Papadimitriou has been pitched somewhat as a misfit oddball and instinctual topographer but I sense a degree of sophistication behind this work. Snow muffles sound, draws everything closer, so that the peel of City church bells was incredibly clear even from the southern banks.

When I stepped out of the station to be greeted by Nick he seemed to read my mind, I mentioned the Jerrold and the idea of taking in Hanger Hill and Twyford Abbey was tacked onto the itinerary. Like Iain Sinclair the walking tour is a peg to which he attaches his own musings and recollections, mostly about a troubled adolescence in the 70s that ended in a spell in prison. Scarp is like Narnia for grownups, where sex cults, hallucinogenic drugs, unsolved murders and car crashes on the A41 facilitate an intimate absorption into the landscape.I don’t think anybody, with the possible exception of Will Self, really knows what psychogeography means but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of it about. The wicking properties of his coat are as important as the comforts offered by comparing his trails and trials to Odysseus or Sir Gawain .

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Nick Papadimitiou digs up some true crime shockers, some car crashes from old newspaper accounts, and manages to interweave these found materials with fictional and lyrical excursions, his own autobiography, the tracing of outflow pipes and buried rivers, and the naming of wildflowers. My favourite line: “And the entire suburb is a groove sensation, a humming colony lit deep in ancient woodland. There are moments of doubt, moments of reprieve, and each evening brings the sense of rescue but also new difficulties in the descent from the rocky "gantry" into talk and other people's homes. Its full of poetry - something to keep on the night-stand and dip in and out of when the mood takes you.It delves deep into the landscape, and where current descriptions won't suffice creates a new map - you won't find "Scarp" identified anywhere I'm certain. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

Nick Papadimitriou wanders around the expanse of "Scarp", a region he has defined to the North East of London.It reminded me why I love London so much (as if I need to be reminded), my adopted city of these last twenty-five years. Next up in This Other London by John Rogers, a lighter but similarly intentioned account of ten walks – ‘a plunge into the unknown’ – around fairly random parts of London that were previously just strange names on old maps to the author, a film-maker and good egg. In narrating the initial evolution of his views on the “Greek Question” in exile, this study attempts to surface the underlying dynamics responsible for radicalizing his politics in that direction.

Nursing two reluctant knees and a can of Stella, he perambulates through the seasons seeking adventure in our city’s remote and forgotten reaches.From 2009 to 2011, along with Rogers, Papadimitriou hosted Ventures and Adventures in Topography, a radio show on Resonance FM. Opposite Royal Waterside are the locked gates to the Abbey so we move down the road to survey the site from the grounds of St Mary’s Church.