News
Recent work:
Slice Of Britain: The City That Look And Smells Like A Landfill Site
Nine weeks of hardly any bin collections has left the student districts of Leeds, places like Headingley and Hyde Park, with rubbish strewn across the streets. Spent the day there for the Independent on Sunday, interviewing the people who open their doors to a whiff of landfill. It wasn’t a happy sight.
Conference: Conservatives in Manchester
Conference: Lib Dems in Bournemouth
Conference: Labour in Brighton
A trawl around the annual conferences of the three main political parties from a Camden perspective.
Students upset by missing penguin riddle get new art
Victims of a classic student prank, some of the undergraduates at the London School for Economics have been down in the dumps since their penguin mascot was stolen. The university is, however, doing it’s best to bring in some new public art…
Dorothy, a secretary – and a spy?
Dorothy Galton was by all accounts a bossy-boots university secretary who worked out of the University of London’s famous Senate House in Bloomsbury. New papers show that MI5 thought she was also a spy for Stalinist Russia during the Cold War.
The superfan who liked to be known as ‘Knowledge‘
Daniel Feinstein was known simply as ‘Knowledge’ among football supporters, who never knew his real name until he died suddenly durin the close season. A folklore character, his amazing encyclopaedic knowledge of Arsenal footballers was legendary on the terraces.
Bongo Junior – or Bobby, as he was known to his keepers, was the king of London Zoo. Set-up in a lovenest with three female gorillas, romance was on the cards for the giant Silverback. And then, he suddenly died from a heart attack. This features looks at what happened next and how his three ‘widows’ responded.
Peeping Through The Audit Window
In the hardship of recession, this exclusive investigation uses the Audit Commission Act – an underused tool for journalist – to get inside Camden Council’s accounts. While the Town Hall’s bosses have plenty of bleak spending forecasts, a bonus system for chief officers remains in tact.
Robocop died of heroin ovedose in apartment
PC David Pilling was known as Robocop for his all action approach to cracking the drugs market in the West End of London. Tragically, he succumbed to substance abuse himself and was found dead in his flat from a massive overdose.
Mystery Tory will take on Dobson
Rock solid Labour for so long, Holborn and St Pancras has been MP Frank Dobson’s domain for years. A respected police chief – whose colourful life story began in a pig shed in Hong Kong – plays some PR games here and tells us how the Tories can break his stranglehold in a territory at the next elections.
Museum’s darkest secrets could see the light of day
An exclusive report on how the Black Museum, Scotland Yard’s macabre collection of real life murder weapons could go on the display to the public for the first time. The story was lifted from the pages of the New Journal by The Times.
A small Welsh town comes to term with Monty Python’s The Life Of Brian – 30 years after it was first released.
What lies ahead for Binyam Mohammed?
Back to England after life in Guantanamo Bay…
Keith Moon to get plaque at last despite English Heritage snub
English Heritage refused to give one of its famous blue plaques – the discs you see on the side of buildings where well known figures once lived – to Keith Moon, the maniac drummer with The Who. The Mods felt he had been harshly treated and organised their own tribute to Moon The Loon.
PM to CNJ: ‘I’ll fix homes’ / Oi, why aren’t you clapping?
There’s nothing quite like doorstepping the Prime Minister. Here Gordon Brown appears to promise to sort out Camden and Isington’s council homes crisis after we muscled into a meet and greet with Labour supporters in north London.. Aside from the brief interview, there is also an insight into how the spin machine still have a tight grip on even the simplest of photo shoots.
Banned! The statues they won’t let you see
The Westminster Public Art Advisory Committee. Never heard of it? This little known panel has the over the last few years helped to stop a series of proposals for art and sculptures in the centre of London. Here, the artwork that was shot down in private meetings is revealed.
and some old favourites:
Christopher Lee drives a stake into his horror roles
Everyone knows him as Dracula.. but when Sir Christopher Lee came to a Camden library, he called in an advance to warn the council to ensure he wasn’t asked about his famous horror films. A freedom of information request revealed the actor’s demands.
Ridley told to chuck out the chintz
Leafing through Camden Council’s planning papers can throw up some surprising results, especially as the borough is rammed-stuff with famous faces. Here an interior designer braver than Maximus tells Gladiator and Blade Runner film-maker Sir Ridley Scott which bit of his home he thought resembled a “1960s Brighton hair-dressing salon”.
Loss that haunts one of football’s winners
Bob Wilson wrote movingly about the loss of his daughter Anna in Behind The Network. The book includes a letter she wrote after being diagnosed with cancer. I defy anybody not to be moved by it. After reading it, I spoke to Bob in a phone interview for this feature and he talked about the charity set up in her name.
