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There's a lot of closet Huddersfield Town fans in my corner of London - coming back from Wembley, just in the same lift at Tufnell Park tube station, there was a young kid in Town strip who had gone to the match with his Dad, and a guy in his twenties who had seen Town stumble and fall in previous play-offs.
And then this morning on Hampstead Heath, blow me there was a youngster in Town's blue-and-white striped top. 'Don't be a dingbat, Dad, he's wearing an Argentina top', I was told. 'Nonsense son, he's a young Town supporter celebrating yesterday's Wembley triumph.' We decided on a 50p wager. So I sidled past the poor kid in question, sunning himself on a bench. Whose kit was he wearing? Highgate Rangers!
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 Town fans for the day Town are back where they belong! But there must be easier ways of getting promoted. The League One play off at Wembley (what a great venue - this was my first visit to the new stadium) had its moments, though not many. After 120 minutes, the scoresheet was still blank. And Huddersfield then managed to miss their first three penalties. Is it possible to win a shoot-out when your first three attempts have all failed? Well, most Town fans didn't think so. But in a real heart stopper, Town then managed to put in eight penalties in a row. The last by their goalkeeper. The sudden death part of the shoot-out lasted so long, every player on the pitch had their turn. Sheffield United's keeper, the 22nd to take a spot kick, put the ball over the bar. And Huddersfield are in the Championship!  A sweet moment. I was there back in 1970 when Jimmy Nicholson held aloft the Second Division champions trophy at Leeds Road. But that was nothing on the euphoria at Wembley this afternoon.
And a really nice touch - the Sheffield United team came round and applauded the delirious Town fans. Real Yorkshire solidarity! Will this be high scorer Jordan Rhodes's last match for Town? I guess so. He deserves a bigger club. But judging by how completely he was squeezed out of today's game by the Sheffield defence, he may not find it that easy to make his mark at the top level.  This is a photograph of Beryl Lund who, in 1948, was an actress, a communist and a ministry civil servant involved in sensitive defence contracts.
She appeared in a Unity Theatre revue mocking the Labour government's 'red purge' of communist civil servants - the revue was reviewed in The Times - and 'red Beryl' ended up a victim of the purge which she had sent up on stage. You can read more about the purging of Red Beryl here.  Colin Blunstone Jeez, am I really that old? I went to see the Zombies last night - a band which formed way back 51 years ago. And which had its only UK chart hit, 'She's Not There' ... in 1964.
So that must make the twin pillars of the Zombies, Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent, well, a bit more than simply OAPs. And their current band features surely the world's oldest extant bass player. Colin and Rod, though, are still lean and mean - and magnificent musicians. When a band with big nostalgia value starts playing their new material, it's usually time to head home. But the Zombies' new stuff packs a punch - they play all the back catalogue as well, and that means 'Time of the Season', 'Whenever You're Ready', and some of the material from solo careers - Colin Blunstone still has a wonderful, at times, aethereal, voice - and Rod Argent is a great rock and roll keyboards guy. And they give every impression of enjoying themselves on stage. So altogether, the Zombies are a neat band - good live - and you'd never guess that they have already had their golden anniversary. 
A wonderful ghost sign just of Wandsworth Road uncovered with the removal of an advertising hoarding. I chanced across this while strolling round Clapham and Battersea last weekend - others have been here before me and indeed here's a wonderfully researched account of Redfern's and their rubber products.
 After 123 years, Clapham Library closes at the end of this week. It's a wonderful building, with a fantastic location - at one corner of the Common, opposite Holy Trinity and alongside the elegance of Clapham Old Town. The building dates from 1889 - Battersea Public Library, not all that far away on Lavender Hill, is of exactly the same vintage. You do wonder about the back story there - a keen municipal rivalry, perhaps. The libraries still fall either side of a local government fault line - it used to be Clapham / Battersea, now it's Lambeth / Wandsworth. Of the two libraries, Battersea is bigger, and better refurbished. But Clapham is appealingly compact, and more pleasing on the eye.  In its final days, Clapham Library is hosting an exhibition about the life and writing of a local author, Pamela Hansford Johnson. She was brought up on Battersea Rise, and the area is captured particularly in her first novel, This Bed Thy Centre, which has recently been republished.
As for the fate of the library building, a local group Omnibus is campaigning for it to become a community arts centre. Another option is that it will be turned into top-of-the-market flats.  Ever wondered how the Kashmir crisis began - what the whole fuss is all about?
Well, you can either read a learned tome - allow me to offer a suggestion - or have a blast reading Sumit Kumar's wickedly entertaining comic history of Kashmir, 'Kashmir ki Kahani', which translates as 'Kashmir's Story'. You can get a sense of his style from the excerpt on the left: and let me give a beginner's guide to the runners and riders ... In the top frame on the left you have Jawaharalal Nehru (the Nehru cap is a bit of a give away), India's first Prime Minster - and alongside, in another example of trademark independence-era headgear, Mohammed Ali Jinnah in his astrkhan hat. He was the heavy smoking founder of Pakistan. They were the two leaders who went to war within months of independence in August 1947 - about who gets Kashmir. The former princely state has, de facto, been partitioned ever since ... though the bigger part in terms of population, including the Kashmir valley, is on the Indian side of the line. And below is the beturbanned last maharajah of Kashmir, Hari Singh - to him fell the choice of whether his principality should cast its lot with India or Pakistan. His own preference was independence. In the end, as Pakistani tribesmen invaded, he plumped for India. And that's how it all kicked off. The complicating factor was that Hari Singh was a Hindu prince ruling a state with a (then) three-quarters Muslim population. OK, so it's obvious, Kashmir should have headed to Pakistan ... But there was another complicating factor - the pre-eminent Muslim Kashmiri nationalist politician of the era, Sheikh Abdullah, supported Kashmir's accession to India. OK, so it's not so obvious ... But then, a few years later, Sheikh Abdullah had second thoughts about whether Kashmir should be India's. OK, so not clear at all. As I say, if you want to find out more, and be entertained at the same time, then read 'Kashmir ki Kahani' - you can get to the online version by clicking on the image. 
A portrait of Dorothy Noel Bonarjee - kind permission of Sheela Bonarjee
Another piece of fine art - encountered in a friend's north London living room. Dorothy ('Dorf') Bonarjee - born in Lucknow in 1894 - was a poet and lawyer. She studied at Aberystwyth, attracted by the Welsh bardic tradition, and later eloped with a French man, an artist, who painted this wonderful portrait. She lived most of her life in France. She was part of the noted Calcutta Bonnerjee family. Her uncle (I think I've got that right) was W.C. Bonnerjee, the first president in 1885 of the Indian National Congress. Her niece lives in Gospel Oak. Posted below is an example of her verse - not perhaps the most polished of pieces but written when she was about twenty, just as the First World War was getting underway, and obviously written with great feeling. 
'Cycling to Bush House' by Dmytro Dobrovolsky
A wonderful, sunny image of Bush House (thanks to Volod Muzyczka) - my principal work place over the years. But in a couple of months, the BBC is moving out. And while the World Service's new home, the extended Broadcasting House at Portland Place, is wonderful, we will all miss the old place.
This image is from the cover of 'The Newsroom Book', a tribute to the Bush House Newsroom written by those who have worked there over the decades. A fond, largely affectionate, account of the achievements, foibles, curiosities of the place - and the people who have worked there |
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