Then, as if I magic, it goes to blue-black with liitle white dots. The sky in Hammersmith daily goes from blue to grey to grey-orange to purple-grey to blue-grey-orange to brown-grey to milkywhite-pink. Due to the proximity of the river, Hammersmith enjoys some of the most beautful skies in the world.
It sounds like a character from the Marvel Thor comics. Although most maps I have suggest otherwise, I believe it ran along where Parfrey Street now lies, and as it appears in my 1851 Tallis map of London, which is looking a bit dogeared at the corners.
There’s nothing there now and the only evidence is the appearance of the stream on old maps, its mention in the odd book and the name of a present day street. This holds true for smaller streams in the capital, such as Parr’s (or Black Bull) Ditch in W6, which was, it appears, custom built as a border between the Parishes of Hammersmith and Fulham around 1000 years ago. In the process of researching the history of London’s formeost manmade stream, the New River, it came to my attention that said watercourse came to function as a boundary line between parishes. "What? What are you trying to tell me Graham?" Then I was lying awake in bed and my kids were upstairs shouting and jumping up and down on their beds. It sounded like "It's the half-term holiday!" Then the voice got louder. Graham turned to me and said something but it was in a faint, high-pitched shouty voice. I sat on a big sofa next to Graham and Mary McAleese (President of Ireland) stood up and started to explain who they all were. Then Arthur made milky coffee for everyone. Most of them were drinking some kind of green potion to get rid of hangovers. One of them was Graham's Brazilian model girlfriend/wife who said she had a really bad headache. Then Arthur reappeared with lots of other people and we all went in to a big living room. He sort of grunted and carried on reading. I introduced myself and tried not to to be too fawning. In the middle of this white room, on a big white chair, sat Graham Linehan (Arthur's former writing partner), reading a tabloid. It was a bit like Darth Sidious's anti-chamber on the Death Star in Star Wars. I then glimpsed some light and walked down another dark corridor until I came to a small white room which had had a whole wall removed. I could hear Arthur talking from somewhere but his voice was growing faint. The house was huge inside, with many corridors and dark rooms with big modern furniture. Yes, he said, there used to be a mandolin here. I knocked on the door and the writer Arthur Mathews answered it. At the end of this lane was a large, modern detached house, surrounded by grass. I wandered through the night, getting completely lost, until I came to a little boreen and turned down it. (This is dream bravado, of course - I've had three lessons and can play two and a half tunes at walking pace). I had a dream last night that I was in the west of Ireland and had left a pub to go in search of a mandolin so I could join the session. The Grumman Wildcat Model Makers' Club (1).In search of lost timepieces (And other stories) (3).