"Jumpin' Jack Flash" is a song by the English rock band #theRollingStones released as a non-album single in 1968, which reached the number 1 position in the #UKSinglesChart and US #CashBox Top Singles. Called "supernatural #DeltaBlues by way of #SwingingLondon" by Rolling Stone magazine, the song was seen as the band's return to their #bluesRock roots after the #baroquePop and #psychedelia heard on their preceding albums #Aftermath (1966), #BetweenTheButtons (1967).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXUJMaYzh6U
#swinginglondon — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #swinginglondon, aggregated by home.social.
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The New London Spy – edited by Hunter Davies (1966)
I was standing in Waterstones Nottingham on Saturday, contemplating the British History section and hoping to find a book about London in the 60s. Obviously, I’m eagerly anticipating David Kynaston’s next volume (current eta 24 Sept 2026), but that’s not going to end up suiting my research purposes anyway. My next writing project will be set between Summer 1968 and early 1969—it’s a 10-years-later follow-up to my forthcoming novel Hard Rain. My current understanding is that Deep Into the Sixties is going to cover just one year, between 1965 and 1966, which leaves me high and dry. It’ll probably be a considerable time before we see anything by Kynaston that covers 67-69. I’ve already read Sandbrook’s White Heat, but I wanted a history that zoomed in on the mid-late 60s, preferably with a London focus.
Maybe I should write it myself.
In the meantime, here is my bang-up-to-date review of a 60-year old guide book to swinging London. It’s not a history, and it still doesn’t cover my target period, but it actually reads like the kind of thing an historian might use as a source. In fact, it is: I ordered it after coming across a quote from it in White Heat.
It’s a really quite unusual guide book, with chapters on the criminal underworld, the gay and lesbian scene, prostitution, and even homelessness. It is unflinching, a Rough Guide long before there were rough guides.
Allow me to take you on a short tour of some of the weirdness. It’s a guide book, right? So you’d expect some mention of London Hotels. But this book does not restrict itself to mere places to stay for the visitor to London. In fact, it begins like this:
If you come to London from the provinces and dislike the way your friends live, or they refuse to have you, or you have none; […] if you were living with somebody and they have thrown you out; if you are a foreigner and have nowhere else to go—then you must put up at an hotel.
The book then goes on to dismiss most of the hotels in London as bad. And then goes into specific requirements and offers some suggestions. The first is Sex. But then it says, ‘The simple rule is, don’t do it.’ The next section is Divorce, and the one after that is Animals. You then get, in order, sections on Honeymoons, Work, and Suicide. Yes, you read that right. There is advice here on how to go about commiting suicide in a London hotel.
An hotel is quite the best place. Choose one that is fairly central and has a good reputation-however unjustified—to live up to.
Whether you favour the pill or the blade, take a room with bath and telephone near a hospital—you might change your mind half-way. Any hotel in Oxford Street, Knightsbridge, or the north side of the Strand will do.
Take care to commit suicide in the hotel, not from the hotel, however tall the building-jumping is the wrong way out, if you want tidiness and privacy. Hotel managements hate suicides, but it will save your family and friends from having to clean up the mess, and your remains will be disposed of discreetly and with a minimum of publicity. Your estate will have to foot the bill if you are suc-cessful, so to avoid more trouble than is necessary, pay in advance.
As a last gesture to society you might leave your body to the hospital that would have saved your life if you had telephoned in time; they never have enough.
The New London Spy is edited by Hunter Davies, of Beatles biography fame. There’s a list of contributors at the front, but it’s impossible to say which of them wrote which bit. There are some odd italicised post-scripts which might be the work of Davies himself. For example, at the end of the Art Galeries section:
At the Hyde Park corner end of Knightsbridge there is a long island composed of rounded cobbles in the middle of the road. Watch the behaviour of any lady wearing high heels who makes her way onto it.
It is odd, but amusing as well. In the chapter on Woman’s London, you find this advice:
Fortnums has a jolly restaurant where you can have tea without being kicked to death by the populace, and Harrods has a superb assignation centre in their Banking Hall—a lot of back-to-back leather sofas occupied by mysterious people reading The Listener.
The point I’d make about all this is that the authors seem to be poking fun at the very notion of visiting London, so that the whole book seems to come across as an in joke. I think they collectively delight in the idea of an American tourist picking up this book only to find a chapter which details what to drink if you can’t afford alcohol (meths), the best hotels in which to commit suicide, and the pros and cons of the four or five different ways of picking up a prostitute. It’s all very reminiscent of Nancy Mitford’s U and Non-U essay.
There’s a useful guide to what the various codes on sex workers’ postcards mean:
‘Rubber and rainwear made to measure, phone Miss Rodd at Riverside…’ —she goes in for all the kinky stuff with the tight fitting rubber clothing and high heeled boots.
‘Lovely fireside rugs made to order, Fulham…’ —Here is a girl who specialises in intercourse on the floor with all the forms of perversions thrown in for good measure.
‘Riding boots always for sale, Park…’ —Riding crops used for beatings.
It’s bonkers, really, a strange mixture of really quite practical and useful information (including contact names and phone numbers!) and … well, everything you always wanted to know about sex London but were afraid to ask.
#1960s #60s #Books #England #Europe #London #Sixties #SwingingLondon #Travel #TravelGuides -
La #commediadelladomenica è il #film #Milionichescottano di #EricTill con i bravissimi, come sempre, #PeterUstinov e #MaggieSmith amnientata nella #swinginglondon degli anni #sessanta #unofilm #cinema #unocinema #filmastodon #recensioni
https://www.valeriotagliaferri.it/milioni-che-scottano-di-eric-till/
ascolta gratis tutta la #recensione sul #podcast #LaFogliadAcanto
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7882bOPHnlbQAuIqTlsE4h?si=SUYfUdw5Qo-cE_GnZOydSg
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Ha abandonado el edificio el maestro #QuincyJones. No por esperable menos triste.
He aquí un homenaje (1:39 y siguientes) que #MikeMyers le tributó en el trailer de la peli "Goldmember", protagonizada por #AustinPowers, ese agente no tan secreto escapado del #SwingingLondon de los #60s
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#Darling In piena #swingingLondon #JohnSchlesinger ci regala un ritratto di donna che segnerà un’epoca. Il volto e le forme della protagonista sono quelle splendide di #juliechristie che con questa pellicola viene definitivamente consacrata a star... #unofilm #unocinema #film #cinema #unorecensioni #unorecensioni
https://www.valeriotagliaferri.it/darling-di-john-schlesinger/
ascolta il #podcast della #recensione su #Spotify #AmazonMusic e #YouTube
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At The Soft Machine gig, London, 1967
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James Mason explores some probably long gone corners of London in 1969.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5h8w0m?fbclid=IwAR12c5yaEdAJRL6XyRel0TBOVVs21ROuYvO0kW9maycokCK_SCGWbskdeK0#JamesMason #London #MusicHall #Victorian #Swinging60s #SwingingLondon #1960s #Publictoilets