A couple of months ago or so, I noticed an extremely enticing little hardback in the window of one of the Daunt Books, could have been the one in Marylebone. Said little book was The London Scene by Virginia Woolf. I was a little surprised because I did not know such a book existed but upon closer inspection I came to know that she did not, as such, write it as a collection, but rather she produced a number of essays that were published bi-monthly by Good Housekeeping in the 1930s and were later collected as The London Scene. I snorted when I realised this. I've never bought a Good Housekeeping, so I have no beef whatever with the publication, but I snorted because in the present day essays on London, or spending, or the city are penned by the likes of Caitlin Moran and India Knight while a century or so ago they had Virginia Woolf... if this ain't proof that our contemporary cultural landscape is being dragged through hedges backwards and then stomped on by wild dogs I don't know what is dear reader. Two of these six essays are my favourite for diametrically opposite reasons: 'Oxford Street Tide' and 'Great Men's Houses'. The place I most detest in London is Oxford Street. One of the ones I love most viscerally is Hampstead, specifically the stretch from the south of the Heath up to the hill upon which the heart of the old village itself is located. It... Read more →