Six of the Best 231

Richard Kemp shares my doubts about the idea of elected mayors, but here he explains why he has put himself forward as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the role in Liverpool.

"Emlyn Hooson who died last week was my first parliamentary boss." Sandy Walkington remembers his days as a chocolate soldier.

"Occupy will have to find another way forward. It isn’t the kind of protest in which an achievable goal is linked to a symbolic nuisance, so that when the authorities see reason everyone can go home. Its demands have been much bigger, and they’ve been backed by the continuing physical presence of people obstinately taking up space. In this respect it’s much more like the Greenham Common peace camps, or Brian Haw’s one-man encampment in Parliament Square, than a traditional demonstration or sit-in." Writing on the London Review of Books blog, Phil Edwards discusses the dissolution Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters' camp.

The Gunnersbury Triangle ought to be an area where District Line trains disappear without trace. In reality, it is an area of ancient woodland that was cut off by railway lines in the 19th century and has been undisturbed ever since. When I lived in West London in the 1980s the battle to save it was fought and won. Now Councillor Gary Malcolm from Ealing writes on the latest threat to it.

James Fenton, writing for the New York Review of Books, looks at the world of Downton Abbey.

English Buildings visits Much Marcle in Herefordshire and a roadside garage that began life as a World War I aircraft hangar.