Tuesday 18 January 2011

Around and about

After work and a broken phone line kept me away from the internet for most of last week, it has been a real pleasure catching up with other blogs. Here are some of the highlights: I hope you find them as fascinating as I did.

Starting on a sombre note, the New Cross Fire is being remembered thirty years on. In 1981, a fire during a birthday party on New Cross Road killed thirteen black youngsters; a fourteenth committed suicide two years later. This tragedy was exacerbated by the failure to establish its cause; the fear that police were covering up a racist arson attack - far right groups were active in the area; and often unsympathetic responses in the mainstream media and elsewhere. Three decades on, several events have taken place to mark the anniversary and remember the victims, as described by Transpontine.

From tragedy, we move to the gentle poignancy of Invisible Paris's description of a voiturier. Valet parking may not sound the most promising material for an article, but here we see its place in the hidden mosaic of city life.

Another Nickel in the Machine keeps us in London, but takes us back in time. Scandalous parties, campaigners against vice, Fred Astaire and the recipe for a 'Bosom Caresser' cocktail from the Naughty Nineties are all connected to the Empire, Leicester Square.

Finally, back in Deptford and still back in time, Old Deptford History is researching a mysterious photograph. Can you help identify it?

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