‘Smoke – A London Peculiar’ – New Website

I’ve been a fan of ‘Smoke – A London Peculiar’ for a long time. It was a fanzine for London if you will – in a small A5 format,  it used to drop on the mat in a little brown envelope every few months on a slightly haphazard basis, and was filled with London-based fiction, poetry and lots and lots of interesting photography. My favourite sections used to be ‘Bus Of The Month’ which would pick a bus route and attempt to describe it – all the monuments it passed, all the estates it wound through – and the page dedicated to one of London’s oddest statues. That particular page inspired several journeys that have ended up here on my blog in years past. Then, as has been happening across the world of publishing affecting the big and small, Matt Haynes, the editor, decided in June 2010 that it just wasn’t economically or logistically viable to continue with its publication. Matt noted that many of the bookshops that used to stock ‘Smoke – A London Peculiar’ were no more – the loss of the Borders chain in particular was a heavy blow. So that was that…

However, I’m very pleased to be able to tell you that ‘Smoke – A London Peculiar’ is back, now in the form of a slick website. It still contains all of the stories, poems and the rest but the editor promises that this time contributors won’t have to wait months to see their work appear – material will be published as it comes in! ‘Smoke – A London Peculiar’  has always been about the contributors, so if you have a story inside you fighting to get out, or are particularly adept at pencil sketches of Putney pensioners, why not drop them a line with your material – just check the rules for contributing before you do. The moment I take a photograph that I think is worthy of inclusion (and can think of a pithy caption)  I’ll be sending it over, believe me. To find out when new material is added, just add the ‘Smoke – A London Peculiar’ RSS feed here, or you can follow them on Twitter or Facebook to be alerted when stuff happens…

Want a taste of what to expect when you visit the site? Here’s something that appeared on the site today under the title ‘Urban Intervention No. 82′:

‘Intrigue tourists on the South Bank by leaning a harpoon against the rail and gazing out malevolently across the river. If approached, silently produce a photo of a haddock and then roll up your trouser-leg to reveal a wooden stump (this may require some preparation).’