The Fate of England’s ‘Infant Hercules’
A review of Stripped Tees: Endurance and Hope in the North East by Richard Milward and Natalie Hardwick [Influx Press, 2016] LOCATION: Teesside REVIEWER: Laura Harker “This remarkable place, the youngest child of England’s enterprise, is an infant, but if
On the Trail of the Green Man: An interview with Nina Lyon
WORDS: Gary Budden I spoke to author Nina Lyon about her latest book Uprooted: On the Trail of the Green Man (Faber, 2016), a brilliant piece of creative non-fiction about our attitude to nature and the environment, the resonance of
An Unreliable Guide to London
LOCATION: Erm…. WORDS: Gareth E Rees If you’re a regular reader of Unofficial Britain, you’ll know that I like to walk around chain store car parks, writing things down. It’s something of an obsession. On this website I’ve described my
Between Place & Imagination
WORDS: Gareth E. Rees This is a transcript of my talk at the Walking Inside Out Symposium, an event in Sheffield to launch the new book Walking Inside Out: Contemporary British Psychogeography, edited by Tina Richardson. I’m an author of
Common Ground: Rob Cowen on Edgeland Literature, Psychogeography & Nature Writing
WORDS: Gary Budden interviews Rob Cowen I recently spoke to Rob Cowen, author of the excellent Common Ground, about his new book, edgeland literature and psychogeography, the debates around what does and does not constitute ‘nature writing’ and the importance
Election Night in Aberystwyth with Niall Griffiths
LOCATION: West Wales WORDS: Gary Budden ‘It’s hard to paraphrase; if I could paraphrase all this stuff then I wouldn’t have been arsed to write a whole book about it.’ It’s Election Day 2015, and I’m feeling oddly hopeful that something,
The Walker and the Landscape
WORDS: Tina Richardson The solitary walker situated within the landscape is not a modern phenomenon, even if the term psychogeography is. The cover of Terry Eagleton’s The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990) shows Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Wanderer Above
Memory, History and Time in 21st Century British Psychogeography
LOCATION: Britain WORDS: Tina Richardson In September 2015 Walking Inside Out: Contemporary British Psychogeography will be released by Rowman and Littlefield International. Edited by myself, contributions are from academics and researchers, and those working in the area of urban walking.
Kemper Norton’s Loor & the Thing that Is Coming Up My Stairs
WORDS: Gareth E. Rees LOCATION: Cornwall, Sussex, Wales, Unnamed Cities Night time. I’m at my computer, listening to Kemper Norton’s new album, Loor. Loor is Cornish for moon. There’s no moon on the coast of East Sussex tonight. Not from my window,
The Death of a Fish in Hackney’s Abandoned Filter Beds
LOCATION: London WORDS: Gareth E. Rees. In which I discover evidence of mythical battles in the abandoned Victorian filter beds by Hackney Marsh…. Extracted From Marshland: Dreams & Nightmares on the Edge of London (Influx Press, 2013). [“Layered London, black, funny, marshy,
