of which you can see on the right. (5/6)
Then, someone bought the plot of land next door and built the large house you can see on the left. Lindner was outraged that his new neighbours could see in to his garden. So he BUILT THAT BIG FUCKING WALL to block their view. And there it remains, a giant brick fuck-you. (6/6)
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Prompted by something Dan ‘No Such Thing As A’ Schreiber said on some twenty-hour Comic Relief podcast marathon or other, I dived into a bit of research about Holst’s masterpiece, The Planets. (1/15)
The suite ends with the sound of a wordless female choir repeating two chords and fading away. Fading away is nothing to anyone with a mixing desk or any recording software. But doing it live is another matter. Especially when it’s a hundred years ago. (2/15)
To achieve the effect at the premiere and subsequent performances, Holst placed his female chorus offstage and had them sing the last bar few a through times, then turn and, led by a sub-conductor, walk along a corridor – still singing... (3/15)
In 1978, Douglas Adams and John Lloyd were commissioned to write the novel of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
They rented a cheap villa in the remote village of Agios Stefanos in Corfu to use as HHGG HQ. (1/12)
But long before they even started looking for their suitcases, Adams sacked Lloyd. Lloyd wasn’t happy, but decided he’d go along anyway, not least because he’d already paid. (2/12)
Once there, a daily routine soon set in: Adams would sit at a typewriter on the balcony while Lloyd wandered down the hill to drink Greek coffee in a local taverna and learn advanced Corfiot swearing from the eccentric owner, Manthos. (3/12)