Issue 23
April 10, 2025
The Beadlean Library Janet Street-Porter Exposed Sexting on 9/11 The Worst School Groupchats We Go Live From Golgotha
Anonymous

Hotel Britannica

An anonymous report from a clinician working inside one of Britain’s asylum hotels.
Jimmy McIntosh

A Bit of Liquor Sauce

Canning Town is the birthplace of Danny Dyer, and it’s also London’s most rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood. Our pints correspondent went there for a few scoops.
Katie Lewis

Requiem for a Scene

The Albion Rooms. Queens of Noize. The Hawley Arms. A musician remembers London in 2002.
Leo Robson

The Boys

An extract from Leo Robson’s forthcoming novel.
Louis Staples

Ersatz G.B.

How do Lidl and Aldi get away with their imitation brands? We unpick the Cuthbert & Colin caterpillar wars.
David Whitehouse

Hold the Phone

On 11 September, 2001, a nurse was texting saucy messages to thousands of strangers across the country. But the nurse was really a 21-year-old man, bored in an office in London. We hear his story.
William Rayfet Hunter

No Scrubs

A personal essay from a writer who was once a doctor.
Emma Magnus

On Minge Lane

A dispatch from Worcestershire, famous for its sauce – and saucy street names.
Georgia Brown

Borstal Boys

A personal history of the borstal in Britain: a century of incarcerated children.
Ciaran Thapar

Roots Manoeuvres

A dispatch from one of the most singular club nights in Britain, right next to Heathrow Airport.
Peter Carlyon

A Shark Tale

Russell Gray is a redoubtable property developer, who has, among other projects, remade Bermondsey. He is also a self-styled anarchist and an arts patron. What keeps him going?
Anonymous

In the Midnight Hour

As a working-class escort from the north of England who works in central London, I’ve come to view my wealthy clients like attractions in a zoo: precious exotic creatures to be admired.