Why are Britain’s park barbecues going private? A quiet backlash against al fresco gathering has crept through the country.

My piece on vanishing barbecue pitches for the @newstatesman.com summer special - feat. a great George Orwell essay that dedicates three paragraphs to park railings:

The Bob Dylan Record Club with special guest Kat Lister The Bob Dylan Record Club Classic albums chosen by special guests. Laid-back vinyl listening sessions & lively in conversations hosted by Travis Elborough. With special guest Kat Lister Kat Lister ...

Roll up, Bobcats. I’ll be joining Travis Elborough on October 25 at the Betsey Trotwood for a Bob Dylan Record Club afternoon in the fine company of his 1978 album Street Legal, an album I hold very dear. Tickets are a bargain £5! I will be bringing my Dylan encyclopaedia! This is not a drill!

New issue of @thewiremagazine.bsky.social a @cabaretvoltaire.bsky.social special

Peter Astor Unsent Letters Album Launch Explore this photo album by Travis Elborough's Life in Film on Flickr!

Peter Astor Unsent Letters Album Launch @peteastor.bsky.social
www.flickr.com/photos/mylif...

Dickon Edwards: Diary at the Centre of the Earth. Vol. 1 Bringing Dickon's celebrated diary to print: a long-overdue literary misadventure.

Here's another book I'm helping with. It's a long overdue print version of the diaries of @dickon-edwards.bsky.social. The cover is by Lawrence Gullo and there's a new intro from Travis Elborough. Why not order this thing of divine beauty on Kickstarter?

Brookies in Bradford

Travis Elborough: Telling better stories about the UK's least visited cities

Last night we went to the launch of the new album by Bonnie Dobson & The Hanging Stars, produced by Sean Read & released by Loose Records. A great Q&A with Bonnie & Rich from the band with writer Travis Elborough followed by a very special performance…a night full of friendship, charm and love ❤️✌️💥😎

Quite a day Dennis Morris at The Photographers' Gallery Helen Bonham Carter & friends at The London Library & Masma Dream World at Café OTO

Electric Shock - Peter Doggett - WhitLit Festival, Whitstable Olympus OM1

Pete a lovely man too -
www.flickr.com/photos/mylif...

Modernist Soho and Mayfair: Walking in Ian Nairn's footsteps, led by Travis Elborough. Sunday 6 July, meet outside Blue Posts pub, W1F 0QA, 2.20 pm. Tickets: buff.ly/n1KyE41 Ian Nairn books: buff.ly/iHFz9Gi

What trains mean to Britons

'His attempts to escape into a state of grace are too often thwarted by Wigan Athletic fans swigging from oversized bottles of Super Bock.'

Travis Elborough on what trains mean to Britons

Cover of Travis Elborough’s book wish You Were Here

Seen in the wild today. Travis was the most recent guest on my podcast Monstrosities Mon Amour, talking of his love for Worthing’s seafront car park… open.substack.com/pub/johngrin...

Monstrosities Mon Amour: Grafton Car Park, Worthing, with Travis Elborough #7. John Grindrod meets writer Travis Elborough to enjoy a crumbling seafront car park in Regency Worthing, and a prog-rock tribute to Lord of the Rings

My latest guest, the brilliant Travis Elborough, takes us to a car park in Worthing via a prog-rock tribute to Lord of the Rings. It can only be a new episoide of Monstrosities Mon Amour open.substack.com/pub/johngrin...

BBC Radio 4 - The Rise and Fall of the Antique, 3. Post-war Portobello Travis Elborough charts the rise and fall of the antique, focusing on the 1960s.

9:30am TODAY on @BBCRadio4Extra

The Rise and Fall of the Antique
Ep 3, Post-war Portobello

Travis Elborough explores the 1960s antique trade when a nostalgia for Victoriana co-existed with modernising trends. From 2018.

Read an extract from Studio Electrophonique: The Sheffield Space Age From The Human League To Pulp - The Wire In an extract from his new book, Jamie Taylor remembers the first time he went to visit Ken Patten’s studio, home to early iterations of The Human League, Vice Versa (later ABC), Heaven 17 and Clock D...

At The Wire website, read an extract from 'Studio Electrophonique: The Sheffield Space Age From The Human League To Pulp'.

In this extract, Jamie Taylor remembers his first visit Ken Patten’s studio, home to early iterations of The Human League, Heaven 17 & more.

www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/b...

Stephen Mallinder, Jamie Taylor, Adi Newton and Travis Elborough on stage at the Horse Hospital.

Promo poster for the Sheffield space age

Space-age Sheffield redux: Stephen Mallinder and Adi Newton at the Horse Hospital last night on the 50th anniversary of Cabaret Voltaire's first gig.

Tomorrow! 2pm Clay Pipe Music film and music in the Church.https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/04/times-and-happenings-caught-by-the-river-day-out/

A few more tickets have been made available for the launch of Dorothy Max Prior's 'Sex is No Emergency' at the Horse Hospital, London next Thursday 8 May. Signed books, stickers, rare films, sounds and images + Max in conversation with Travis Elborough!

www.thehorsehospital.com/events/sine-...

New book out next week. Will be talking to Travis Elborough in the excellent Bookseller Crow on June 5. Come on down South London folks! @booksellercrow.bsky.social @andrewmale.bsky.social @martinmillar1.bsky.social

Book Review: Writers’ Journeys that Shaped Our World, by Travis Elborough NON-FICTION: Follow in the footsteps of some of the world’s most famous authors on the journeys which inspired their greatest works in this beautiful illustrated atlas.

Book Review: Writers’ Journeys that Shaped Our World, by Travis Elborough >> https://glamadelaide.com.au/book-review-writers-journeys-that-shaped-our-world-by-travis-elborough

Doctor, Doctor: the genesis of a national folk hero John Higgs begins his foray into the long-standing BBC television science fiction series Doctor Who with a personal anecdote about going to the pub with Tom Baker, the notoriously bibulous actor who…

The Doctor, like Sherlock Holmes, is a role that has sometimes extracted a heavy price from those called to play it.

✍️ Travis Elborough

Henry Badowski - Life Is A Grand album cover. Blurry, soft focus picture of, presumably, the artist's face.

'One of the great lost albums of the 1980s and one that almost no one has heard of - quite an achievement given the degree to which almost every last seam of coal black vinyl has been mined to near exhaustion by crate diggers'

Reissue of the Week: Henry Badowski’s Life Is A Grand

buff.ly/ZQAQlZk

The historical context of Outrage by Ian Nairn - Notting Hill Editions Travis Elborough provides some historical context to Ian Nairn's classic Outrage, reissued for the first time by NHE.

'Ian Nairn was once as familiar a figure on British television as Sir John Betjeman. He was, however, to die in near obscurity in 1983 at just 52 years of age.'

On the NHE blog, Travis Elborough writes about the background and historical context of Nairn's seminal work, Outrage:

Croydonopolis by Will Noble | Book review | The TLS

'Like New Jersey to New York, Croydon is all a bit bridge and tunnel.'

Travis Elborough: Finally, someone has a good word to say about Croydon

Pauline Boty: I Am the Sixties now up on @bbciplayer.bsky.social @paulineboty.bsky.social

The weirdness of the pre-Beatles pop world Quizzed about pop by the teen music magazine Smash Hits in 1987, the year of her third consecutive electoral victory, Margaret Thatcher singled out ‘Telstar’, a chart-topper from a quarter of a…

As his mental health declined, the record producer Joe Meek grew increasingly fascinated by the other-worldly, communing in graveyards with Buddy Holly and the Pharaoh Ramses the Great.

✍️ Travis Elborough

'Remember your first mobile phone?' piece on Nokia phones for the Telegraph

www.telegraph.co.uk/art/architec...

A brilliant event last night with @c20society.bsky.social to launch our 70th anniversary edition of Outrage by Ian Nairn, with @osaumarezsmith.bsky.social, @gmdarksky.bsky.social and Travis Elborough (also featuring @gardnergareth.bsky.social).

Always lovely to see a packed room!

Caught by the Reaper: Travis Elborough remembers Geoff Nicholson — writer, walker, gourmand, theremin player and friend — who died earlier this month, aged 71 https://buff.ly/3QjdQxf

I've stepped in to chair this @c20society.bsky.social event, secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx..., about the great Ian Nairn's Outrage, which is being republished; with Travis Elborough &
@gmdarksky.bsky.social. Nairn sparked my interest in architecture, so will be great fun. Come!