A Dickensian Necropolis, our ‘new normal’ London

Dimly lit Victorian London street

As we entered a new decade, little did we know that three months down the line our bustling thoroughfare would come to be haunted by the shadows of London’s Victorian past. Transforming into a flaneur-like figure in the dead of the night to combat his insomnia, Charles Dickens documented his traversing of London in the…

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Black Lives Matter

A black and white photo of a Black Lives Matter banner held up at a protest.

Black Lives Matter. Monday 25th May 2020 marked another instance of police brutality against a member of the Black community in the United States. George Floyd, a Black 46-year-old father, son, and brother, was murdered by white police officer, Derek Chauvin, in broad daylight – a disproportionate reaction to Floyd supposedly passing a counterfeit $20…

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Class of 2020: Graduating From a Distance

A common epithet to describe the coronavirus has been “the invisible enemy”. Not only does the use of the chosen adjective, ‘invisible’, hint at the nature of a biological threat, but it also perpetuates an understanding of the virus as an abstraction, this other-worldly description questions its reality. In a swift four and a half…

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People of the Strand: Helen Noni Jabavu (1919-2008)

The Strand Magazine, most popularly known as home to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, launched in 1891. However, dwindling circulation coupled with inflating costs eventually led to the closure of the publication in March 1950. Eleven years buried, Ernest Kay and crime novelist, John Creasey, came together as joint proprietors to revive the literary magazine.…

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