The Notting Hill Pub with a Spicy Secret

If you’re looking for a traditional English pub with a twist, I think I have something for you. I grew up around the corner from this place, admiring the flowers passing by everyday, but I was always faithful to another local pub during my Londoner years and I never even went inside to discover its secret– until this weekend that…

A Compendium of Vintage Pool Parties

Some things just look like a lot more fun in vintage grainy photos. I found a ton of nostalgic of motel pool postcards on Flickr and couldn’t help but put together another little compendium of some fabulously kitsch “pool parties”. When I went road tripping in California last summer, I tried to stay in as many motels…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CXXIV)

1. What do Angelina Jolie and Steve Buscemi have in common? One of these people is regarded as one of the most attractive in the world and the other as one of the least, but for one brief, shining moment, they looked exactly alike. Found via Kateoplis. 2. A 1983 first draft script of the…

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Greenhouse Lunching & Offbeat Hunting in East London

Tucked away in an overlooked neighbourhood of East London, quieter and smaller than Shoreditch but with the potential to outshine Brick Lane, Exmouth Market is an unsung gem of the city, a failsafe foodie stomping ground, safeguarded by locals and creative start-ups who set up shop in the hood over the last decade. I had made a…

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The Great American Picnic of 1948

It’s a Spring Friday afternoon and “school” is out, but you’ve had such a busy week, you’ve forgotten to plan your weekend … Well pssst! Follow me and hop into my time machine to the all-state picnic in Ontario, California circa 1948… Put your short shorts on and head to Euclid Avenue for a good old fashioned American chow…

For Sale! The Last Cinema Bus

Image via Jane Sanders Up in that impressive glass dome is where the projectionist would have originally sat in the late 1960s, when a fleet of seven of these custom mobile cinema units toured Britain, promoting modern production techniques to the industry. Britain’s then Minister of Technology, Tony Ben commissioned the customised Bedford SB buses to…

Are Mongolian Nomads moving into China’s Ghost Cities?

“I stumbled across some traditional Mongolian yurts plonked in the middle of this empty ghost city,” said Shane Thoms in an email to me this morning. It’s always exciting to receive news from my favourite urbex photographer who is usually based in Japan but took a break to spend some time in a Northern Chinese ghost city in the…

The 19th Century Escort Cards with Pick-Up Lines you definitely haven’t heard before

Without Facebook, online dating sites and lest we dare mention applications like Tinder, in the 19th century, single boys and girls had to be a little more inventive with their dating game. And thus, the American ‘escort card’ or ‘invitation card’ was introduced. It wasn’t exactly used in high society but this handy acquaintance card was…

The Hippie Caves of Matala that housed Joni Mitchell

In a sleepy fishing village on the island of Crete, where Joni Mitchell had found herself a nomadic home inside manmade Neolithic caves carved into the sandstone cliff, she sang her folk songs, “under a starry dome…beneath the Matala Moon.” It was the 1960s and a community of backpacking hippies had settled in Matala, a remote corner of…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CXXIII)

1. Iran in the 1970s “Back in the 70s, people in Iran looked like this. Also, the man in the picture is my father”, submitted by a user on Reddit. 2. A Miniature version of Hell, discovered by demolition workers in Paris A crew of demolition workers in Paris discovered a mysterious wooden box…