Matt Sewell & Sambrooks Brewery
16 August 2010 // Matt's Bird of the Week //Miscellany
A set of four advertising postcards drawn and designed by Matt Sewell for Sambrook’s Brewery of Battersea (makers of our favourite Wandle ale).
A box of these arrived at the office on Friday and while we have them we’ll add a set to all orders of books, t shirts and bags from the Caught by the River shop.
Postcard from Lapland
16 August 2010 // Miscellany //Nick's Pics
from Nick Small.
A super-volcano under the house, hotel rooms in tall trees, exploring for gold and fishing: well it certainly hasn’t been dull in the Boreal Forest this year.
Kent Lindvall runs Fishing North , whilst his wife Britta has her homely, 1930/50 styled guest house in Harads, Swedish Lapland. When the forest behind the guest house was destined for the timber yard, they figured there had to be a more constructive use for it. So, inspired by the Swedish film “Tradalskaren” (Tree Lovers), a plan was hatched to create a series of tree house rooms that people could stay in.
Britta and Kent are a bit mad, and certainly not your average boutique hotel owners, but with the help of a few architects like Bertil Harstrom, and a large team of willing collaborators, they have pulled it off. For me and my seven year old lad, the lure of these crazy capsules in the canopy was impossible to resist. (more…)
Pint By The River – Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2007 8.5%
by Ben McCormick
On my first day at work – at ASDA in Chadderton – I was sent to the warehouse for a long weight. Not wishing to disappoint, I strode up to the supervisor and said what I’d come for. He directed me to the ‘Goods In’ entrance hatch. “Over there,” he barked, with a smirk.
Some 45 minutes later, a furious, ruddy faced department manager stormed up to me and asked what I was doing. I told him I’d come for a long weight. His mood softened and he wandered off, muttering something about oldest trick in the book. It gradually dawned on me what had happened. (more…)
Sandy Shores
A Guide to Coastal Birds. Episode 2.
Originally broadcast on Radio 4, today at 14.45. Listen now on the iplayer.
from the BBC website:
Brett Westwood is joined by keen bird watcher Stephen Moss on the Devonshire coast. With the help of wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, they offer a practical and entertaining guide to birds that you’re most likely to see and hear on sandy shores around Britain’s coastline; birds like Common Tern, Sandwich Tern, Ringed Plover and Oystercatcher.
This is the second of five programmes to help identify many of the birds found around our British coastline in places like rocky shores, sea cliffs, off-shore islands, estuaries and sandy beaches. Not only is there advice on how to recognise the birds from their appearance, but also how to identify them from their calls and songs.
The Union Street Urban Orchard
100 Union Street, London, SE1 0NL. Until September the 19th. Nearest tube stations are Southwark (Jubilee line) and Borough (Northern line).
Fishes of Great Britain, 1902
from Biblio Odyssey.
‘Our Country’s Fishes and How to Know Them: a Guide to all the Fishes of Great Britain’, by W.J. Gordon with every species illustrated in colour, and many sketches in outline by A. Lambert’ [1902] is hosted by the Biodiversity Heritage Library (on behalf of the Library of the University of California). The images were extracted from the pdf and have been background cleaned a little. This is one of a series of natural history books by Gordon following the “Our Country’s..” theme. (more…)
Pike: Luke Jennings
13 August 2010 // Luke Jennings; Pike
Originally published in the London ES magazine on the 31st of October, 1997.
Sunshine, at the time of writing, and the warmth of summer still on the water. The season is under way, but until that first freeze knocks back the weeds and the pike move into their deep water, sport will be slow. In the meantime, there is piking literature. The great chroniclers were those of the 19th century, men like Stoddart and Cholmondeley-Pennell. Here is Stoddart describing his quarry: ‘None that ever felt the first attack of a pike can easily forget it… The whole is mouthwork, calm, deliberate, bone-crushing, deadly mouthwork. You think at the moment you hear the action – the clanging action – of the fish’s jaw-bones, so powerful, so terrific: you think you hear the compressing, the racking of the victim betwixt them…’ (more…)
Lines Made By Walking
12 August 2010 // Lines Made by Walking
by Jude Rogers
19. Island Lines
Andrew has wanted to go to Canvey Island for a while now. He has dreamt of it, lived it, breathed it already. The last time we walked together, to the end of the Lea, I sensed this in him, this need for air and water. He has a week’s holiday; I have been working all weekend. Time for a day return from London Fenchurch Street to Benfleet, a bus to the Eastern Esplanade, a walk on the wrong side of those tall concrete walls, looking at the sea that could overcome us so easily.
a. We go straight for the tides, where the Thames meets the wide, cold North Sea. Canvey Island has been inhabited since Roman times, despite always being at the mercy of the merciless waves. The flood of 1953 killed 58, water quickly reaching the ceilings of holiday bungalows. Without these defences, the land sitting under sea level yawns, blankly and bleakly, begging us to look at it, and look after it too.
The water seems endless, stretching out to the east beyond the long pier of Southend, pawing out to the South past the chichi resorts of Kent. Here, nothing is chi chi. Here, a small strip of sand is Essex’s St Tropez, with a 1920s paddling pool scratched into the shore. Next to the little white hutch, selling rubber rings and windbreaks, are mugs of milk-frothy coffee glittered with granules, dinners of chips and egg in yellow polystyrene, kids with brightly-coloured bathing costumes and long, holey nets.
New Tee Shirts in the Shop
Animal Music Download
Bonus music compilation going out on the newsletter this Friday. Make sure you are on our mailing list to receive it. This one has an ‘animal’ theme and was made for us by a gentleman by the name of Stephen Parker.
Stephen played records for us at Port Eliot last month and these are songs that made up his set on the Sunday morning ahead of Chris Watson’s Nature Disco. The cover shot is a powerful image of a battle weary pigeon taken by Stephen in Trafalgar Square.
You can hear more from Stephen’s record collection by listening in to his FreeRange Music Archive, which you will find HERE.
Caught by the River