A memory of the Strand

This story was kindly contributed by Pattiyan. I have used CX station for years, right from my early working days c.1942. I remember going to lunch at the Strand Palace, Lyons corner house, and eating in the Salad Bar with a boy friend when I was sixteen. The boy I knew was waiting for his…

Read More

Panoramas, Dress Circles and Tubes

In 1787 Robert Barker put a patent on a way of seeing: ‘panorama’. It is said that he came upon the term when surveying the city of Edinburgh from the top of Calton Hill. Moving to London, Barker reconstructed 360 degree views in a Leicester Square art gallery; an initiative mimicked by his son on…

Read More

Petrolheads and airheads

The future has come to the Strand, in the form of a beautiful machine – the Bloodhound. Currently filling the front window of Coutts Bank with its pointy-nosed enquiry into what sort of world might make use of it, this gleaming blur of potential encapsulates an ambition: to reach a speed of 1,000 mph and…

Read More

The shoes of London Fashion Week 2010

On the Strand this week the big glass window of Coutts the bankers has been hung with large white balls. Glamorous fashion photographs adorn its window and the window of Topshop. It’s been London Fashion Week – or five days, a size zero version of a week – and beautiful creatures have been drifting down…

Read More