On Friday night after the performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Gielgud Theatre in London, I started recording the sounds of London. I started the recorded while walking from the theatre to the Piccadilly Circus tube station, and kept recording for 22 minutes, down into the station, through the turnstiles, down to the platform, onto the Piccadilly line west, off at Earl’s Court and up to Earl’s Court Road where I stopped recording.

It was was a bustling night: the streets were full of people and sounds. You’ll hear music, tube announcements, the sounds of the street.

Listening to it now, it’s an intriguing was of reliving the experience; much better and richer than a photograph.

I think the sounds alone the way are distinctive enough that you should be able to follow along. 

The journey runs between 10:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. London time on May 13, 2016.

I recorded the bells of St Paul’s Cathedral in London while walking up Ludgate Hill and along St Paul’s Churchyard on May 15, 2016 after the St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose.

In London on the weekend I had two occasions to see buildings in diagram form within hours, by coincidence, of seeing the same buildings in physical form.

First, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, this cutaway diagram of St Paul’s Cathedral outside the Architecture Gallery:

A few hours later I was walking over the Thames from the Tate Modern and directly in front of me I spotted something that looked strikingly familiar:

The following day, in the basement of St Bride’s Church, where there’s a thorough exhibit of the church’s connection to the printing trade, I spotted this rendering of the Daily Telegraph building on Fleet Street:

I recognize the building from a walk down Fleet Street that I’d taken just hours before, the name of the newspaper having been removed from the building after it decamped elsewhere:

If you look very carefully in the space above the pillars you can see where “DAILY TELEGRAPH” was parged over.

On my customs declaration yesterday on arrival in Halifax, submitted after landing from London, I declared $323 in purchases made overseas. I’m not a great acquirer of stuff while traveling, at least not of large stuff, as I travel fast and light and have very limited space to carry new things (on occasion I’ve resorted to shipping things home by post, mostly magazines, but this time I was more reserved). Here’s a catalogue of what I acquired.

Pens

I’m a sucker for new and interesting pens, and Modulor, MUJI and Grüne Papeterie in Berlin are excellent places to live out that passion.

MUJI Green Pen

MUJI is well stocked with inexpensive branding-free pens and notebooks. I acquired this green pen to use for writing diary entries.

Vermillion Livework Pen

Bought entirely because I like the colour scheme. Amazingly, given the selection, this was the only pen I purchased from Modulor.

Pentel Tradio Pen

An interesting pen cum marker that I purchased from Grüne Papeterie because I like the way it feels in the hand, and the lines I’m able to draw.

Books and Magazines

Books and magazines are heavy, so I only buy ones that would be difficult or impossible to purchase elsewhere, sometimes snapping a photo of books I’ll buy online later.

Modern Printing, Section IV

Purchased at the St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose, this is a book from 1900 that is a good overview of many of the facets of running a job printing shop. I was particularly attracted to the section on rates of pay and union issues. 50 pence.

BOOKSPACE

I love libraries. This is a book of essays about libraries. Purchased from Do You Read Me?! EUR 15.

Hacking

I love the design of this book of essays about hacking, one of a series. Purchased from Do You Read Me?! EUR 17,50.

The 24-Hour Wine Expert

An impulse purchase. I know nothing about wine. Perhaps this will change now? Purchased from Do You Read Me?! EUR 8.

The Happy Reader

My new favourite magazine, The Happy Reader is a joint project of Penguin Books and Fantastic Man. Each issue focuses on a theme and a person; I purchased three from Do You Read Me?! EUR 4,50 per issue.

Eddie’s Wheel Book

Purchased at the St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose, this is a book from The Alembic Press that was produced for their grandson Eddie’s first birthday in 2005 in a limited edition of 40 copies. It is delightful. 5 pounds.

A Little Drop of Water

Purchased at the St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose, this is another book from The Alembic Press, produced for their granddaughter Natalia’s second birthday. It too is delightful. 5 pounds.

Whirlers & Grainers

Purchased at the St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose, this is a book from Red Plate Press that was produced to “document the restoration and installation of a temporary letterpress print studio at The Shop in Nelson, Lancashire during 2015.” 5 pounds.

Everything Else

Type Metal Squares

Purchased at the St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose from The Carpathian Press and Type Foundry, this plastic box of type high squares is exactly what I need to start experimenting with letterpress printing of QR codes. There are 126 pieces in all, meaning a grid of 11x11. Which may, in fact, not be enough to encode a reasonable amount of data; or any at all. Further research is needed. 15 pounds, including box and packing.

A8 Index Cards

Index cards have proved in inexpensive and flexible medium for letterpress printing, and I like the small A8 size, which isn’t generally available in North America. Purchased from Modulor.

Grain de Pollen Self Sealing Envelopes

Purchased from Grüne Papeterie because I liked the colour. And the name, “watermelon.” EUR 1,80.

BUNTBOX

Tiny versions — jewellry-holding size — of the same BUNTBOX I purchased in Halifax last month. Purchased from Modulor. EUR 1 each.

MUJI Notebook

Purchased and customized at a MUJI store in London. Part of the same diarizing effort explained here. 1 pound (customization free).

DIREKTRECYCLING Envelopes

Purchased from Grüne Papeterie, where I first came to know of these envelopes, recycled from topographic maps, 5 years ago when I was printing in Berlin (those of you who subscribed to “Mail me Something” may recognize these as I used them to mail out items). EUR 3,50.

PAPPERSBRUK Tear-off Door Hangers

Purchased from the Form/Design Centre in Malmö, these may be impractical for Canadian doors, most of which have round handles that are too big to accommodate them. But I love the form. 98 SEK.

Do You Read Me?! Bag

Once you cross a certain purchase threshold at Do You Read Me?! in Berlin, you get a cloth bag included with your purchase. I always seems to cross the threshold. Bags used to be only black-on-white, but now you have the option of that or, as I chose this time, white-on-black.

Something I noticed several times in London this weekend is coffee shops and hotels offering customer wifi through a Facebook authentication layer: the idea is that you can free wifi if you login to Facebook and “check in” to the place. Facebook markets this as a way for businesses to “reach more people”:

When customers check in to use your Wi-Fi, their friends can discover your business by seeing the story in their News Feed

After checking in, people will be asked if they also want to like your Page so you can continue to connect with them on Facebook

What’s easy to miss is that you can bypass the Facebook login and check in process simply be clicking on “Skip Check-in” link and you’ll be connected. You don’t need a Facebook account to do this, and even if you have one you don’t need to login.

Back in April I pointed out on Twitter that Google’s possessive adjective forms in the navigation of Google Maps was confusing, inasmuch as it used either “My” or “Your” depending on the feature:

That tweet was by far and away the most popular tweet I’ve ever tweeted, extending entirely from the fact that it was retweeted by Brendan Eich:

In an action that was no doubt completely unrelated, but that is nonetheless heartening, earlier this month the navigation was updated and is now consistent:

I might quibble with the switch from “maps” to “places”, as the navigation item exposes places, but also maps (formerly known as “My Maps”):

but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

A wayzgoose is the delightful term applied to a gathering of printers for merriment, display and exchange of wares, education and discussion. Regular readers may recall that I made the trip to Kentville, Nova Scotia in 2010, accompanied by Erin Bateman, for the Wayzgoose at Gaspereau Press. It was a grand event, and primed the pump for similar opportunities thereafter.

In this spirit, thus, this trip to Europe was arranged with two bookends: at the start was [[Olle]] and [[Luisa]]’s 10th anniverary in Malmö, on the other end was today’s St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose here in London.

St Bride Foundation has a special place in the printing heavens: for 125 years it’s been the self-described “social, cultural and recreational centre for London’s Fleet Street and its burgeoning print and publishing trade.” If London is the epicenter of English-language publishing in the world, Fleet Street was, at least at one point, the epicenter of the epicenter, and St Bride Foundation was its clubhouse; a sort of mechanics’ institute cum community centre for the printing trades.

While the newspapers of Fleet Street have all departed and the printing trades have been gutted by technology, St Bride Foundation remains: it shepherds one of the world’s foremost collection of books on printing; it holds regular printing workshops in its well-appointed print shop; it even has a bar in the basement.

The annual Wayzgoose is something of an old home week for St Bride: the space is given over to exhibitors of equipment, prints, type, paper and books. There are cakes, tea and coffee. The workshop is full of demonstrations. And there’s lots of opportunity to chat.

I arrived as the clock struck 11:00 a.m. and the doors opened; I departed nearly 3 hours later.

My first conversation was with the owner of Caslon Limited (yes, that Caslon). The company acquired the Adana line of platen presses in the 1990s and continues to make, service and sell parts for them today. My first press, via my friend Joan Sinclair, was an Adana Eight Five, and I purchased rollers for the press from Caslon soon after it came into my possession. So meeting Mr. Caslon was both an honour and an opportunity to learn more about both the history of the company and what parts they have available to replace those on my press that need it.

Space in my compact luggage is at a premium, so there was lots I would have liked to acquire but could not. But I did come away with tiny letterpress-printed books from a variety of small presses, and each purchase provided an chance to chat and learn.

I also purchased a container full of type-high solid squares, something I’ve been looking for since I started printing; I hope to use them to print QR codes on my press, analog style.

And it was hard to resist a book, on sale for only 50 pence, that contains, among other things, the rules for the printing trade chapels circa 1900.

The St Bride Foundation Library was used as a gift shop for the day, so wasn’t available for exploring, but even just the collection of books on offer there for sale could have kept me going for hours:

The refreshments table, set up upstairs, was equally impressive, and though I’m not a regular consumer of cake, how could I but not partake, so I had a strong cup of English Breakfast tea and a slice of very nice coffee cake:

By far and away the highlight of the Wayzgoose for me, though, was the opportunity to talk shop and share war stories with retired Fleet Street printers.

The “Tour of the Street of Ink” room saw printers telling the technological tale of how metal was turned into moulds and then turned into plates for the presses.

In that room and elsewhere I got a good chance to talk shop, swapping my own humble tales of working as a compositor (albeit one generation of technology on) for their stories of unions and work rates and newspaper barons. I found ready agreement for my suggestion that the removal of compositors from the process of daily newspaper production meant that reporters and editors were left without daily contact with members of the working class and that journalism suffered as a result. My apprenticeship continues to pay dividends as a key that opens of a treasure trove of printing lore.

One floor below, the printing workshop was set up with several demonstrations: you could learn how to fold a printer’s hat out of newspaper, watch a new-built Gutenberg-style press in action, and print bookmarks and other keepsakes on the small platen presses in the shop.

The world is so much better for having institutions like St Bride Foundation keeping knowledge of and fraternity within traditional trades alive; I’m so glad I made the effort to attend.

The spirit of the day, and the compact size of the letterpress community, was driven home for me while I was waiting in St Bride’s Passage for the Wayzgoose to start. 

A fellow sat down beside me to tie his shoes.

“Are you one of them,” I asked, motioning at the St Bride building.

“Yes I am,” he replied. “Where are you from?”

“Canada,” I answered.

“Oh, do you know Don Black?”, he asked.

Of course I know Don Black.

Don Black sold me my first drawer of type. And I’ve returned several times to purchase everything from leading to a solvent can. 

And so I wrote down his name, and he mine, so we could share the news of our meeting the next time we talk to Don.

I love typography. I love setting type. I love printing what I’ve set. I love the physicality, the hard limitations, the history and the tradition. But more than anything else I love feeling part of a small, open, collegial, community of printers. All of whom know Don Black.

When on missions from the home world such as this, special rules apply.

One of those rules is “if interesting experiences present that would otherwise, in the course of regular everyday Island life, be unattainable, seize them.”

Which is to say “if Elvis Costello is performing 20 minutes away, you’re allowed to spend $100 on a ticket.”

Which is what I did last night.

I am an Elvis Costello fan in the way that most everyone is an Elvis Costello fan, supplemented my some additional old-girlfriend-was-a-big-fan enhancement, and an appreciation for his television program Spectacle.

I emerged with a steely new appreciation for the man and his music.

Yes, there’s Alison.

But there’s so much more. He’s got a deep songbook, is a talented piano player, can use the guitar in about 100 different ways, and a witty and sometimes profound stage presence. With no break, he played for more than two and a half hours, including a set of encores that I lost count of.

He belted out his own hits, he picked out standards, he told stories, and, the highlight of the evening, he joined his talented opening act, Larkin Poe, in an extended collaboration; both Costello and the sisters of Larkin Poe were elevated by the joining.

Because I’m a seating-choice-obsessive, I ended up booking a private box seat (EE1, to be specific). It was no more expensive than a regular seat. And because like I said, “if interesting experiences present…”

This added an interesting element to the experience, especially as I had the box all to myself (presumably because, well, who else would sit by themselves in a private box beside a stranger – other than me). While I didn’t benefit from the optimal sound mix as a result of my unusual seating, my seat was nonetheless excellent, a perch right beside the stage with a close-up view of everything. Had I been so-inclined, I’m pretty sure I could have jumped from the box onto Costello’s piano without injury.

I’m so, so happy I went; if you have the chance to see Elvis Costello play live, take it!

On my opening night here in London, last Friday, I saw a performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Gielgud Theatre.

It was my first experience of the London theatre, and I enjoyed it: the Gielgud is a lovely old theatre, and I was in an inexpensive (£29) seat in the rafters that, despite its distance from the stage, provided me with a clear view of all the action.

I’d already read the novel, at the recommendation of my mother, and so I was anxious to see how it would be translated into play, as it’s essentially a monologue. I was not disappointed: the set is inventive, using projection, trap doors and drawers, and LEDs to create a malleable environment in what is otherwise an empty black box. Through a combination of narration, sollioquoy, and action, the story was told in a way that amplified the message of the book.

A plaque on Fleet Street dedicated to T.P. O‘Connor:

His pen could lay bare the bones of a book or the soul of a statesman in a few vivid lines.

What a way to be remembered.