Mother Goose

It's one of my most hotly anticipated Phantom dates of the year - panto-night at Greenwich. It's always written by the fabulous Andrew Pollard, who has a deft touch with jokes, which means I spend most of the evening in tears of laughter, and yet it's neither puerile nor smut (it is very silly though...)

Pollard himself always plays the dame, and sensibly gives him/herself the best lines and the best costumes, but his fantastic northern-lass-of-a-certain-age would be nowhere without our other Greenwich panto fixture, Paul Critoph, who has carved himself a niche as the 'jolly-old-soul' character (he bears a strong resemblance to Old King Cole) and usually plays the object of Pollard's amorous advances.

Once I'm sure that those two are on board, I'm happy to recommend to all, knowing it will be in safe hands. The rest of the cast are always chosen for their enthusiasm and ability rather than their track record in daytime soaps, and some serious cash is spent on the production values. I particularly liked this year's fake proscenium arch surrounding the show, giving a feel of what the old Greenwich Theatre would have been like.

Mother Goose has, frankly, the slightest of plots - and that's saying something when you're in panto territory. I confess I was surprised at the choice, and I'm still not convinced it was the best possible idea. Still - Andrew Pollard's made a good fist at the morality tale which sees the eponymous heroine choosing good looks over her friends (an idea guaranteed, in Panto Land, to turn out badly) 'with hilarious consequences.'

After a bit of a slow start, it soon heated up to the usual juggernaut of stupid gags, ridiculous premises, audience participation, penguins in Iceland, soppy lovers, a sexy baddie in six-inch stilettos (some of the Phantom posse are still not completely over those...) and a slop-scene that had everyone screaming.

This isn't quite the five-star territory that last year's show revelled in (the Bohemian Rhapsody sequence is still my favourite theatre scene ever) but I'm putting it down to Mother Goose being a bit of a duff story rather than any drop in standards. It's still a solid four-and-a-half stars.

And it's still an utterly brilliant night out (I'd recommend a couple of glasses of something from the bar before attempting it if you're a grown up) with possibly more adults than kids in the audience these days as it gains almost cult status.

I genuinely found myself wondering during the interval how they'd deal with Hettie's 'transformation,' I enjoyed the soppy lovers (though I could have taken some messing about in the background by the comics during the love-song - nice as the two leads' voices are, the lovers' song is always the most boring part of any pantomime) and I shouted, sang, hissed and booed along with the best of 'em (the 'couple of glasses of something from the bar' probably helped).

I keep meaning to get to what is widely-regarded to be the gold-standard of London panto these days, the Hackney Empire (which stars Clive Rowe - who, by the way, can be seen in past-production posters all the way down Greenwich Theatre stairs) and if I do, I'll report back as to how ours compares. Personally, I suspect Hackney's Luvvie brigade have bigged it up to be trendy - and the place for yummy mums to be seen, and though I'm sure it's wonderful, I'll be surprised if it's much better than Greenwich's annual treat.

After all, we are the coolest uncool town in London and we should revel in that - it's still possible to buy tickets (though it is filling up) for our shows.

I stake my tricorn that you'll enjoy this piece of festive nonsense. Get tickets here.

Goddesses, Guardians And Groves

Goddesses, Guardians and Groves - The Awakening Spirit of the Land

Jack Gale, Capall Bann, 1996, £10.95

Continuing with my week of alternatively-spiritual Greenwich, I bring you what is without doubt the oddest book about the town I have ever read.

It's so odd, in fact, that I haven't really worked out how to approach it. Written by Jack Gale, member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, the Pagan Federation and the Fellowship of Isis, the book is a guide to the Pagan spiritual sites of Greenwich, and its alternative history, as discovered by decidedly alternative methods - dowsing, rituals, visions and psychometric readings. Gale's findings have been verified by at least two independent psychics.

Most of the sites, for fairly obvious reasons, hover around the park, heath, cavern and the Point and they're populated by a whole pantheon of deities and ancient figures, from a selection of alternative religions.

Everyone from Diana to Odin, Anubis to Cernunnos, Merlin to the Snow Queen, congregates around Greenwich, especially in winter, around wintry-named sacred places like the Snow Well and Plum Pudding Hill. Holda (aka The Snow Queen) was welcomed psychically by Gale himself, in his mind later, after a ritual held to reintroduce her to Greenwich Park, where they were having such a great time they forgot to do the deed itself.

Every page of this book carries some new fascinating concept - Did you know that William Boreman's 1662 design (sic) for the layout of Greenwich Park is based on the Qabalistic Tree of Life? Perhaps you will be terrified the grisly tale of Jumping Jack Black, a young man who fell victim to mob justice for a trivial crime of which he was actually innocent. Black revealed to a psychic friend of Gale's that he was hanged from an oak in Greenwich Park during the late Victorian/Edwardian period. Gale has done his homework and looked for this story in The Times of the period and, creepily, can find no reference whatsoever to the incident. He concludes that "likely it was hushed up and swept under the carpet" by the authorities.

The book is illustrated throughout with psychically-received portraits of gods, goddesses and mythological figures, and squirly automatic drawings made by psychics at the various sacred sites.

I have no idea what to make of this book - and yet I highly recommend it to all. It is utterly fascinating. You will never be stuck for topics of conversation after reading it. Buy it here

The London Blue Plaque Guide

Nick Rennison, The History Press

Spotting blue plaques on the walls of (sometimes very unassuming) buildings is one of the great joys of walking round London. Most of them are at least partly self-explanatory, but others can be quite obscure.

We have a fair few of them in and around Greenwich and Blackheath (and one lonely plaque in Charlton) even if there aren't as many round our neck of the woods as, say, Chelsea, finding one still brings that little frisson of excitement for me.

I've never actually had a guide to them before. There are a couple on the market, including a very sumptuous-looking hardback, which, presumably, is for armchair perusal, but Nick Rennison's paperback is one for the back pocket as you walk around.

Each blue-plaque recipient is listed alphabetically and gets a paragraph or so, with a short potted history, plenty for a day-walk - if you're that interested you can look 'em up when you get home.

At the back, there are several ways of looking up plaques, the most useful of which, for me, is the plaque-by-postcode list (which does flag-up the paucity of plaques in SE London as opposed to elsewhere...) It unfortunately helped me find the Greenwich omission - poor old Viscount Wolseley, whose plaque is on Ranger's House, is listed in the index, but he doesn't get a paragraph in the main book. The rest of the local guys do get their full measure.

The 2009 edition is as complete (with that one omission) as Rennison could make it as of January this year. English Heritage adds one or two plaques per month, so a guide can never be completely up to date, but he's done his best and has included a few unofficial plaques too - there are other schemes where individuals or groups erect plaques to people, often where the very strict rules of Blue Plaques don't allow an official one.

An obvious example of this is the stone plaque to Ignatius Sancho on the wall of Greenwich Park, unveiled a couple of years ago, a fascinating character whom I'll get around to talking about some time, but unable to have a blue plaque because the house where he lived doesn't exist any more (no excuse for a similar eminent black Greenwichian, Olaudah Equiano - the house he lived in does still exist...) Sancho's plaque isn't included in Rennison's guide and I really think there is a gap in the market for those unofficial plaques.

Some are blue, some are china, some are square (often in the City) some are octagonal. Some were erected by the council like the green plaques in Westminster, some (like the mysterious Helena Pare Lydia Mott ) are rococo stone plaques, others are home-made wooden ones. I don't know of any guide to them all. Maybe there's a blog waiting for some doughty individual...

Generally, The Blue Plaque Guide is a useful buy - it fits in a (large) pocket and has just enough info to pique the interest for research back home. As usual, Waterstones ever-expanding London section has it in stock...

Dr Faustus / School For Scandal

A few days ago the Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington was on the Today programme complaining that theatres never put on productions of classic comedies any more. He moaned that while sundry obscure tragedies seemed to be gaining popularity with producers (possibly for their gory, Gothic appeal) the comedies were being totally ignored.

Nicholas Hytner from the National was standing up for London Theatre, with the slightly wussy excuse that old comedy is 'hard,' mainly because what people find funny is one of the most ephemeral things in the human experience. I was fuming. Bah, I thought. That's just lazy...

Michael Billington hurrumphed at that, too, and used the examples of the under-produced She Stoops To Conquer and School For Scandal as his proof, moaning that theatres never put them on any more, two shows that Greenwich Theatre have actually included in their Autumn Season.

Admittedly She Stoops To Conquer was a bit creaky - but it warmed up in the second half and it wasn't for lack of enthusiasm on the part of the company. Besides, it was a touring production and touring shows are always a bit pot-luck for a host theatre - they can look great on paper and just not work on stage (cough, The Signalman, ahem...) I seem to be in the place every week at the moment but the reality doesn't always live up to what I suspect the theatre's administration team paid for. I don't blame Greenwich Theatre if they get in a show that looks really exciting in the blurb, from a respected company, and it still doesn't pass muster.

I was especially keen to see School for Scandal and its sister play, Dr Faustus, because it marks a return by Greenwich Theatre to actually producing its own shows after a long gap (the last one I remember was the Wesker-penned Longitude - a disappointing play, if memory serves, but well-produced.)

They've financed these two shows by teaming up with a company that records productions of classic texts on video for a schools audience, so the choice of plays is always going to be limited to whatever's on the syllabus - but hey - that still leaves quite an armoury of plays to choose from, and I really hope this is going to continue as an ongoing project - if nothing because it was the first time I saw the theatre really full for something that isn't panto or a stand up comic.

The first thing you notice about the two shows, currently in rep, is the cast size. At last - a decent number of actors, rather that the usual diet of one-man shows and manic cheapo productions where two players rush around playing 70 characters in two hours or, if you're really lucky, the stage manager makes a brief appearance in a sheet at the end of a ghost story. I know why they have to be so small-scale, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy to see twelve actors on stage.

Doctor Faustus is one of the best non-panto productions I've seen at Greenwich Theatre, home grown or touring. It's had time and money spent on it, and real thought has gone into making it work without falling into obvious cliches.

Proper weight is given to the text (the most important thing, given that the actual plot's rubbish - bloke sells soul to the devil, nobs around sucking up to the crowned heads of Europe for 24 years then gets dragged off by Lucifer's hench-demons after not listening to anyone's advice...) and there are some really nice performances - I especially liked Mephistopheles's world-weary minion - "you can have anything in the universe and you want that?"

The costumes work well - all-purpose Victorian (yeah, Gothic, but they get away with it) and the set, especially given that it has to work for the other show too, is excellent, though I'd have made the stage itself more solid so that the actors didn't clump around like they had giant Blakies on their shoes.

Greenwich Theatre's own Faustian-pact with the TV company generally works well too, with a caveat or two - the biggest of which being that it must have been forced to include the entire text - even if, frankly, some of it wasn't Marlowe's finest and - sorry - I'll shock you here - I suspect most companies just cut.

To their credit, the actors clearly spent a long while trying to make the comedy rustics funny, but I find it hard to imagine it had people rolling in the aisles even in the 17th century, and (admittedly I never studied Dr F so maybe I'm wrong here and there are poignant parallels or something) I can't see much of a reason for including them other than making the groundlings giggle. That horse scene would be the first for the chop in my fantasy production despite a truly brave performance from a guy with a bucket of water over his head and a humorous Welsh accent.

But all this is niggles. I really enjoyed the play, and if you have an evening spare, I'd recommend it.

I'm less sure about School For Scandal, as, apparently, re imagined by Adam Ant. I can see what they were trying to do with the fop-part of the ensemble, translating the mannered, hothouse salons of 18th Century London to the even more mannered New Romantic clubs of the 1980s. But they didn't follow it through and the rest of the company were firmly set in the 1700s, which gave it an odd feel.

I confess I agreed with the school party of teenagers behind me, who didn't really 'get' the crew who looked like they'd raided the panto costume store just after Andrew Pollard had nicked all the best outfits. There was a lot of rushing around, perhaps in the hope that if they did everything really fast it would make it funny, but which actually only meant there was a collective tensing from the audience every time a glass bottle or china cup came on stage, waiting for the smash.

The teenagers behind me - and myself - really liked the solidity of the older contingency - Sir Peter, Uncle Oliver and their mate (whose name I forget - hands up - I didn't do my homework before I came and my A levels were a looooong time ago) who lent a real sense of gravitas to the play. They took their time and played it straight - and managed to squeeze what few laughs there are still to be had from the text.

I have a horrid feeling that Nicholas Hytner might have a point. I really, really want to like old comedies, and I always book up for any that come onto the programme, but maybe the world just moves on. In the same way as watching old sitcoms on Dave can be a mildly disappointing experience, I suspect that tragedy will always come down the years less scathed than comedy. Don't get me wrong - I'll keep going, just with fewer expectations.

Despite my niggles, both of these productions are head and shoulders above any touring show that Greenwich Theatre has brought in in the past - oh, I don't know - five years. There is no doubting the commitment and vision here, and the production values are sumptuous. I would love to see Greenwich Theatre becoming a 100% producing house - but in the meanwhile, if we just get one or two really cracking classics per season, I may actually join, so that my tickets no longer say "Non Friend" on them...

Tudor Barn Bar & Brasserie

I've been meaning to get over to test out the new cafe at the Tudor Barn for a long time - and my failing to get into Blackheath Golf Club on Open Day (all down to v. narrow slot of entry which, of course, I missed - but I thought I'd chance my arm anyway by having lunch at the restaurant, which I'll SWEAR used to be open to the public - I'm SURE I saw it advertised in one of the free mags, though I guess that was when I used to actually get free mags...) gave me the perfect excuse .

I've been looking forward to it - it's a fantastic building and it just needs that little something to make it really special.

I'm delighted that the little balcony that overlooks the (rather duckweedy) moat has been reopened after the refurb, and we leaped at the opportunity to sit outside - a little cooler than I'd expected but still a lovely day.

Service is friendly and I was pleased that not too many things appear on the menu - trying to do too much often leads to nothing being much cop. The basic choices are filled baguettes, jacket potatoes and hand-made burgers. The bar is new, but apart from that, all I can really see is different from the old cafe are the chairs and tables. All good so far.

I thought the prices for the food were a little optimistic - an average of £5.50 for a sandwich, a fiver for the spuds and £8 for the burgers, but the alcohol seemed quite reasonable - £3.00 and under for a (bottled) beer and a rather staggeringly cheap £2.60 per glass for the wine (one choice each of red, white and rose.)The wine, I have to say, tasted like it cost £2.60, though, of course, bottled beer is bottled beer.

I have to say that despite the lovely setting, I found this meal disappointing. When I saw how much food was piled on my plate, I thought 'oh, that's what I'm paying for...' But size really isn't everything.

My jacket potato was the size of a large hamster - the biggest spud I'd ever-bloomin'-seen, but it was largely hard as nails inside, and although it had clearly been done in the oven rather than the microwave, the skin was light brown, rather than the crispy loveliness that's my personal favourite.

I'll give them there was plenty of filling - tuna mayo and sweetcorn (from a choice of eleven usual-suspect toppings), and the small salad that came with it was really rather tasty, but by the time I'd removed all the hard bits from the potato I had decided that I'd have rather had a regular sized one that was properly done.

My companion's 100% "Tudor barn" Beef Burger, on first bite, seemed much better. It was even quite nice on the second. It was clearly home-made and again, it was a good size. But it was very fatty and the bun and accompanying (again, very good) salad just didn't make up for the grease.

In a couple of weeks' time, a new evening venue, 1568 @ Tudor Barn will be opened. Open between 6.00pm and 10.30pm, it will be 'serving gastro food including a daily three course specials menu.' I'll be testing this out, of course, but IMHO the Tudor Barn is going to have to raise its game to become a destination restaurant...

Secret London- An Unusual Guide

Rachel Howard and Bill Nash, Jonglez, 2009

Hands up. I am not insusceptible to flattery. So I guess it's going to be an uphill struggle to persuade you that I had already decided that this book is a must-have for every curious Londoner BEFORE I noticed that I had been both name and web-checked by the authors.

Most kind, guys - I'm aware that once stuff goes up on the net it's public property - fair game, if you like - but it's flattering indeed to be namechecked when I wasn't even aware I'd 'helped.'

Of course, now I have to 'fess up and admit that it was actually long-term 'Friend of the Phantom' (sounds like a euphemism, doesn't it...) Benedict who introduced me to the fabulous comedy ads in the window of Sabo the newsagents and took the great pics of the 'lucky' Gnomes of Greenwich Park, not my own discovery - so I've been erroneously plauded - but hey, these things happen ;-)

But onto the book. I know it looks like I'm only being nice about it because it's nice about me - but even flicking through this slim volume in Waterstones, long before I'd actually read it, I knew I wanted it. It was the book I'd always wanted to write myself, with entries about curiosities around the whole of London clearly and entertainingly covered, including details on how to see them and other things to look for in the area.

And, unlike many 'oddities of London' books, this one isn't afraid to find fault with sacred cows. Dennis Sever's House, for example, which is one of the very, very, very best sights to see in all of London Town, has just one irritating thing - those patronising notes left all around it telling you how to 'appreciate' it. ("Do you get it yet?" Well, I did until your sodding sign broke the spell...) Rachel Howard and Bill Nash are in accord with myself on that one.

They also hate that awful public art that's springing up all over London. They are right that the very worst statue of all is the soul-free The Meeting Place by Paul Day in St Pancras Station, described by the authors as "an aesthetic hybrid of Stalin and Barbara Cartland." I wouldn't have been so generous myself. Sadly they miss out our own local bad art, Nelson.

Seriously, folks. I'm sure many of you will have bought this already - but it is absolutely essential reading. The Greenwich section won't tell you anything you don't know already, but the rest is gold dust. Nip down to Greenwich Waterstones immediately, and snap up a copy in their ever-expanding (thanks to staff who actually give a damn) London section...

The Odyssey

London Bubble, Oxleas Wood.

There is nothing can beat trudging round an ancient forest in on-off rain, sneaking past an angry Cyclops with his eye put-out, holding back the tears at a series of little shrines to lost sailors and trying to ignore the screaming cries of Sirens in one-man tents.

Yup - Bubble are at it again - and if you're quick you'll just about catch them. The choice of The Odyssey (by you, if you became a 'stakeholder' as I suggested a few months ago...) was inspired - an episodic quest story of a ridiculously long journey is perfect for promenade theatre, not least because Bubble make the audience go on a quest of their own, shuffling through woods, up hills, across meadows and through the odd muddy puddle, puctuated by scenes that tell the trials and tribulations of Odysseus and his crew.

It's Greek myth - so don't look for laughs. The gods play with men as literal Playmobil figures and they're neither kind nor logical. Bubble have squeezed in one or two giggles - mainly fun anachronistic comments - but this is not as funny as usual - and it shouldn't be. It's grim, epic stuff.

I liked the way they brought out the characters of the crew, so you actually give a damn about guys who are usually just bit-parts and - Spoiler Alert, if you've never read the book - reminded me it's never a good idea to be one of a hero's six best men. Or, indeed, any of them.

Multiple Character Syndrome meant that a couple of times I was slightly confused as to who people were to start with, though it generally sorted itself out as a scene went on. I particularly liked the double casting of Penelope and Circe.

As usual, the best bits for me were the bits between the scenes though; the little set-pieces along the (ridiculously long in places - and all the better for it...) route that add depth both to the background of the piece - and to the playing space itself - making me feel as though I was completely within a different world.

Only one thing got me. And that was listening to a couple of (perfectly healthy) young women in front of me complaining about the route. They said that they should have had extra lights and warnings about obstacles; that they hoped Bubble were insured in case someone tripped over a root.

My blood boiled.

Whatever happened to Personal Responsibility?

You go to a promenade show in the woods, you KNOW what's coming. Er, that will be - woods. There will be trees. They have roots. And branches. It's called Nature. There are plenty of warnings on the website and the leaflets and suggestions that anyone with mobility problems might prefer a different venue. It is up to YOU to watch where YOU are going. It's not anyone else's fault if YOU go arse over tit because YOU didn't take care of YOURself

Bubble - don't be drawn by these pathetic individuals. The very fact that it's dark and ever so very slightly 'dangerous' (for heavens sake what do they want - arc lights?) is the point of a piece like this. I want to have to take care. I want to stumble just a little bit. I want to experience something of the quest that Odysseus made.

You can still catch it at Oxleas Woods if you're quick - it's on tonight and tomorrow night. Then you can see it at the much 'safer' Southwark Park from Thursday to Sunday (recommended if you are the type that's likely to sue if you catch your woolly on a twig.) Find tickets here.

Water Music

It's Handel's 250th Anniversary this year. Part of the Greenwich and Docklands Festival involves a son et lumiere 'Water Music.'

I thought I'd better go last night before the 'Water' part became a little too real (the weather forecast's dreadful for tonight and tomorrow) and - yes, I'm glad I went. With the odd reservation.

IMHO the lumiere bit is much better than the son. Presumably there's no funding for a straight rendition of a 250 year-old work, so a new piece was composed and played, a bit too straight-faced.

Now, I'm generally fine with avant-garde music, and this was okay - tinging and bonging, sirens and low-notes played on the tuba, pretending to be ships' horns. But it never really sounded 'fresh.' In fact, for me it only began to blossom in the rare moments when they played snatches of Handel's original.

It all felt a bit - well - 'cliched-contemporary' to me - the sort of sounds I'd expect from someone trying to re-interpret the Thames, London's history and Handel's classic without sounding uncool to his mates. There were some frankly unnecessary spoken bits, which smacked of wanting to 'appeal to the kids' by including asinine comments made by - who? I have no idea who was speaking or, indeed, why.

I positively squirmed when members of the band started humming the famous bits - it felt like taking the piss out of a distinguished old gentleman.

What I will give it is that it was beautifully played. Trinity College is one of the best in the country - and its sheer class shone through last night. These guys were professional in the extreme - especially given that that lumiere must have created some interesting conditions to play in. They played incredibly well.

Which brings me onto the lumiere - worth making the effort to go to this event for on its own. It was great fun. Mainly watery images - taps and waves, bubbles and jets, mixed in with old paintings, silhouettes and cartoons. Wonderful.

I do recommend this. As you'll have surmised, I wasn't particularly jazzed with the music - it just felt like it was trying too hard. But the event as a whole was great. I mean - anything that starts at 10.00pm and has flashing lights has that little extra excitement value for a sad Phantom like me. And it's certainly worth the entrance fee ;-)


Bring something to sit on, a woolly (however warm it is earlier) and a book to read if you're going to get there early to secure a good place. A mac might be a good idea too, tonight. Oh - and bring your camera - as virtually everyone last night seemed to have done. There will be a LOT of photos flying round the web. And I see no harm in joining them.

As I left, I could see the fireworks from the other big event, over at Millwall Dock on the Isle of Dogs. If it's not totally bogging with rain tonight...

A Lady's Captivity Among Chinese Pirates

Fanny Loviot, 1858/ 2008, NMM Publishing £8.99

So - I was just about to review Paul and suddenly realised I had no book to read. A cardinal sin, that needed immediate rectification.

The volume I chose has only the slenderest connection with Greenwich - its only link is that it was discovered among the archives of the Caird Library and republished by the NMM, but it's fun and I liked it. So shoot me.

I confess I only bought it for the cover. Production values are a big thing for me, shallow Phantom as I am, and I really liked its small sized, heavy papered, hardback-with-dustjacket presence. Oh - and it fitted in my pocket for the walk home...

Our heroine Fanny Loviot, the far-too-brief introduction tells us, was, despite the book's title, no lady. Sadly the annoyingly short intro is too coy to tell us what she actually was, but she 'won' her passage to America in the French Lottery set up to rid the country of 'undesirables' and made her way to California in the 1850s.

It's a surprisingly easy read, considering the stilted 19th Century style, and full of swashbuckling fun. The introduction, as I've mentioned is fine - but far too flimsy - it poses more questions than it answers - not least how Fanny actually got into her adventures in the first place, and what happened to her in the long run.

Half the book is a description of Gold Rush San Francisco and her exploits there with her 'sister,' who may or may not have existed (it's suggested the publisher made her invent a female companion for chaperoneage-purposes.)

Gunfights and fistfights, arson and greed, Fanny describes it all in high-falutin' Victorian prose, including descriptions of her own life, disguised as a man and travelling for her business - never actually spelled out.

When her lodgings and business were razed by fire, she decided to go to Hong Kong, and it was on her journey back that her ship was captured by junkfuls of Chinese pirates, straight out of Central Casting. The Pirate Captain is in the Chow Yun Fat mode, complete with shaved-head-and-ponytail ensemble and his crew are enjoyably dastardly. The adventures of Fanny and her companions really are just waiting to be made into a Hollywood movie.

All that's needed is to innocent-her up, have her fall in love with the captain of the ship that's captured and make the French Vice Consul of Hong Kong corrupt instead of nice and, bish-bosh - you got a script.

You read it here first, folks. A Lady's Captivity Among Chinese Pirates has just GOT to be turned into a blockbuster - it needs so little to be done to it to make it classic Joseph Campbell stuff.

Of course, one of the very few things it does need is a name change. Not nearly lurid enough for today's tastes...

Derelict London

Paul Talling, Random House, £9.99

Compelling and depressing in equal quantities, Derelict London is a must-own for any fan of London Now - and downright hardcore pornography for salivating developers.

A wonderful example of a print publication coming out of a website, if you don't already know http://www.derelictlondon.com/ then you need to aquaint yourself with it pronto. A fabulous portrait of the capital's underbelly, an seamy universe of abandoned hope, waiting joylessly to be populated by Neil Gaiman characters. And I've never been sure whether to be pleased or miserable at the amount of Greenwich-related material Paul Talling has found.

It's not a book (or indeed a website) to be read in one hit - unless you're already on a downer and you want to really depress yourself (or you're one of the aforementioned salivating developers, in which case GET OFF MY BLOG) - but somehow you can't help but turn over page upon page of beautiful (and some slightly less than beautiful) buildings, let down badly by Posterity.

It was only published in 2008 - but already it's a history book. Here you can find the Ferrier Estate before it was flattened and Lovell's Wharf before it was flat-tened, for example, but other stories have a slightly more upbeat feel to them - I was reminded that I really need to visit the Royal Garrison Church of St George in Wolwich soon. I'll report back on that one.

This is an important work. It made me sad - but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it hugely.

Greenwich

Barbara Ludlow, Images of England 1998, reprinted 2008. £12.99

I have been a big fan of Barbara Ludlow ever since a lovely reader photocopied an entire booklet of hers and sent it to me. It's a real shame that virtually nothing she's written seems to be easily available (it's usually in dog-eared, typewritten mimeograph format - which, if you ever see a copy, you should fall on it with gratitude...) which is why I'm particularly pleased that Greenwich was reprinted on its tenth anniversary.

Greenwich follows in the footsteps (or perhaps sets the pace) of the recent fashion for 90% pictures, 10% text, and as long as this fashion doesn't become a habit, I'll go along with it for now, if only because Ludlow's picked some winners here.

This is a book that people who don't live in Central Greenwich will welcome. There are plenty of town centre shots, most of which are of things that haven't existed for years and well-warrant close scrutiny (even if one or two of the captions should have been tweaked for the reprint - it has to be a good five years since the Gipsy Moth IV was taken away from us for not looking after it properly...)

But where this book really wins through is in the pictures Ludlow has found of the less glamorous - but equally fascinating - parts of Greenwich, town and borough - that usually get left out of the tourist guides. East Greenwich. West Greenwich. Plumstead. Woolwich. Charlton. Westcombe Park. Shooters Hill (which looks like a Dorset country lane.)

Being a tourist destination can be a double-edged sword. There are loads of books and histories written about the glamorous bits of Greenwich, which are all very welcome of course.) But it also means that our 'real' history tends to get sidelined. And the outlying towns often get a raw deal, coverage-wise (yes, from me too - sorry guys...)

Barbara Ludlow can't rectify the shortfall in one book. But she makes a fine fist at it and these pictures are, without exception, fascinating.

My hope, though is that Ludlow's next book will allow her to spread her wings and actually write. She has a huge wealth of knowledge and captions, however apt, pithy or timely, can only ever be the tip of a historical iceberg.

The Mores

Sunny weather needs sunny songs. Preferably sunny sixties/seventies retro style songs. I'm not sure whether The Mores would be offended or delighted at me shoving them into retro-mode, but listening to their stuff catapults me to a faded Kodachrome place between late-era Beatles, Supertramp, the Electric Light Orchestra circa Out of the Blue and (sorry, guys) Billy Joel, sometime between The Stranger and 52nd Street.

At that point, their stuff takes a musical sabbatical during the 80s and 90s and resurfaces somewhere around early 2000s alt-pop. Davey-Ray Moor-era Cousteau-ish heavy chords and a spot of Andrew Bird surreality.

I'm not really sure what 'South East London' means on their MySpace slot - but Robbie from the band started a live music night in Woolwich a short while ago, so I'm counting them as local (my interpretation of the word 'local' tends to expand and contract according to how much I like the thing in question - I'll appropriate stuff miles away if it's cool...)

Check 'em out, folks. Don't bother trying to find the website - it's under construction - go straight to the MySpace slot above.

Medical London

Richard Barrett/Mike Jay, Wellcome Collection £15.99

I went to listen to Richard Barrett as part of a day of London lectures at the Bishopsgate Institute on Saturday. Looking as though he was only just out of short trousers, this jolly young cove entertained and fascinated, inspired me and made me laugh. A lot. It was only at the end of his talk I realised I didn't really know what he'd been saying.

Perhaps that's why I never got to go to Cambridge, which is where Barrett's a lecturer. But I'd enjoyed his talk so much (yes - I know that sounds mad - but it really does seem possible to enjoy something hugely and only realise later that although it made sense at the time, it remains a mystery to a tiny Phantom brain...) that I really wanted to get to grips with his subject - London Bodies.

So I headed for the groaning stall of London books lurking at the back of the conference room in search of his newly published magnum opus, Sick City.

My decision to spend £15.99 was helped by the fact that his book has to be one of the most handsomely-produced volumes published in a long, long while. And yes - I was seduced by its sheer gorgeousness. The Wellcome Trust, a very wealthy organisation, has clearly poured cash into this project and the result is sumptuous.

Its cloth-bound hard case contains no less than eight items. Barnett's paperback Sick City, of course, which I'm currently enjoying a lot (and understanding, btw), despite its being perfect-bound (I hate perfect-bound books), a hardback gazetteer, Anatomy of the City, which contains medical gems to visit in London, from museums to blue plaques, statues to curiosities and things that just aren't there any more, and six fold-out walking tours complete with funkily-drawn maps (by the excellent Strange Attractor guys), links back to Sick City for extra information and instructions for easy use.

What clinched the deal was the medical walking tour of Greenwich, which meant I couldn't leave the set behind.

It's a very do-able tour and although a couple of the landmarks seem - well - a little spurious, considering the medical bent the walk's supposed to be taking (I'm guessing that Barrett also included a couple of things that tickled him, for the sheer joy that he could - something of which I approve of course), it contains enough stuff that most local people wouldn't know to make it a good Sunny Sunday Afternoon jaunt.

It takes you from Deptford to Blackheath via Greenwich town centre and highlights for me included the Dreadnaught Hospital and the birthplace of Sir John Simon (though I'm still looking for the "excellent" visitor centre at the Cutty Sark - the book presumably went to press before they replaced it with that tiny gift shop...)

I don't know whether Waterstones have got this yet, but I thoroughly recommend it. Apart from being excellent value for money, it's a thoroughly enjoyable read, full of facts and visual interest - and it will look great on your bookshelf.

A Year In The Life Of Greenwich Park

Anthony Quiney, (Frances Lincoln, £16.99)

I have been waiting for this book to come out. I first noticed it slated for publishing something like 18 months ago - and eventually got so sick waiting I called round some likely bookshops, and got one of them to call the publisher. I believed it had been cancelled. I am delighted to see I was wrong.

Firstly, a couple of things this book is not. It is not the much-needed serious history and exploration of the park that would be the natural child of A. D. Webster's seminal 1902 Greenwich Park, shamefully long out of print before a successor has come into place. The text in A Year In The Life of Greenwich Park is interesting enough, but not the primary function of the book (a shame since Quiney is an architectural historian who has been both Professor of Architectural History and President of the Royal Archaeological Institute - I would have placed him in pole-position to write the Park version of John Bold's definitive Greenwich.) It gives the barest overview of the park's history - nicely written and entertaining, but not deep enough to present any real analysis.

The other thing this book is not, is a year 'behind the scenes' at Greenwich Park. Again, I am mildly surprised that with a commission like this, Quiney didn't collaborate with Royal Parks to give us a keepers-eye view of what has to be a rarified world, part-way between royal straitjacket and real life; to show us what needs to be done to keep a place like that going, and to give us a glimpse into the 'secret' world of Greenwich Park. I can't sneak around the deer enclosure, behind the potting sheds, on top of the reservoir, inside Hawksmoor's Standard Reservoir or even poke around in the bowels of the Royal Observatory, but I sure as hell would have liked Quiney to have done so for me - to have given me a vicarious tour of the bits of Greenwich Park I don't get to see.

So. If that's what A Year in the Life of Greenwich Park isn't, then what actually is it?

It's the book you turn to when the skies are black with rainclouds, the temperature's below zero and the winds are howling louder than the dog.

It's the book you carry with you, (despite its size and shape) wherever you go in the world, to remind you why Greenwich is fantastic and its Park is the most beautiful you'll find anywhere.

It's the book that gives you confidence that Spring's low sun will bring the flowers again, that Summer will fill your heart with heady, sunshiny days, that crisp Autumn mornings will remind you you're alive and that Winter has a crystalline beauty of its own. Oh - and that there are parrots in them thar trees...

Anthony Quiney's photographs are staggeringly lovely. Now - I know that Greenwich Park is hardly a difficult place to make look stunning, but to make it look different - to surprise a seasoned park-goer into reassessing much-loved areas, to force a casual reader to stop flicking-through and to take a long look at each picture - that's a skill.

I keep going back to it, looking again, pausing, thinking. What I particularly like about the collection is that it is bang-up-to-date modern. The photographs themselves are of timeless subjects, but the way they are taken (and treated - there appears to have been some fun had with the Hue/Saturation button in places, an effect of which I heartily approve) is pure 21st Century.

My favourites currently include the 'spider' tree, the petal-strewn grass, the post-downpour tennis courts and Princess Caroline's Bath (the last because it made me stop and really think why it had been cropped the way it had. I think I get it now.) But I change my mind every time I look at it. It's lovely.

As I started out, this is not a substitute for a proper, in-depth study of the park - both its history and what it is now. That is a book long overdue. But as a companion volume to such a work, it is outstanding.

Oh, and don't miss the parrots.

Greenwich

An Architectural History of the Royal Hospital for Seamen and the Queen's House

John Bold, 2000

Do you ever plough along happily, doing whatever you do, and then suddenly get such a jolt that you wonder what the hell you're doing and why you even bother?

This happens with me most times I pick up an Iain Sinclair book. His icy, passionate prose (yes, the two do go together in this instance) his outrage and anger, his love and humanity just floor me every time. But I tell myself that that's okay - he writes about north London on the whole, reserving his comments about Greenwich largely to digs at the Millennium Dome.

But now, in a totally different vein, I've found another book that staggers me in its detail and depth. It's not written with Sinclair's deliberately understated/flamboyant style; indeed it's far more formal and even 'official,' but neither is it a stand-back toe-the-party-line look at Greenwich's architectural history.

John Bold is cool and methodical, and has clearly had the kind of access to records and photographs that the rest of us can only dream of - but he shares it with us (at an admittedly squeakingly-expensive price) in page after page of readable prose, peppered with little details that, even if Bold doesn't elaborate on them in these pages, make the reader's imagination swing off on tangents - by my reckoning a good thing indeed.

He's best when it comes to original plans and designs - for everything from the grotto originally designed to go at the top of the giant steps (where General Wolfe is now) to stage-by-stage drawings of how the Queen's House and ORNC were built.

The photographs are incredible - loads of pics I'd never seen before. The one that stands out in my memory as I write this, is of the conduit head in the north east of the park (just above the kiddies' playground) before it was unimaginatively bricked up. The picture, an antique postcard, shows the end of the tunnel opening out onto a pond in a most romantic fashion. Why they had to brick it up and lose the pond can only be down to Health & Safety nonsense - why they couldn't have just put an iron grille over the entrance and kept the pond is beyond me.

Much of what I like about Bold's book is what he doesn't write - he gives us huge amounts of historical detail and explores ideas behind what has happened to the place over the centuries (his analysis of the 1980s incarnation of the Queen's House is interesting indeed - something so recent, yet already historic and controversial. Sadly, he refrains from comment on the current incarnation...) but many of the little anecdotes and incidents that make Greenwich so immediate are tantalisingly mentioned, not enlarged upon. I like that. It leaves something to ponder upon at leisure...

If I have any criticism, it's beyond the perameters of the book. There is virtually nothing about the earlier history of Greenwich - he says that other people have already covered it. I guess he has a point, but I would have valued his methodical approach to Bella Court or Placentia.

All in all, thank you to all of you who told me to forego the curries for a while and invest in this instead. I was getting fat anyway. It's a pricey, pricey buy but - frankly - if you get this book, it's unlikely you'll ever need to read this blog ever again...

Paperboy

Christopher Fowler, Doubleday, £16.99

Remember not so long ago when we were discussing the groovy plans drawn up by the GLC for the Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach in the early seventies? Those full-of-optimism brown and orange hopes and dreams, with little cardboard models and artists impressions of what it was all going to be like?

Dazza wondered at the time if there were any protests or petitions from the people being hoiked out of their homes to make way for Progress.

Apparently not. It would seem that the residents looked at the grand new plans with puzzlement before meekly saying "Oh, okay. I'll be on me way then..."

I can now reveal that the protests amounted to one small boy running away from his family's dodgy new location in Abbey Wood, arriving at his old house in Westerdale Road just in time to see the wrecking ball in full swing. That small boy was Christopher Fowler...

I bought Fowler's (of the Bryant & May mysteries) memoir Paperboy last Friday. By Saturday evening I'd gobbled up the lot. In an age where everyone can be a TV star, a micro-celebrity or a self-published writer(ahem) it's great to sit back and enjoy an autobiography written by a professional.

Even if it hadn't been about the 'wrong' end of Greenwich, for which I have a particular soft spot, or about a white collar working class world that I recognise only too painfully (Fowler may be writing about the sixties - but this stuff was going on well into the seventies and even eighties. Hell - I bet it still goes on in pockets all over Britain...) and even if it hadn't discussed my favourite kids' TV shows and games (though I disagree with him over Noggin the Nog - that prog rocked...) I would have still enjoyed Paperboy for its sheer joy of narrative, fun with words - and sarky footnotes.

As it is, it's a tender, unsentimental part of Greenwich's history that's never going to make it to the Pepys Centre or into most conventional history books, but which is just as real as any tale I'll happily recount for the nth time about Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I. The characters of Christopher Fowler's childhood might be working class, but stereotypes they're not. They're real people - which makes a fair few of them all the scarier.

Fowler himself, a speccy, bookworm of a child, was as much of a puzzle to his parents as they were to him. As is customary in such tales, true understanding came all too late. To avoid the fights and arguments, he hid himself in East Greenwich Library, immersed in whatever reading matter came to hand until one day when - well, I'll let him tell you about that.

This is a book intended for a market beyond Greenwich, unlike most local memoirs, which although often sweet - and, of course, important documents in their own right, can tend towards the "After blacking the fireplace, we always used to go down the Co-op of a Friday, before we sat in the sixpenny stalls at the Regal. That was how it was done in those days...." method of storytelling. Therefore, when Fowler does move onto the cinema (of which there were a fair few in Greenwich) his concern is more with entertaining the reader and building a picture of childhood than namechecking as many locations as possible. He no longer lives around here - and hasn't for many years.

Nevertheless, this is still a local book - to be cherished by local people. Don't be put off by the lukewarm quote by Joanne Harris on the front cover (was that really the best he could get?) I recommend it with all my spectral heart. It's funny and touching - and beautifully written.

Taking a quick break from my almost one-sitting Paperboy readathon, (and in the same trip that I visited Lauren's bench) I took a little pilgrimage over to what's left of Westerdale Road (see top) on Saturday, as well as the hallowed - if a bit battered - East Greenwich library, which, despite the best efforts of several generations of town planners, still stands (just about.)

I daresay that the young Christopher Fowler would have gobbled up the meagre selection of kiddie-fare and large-print romances purveyed there, but the poor old place has really seen better days. Reading Paperboy, I just struggle to work out when those better days actually were...

Adolf Hitler's Home Counties Holiday Snaps

Nigel J. Clarke, 1996

A friend of mine has a theory that the only thing you need to do to sell a book is to mention Jack the Ripper, Aliens or Adolf Hitler in the title (preferably all three.) And I have to say that my eye was immediately drawn to this...

The subtitle is slightly (but not much) less grabby - Luftwaffe Target Reconnaissance, German Aerial Photography 1939 - 1942. It is actually a really fascinating document of London through a Nazi bomber's eyes.

Each page shows a grainy black and white shot of a different part of the South East of England, paying special attention to the capital, of course. The photographs were taken by a specially created unit, led by a Major Josepf 'Beppo' Schmidt (how much more 'Allo 'Allo can you get?) and there's a chilling photo at the beginning of fresh-faced young men loading a plane with camera film, a giant swastika carefully positioned in the foreground.

What they were really after was disrupting the supply chains - and you only have to look at the little gaggles of post-war housing scattered around the railway and major roads of Greenwich to see they were pretty successful in their goal, if a little untidy as they went about it.

The book covers the whole of London and the Home Counties, but Greenwich and its environs pop up in several of the pictures - not least because we had quite a few other juicy targets - in the form of the Naval College and the Arsenal at Woolwich. The factories around the peninsula and Silvertown were also interesting to the enemy - and as such, the different works and their purposes are carefully filled in by typewriter later.
You can order copies of the book online as well as individual prints, but the Greenwich ones don't have previews (chiz.)

Personally I wouldn't buy the book itself online in this particular instance as now...

....drumroll....

...I have to tell you about a great place to buy cheap local history books.

The Guildhall Library Shop at 5 Aldermanbury, EC2V 7HH, which is in the same building as the Guildhall itself (and a very curious clock makers' museum, BTW) has one of the best collections of London history books I know of. And it has an excellent 'remainder' section, which is where I found Adolf Hitler's Home Counties Holiday Snaps for - well, a snip.

It's not a must-have for your Greenwich library - but at the sort of price I paid for it (sorry - can't remember exactly how much...) it's a nice addition. I'll come onto the British response - maps of the damage done by the bombers - another day, but for now, do take a little trip to the Guildhall shop. It's got all sorts of goodies in it...

Roman Chandler

The Silver Pigs, Lindsey Davis, Pan, 1989

Right. Hands Up. I am the last Greenwich Resident to have come across Marcus Didius Falco. But hey - better late than never. And I have been wrestling with Hasted...

Okay, so I had heard of Falco. I was once driving somewhere and switched onto a R4 adaptation of one of his cases. But since I'd tuned into the middle of the story, and I didn't have a clue what was going on, I switched off again.

My only other excuse, which is rubbish in the extreme, is that I had, in my pathetic mind, Lindsey Davis confused with Robertson Davies, who, the only time I tried to read him, left me baffled. I am a Phantom of very little brain sometimes.

Still. I needed something to read, and there was The Silver Pigs, sitting on the shelf. I'm not really sure how it got there. Lucky for me it's Falco's first foray, so I didn't spend ages trying to figure what was going on.

It didn't take long to work out where Lindsey Davis is coming from. She's clearly a Raymond Chandler* fan, and though the setting may be a couple of thousand years - and miles - from 1940s Hollywood, the hardboiled wit and quickfire dialogue is all there, though happily a little easier to understand than The Big Sleep...

Philip Marlowe and Marcus Didius (is it pronounced DIE-di-us or Diddy-us?) Falco have more than a little in common and the whole noir theme is beautifully pastiched - the down-at-heel PI, the tough criminal underworld, even the beautiful femme-fatale.

And the attention to historic detail is fabulous. If Lindsey Davis didn't look up every single detail, I believe she did from the way she writes. I completely trust those little snippets of Roman life she quietly inserts that make me realise that people then were no different to today (or 1940s America...)

But The Silver Pigs is more than just a cod-noir or a history lesson - it's a rip-roaring, good read, full of life, fun - and plot. I'm not really a crime novel reader (as you have probably gathered from my lack of knowledge of this book...) but I'll be getting another Falco or two now.

I don't believe that Davis was a Greenwich resident when she wrote The Silver Pigs, but I like to think there is at least one line that's in (sort-of) reference to the area:

"Rutupiae bore all the marks of an Imperial entry port, but once we rode out down the supply road south of the River Tamesis, it was the old scene of smoky round huts clustered in poky, square fields, surly cattle drifting under ominous skies and a definite sense that you could travel for days over the downs and through the forests before you found an altar to any god whose name you recognised."

Yeah, that'll be us...

Find the book here:




*A South London boy, BTW...

The Alps

I'm currently listening to Something I Might Regret. I doubt it though.

I spend a fair amount of time at least checking new bands - though I confess that my attention span tends to be slim these days. A few seconds on MySpace at best sometimes.

But I got an email from Sam a few days ago. He plays in a band called The Alps, "hailing from the cobbled maritime backstreets of old Greenwich town," no less.

Sam knows how to melt a jaded Phantom's heart. And here's a tip. Sending a picture of swaggering young men posing in the Painted Hall guarantees a spin on the spectral decks.

Ok, I thought. The usual thirty seconds. I might even give it forty-five, since they're local.

I listened to everything.

So - how do I describe The Alps? There's certainly something retro about them. I'm thinking early 80s guitar-based alt-pop. I can hear The Fall in there somewhere (and also, possibly a tad distressing for them, Duran Duran...) but there's a little more than that in there. Perhaps some post-Aztec Roddy Frame? Yeah. A bit more reflective, but not gloomy enough for Morrissey.

I turn to their biog. Ah yes - a "confident and stylish brand of 3 minute pop gems." Well, I'll give 'em points for chutzpah. But - hey - I was right - 1980s. Yesss. The Phantom links a finger and marks up an imaginary point for hearing nearly-correct influences (ok, perhaps not the Duran Duran...) I didn't hear the 'folk music and sea shanties' though. I guess I won't make it onto Buzzcocks after all.

I haven't been to see them live yet - they've not been performing recently, though Sam tells me that they're planning some gigs for Feb. When they do I'll try to get along. I'm determined to go to more gigs this year. These guys are intriguing.

I understand that 2009 is one for electro-pop from the girls; that guitar-bands will have to work harder to get where they're going. But from what I hear of the Alps, they might just do it...

Hear their new single Obstacle Race here...

The Buildings of England - London 2: South

Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner

I was fed up with borrowing a very out-of-date version of this classic from the library, so I asked Santa Claus for my own copy this Christmas.

And Pevsner's still a really good all-rounder for getting a grip on the architecture of an area.

What I like about him is that he gives not-quite-but-not-far-off equal measure to modern buildings as the ancient ones. This is very useful as there are very few local publications that give any notice to modern stuff - especially the ugly buildings. Virtually every book about Greenwich you'll ever read will tell you about the ORNC, Queen's House, Observatory etc, and of course Pevsner pays most attention to these gems, but who else is going to even notice Holywell Close (in Ruthin Road, if you're wondering) which is "a pleasant combination of 1974-5...an early example of the vernacular mode by the GLC"?

Despite this book covering the whole of the South of London (how come whenever books and magazines cover London there's always three sections for the North - North/West/East - and just one to cover everywhere in the south? We're lumped-in with Twickenham and Wimbledon - which are bloomin' miles away...) there's a good-size section for the whole borough of Greenwich - another plus for those not living in the town centre. He's not always polite about buildings, which, of course, is even more enjoyable.

There is one thing that niggles. There's a hint about it on the front cover. "Published with the aid of the Greater London Council."

Hang on - the GLC was disbanded in 1986.

And yes, folks. This book, despite continuing in print, and going through numerous reprints, has not been updated since 1983. Now, admittedly the Great Man Himself died that year, and perhaps the books have been set in aspic out of some kind of respect.

But these are gazetteers, rather than straightforward books. I'd have thought that someone would have picked up the baton on a franchise like this and started updating them.

As a guide to the architecture that was around in 1983, this is a fantastic record. The Old District Hospital, for example, still lives in this book (though he describes one of my favourite modern buildings in Greenwich, the Health Centre as "an ugly A-frame with forceful raking struts.") But it's in sore need of updating. Are there any Pevsner-alikes in the building?

So - that old copy in the library is as up-to-date as they come. But in case you want to get your own, here's the link:

Greenwich IMAX Tested

Following on from yesterday, the reason why I was trying to cross that bridge on Friday night. To test out the new IMAX screen at Greenwich Odeon, something I've been looking forward to since I found out it was coming...

Right up until the last minute I thought I wasn't going to be able to go. The website said that the entire screen was sold out. Well - it was the last Friday before Christmas, so it wasn't really surprising.

So we tried telephoning - and after a LOT of "If you want this, press that" malarkey, actually spoke to a human, who told us there were tickets, but only in the more expensive premier seats. IMAX is already dearer than regular Odeon seats, which is understandable - you're getting more for your cash - but there also seems to be a new classification. There's 'regular,' and those gallery seats at the back which cost about twice as much but give you a squashy seat and a fizzy drink, but also 'Premier' which are numbered, so you don't have to queue.

There was a group of us, so we decided to pay the extra and go anyway. We only started to get suspicious when we bowled up and the place was deserted. If there were 25 people in there, I'd be surprised. And nearly all of them were in those 'premier' seats...

I'm going to assume that the computer system was broken and that it is normally possible to book regular tickets. It just wouldn't make economic sense to tell people you're full when you're not.

So. We're inside. And looking forward to those 'premier' seats.

Folks, I'm warning you now. If you are shorter than about 6ft, you are in for an uncomfortable time. The seats, completely rigid (none of that lovely slidey variety) are set so high that if you're anything less than - well - tall, your feet will dangle over the edge. I spent the entire film squirming around trying to get comfy. I am no midget, but I ended up almost horizontal with my coat rolled up under the hollow of my back.

I'm not going to talk about The Day The Earth Stood Still - the choice of movie of the week isn't down to individual cinemas (though don't get me started on the film distribution system in the UK...)

So. Back on to the IMAX experience itself. You know, I was under the impression that IMAX screens were enormous and had extraordinary clarity. And that an IMAX sound system is gigantic, plastered with speakers and intended to make you 'feel' the sound.

Well, I'll give them that last one. The night we went, the sound was so damn loud it hurt. There was physical pain involved. I thought it might just be me, but my entire party agreed it was just too loud. One of our group, a rock drummer, is going deaf - and even he thought it was too loud. There are many, many speakers, but I'm guessing they haven't worked out how to use them properly yet. There just weren't enough bodies to soak up the sound and they hadn't made allowances for that.

I've always been impressed with the London IMAX - and yes, it is noisy, but it's never threatened to make my ears bleed. At Waterloo, they have balanced the sound so that it becomes part of you, not overwhelm your will to live.

Perhaps they're making up for the screen. I don't know how big Screen 9 was before. I think they have increased it to the size of the wall, but it's certainly nowhere near as big as I'd expected. It felt like a normal screen - except the resolution didn't seem as good - as though the projector was just putting an ordinary film onto a bigger screen.

Of course, once the action started, glitches in clarity aren't noticeable, so I wasn't so bothered by that as I was by the sound, which just didn't get any better. I never acclimatised myself to the sheer volume. I certainly feel for the staff, who (and I'm absolutely serious about this) should be issued with earplugs for H&S purposes.

The one good by-product of the volume was that it was only in the quiet moments (and there aren't many in The Day The Earth Stood Still) that I could hear the interminable chatter of the teenagers to my right.

I was really excited about getting a local IMAX, but with my hand on my heart, I can't recommend the experience. I shall be continuing at the Picturehouse for all normal films, and, should I fancy a full-on IMAX hit, I'll be hopping on the train to Waterloo, where they've calculated how to make it work.

Jack and The Beanstalk

Greenwich Theatre

Folks - it's been several hours now and my tears have dried, but my phantasmagorical face is still really hurting.

I enjoyed last year's panto at Greenwich Theatre, but I was slightly disappointed after the triumph of the year before. There was something slightly out-of-kilter with the story and the entire budget seemed to have gone on the dame's outfits.

But this year - this year, they are back up to form with an energy that is going to make this review look like I'm a raving lunatic. Perhaps I am. But I can't remember the last time I laughed so much (well, actually I can - it was Greenwich Theatre's 2006 panto. The vision of the good fairy belting out Holding Out For A Hero flanked by henchmen in knitted chain mail, eclipsed only by the arsing-around of the comedy characters behind the obligatory soppy lovers' duet still keeps everyone chez Phantom giggling two years later.)

If there are any panto-phobes actually reading this review, I'm sorry - but I have to get this out of my system. Pantomime is something you love or hate - slop scenes, bad jokes, bouncing balls and screaming kiddies. But I'm convinced that the reason a lot of people detest pantomime is because there are so many bad ones about. This is a good one.

What I love about the annual Greenwich Panto is that it is the classic two-levels writing - silly gags for the kiddies, topical references for the grown-ups (I can hardly call them 'adults') but it never gets sordid like so many commercial productions. There's not a TV star among the cast (well - it's possible the junior leads are famous, but I didn't recognise them. Sorry.)

The actors aren't luvvies slumming-it, either. I saw the Ian McKellen Aladdin, and although he was a triumph, the production sucked - clearly written by people who thought they were better than their commission.

These guys are clearly creating - and know they are creating - something classy - it may be for children but that doesn't mean it's going to be tacky.

It's fast - really fast - the wafer-thin story's clear enough for even the tiniest to understand, but the ideas and jokes pile on top of each other so quickly that you don't have time to stop laughing at one before the next one comes along.

I have two fave characters, as ever. The dame (of course) Andrew Pollard, who writes the show with genuine wit and a lot of silliness. The gags are old, but re-told with such glee that the tears just rolled down my cheeks. I actually worried a pregnant friend down the row would go into labour. Dame Trot is sharp - but not unkind. We were treated to a high-speed re-cap of events-so-far for a guy who arrived late - but it was sweet, rather than humiliating. And her costumes, as always, are absurd in the extreme.

My other favourite is the Dame's usual sidekick, Paul Critoph, who always plays the daft-king character. This year he was 'King Boris' with appropriate bleach-blonde hairdo. It's a tough job, being a jolly-old-soul stereotype, but Critoph plays it with a vigour that makes what is usually a minor character into a star.

"Three years at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School..." quips the dame to a 'yoghurt'-covered Boris in the traditional slop-scene.

"My parents are so proud," he replies. Long may those two reign.

Even the ingenues are great - the usually soppy juve-leads have been chosen for cracking voices and - heavens - acting abilities.

Nobody - from the jolly fairy to the wonderfully spider-like baddie - gives the impression they're only doing it for the cash - which so many of the commercial jobbies do, and no one takes the piss out of the material - or plays in-jokes, another traditional problem. They just radiate that they're having a ball - in one case, literally - though I won't spoil the deliriously silly ballet-sequence by describing it here.

Nor will I spoil the extraordinary Act One finale by even attempting to tell you what they do to a rock classic, save that at that stage it occured to me that Freddie Mercury missed his calling...

Why can't Greenwich Theatre come up with such great stuff throughout the year? Some of their other fare has been decidedly patchy (ahem, The Secret Agent, ahem...) but material this sophisticated - and yes, I chose my words carefully - shows they can do it.

It probably helps that they've chucked a real, live budget at it. Just when I thought I must have seen every penny on stage, a special effect arrived that was jaw-dropping. Or maybe I should say jaw-chomping...

In fact, I loved everything, with the one exception of the chorus girls' costumes - singularly unflattering - perhaps they were prototypes for the dame's outfits that didn't pass muster so they were passed down...

I don't know how fast tickets are selling - I guess they can work out a tad pricey for the whole family but there are different rates available (we were cheap enough to go on one of their discount nights...) but if you are looking for something to lift the economic gloom for a couple of hours, you could do a lot worse than this. Go - leave your cynicism at the door - and enjoy. And don't worry if you don't know any small people to take. There are lots of groups of adults in there alongside the brownies and schoolchildren.

Look out for the detail too - the chorus must have studied the Greased Lightning sequence from Grease for hours to get it so accurate. Given the constraints, of course. John Travolta didn't have to soup-up a pantomime cow...

Ghostwriter

Ok - so she's not actually from Greenwich - but she lived in Blackheath and then Eltham for 23 years; a mildly scandalous woman for whom I have a lot of time, and of whom virtually nothing remains at her old home...

A few months ago I went for a cup of tea at Well Hall Pleasaunce where I fell in with one of Life's characters, whom I will call Alf. Alf was determined that I shouldn't just see the Pleasaunce as a pretty park, but as the ex-home of Edith Nesbit, one of our greatest children's writers. He virtually frog-marched me round the grounds, pointing out the wiggly wall, heavily buttressed to support its ancient bricks,


the secret pond in the corner,

the formal gardens

...and the fabulous barn itself, but of the actual 18th Century mansion Nesbit lived in between 1899 and 1922, absolutely nothing remains. There's a picture of it here, which shows it as pretty impressive, but I'm still not entirely sure why it was pulled down in 1931 - the closest I can find out is that it was to make way for the current park. I'm guessing local 'politics' - perhaps even a desire by 1930s social climbers to expunge a mildly scandlalous figure from Eltham's genteel history? Who can tell...

There's been loads written about Nesbit's 'unconventional' life - her sort-of open marriage to the Fabian Hubert Bland, who apparently 'could not by any effort of nature leave women alone' and her bringing up of his various children fathered on herself and, ahem, the assistant secretary of the Society, who also moved in. Gregarious and kind, she threw parties at Eltham for political big-hitters of the day - George Bernard Shaw, Annie Besant, Eleanor Marx. She was also the epitome of early 20th Century Bohemian Woman - tall and striking, dressed in trailing gowns of peacock blue satin, dripping with pearls and Indian bangles - and chain-smoking cigarettes from a long holder. And when Hubert died, she married, if memory serves, an engineer on the Woolwich Ferry, one Tommy Tucker, whose name sounds like it's straight out of one of her books.

Doesn't that put a different slant on The Phoenix and the Carpet or The Railway Children? And don't you just love her more for it?

But I'm not writing a biography here - there's plenty about her knocking around. I'm not even writing about the place - I know virtually nothing about Eltham. What I'm writing about today, it being the day before Hallowe'en and all, is the little-known fact that Edith Nesbit was also a horror writer.

I only found this out when I was in New York a few days ago, in Strand Bookshop, looking for something to read on the way home. I was initially drawn to the display because I thought someone had spilled something sticky on it - the imprint of obscure ghost and supernatural writers has a skull marked out in shiny on a matt background. But there, among the Aylmer Vances and the Gertrude Athertons, was The Power of Darkness - Tales of Terror, by Edith Nesbit.

It's of its time. The golden age, some might argue, of of ghost and horror writing - the Victorian/ Edwardian eras. The stories are at once cosy and really rather disturbing, and not all of them follow classic 'story' pattern. Many are more like incidents - statements, even, rather than plots with beginnings, middles and ends. And they are much crueller than I have found other writers to be. The endings are often harsh and dark, though they include the odd practical joke. There's no let-off for her characters - they make one mistake and are doomed for life. Apparently she was taken to visit the mummified corpses of St Michel in Bordeaux as a small child, and she had a relative who was accidentally put in their coffin ready for burying whilst still alive, something that stayed with her for the rest of her life. Both of these incidents clearly influence her work, as does, I'd guess, Poe.

With the best will in the world, I'd say the collection was patchy. When she's good, she's utterly terrifying, but other stories left me a bit bewildered. The most famous, Man-Size In Marble is creepy and atmospheric, something at which she's very good, and yet it, like all the stories, carries an Edwardian patina of snugness that belies the somewhat sudden and pretty grim ending. The Five Senses is bloomin' scary and From the Dead is singularly callous, but other stories, like Uncle Abraham's Romance and the mightily puzzling Power of Darkness left me wondering what to make of them.

Hand on heart, she's no M. R. James. But if you want a shiver for Hallowe'en you could do a lot worse than checking out Edith Nesbit's non-kiddie stories. In the meanwhile one thing at least remains of her at Eltham. The suitably satanic-looking bell hanging from the east end wall of the Tudor Barn comes from her house.

Festival New Orleans

I meant to remind you guys about this, and forgot, but since there's still a day to go, I'm doing it now.

Festival New Orleans appears to be a bid by the city - and the entire state of Louisiana - to bump up its tourism by letting us know what a cool place it is, as if we needed to be reminded, bless. I'm guessing they organised it before the credit crunch and that it's hurting a bit now, but that's no reason not to go along and enjoy it. In fact it's all the more reason - to let them know we love 'em.

I went along this evening. I'm not promising anything sparkling in the way of reviews here - aw, c'mon - it's Friday night and I've just got back from a festival for heaven's sake.

It's basically a bunch of really rather excellent bands in various locations that aren't the main arena, Indigo 2 or the very yuckky Bodyworlds. There are apparently cookery demonstrations but I've not seen any.

Not to be missed is the fabulous Cajun fiddle player Michael Doucet, who I've loved for some time despite (well, actually because of) the fact that he has no voice whatsoever and gives the impression of being out-of-his-head. He still sounds great. Bonjour, Bonne Annee is a classic in the Phantom household around Christmas time. Curiously he didn't sing it tonight. Can't think why.

He's in the very ugly new Matter nightclub - decor courtesy of NCP. I daresay they call it 'neo-brutalist' or 'post industrial' or something equally up itself (read 'cheap') and I guess at least it doesn't show if beer gets spilled all over it. A quick sloosh down with an industrial car wash and you're laughing. There's an enormous plastic lean-to in the middle for the sound man, and the one thing I'll give it is good acoustics, which is more than I can say for the main 'Louisiana' stage.

I'm sure it's Health & Safety that means that the glaring industrial arc-lamps are left on throughout the performance of even the headliners, but that, combined with the appalling, booming sound, made the ever-fantastic Allen Toussaint sound like he was playing - well - in a great big soulless tent, funnily enough. There were a lot of people there, and he was playing like a demon, but the atmosphere was flat as shortnin' bread.

The effervescent marching band, and the very strange characters dressed in feathers had the same problem - the atmosphere, and especially the godawful overhead halogen lights that light "Entertainment Avenue" did their best to kill them stone dead. Luckily, the place was heaving - and not just with tinies who had gone to see Finding Nemo on Ice. It's the people who are playing and the people who visit it that make this festival. The venue itself is a dead fish for this kind of thing.

Go and see it though. The acts are great (Dr John's on tomorrow) and if you can get into the spirit despite the best efforts of the O2, you'll have a ball. Get your timings here.

Beside The Seaside

National Maritime Museum

I didn't know this was on until a leaflet fell out of my copy of Time Out. This keeps happening. It drives me nuts that I have to find out about a local exhibition through a London-wide advertising strategy, when I walk past the place virtually every day.

Admittedly once I knew about it and had already decided to go, there was a poster for the show just outside the entrance - but most locals don't make a habit of walking right up to the entrance of the museum. I know they have a limited budget - and they need to direct most of it at tourists, but it's our museum too and a poster outside the gates where people actually pass wouldn't break the bank, surely? (If there is one, I haven't seen it...)

Beside the Seaside is an exhibition of photographs in the little exhibition area that used to house the Titanic stuff. It doesn't quite deliver what it promises, but is still worth a visit, if only to see just how similar to each other British resorts looked around the turn of the last century.

The bulk of the pictures come from the Frith collection - when the company ceased trading in 1971, a large number of negatives found their way to the museum and this is an attempt to show a small fraction of them.

It's billed as "snapshots of British coastal life, 1880 - 1950," which I took rather literally - that it would actually be 'snapshots,' probably by amateurs, of holidays and fishing, piers and seaside rock, spread over that whole period.

Instead, it tends to be landscapes and portraits, almost certainly by professionals, mainly, it would seem, taken around the Edwardian period. And there's no denying it's interesting with some of the shots stunning indeed.

The pictures are grouped in geographical areas, usually one photo per resort/coastal town, and do really tell a tale of another world - grizzled fishermen mending their lobster pots, grizzled women, probably much younger than they look, gutting fish, ladies in long black skirts and crisp white blouses, gigantic hats perched on their heads, taking the sea air in groups, their nannies following at an appropriate distance with perambulators.

There is much to enjoy. I particularly liked the dapper gent in blazer and straw boater, drinking-in the exotic air at Torquay, surrounded by palm trees and cacti. And I definitely have to take a trip to Gravesend now, to find out what happened to that gigantic white castle of a building on the promenade.

There's some fuzzy footage of newsreels and a couple of train posters - presumably to keep to the promise of the period reaching to the 1950s - and a case containing some Punch and Judy puppets for no other reason than, it seems, they were worried the pictures alone wouldn't be enough of a draw.

But I don't get the feeling that hearts were particularly in this exhibition. For a subject that should be uplifting and joyful - everyone loves the seaside, don't they? - to me it has a curiously downbeat feel. It is neither a wholly photographic piece, nor a proper 'exhibit.' Was cash tight? I find that hard to believe - the NMM has to be one of the richest museums we've got. It is a temporary exhibition, of course, but it has the feel of a temporary exhibition. That it's just filling in while they're waiting for the main attraction.


And what is the main attraction? Don't ask me. You'll just have to wait for a leaflet to fall out of Time Out...

The London Nobody Knows

Slightly off-topic here, guys, but only slightly. The London Nobody Knows, as some of you will be aware, was a series of books and articles by Geoffrey Fletcher in the mid 1960s.

Fletcher was the Sinclair of his day. Writing not about Sixties Swinging London, but its dodgy, edgy underbelly. The seedy, seamy side. The poor side. Most of it talks about north of the river, although he does mention Greenwich as "not yet sufficiently explored architecturally," though he reserves praise for the junk shop in Spread Eagle Yard (now part of the restaurant) and Goddards (now the burger bar.)

Fletcher's prose is elegant and flowing, punctuated with line drawings almost as evocative as the writing. He's most at home in decaying music halls, decaying markets or with decaying, tragic people. The homeless, the chronic poor, the meths drinkers.

The books have been out of print for years, though they're not particularly hard to find second hand. But just released on DVD is the frankly surreal documentary written by Geoffrey Fletcher and narrated by James Mason in 1967.

Mason, in flat cap and tweeds, carrying a furled umbrella, wanders around 60s London, looking at the bits that Austin Powers missed. He visits bombsites, abandoned music halls, decaying Spitalfields houses, slums and miserable factories. It's in colour, but that colour is so washed out that the feeling of melancholy is almost palpable. Mason walks around markets, taking in the local characters, the goods for sale, the patter. He visits waterside factories (including a bizarre 'humorous sequence' about an egg-breaking factory, making fun of it, but never actually explaining what the hell it was (anyone who knows, do tell.)

By far the most distressing part is when he meets the people Fletcher's writing about. The people who still live in the slums. The has-been street performers. The down-and-outs at the Salvation Army shelter. The squabbling alcoholics, fighting over a bottle of meths (The PG rating is qualified by a warning "contains scene of a man drinking methylated spirits.")

This is a highly affecting film. I was really quite down by the time I finished watching its 45 minutes. Interestingly, despite his fascination with London's history and architectiure, Fletcher is in favour of those hideous tower blocks that by the 60s were springing up all over the place instead of ancient Georgian mansions, and warns us not to get too sentimental about the wrecking ball we see in full flow in the film (no warning about that in the PG rating...) but somehow, watching those kids playing in the streets of a war-devastated London, the 60s attitude, however depressing, is at least understandable.

Greenwich is mentioned only as a place where pirates used to be hanged - and even that not in name, but I think this is such an important slice of recent London history that I make no apology for including it here.

Bundled with it is the even more surreal Bicyclettes de Belsize - a sort of cross between Blow Up and Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. The thankfully-short 'cult film' is, as far as I can tell, about the hazards of bad cycling. Hip Anthony May cycles irresponsibly around the streets of Hamsptead, having two crashes in about ten minutes - once with a small girl on a trike who gets a crush on him. The second time, he goes headlong into a poster of a fashion model and gets a crush on her.

After a chase, a spurious fashion-shoot in Belsize Park (no David Hemmings - but there might as well have been) and a groovy party scene, it all ends happily ever after. I should also point out that there are only about two words spoken in the entire film. Everything else is sung. There are some extremely cheesy musical numbers, none of which are classics but annoyingly hang around the mind for hours afterwards, and some very dodgy miming on the part of the stars. Shut your eyes for the embarrassing comedy queue. Quite cringe-making.

What makes the film watchable is the location and the camera work. Hampstead seems to have largely missed out on the wholesale destruction the rest of London suffered and there's a lot of recognisable stuff. But for me, the aerial shots and the lingering long shots are the best bit. Even if you can't stomach the rest, do watch the opening credits - one long tracking shot which turns out to be the view from Anthony May's roof.

I'm not sure I'd agree with the jewel-box, which describes Bicyclettes de Belsize as "an absolute gem," but if you like tooth-edgingly sweet slices of lost 60s kitsch, this is your movie.

I've just found a groovy widget that allows me to recommend stuff if it's on Amazon. It will come in useful for a new section I'm in the middle of creating on Greenwich books and resources (though of course most Greenwich books and resources are out of print and therefore not Amazonable.) So I'm testing it out here: