In 2006, the city broke ground on a brand new airport: Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport. It was a project which would swiftly become a civil engineering nightmare…
The Airport That Never Opened
Category: Places
A Walk around Heathrow Airport
We walked around the ragged, disputed edges of Heathrow Airport. From ancient coaching inns to robot cars on raised roads, here’s what we found…
White Bridge
When the bridge was built it was brilliant white, but now the cars have spat their soot and the rain has found the cracks in the paint to make it rusty and orange. They painted it 10 years after it was built, 20 years after, 30 and on and on until one year they painted it and the next day it looked grey and orange again and the council said they weren’t coming back for it…
Dunwich Grange
On this particular occasion I was returning home from doing some temp work in Cheltenham. I was a catering chef and was often away for a couple of weeks at a time, going wherever people needed to pay an eye-watering amount of money for some finger sandwiches and dry scones. I’d just missed my connection and according to the board my next train was delayed, indefinitely it would seem…
The Loop: A Journey Around Amsterdam’s Edgelands
In early 2018 Lawrence James Bailey made a four-day journey on foot and bicycle around the periphery of Amsterdam. Along the way he made notes and took many photographs. Eventually they formed a written piece which reflected his experiences in Amsterdam’s edgelands…
A Walk Along Brighton Palace Pier
Brighton Palace Pier was opened in 1899, as a replacement for the Chain Pier. A condition of its construction was that the Chain Pier be demolished, but builders were saved this task when a storm resulted in its collapse in 1896…
Berlin’s Abandoned Socialist Amusement Park
Ahead of you, guarded by a tall and well-maintained fence, is what remains of Spreepark; a theme park from the glory days of socialism in East Berlin. There’s little left now. Rides moulder in the undergrowth. Rollercoaster rails turn slowly to rust…
A Trip to Chernobyl’s Zone of Alienation
More than three decades after the Chernobyl disaster the soil within the Zone of Alienation is still powerfully radioactive. Despite this, it is still possible to visit the zone. Indeed, tourism is encouraged…
An Orkney Saga
One summer, my father took us, Rob and I, to the Orkney Islands, to see the Viking burial sites, Pictish and Neolithic ruins, and to do some fishing. I was still in primary school – year five, I think. The first evening we arrived, we watched three locals unload their catch from a small motorboat onto the boggy shore of the lake we were staying on…
American Buddha
Slushy. Books with poems. Parapets. There is a shadow cast from the trees. Wind. Summer. Talk in the distance both prosaic and profound. Denim. Denim for certain. Cars. It rained before. It’s all cleared up now, someone said. The barber shop sign is winding. White red blue, right? Someone is always chartering a boat, a vessel…