The coolest things in London then

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CAN’T say what’s cool in London today but we had cool things back in my day. Srsly cool.

Today we have our gadgets, the Internetto and stuff that only looks cool, but we had actual cool places to go to and cool things to actually do.

London things

AND now, for something completely different.

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“Stuff I bought in Camden market :)”

(click image for full size)

My artist friend Ophelia bought these at that fleamarket, which in my day was more colloquially known as Dingwall’s.

Perfectly matched items.

Game, set, match.

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Image © Ophelia Kwong, 2013. All Rights reserved. Non-exclusive licence to this blog.

© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2013. (B13321)

This was the UK before the Mammon took over…

Just a little something down memory lane…

“We had the opportunity to do a live broadcast for the New Year of 1976/77, using a UHF-link. The only problem was, we didn’t have a flat [apartment] do broadcast from. Then we went to this party, as invited by one of our fans, a girl by the name of Terry. She had this friend, Bob, and he let us use his flat.

“So we did a marathon broadcast starting on New Years Eve, ending 20 hours later! What a terrific show it was…

“We even used some of the Swedish jingles you made … and a Swedish girl by the name Susy rang us up as she understood it.”

— Outtake from an audio letter from January 1977 done by Roger Tate of London’s Radio Invicta 92.4

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Radio Invicta 92.4 was a groundbreaking pirate/commercial radio station in London that operated from 1970 to 1984. With a mission to get more soul music onto British airwaves, Radio Invicta (“Soul Over London”) was Europe’s first all-soul station.

Some of Radio Invicta’s best-loved broadcasts from the 1970s are now archived at Myspace.

Because of the location of my home then (northwest London), tuning into Radio Invicta had always been touch and go for me.

Apart from Radio Invicta, my other favourite radio station was Capital Radio 95.8 FM (today’s Capital FM), whose studios and head office were at Euston Tower, 286 Euston Road, London NW1 — right across from Laurence Corner, one of my most beloved shops in my own bygone London (and mentioned in this post).

Many Londoners in those days considered Capital Radio and Radio Invicta were the only two authentic London radio stations, done by Londoners, for Londoners, and in London style.

I never listened to any of the BBC Radio stations (unless I have to) — because I think they were (and still are) crap, I’m sorry to say.

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2013. (B13220) Source here.