The Londonist inbox swells to Jupiter-like proportions each day with inane requests for coverage. Much of it is guff of the most guffsome guffishness. And then, every once in a while, we get beautiful non-guff like this:
Over the course of a year I'm writing and releasing a song every week based on characters and events from London's East End during the Victorian era. For example I've covered Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Eastern saga, Mrs Basil Holmes who saved the graveyards, a crook called American Jack I discovered in a book by Henry Mayhew etc.
Songs From The Howling Sea - paraphrased from novelist Arthur Morrison, who described the East End as 'a howling sea of human wreckage' - is the work of talented troubadour Ruairidh Anderson. Each song is preceded by a short video in which Ruairidh gives some background to his next tale. He's now up to the 11th installment, a delicate, haunting ballad based on a tale of a cross-dressing highwayman's wife who shacked up in Poplar with another woman.
Cracking stuff. The campaign for a live performance starts here.
