Saturday, 14 February 2009
xxx-mouth Market
Valentine's Day in Exmouth Market. Someone has turned the former premises of hairdresser The Klinik into a wall of Valentine's greetings. Write a message and make a donation in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Monday, 2 February 2009
'Snow event' in Clerkenwell
What the BBC mystifyingly termed today's 'snow event' has made Clerkenwell a strange, beautiful place.
Lapped in blankets of white, and lit by an eerie lilac light, it looked more like Moscow than EC1.
Every shop bar the hairdresser's was closed on Exmouth Market; The Crown was bursting at the seams all afternoon; people discovered their inner Anthony Gormley; and strangers were seen to smile at each other.
Heck. More snow, please.
Lapped in blankets of white, and lit by an eerie lilac light, it looked more like Moscow than EC1.
Every shop bar the hairdresser's was closed on Exmouth Market; The Crown was bursting at the seams all afternoon; people discovered their inner Anthony Gormley; and strangers were seen to smile at each other.
Heck. More snow, please.
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Send in the clowns
Big shoes and squirty buttonholes on, please: today is Clown Sunday.
It's no joke (or maybe it is, depending on whether you think clowns are funny). The first Sunday in February is marked each year with a gathering of clowns - in full costume and make-up - from all over the UK for a service in Holy Trinity Church, Dalston. It's hard to imagine what this service involves - members of the congregation being tripped up in the aisles, the collection being taken by someone in a Noddy car with hooter?
Anyway, it all comes back to Clerkenwell. Joseph Grimaldi was the son of Italian dance master Giuseppi. At the age of three, Joey debuted at Sadlers Wells and spent the next 45 years as performer and part owner of the theatre. He defined clowning, including the white make-up, bright clothes and pointy hats, and gave a common name to the clown: Joey.
He also helped give rise to the notion of the sad clown. Personal tragedy - losing his first wife very young, and ill health brought on by years of falling over - left him in a sorry state. (Query: are there health and safety rules for modern clowns?) Unable to work in later life, he had to rely on a pension from Drury Lane. Grimaldi spent his last years propping up the fireplace in the Marquis of Cornwallis pub in Pentonville. A kindly landlord would carry him home every night on his back.
Grimaldi lived at 56, Exmouth Market between 1818 and 1828. A blue plaque marks the spot. He died in 1837 at 33 Southampton Street (now Calshot Street) and is buried in Joseph Grimaldi Park, on Pentonville Road, while his wife Mary is buried in St. James's Church on Clerkenwell Green.
RIP sad clown.
It's no joke (or maybe it is, depending on whether you think clowns are funny). The first Sunday in February is marked each year with a gathering of clowns - in full costume and make-up - from all over the UK for a service in Holy Trinity Church, Dalston. It's hard to imagine what this service involves - members of the congregation being tripped up in the aisles, the collection being taken by someone in a Noddy car with hooter?
Anyway, it all comes back to Clerkenwell. Joseph Grimaldi was the son of Italian dance master Giuseppi. At the age of three, Joey debuted at Sadlers Wells and spent the next 45 years as performer and part owner of the theatre. He defined clowning, including the white make-up, bright clothes and pointy hats, and gave a common name to the clown: Joey.
He also helped give rise to the notion of the sad clown. Personal tragedy - losing his first wife very young, and ill health brought on by years of falling over - left him in a sorry state. (Query: are there health and safety rules for modern clowns?) Unable to work in later life, he had to rely on a pension from Drury Lane. Grimaldi spent his last years propping up the fireplace in the Marquis of Cornwallis pub in Pentonville. A kindly landlord would carry him home every night on his back.
Grimaldi lived at 56, Exmouth Market between 1818 and 1828. A blue plaque marks the spot. He died in 1837 at 33 Southampton Street (now Calshot Street) and is buried in Joseph Grimaldi Park, on Pentonville Road, while his wife Mary is buried in St. James's Church on Clerkenwell Green.
RIP sad clown.
Saturday, 17 January 2009
The House of Harella
Working in 'new' media, it's rather handy to be living in an area with a high number of digital agencies. Even though I work in the wasteland of Canary Wharf, meetings with suppliers often take me back to Clerkenwell. And, of course, I always try to schedule those encounters last thing in the afternoon - so it's just a short stroll home.
Yesterday took me to an agency based in Harella House on Goswell Road, a building which used to be a clothing factory. The lovely folks at website design and usability agency Flow Interactive have done a great job of turning their offices into a light, bright open-plan working space, replete with user testing laboratories, and the obligatory agency table football. Their building's former history hasn't been neglected either. Proudly occupying a space on the wall is a 1950s pink suit bought on E-bay, nicely framed, made by the former occupier of the building: Harella.
The name Harella has slipped into obscurity, but it was once a well-known British clothing manufacturer. A little Google searching surfaced a few facts. The company was founded in 1919 by tailor's apprentice Lew Harris, and grew to have operations in Halifax and Birkenhead as well as London.
It developed into the second largest exporter in the UK fashion industry, with its own distinctive house style. In 1963, the company was taken over by the enormous Selincourt Group in a deal said to be worth more than £3 million. Then in 1979, Harella was taken over by the Barnsley-based firm S. R. Gent & Company Ltd, and seems to have fallen into obscurity, as cheap high-street fashion took over.
The fact that almost no one under 40 has now heard of Harella says a lot about the toughness of industry as we enter what the BBC is still calling 'the economic downturn' but will shortly be rebranded as 'recession'.
For Harella, read Viyella and numerous other once-strong British household names destined to fall into obscurity.
Yesterday took me to an agency based in Harella House on Goswell Road, a building which used to be a clothing factory. The lovely folks at website design and usability agency Flow Interactive have done a great job of turning their offices into a light, bright open-plan working space, replete with user testing laboratories, and the obligatory agency table football. Their building's former history hasn't been neglected either. Proudly occupying a space on the wall is a 1950s pink suit bought on E-bay, nicely framed, made by the former occupier of the building: Harella.
The name Harella has slipped into obscurity, but it was once a well-known British clothing manufacturer. A little Google searching surfaced a few facts. The company was founded in 1919 by tailor's apprentice Lew Harris, and grew to have operations in Halifax and Birkenhead as well as London.
It developed into the second largest exporter in the UK fashion industry, with its own distinctive house style. In 1963, the company was taken over by the enormous Selincourt Group in a deal said to be worth more than £3 million. Then in 1979, Harella was taken over by the Barnsley-based firm S. R. Gent & Company Ltd, and seems to have fallen into obscurity, as cheap high-street fashion took over.
The fact that almost no one under 40 has now heard of Harella says a lot about the toughness of industry as we enter what the BBC is still calling 'the economic downturn' but will shortly be rebranded as 'recession'.
For Harella, read Viyella and numerous other once-strong British household names destined to fall into obscurity.
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