Tuesday 8 September 2015

"Old London" is my new favourite Twitter feed - hours of fun guaranteed

"We're arresting you for hate crime, Madam - you can't call 'em that any more."

The Globe, Putney - where I first saw Psycho and the Christopher Lee Dracula
Peelers on a break from a diversity awareness training course
No more curried eggs for me!
Female Labour LPs, 1929 - precursors of Diane Abbott and Harriet Harperson
Violent gangstas about to mug another unsuspecting victim
Ooh er! Bit saucy, ladies!
Thanks, but I'm trying to cut down on pickled tongues and sweetbreads this week
Fascinating!
The original Waitrose - Acton, 1906
What a marvellously atmospheric photograph
Little scamps, 1941 - what could possibly go wrong?
Sir James Barrie at the Charing Cross Tea Stall, 1921
Petticoat Lane. Tell them it's all rubbish - I dare you!
Cops with cutlasses - now there's an idea!
The Old London Twitter feed can be found here. But I warn you - you'll be there for the rest of the day.

10 comments:

  1. The first photograph. The original Mrs Wilbeforce from "The Ladykillers"?

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    1. Spot on! Astonishingly, Katie Johnson - who played Mrs Lop-Sided - first appeared on stage in 1894. "Simply try for one hour to behave like gentlemen!"

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  2. I recollect an evening when a dozen or so King's boys and High School gals visited The Globe. It was on its last legs, it was winter and the radiators rattled, gurgled and almost leapt from the brackets and at one point during the comedy film (I cannot remember the title but I think Jerry Lewis was in the cast) several of us, the Blogmeister included, leant back in our chairs in the throes of laughter: the whole row of seats broke from its moorings and we were toppled into the row behind. None of us was hurt and there were no other casualties - we were the only punters.
    It was closed down not long after and was left to rot for many, many years.

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    1. I can't remember if that was the occasion on which the whole film was accompanied by the sound of rain constantly dripping on the lino floor in about twenty places, and we all had to move because half of us were getting soaked. I must have seen about twenty films there over time, and I can't ever remember it ever not falling to pieces. Whenever I catch a few minutes of "The Smallest Show on Earth" (Peter Sellers and Margaret Rutherford), on TV, I'm reminded of The Globe. Mind you, the Rialto, Raynes Park wasn't exactly The Empire, Leicester Square!

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  3. Ah The Globe.I was beaten up in its dingy toilet by three older boys after I refused them one of my slim panatellas purchased in the little kiosk next door.I think it was my first cigar and certainly the first time I'd been hit repeatedly in the face. Serves me right for smoking at age twelve.Putney has always been a bit edgy.The film was the wonderful Jason and the Argonauts.

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    1. Try walking down Festing Rd wearing a King's College Junior School red cap in 1963. My parents might as well have called me Sue. A night out at the Globe was regarded as a treat, like eating at the Wimpy on Putney High St.

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    2. Ah, yes- those Putney panatellas. I seem to remember they were 9d, and could be purchased individually. I remember having to make a desperate effort not to throw up while smoking the first one on the school playing fields behind Gothic Lodge (I was on my own, and, no, it wasn't a sports day). Bred us tough back then. Anyway, I suppose you learned a lesson that day - i.e. don't flash your panatella at other chaps in the toilet.

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    3. Ah, Wimpy. I imagine that if we were to eat one now, it would taste disgusting - but there was nothing quite like those thin, rubbery patties with lashings of paint-stripper tomato sauce from one of those big, red, squeezy tomato-shaped dispensers, washed down with a glass of some impossibly diuretic and largely flavourless cola-style substance. The one in Charing Cross Road was my favourite. Visiting America and eating one's first proper cheeseburger and fries was a bit of a revelation, whereas hotdogs turned out to be pretty much the same.

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  4. and have we all forgotten the joys of The Golden Egg on Wimbledon Broadway?

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    1. Probably serving sushi or Mexican these days. Or are they no longer a thing?

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