Extract from 'A Goose in Southwark' by Carl Gee and Chris Roberts

'On the other side of the street, the new restaurants in the railway arches beckoned and the sound of a boat's horn came off the water as Shane stole away in the direction of the wine museum. He didn't see the girl slip out of the fog towards him.

'Hello dearie. Want some company?' She was heavily wrapped up in what could have been a shawl, but it was just as likely a blanket. Shane decided that it was a shawl - blanket wearers usually proffered a copy of the Big Issue, not company. The girl was very pale and short, with dark hair hanging down rather lankly, and she gave off a faint smell of lavender.

The whole scene felt very strange. True, this sort of thing was not uncommon around Brick Lane, but it wasn't what one expected on Bankside. Not anymore, anyway - three hundred years ago, this had been London's red light area and theatre district. That was where Maiden Lane, where Shane was now standing, had got it's name from.

As well as the painted doxies, there had been gambling, bear baiting and theatricals to lure people south. Shane held strong views about south London and it's desirability at the best of times, and Bankside's resurrection as London's leisure district since the 1990's had been as startling to him as it's new attraction as a place to live. Still, it was going too far to believe that the baggage trade had come back as well...'

+Words+

Extract from 'One Eye Grey' Volume II: A Goose in Southwark. "One Eye Grey is a penny dreadful for 21st century that draws on the tradition of those early London publications as well as the pulp fiction that followed".

Buy it at Treadwells, Covent Garden London.

+Music+

'Idlewild Jesus Ribgy' - Depeche Mode, Outkast and The Beatles, mashed by Totom.

+Art+

'In Passing' by Miss Aniela.

+History+

Penny Dreadfuls (Wikipedia).

Blather (Waking the Dead) visits Southwark to talk to the OutKast dead.

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