A futuristic metallic wonderland

Explore the lost remnants of modernist christmas, an excitable list of book recommendations, and #3 in my couch to 100k non-fiction writing tips.

Concretopia at Christmas

A Child’s Christmas in Croydon is back in stock on my website. This pamphlet tells the story of Concretopia-era festivities, of the tinsel trees and Babycham and Provident loans and Woolworths sweep of it. But also just the tale of largely vanished cultural phenomena. On the one hand it’s a personal story of working class council estate Christmases long gone, and on the other it’s an exploration of the holly-berry industrial complex, of how new materials, media and technology relentlessly modernised our post-war yuletide. The pamphlet is illustrated with nostalgic wrapping paper designs by Richard de Pesando.

All of these things seemed heightened by expectations that something ineffable would rise from the mass-produced tat we’d kept as new traditions. They were as magical and inauthentic as blue-screen video effects in the TV sci-fi shows I loved so much. This transformation of our living room into a futuristic metallic wonderland, of hum-drum days into countdowns and expectation, connected me to magic I knew not from church services or hymns, but low-budget Christmas dramas shot in late autumn. In those shows Christmas wouldn’t look like midwinter, it would instead appear as those golden days of late October, when mist drifted through the trees and formed over fields and valleys beyond our estate.

I’ve been amazed by the response to my latest pamphlet, Bridges to Nowhere, on an obsession with motorway service stations. Again illustrated and designed by Richard de Pesando, and published by Ambitious Outsiders, it sold out in two hours. I’ve ordered a reprint of 100 that should be with me (and on my website) late next week.

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Book Recommendations

It’s been very much one of those years that people have now, I’m sure you’ll agree. But, now we’re past the ebook scare of 2003, we can at least confidently say that for the moment, books are here to stay! And what a year it has been for books in /checks notes/ 2004 2014 2024. Here’s a few highlights that might help you treat the geek in your life, or be some much needed self-care in a world of worrying bullshit.

I was delighted to have written an introduction to photographer Simon Phipps’s Brutal Wales, a beautiful exploration of modernist buildings across the country. Another incredible visual record of our modernist legacy comes in the form of Thaddeus Zupančič’s London Estates, a meticulous and deeply researched guide to the city’s rich modern heritage. More niche but no less fascinating is Modern Buildings in Blackheath and Greenwich: London 1950–2000 by Ana Francisco Sutherland, which shows theres more to the modern suburb than SPAN.

Owen Hatherley’s NYC and DC adventure, Walking the Streets, Walking the Projects brings a whole new dimension to his work, looking at the legacy of socialism through housing in the US. Des Fitzgerald’s The City of Today is a Dying Thing is hilarious and shocking by turns, the story of the conflict between building homes and planning green space. Meanwhile Gareth E Rees’s latest, Sunken Lands, takes us topically to the flooded remnants of lost landscapes.

Gavin Stamp’s Interwar is an exploration of the strange stuff the British built in the 1920s and 30s, and a fitting summation of this tireless campaigner’s work. Mark Ovenden’s book on transport maps is completely irresistible. Similarly geek catnip is Zupagrafika’s Kiosk: The Last Modernist Booths Across Central And Eastern Europe.

Phaidon’s Concrete Architecture is a handsome breeze block of a book. Meanwhile Dominic Bradbury’s book South Bank tells and arresting story of municipal glory and brutalist excess. Olivia Broome’s Brutalist Plants charmingly illustrates surprising juxtapositions between modernist gardens and their surroundings.

I absolutely loved Ray Newman’s last two modern ghost story collections, Municipal Gothic and Intervals of Darkness. Well worth investigating if you too love Inside Number 9. Rose Ruane’s novel Birding follows the lives of two very different women, and showcases both her remarkable ear for speech and language, a vivid eye for character and detail, and a huge sense of compassion for the overlooked and easily dismissed.

It’s been a great year for The Modernist, whose publications and products continue to make me go a bit funny. I particularly enjoyed A Time, A Place, a book which marries cars with buildings designed the same year. An absolute winner. Also, joining the Twentieth Century Society will never be a regret, as they fearless campaign to save some of our most endangered and misunderstood heritage. Finally, there’s no geek that won’t be delighted with this Modernist Weekly Planner, which is so beautiful it hurts.

There’s load more suggestions on a list I created on Bookshop.org, a good place to buy books online because you can choose an indie bookshop to support with each sale.

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Tips for non-fiction writers #3

This time of year things get a bit wild, there’s a lot going on, people want to be social, and even those of us that don’t are dragged into social situations. So there’s not loads of time to work on new stuff, but still there’s a desire to push on. So this edition of Couch to 100k is about taking notes and making them work, because that’s something you can do around your life without interrupting your moaning about Quality Street. I pretty much always have a notebook on me, and I work best with a physical notebook because I like the shambolic serendipity of it when compared to the rigid organisation of digital notes. But I appreciate that different things work for different people. The thing is, use a method and medium that suits you, rather than forcing your head into an awkward space, like the railings at Battersea Park.

Perhaps you are a very organised person, and love a list or spreadsheet. Perhaps you are a visual person and use mood boards and doodles. Perhaps your brain loves a spider diagram. Or post-it notes. Notes on your phone, of course. Or voice notes, like you’re Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks. Perhaps you hanker after an incident room wall of clues linked by red string? Well, good luck with that. Or record cards, so you can easily move your thoughts around? You’ll probably end up using two or three of these, or adding some options of your own. Never PowerPoint though. Don’t even.

EXERCISE: For the sake or argument, select one of these options as your preferred route. And get five to ten points connected to your project noted down in that style, some starting points or themes to work outwards from later.

Your notes should be an active part of your writing, not just background noise. A good way to engage your notes more actively is to combine contrasting approaches. If you are a very organised person perhaps you have written a lot of structured lists and spreadsheets. If you’re more lateral you might prefer spider diagrams or record cards. But what happens if you try something different?

EXERCISE: Now I want you to choose a contrasting style of note keeping - organised people, meet chaos; lateral people, meet consequences. If you’ve created a nice orderly spreadsheet, transfer those ideas to a less linear form, like a spider diagram or post-its. If you’ve favoured a lateral form, choose a very organised format to transfer those ideas to, a list or grid. What does that do to them? Does it help free you up where rigidity was constraining you, or does it suggest structure where free-form was letting everything drift? Does it allow you at least to see your thoughts a little differently, with a fresh eye?

A small exercise this one, but it’s always useful to remember that writing is often simultaneously about doing what you’re comfortable with, while also being provoked by things completely outside of your comfort zone. If you can use your notes to help with that then all the better. Now, off to scoff some mince pies with you. Or to start setting up that incident room…