May I bring to your attention a photography exhibition that starts tomorrow night. The photographer in question is my friend Meg. We work together sometimes on stories we’re both interested in.

She’s great. Much braver at knocking on doors than me, and much more charming. Photographing the residents of post-war prefab Excalibur Estate in Catford, the bloke she was photographing turned to me mid-shot and said, “Isn’t she lovely?” Indeed she is, and her way with people puts her subjects at ease, enabling her to capture something true about each of them.

The pictures above are from a story she did on first-time fathers, another on ‘assistants’ and a third about Irish exiles. The picture at the top is from the first job we did together, visiting a wartime renenactment weekend. If you’re in Forest Hill in the next couple of months then do pop in to the lovely St David’s Coffee House to see her work.

Ritz Cafe Millport

Yesterday on Twitter designer Gillian Kyle gave us a sneak preview of her new textile range, inspired, she said, by the Ritz Cafe in Millport. Millport is the town on Scottish holiday island Cumbrae, and though I haven’t been there, I know someone who has. A lot. The Ritz itself is a 1950s gem with […]

Wanted: Vitrina cabinet

A Milan Design Fair preview today. In our former lives we hauled out hangovers round Milan each year, getting the tram out to old warehouses to look at everything from minimalist benches to crocheted plates. But sadly not this year, which means we won’t be cooing over this beauty in person. It’s the Vitrina cabinet […]

Menz (Dadz) magazine

Before I introduce my newest magazine discovery, Kindling Quarterly – created in Brooklyn, aimed at trendy Dads – I feel I should flag up that I can’t think of a single man in my life, past or present, who might buy it. Sure, that says more about the number of sensitive magazine-reading men* I know than relevance […]

Aldeburgh colour palette

  The Easter weekend and I went on a tour of seaside towns. Aldeburgh in Suffolk has next to no ugly developments on the seafront. Instead handsome painted houses and funny little cottages face onto the big shingle beach, intercut with alleyways. It was the colours that struck me. Seaside houses are often painted in […]