# Dotmaker Tours


## Posts

- [Sonic postcard from Amsterdam](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/sonic-postcard-from-amsterdam/)
- [My Sound of 2021: Bow Bells ringing out after lockdown](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/ringing-out-after-lockdown-bow-bells/)
- [The sound of London coming back to life](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/festival-of-bells/)
- [The value in the unwanted](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/the-value-in-the-unwanted/)
- [Trafalgar Square skateboarders](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/trafalgar-square-skateboarders/)
- [Shortlisted for Sound of the Year!](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/shortlisted-for-sound-of-the-year/)
- [Chiming during the pandemic](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/chiming-during-the-pandemic/)
- [... And we're back!](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/dotmaking/and-were-back/)
- [Walking and listening in Bern](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/walking-and-listening-in-bern/)
- [Trinity Buoy Wharf and Secrets of the Docks](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/environment/trinity-buoy-wharf-tour/)
- [From London with love](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/from-london-with-love/)
- [Peace, silence and noise](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/peace-silence-and-noise/)
- [A visit to a waste transfer station](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/environment/a-visit-to-a-waste-transfer-station/)
- [A poetic response to A Genius Tour](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/genius/a-genius-poem/)
- [Open House 2019](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/dotmaking/openhouse2019/)
- [London Ear on BBC Radio](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/london-ear-on-bbc-radio/)
- [An Environmental Wander](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/environment/the-environment-of-london/)
- [Mass rallies and swarming roadblocks](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/power/slow-defiance/)
- [London A to G](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/london-a-to-g/)
- [What price London's air?](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/dotmaking/putting-a-price-on-londons-air/)
- [Bedlam and silence: the awful sounds of peace](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/the-sounds-of-peace/)
- [Tackling the trash in the Thames](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/thamestrash/)
- [London without cars](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/3130/)
- [London's underground heat](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/londons-underground-heat/)
- [Time to talk about the Thames Tideway tunnel](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/thamestidewaytunnel/)
- [A Poetic Response to The London Ear](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/futuresounds/)
- [Tranquil City](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/tranquil-city/)
- [Celebrating London's trees](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/celebrating-londons-trees/)
- [Wandering Free?](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/power/wandering-free/)
- [Getting to grips with noise](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/what-is-noise/)
- [The Monument: memorial, fossil, telescope, gnomon](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/the-monument/)
- [Ringing the changes](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/ringing-the-changes/)
- [London's answer to plastic waste](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/londons-answer-plastic-waste/)
- [Talking about Slowing Down on Lush Radio](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/talking-about-slowing-down-on-lush-radio/)
- [London loses its voice](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/london-loses-its-voice/)
- [City noise and body rhythms](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/city-noise-and-body-rhythms/)
- [Finally on TripAdvisor!](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/dotmaking/finally-on-tripadvisor/)
- [Crossrail: adventures in waste](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/crossrail/)
- [London Marches](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/power/london-marches/)
- [An Ear to the London Night](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/an-ear-to-the-london-night/)
- [Where we don’t look](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/genius/where-we-dont-look/)
- [Contactless but tactile](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/contactless-but-tactile/)
- [The benefits of unlearning](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/genius/unlearning/)
- [Slow growth and ancient roots](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/slow-growth-ancient-roots/)
- [Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/everything-is-transformed/)
- [London's birds and the global sound wave](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/ear/londons-birds/)
- [Stop. Look. Listen. Think.](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/dotmaking/stop-look-listen-think/)
- [Slow It Down](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/slow-it-down/): With London In Slow Motion launching officially on Sunday 22 September, I spoke about my walks to the lovely folk at Slow It Down. It’s an eZine ‘dedicated to making time for the more thoughtful, imaginative and subtle things in life.’ You can read the interview here.
- [When Mental Slackness is a Virtue](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/slow/mental-slackness/): Whether you’re going away for a week or stealing a day out in the sunshine I heartily recommend taking a moment to read this advice from E.R. Thompson. It’s from The Human Machine (1925), a collection of articles that first appeared in John Bull magazine. The Holiday Mind This month thousands of my readers will be having their holidays. I want them to have real holidays. From the viewpoint of psychology a holiday is more than a mere search for pleasure and amusement : more than a relief from the routine of daily work : more than a renewal of bodily health. A real holiday […]
- [All Life Is Here](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/all-life-is-here/): Out this morning in the glorious sunshine on a recce for the Thames Bestiary. It’s a walk that I’ve developed for Viewfinder Gallery’s Thames Trail project, but will be leading again this autumn sans Viewfinder. Passed Aerosol Can Man, about to be whitewashed by Greenwich Council’s anti-graffiti team … … pigeons sun-bathing … … a four-eyed pole … … a man and a goat … … and a mechanical arm hard at work. For wintry Thames Bestiary snaps see Back on the Edge.
- [Feeling Like a Ghost](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/uncategorized/feeling-like-a-ghost/): Generally, what captivates me most about old found photos and documentary footage is that sense of looking at ghosts. Watching this film of London in 1926, I experience the reverse: of being myself a ghost from the future visiting people from the past. It happens as the camera rolls along Petticoat Lane, from 4 minutes 15 seconds in. The result for the viewer is an almost unbearably poignant connection with crowds of ‘London’s husbands amus[ing] themselves while London’s wives cook the Sunday dinner’. The film is from a series of rare colour travelogues shot by Claude Friese-Greene. http://youtu.be/dmFL28UeKVY
- [Mortified Menagerie](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/mortified-menagerie/): On the Greenwich Bestiary we chuckle at John Reardon’s Monument to a Dead Parrot. It’s a bird (a cockatoo, to be precise) with a marvellous story that I won’t go into now – you’ll have to come on the walk! Lately, it has put me in mind of Trafalgar Square. Partly, that’s because of the arrival there soon of Katharina Fritsch’s Hahn/Cock: another delightfully unexpected bird to find perched publicly on a plinth. (Incidentally, on the Bestiary we swing past a Fourth Plinth alumnus, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle by Yinka Shonibare – but that’s a topic for a different post.) […]
- [Come to London!](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/chimneys/come-to-london/): Another find from Greenwich market: a curious snapshot of nineteenth century London where Nelson’s column looms over the Tower and factories nestle beneath St Paul’s. It’s a city on the move, powered by horses, sails and steam. I am naturally drawn to the chimneys and funnels, painting the sky with their smoky plumes. Come to London! The largest, busiest, grimiest city on earth.
- [Of Sea Monsters and Giant Cranes](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/seamonster/): On the Chimneys & Tunnels walk we visit the launch ramp of SS Great Eastern, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s massive iron sailing steam ship. Faced with a rather sad row of wooden sleepers in a quiet backwater of the Isle of Dogs, it’s hard to imagine the astonishing spectacle of the boat’s construction there in the 1850s. Taking shape was a vessel designed to carry 4,500 passengers, 6,000 tons of cargo and 12,000 tons of coal. It was to be over 200m long, and five times larger by volume than anything afloat at the time. William Parrott’s painting captures brilliantly the […]
- [Railways under London](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/tunnels/railways-under-london/): I’ve often wondered how London’s deep tunnels were built in the years between Marc Brunel’s early nineteenth century heroics and today’s monster tunnel boring machines (see Into the void). At what point did men wielding picks disappear from the front line? Not before 1948 it seems, according to Marie Neurath, author and illustrator of the post-war children’s book Railways under London. We all know the results: millions of Londoners cross the city deep underground every day. It’s easy to forget that is what we’re doing, as we battle our way from station to station. Our mental defence mechanisms helpfully work to block […]
- [Back on the edge](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/back-on-the-edge/): Out on the Greenwich Peninsula once again, this time in the biting cold (see On the edge). My purpose today: all things animal. I’m researching a Thames Bestiary walk that I’ll be leading later in the year. It’s one of a series of riverside trails organised by Viewfinder Gallery. More details coming soon…
- [Hey Sewer Abusers!](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/hey-sewer-abusers/): This ‘plop video’ speaks for itself. Sewerman Style. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejBMF2Ka6mA&list=UUcAJrq05RcIOtWrPnDoQGVw&index=3
- [Feathers and foliage](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/feathers-and-foliage/): Deep sea diving with my zoom lens this morning, waiting for the autumn light to shine on the puffer fish (last week’s Big Discovery). No joy. It seems the earth may now be tilted too far away from the sun. Strangely consoling, then, when this lone magpie flew into the frame: a black-and-white vision of purposefulness.
- [Castaway city](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/castaway-city/): By the Thames at East Tilbury. Sixty years of London lies here, dumped since the 1930s and now buried beneath the marshes. Dislodged glass and china fragments collect on the beach while container ship pass silently by.
- [First press](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/first-press/): Nice to be featured in this month’s Greenwich Visitor.
- [Mute swans](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/mute-swans/): On the Greenwich Safari we studiously ignore any animal that moves. But as we’re not on safari now, I thought I’d share a clip I took today of swans on the Thames at Gravesend foraging for crumbs.
- [Praise the lack](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/chimneys/praise-the-lack/): An unexpected boon of the London Olympics – at least in Greenwich – has been its effect on road traffic. Fears of hellish gridlock, record smogs and wheezing, under-performing athletes seem to have been overblown. Drivers by and large have avoided the capital, the streets have been quiet and the air clean. Well, cleaner than usual, thanks also to fresh westerly winds that saw off the worst ozone episode in the city for six years just in time for the opening ceremony. Another less remarked-upon relief has been the return of HMS Ocean to Greenwich apparently smoke-free. After her inappropriately […]
- [Olympic High Kingdom](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/olympic-high-kingdom/): Nearly 500 years after Henry VIII’s riverside jousting tournaments, horses have returned to Greenwich for more equestrian pageantry. Where once knights in full armour thundered towards each other intent on breaking their opponent’s wooden lance, yesterday’s dressage was all top hats and tails, highly controlled impulsion and submission. In place of the Tudor tilt yard, viewing gallery and towers, a massive 20,500 seat arena hosted the crowds of fair maidens and equine enthusiasts. And the royals were back spectating and competing, as was King Henry’s wont. Princess Anne and the Duke of Edinburgh were there to watch British Olympic hopefuls, Zara Phillips and […]
- [Gulliver dismembered](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/gulliver-dismembered/): Laid out on the grounds of the Queen’s House yesterday. What a pity the giant elephant has gone! (See 4 April post Giant elephant appearing in Greenwich.) They would have made a lovely pair.
- [Cryptic connection](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/chimneys/cryptic-connection/): Here is another Thames Tunnel picture found in Greenwich Market from another, equally strange perspective (see Underground, Overground peculiar cross section). This plan illustrates nicely the dot-to-dottiness of our chimneys and tunnels walk. The two dots here mark the grand entrance hall and stairwell either side of the river. I like to think of them as chimneys. They are, after all, cylindrical, vertical and the means of ventillating what lies below: a foot tunnel – the line that joins the dots. Except, of course, that they don’t quite join up. There’s a curious gap at either end. It’s as if […]
- [On the edge](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/rubbish/on-the-edge/): North Greenwich Peninsular in the gloaming yesterday. There to research my next walk: a Rubbish Trip. It’s a soulful place. Derelict, still, away from things. Now on the verge on being redeveloped as a luxury cruise terminal, its transformation has been helped along by a recent spate of vandalism. Bored kids with sticks. An efficient solution.
- [Not so boxy jumper](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/not-so-boxy-jumper/): Leading the charge of international horses to Greenwich for the 2012 Olympics is an unlikely character: Benson The Talking Topiary Horse. His athletic pose is the result of 10 years intensive training at a nursey in Italy. But rather than compete with the equestrian mob in the park stadium, Benson is here on a charitable mission. He invites visitors to his hurdle to have their photo taken with him and donate £1 to the Alzheimer’s Society. You’ll find him at 16 St Alfege’s Passage, outside the B&B run by Robert Gray. He is posting his utterances on facebook and tweeting (braying, […]
- [Silent clatter](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/silent-clatter/): On the Greenwich Safari we imagine London teeming with horses in the 1830s. Here is a rare glimpse of horse-drawn cabs, carriages, carts and omnibuses wheeling around the city seventy years on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8viKvXl81J0
- [Black smoke over the Thames](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/chimneys/black-smoke-over-the-thames/): Unfazed by such landlubbing civilian niceties as the Clean Air Act and London Low Emission Zone, HMS Ocean has been exhaling black smoke constantly since her arrival in Greenwich on 4 May. She is here as part of a major national exercise to test the Armed Forces role in the Olympics security effort. The vast 200m long ‘amphibious assault ship’ will be home in July to some 400 marines and sailors taking part in the Greenwich Park Venue Security Force. She will act as logistics hub and landing platform for helicopters flying military snipers over the capital. Other local security […]
- [Underground, Overground](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/chimneys/underground-overground/): Passing through Greenwich Market the other day, I stumbled upon this nineteenth century print of Marc Brunel’s Thames Tunnel (Into the Void). It shows, in charmingly peculiar perspective, the tunnel ‘as it appeared when originally opened for traffic’: a popular destination for well-to-do Victorian pedestrians. That was before it became a dark, dank den of vice and iniquity and was eventually handed to the East London Railway in 1869. Much has changed above ground since then. The tall smoking chimneys are long gone with the last of London’s coal-fuelled industry. Where ships used to gather to unload their cargos at […]
- [The one that got away](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/the-one-that-got-away/): Those clever chaps at Fraser Muggeridge studio have been coming up with some cracking logo designs for Dotmaker Tours. It’s been a fun process. I slightly fell in love with this delightful elephant. But in the end I couldn’t resist the pin and jaunty masthead. Scroll up… Ta da!
- [Spirits in the rubble](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/spirits-in-the-rubble/): This startling image is from the new documentary film Vision Quest: A Ritual for Elephant & Castle. It follows artist and shaman Marcus Coates on a search for animal spirits to help gain insights into a possible future for the area. It’s a provocative idea. Elephant & Castle – a giant roundabout, shopping centre and clutch of run-down 1960s concrete housing blocks – seems a thoroughly man-made place. Its re-making in glass and steel to form part of ‘neo-London’ is now forcing out the local human community. Set in this context, Coates’ quest is unsettling, funny and surreal. It’s an urban safari […]
- [Into the void](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/tunnels/into-the-void/): Crossrail’s Phyllis & Ada (London’s most voracious worms) are the latest in a long line of giant worms that have nibbled their way under the city. The family tree (or should that be root?) goes back at least as far as 1825 to the tunnelling shield used to bore the Thames Tunnel between Rotherhithe and Wapping (pictured). The square structure may not look very worm-like. But Peter Ackroyd in London Under tells how it was designed by Marc Brunel to mimic the ship-worm Teredo navalis. The Teredo eats timber and passes the wood through its body; the excreta are then […]
- [Giant elephant appearing in Greenwich](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/giant-elephant-appearing-in-greenwich/): Spotted on safari yesterday. Here on a brief visit, for the filming of Les Misérables with Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman.
- [London's most voracious worms](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/london-worms/): I’m very excited about Crossrail. The tunnelling started last week. Over the next two years Phyllis & Ada (pictured), Victoria & Elizabeth, Sophia & Mary and an unnamed couple will bore 21km of twin tunnels through the centre of London. The 148m long machines will pass below Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Whitechapel and Canary Wharf at depths of up to 35m. It’s not just the eye watering ambition of the tunnelling that appeals. I was rather taken by Boris Johnson’s likening of Phyllis & Ada to ‘voracious worms nibbling their way under London’. Thought of in those […]
- [Ponder the small fry](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/ponder-the-small-fry/): On the Greenwich Safari we ponder the small fry served up at popular nineteenth century whitebait dinners. There were those those who mocked these faddish fishy feasts. Among them was playwright John Maddison Morton. He is best known today for Box and Cox, a story about an ingenious landlady who rents out the same room to two men – Cox who works day-shifts and Box who works nights – without either of them knowing. Hence the expression ‘to box and cox’. Morton penned the ‘laughable farce’ Whitebait at Greenwich in 1853. The theatre bill shown here is for a performance at Plymouth Theatre […]
- [Gull ranger](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bestiary/gull-ranger/): On our Safari we admire the inanimate animals dotted about Greenwich. But the town also has many wonderful live specimens. Like this gull perched watchfully on the coaling pier by the power station.

## Pages

- [Under the Elephant: regeneration and community in SE17](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/under-the-elephant/)
- [The Environment of London](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/environment/)
- [Hidden Walworth: pleasure and progress in SE17](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/hidden-walworth/)
- [Sara Hartley's networking group walk, 2 July 2021 at 10am](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/shwalk2july2021/)
- [Trinity Buoy Wharf & the Swirling Thames](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/trinity-buoy-wharf/)
- [Calendar](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/calendar/)
- [Friends, family and clubs](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/groups/friends/)
- [Covid-19 safety measures](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/covid19statement/)
- [Contact](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/contact/)
- [Mailing List Confirmation](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/mailinglistconsent/): Thank you for confirming you wish to remain on our mailing list! Here are the walks we currently have planned.
- [Past groups and research topics](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/groups/paststudygroups/)
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- [Highlights](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/corporatehighlights/)
- [Home](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/)
- [Sunday Times feature on A Rubbish Trip](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/sundaytimes/)
- [A Genius Tour](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/genius/)
- [The Walks](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/)
- [Participant Reviews](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/participant/)
- [Blog](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/blog/)
- [Blog reviews](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/bloggers/)
- [Papers, Magazines & TV](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/paperstv/)
- [Greenwich Bestiary](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/bestiary/)
- [Chimneys & Tunnels Along the Thames](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/chimneys/)
- [The London Ear](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/londonear/)
- [A Power Trip](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/power/)
- [A Rubbish Trip](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/rubbish/)
- [London In Slow Motion](https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/slowlondon/)
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