Viewpoints – Placecloud

Viewpoints – Placecloud

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Viewpoints – Placecloud episodes

  • A Week with Andy Warhol, 1978
    London, United Kingdom. Join Andy Warhol at the Dorchester Hotel as he goes to the opening of his Athletes Series at the ICA; as he parties with Bob Dylan, Bianca Jagger and Jack Nicholson; and as the drug-fuelled lives of his entourage are spinning out of control. [CW: suicide attempt]
    6 min
  • The Death of “Snakehips” Johnson
    London, United Kingdom. On March 8th, 1941, the Café de Paris – 'the safest and gayest restaurant in town' – was destroyed in the Blitz. Among the dead was one of the most important figures in Black British jazz: Ken "Snakehips" Johnson.
    This viewpoint includes extracts from 'Snakehips Swing' by Ken "Snakehips" Johnson and his West Indian Dance Orchestra, available on 'Black British Swing: The African Diaspora's Contribution To England's Own Jazz of the 1930s and 1940s'.
    [CW: war; death]
    7 min
  • The First Jigsaw Puzzle, 1762
    London, United Kingdom. On this spot, between brothels and drug addicts, John Spilsbury invented the first 'Dissected Puzzle'. It was intended to educate upper-class children, but it found its greatest hour in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
    8 min
  • The Air Loom Villains
    London, United Kingdom. 1797: from a cell in Bedlam, James Tilly Matthews believes a gang of villains are controlling politicians and nobility using the terrible Air Loom. Find out who they are and their plans for Britain's downfall. [CW: mental illness, torture]
    10 min
  • The Metropolitan Sepulchre, 1829
    London, United Kingdom. Take a tour around the pyramid for the London dead. Designed by failed architect Thomas Willson, the Sepulchre – though ultimately never built – would have been as tall as the Shard, with space for five million coffins.
    8 min
  • Plague Fires
    London, United Kingdom. At the height of the Great Plague of London, great bonfires of rare herbs burn across the deserted city. Join Samuel Peyps in the midst of this hellish vision – a last-ditch attempt to stop the spread of disease.
    8 min
  • First-Class Tickets for the Dead
    London, United Kingdom. Take your final trip on the London Necropolis Railway, which transported coffins and mourners from the city to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. Make sure to get a first-class ticket so that your body doesn't mix with those of a lower sort.
    8 min
  • Richard Serra’s Fulcrum
    London, United Kingdom. Just outside Broadgate Circle, five gigantic sheets of rusting steel have been haphazardly propped up against one other. This is Fulcrum, a sculpture by Richard Serra. Discover one of the boldest, and most controversial, artists of the twentieth century.
    9 min
  • Rimbaud and Verlaine, “One Hell of a Household!”
    London, United Kingdom. Rimbaud and Verlaine, two of the most influential poets in French literature, had a sadistic and dysfunctional relationship – drinking, smoking opium, staying up for days at a time, and writing some of their greatest works. [CW: domestic violence; child abuse; suicide threat; drug abuse]
    9 min
  • The Death of God’s Banker
    London, United Kingdom. On June 18th 1982, Roberto Calvi – financial advisor to the Pope – was found hanging from scaffolding underneath Blackfriars Bridge. The murder remains unsolved, and to delve into why is to dive into the confusing and corrupt world of the Vatican, the Freemasons, South American dictatorships and the Mafia. [CW: murder; suicide]
    9 min

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Cultural researchers talk about the hidden stories of the places around you.