Cigarette lighters made from York Minster fragments, 1970s
An ad found in a 1970s guide to York, when tableware, including cigarette lighters, was made from old York Minster stonework. How things change.
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When Bettys was Betty’s, and other 1930s ads
It’s a particularly grim weekend in early January 2014. Let’s escape briefly, into 1930s York, via the ads in these old theatre programmes I picked up in the Barbican Bookshop sale.
Betty’s had only recently opened in St Helen’s Square. And before I get … More …
Airspeed (Reynard’s garage) update, 2014
“It is better to recycle what exists … and to think small. In the life of cities, only conservation is sanity.”
– Robert Hughes
Yes, we’re back on Piccadilly again, by the old Airspeed factory (Reynard’s garage). Soon to be flattened for a nice new hotel, it seems.
More …Goodbye, and thanks, Barbican Bookshop
The Barbican Bookshop is closing down. They’ve been here on Fossgate for decades, with all those rooms of secondhand books in a shop apparently small when you see it from the front before you realise that it goes back such a long way from the street, and up narrow stairs.
More …2013 review: snippets of sound
I write about this place, I take photos of it, and every now and then I feel inspired to record its sounds. Recording on a (rather old) mobile phone, that being the thing I have to hand.
Some sound snippets from this year, at various locations, including the Minster. Lo-tech, … More …
2013 review: in pictures
Council ponders purchase of Stonebow House
Christmas message, via pantomime badges
Cliff Richard, when choosing a rhyme for ‘Christmas time’, chose ‘mistletoe and wine’. Sorry to remind you of that song as you’re probably sick of hearing it. I know I am. A far better rhyme: ‘Christmas time: pantomime’. Specifically, the one at the Theatre Royal.
Recently, while excavating a box … More …