Exploring London’s Architecture from Paddington to St. Pancras

Images taken on iPhone 6

For a little while now, I’ve been posting pictures of London’s architecture. It started with the classic shots of iconic landmarks – St. Paul’s, The Shard, and the rest – before I moved on to a few, slightly more obscure pictures of the city’s lesser known buildings.

To be honest, my intention was never to fill my entire Instagram feed with shots like this; but, what started as a way of killing some time between meetings, has turned into a mild obsession, where I’m forever stopping in the middle of the pavement to capture a building I’ve not shot before.

I’m not alone in this, of course. Instagram is bursting with architectural imagery, from every corner of the world – and, the more I posted, the more I chatted with folks who had a similar fascination with the corners of office blocks and apartments.

One of these guys was blogger and photographer Anthony Lee – and both finding ourselves with a Friday morning free, we decided to meet up and take a walk from Padding Basin (and *that* staircase), along the canal and the A40, down to Euston, before winding up in St Pancras.

To be honest, there’s so much on offer in this part of town, with so many new buildings going up, that it’s hard to know where to point the old iPhone. We were lucky with the weather – very very lucky; bright blue skies always set the angles of a neat, modern structure off nicely.

That said, some of the glass buildings just had too much glare for a perfect shot; which, actually, makes for a nice excuse to head back and try again, one day. First up though, I’ll be heading further East and trying to get some decent shots of the City. Who’s up for coming along?

You can find Nik at - Twitter | Instagram | Newsletter

Bellroy's Philosophy of Design

Bellroy is a brand that just keep on delivering the goods. I remember when we saw their first offering - a simple slimmed down wallet; a really neat idea, but I did wonder how much further that could go.

The fact that they were constantly releasing new versions of that first wallet, and expanding into a range of different sizes + systems, revealed something of Bellroy’s philosophy. These guys are led by design; with each new and updated product a testimony to their focus on combining style, efficiency, and practicality.

Phone case c/o Bellroy

Their new leather phone cases are a case in point. They’re protective (exactly what you want for an expensive phone) and hold 1-3 cards, cash, and an extra sim-card. All of that storage and they’re still sleek, neat, and remove many of those extra millimetres that come with an ordinary phone case.

It’s such a great idea. How many cards do you actually need to carry in a day? Three at most? The phone case was perfect for hot-footing it around Edinburgh the other week. Bags left in the hotel, one phone, a couple of cards, and some of Scotland’s ace looking money tucked in the case - perfect! Now, if only they could come up with a way of slimming down my laptop case...

For previous posts on Bellroy click here.

You can find Nik at - Twitter | Instagram | Newsletter

Skiing in the Alps

At the start of every year, it's always good to have some travel lined-up. Last year, I was looking forward to Namibia and Ibiza, and had a couple of surprise trips to France and Scotland thrown in the mix.

 This year, there isn't much planned, although Mat and I are working hard one finalising the details for a long drive out to Copenhagen. Can't wait for that!



The only trip I had planned for this year was to France for some skiing. It's been a slow season in the Alps from what I've heard. Not much snow before Christmas and it still wasn't looking good afterwards. A skiers nightmare!

 Thankfully, the snow came thick and fast before we left.

As we headed up the mountain, our minibus struggled towards the end - stuck in a snowdrift about four doors down from our chalet. We made it, don't worry.

 There are so many photo opportunities in the Alps - it's such a staggeringly beautiful place in the sun and the cloud. The problem is, iPhones don't love the cold and neither do my fingers. I managed to get a few good shots though. No action shots of me sliding down the slopes on my backside, instead some views of our little village, the trees covered in snow, and the bright blue sky found at the top of a glacier.



Annoyingly, a trip this good leaves you with more than a memories - it drives you to leave home more often and discover other parts of the world. The Copenhagen trip will be brilliant, but I'll need more of a fix before the end of the year. Japan anyone...? Nik

You can find Nik at - Twitter | Instagram  | Heavy Denim

J.Crew Backup Charger

This bright blue Backup iPhone Charger by J.Crew has been one of the handiest gifts I've received in a long time. Hollie picked this up for me in the sales on one of her almost daily trips into J-Crew, while we were in Orlando in July. She had got fed up of trying to reach on me, but then finding out my battery had ran completely dry. I currently have an old iPhone 3GS and they ain't so reliable after a few years of heavy usage, the battery life in particular.

The J-Crew Backup Charger is not going to get your battery up from 0% to 100% but it will give you at least a 50% boost. It's pretty handy little gadget and small enough to chuck into any bag or pocket. I'm really not sure why I didn't get one earlier!

Thank you to everyone who entered the Osmium Giveaway, the winner is Adrian Dale!

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Textures & Patterns

Lately my Instgram has been all about Textures & Patterns, I kinda like it this way. I have thee worst iPhone to be taking photos on but least I can have fun doing it. Life is very busy at the moment, as it always is as this time of years but I'm just about coping. Busy lad. Follow me @mat_buckets

Thank you for all your lovely comments on the Northern Goods Co. post, they're really encouraging to read. With the feedback and a few early sales we seem to be off to a cracking start, so thank you guys! It's extremely early days but Rome wasn't built in a day, as "they" say.

Have you entered the Harrop + Penny Giveaway yet? You can win £25 to spend on lovely homeware accessories, only 2 days left to enter.

Testing Out A New Lens

Well not strictly a new lens, but Jamesy trying out the camera on the new iphone. Wearing my new Gap shirt.

Turns out there loads of type of effects and lens you can download for the iphone camera, now I know this may not be a new thing but I'm really liking its capabilities. There's even Diana lens and other 50s ones, for anyone who follows me on Twitter you may have seen loads of tweets about me trying to decide which digital camera to buy. I've settled on the Canon IXUS 95 IS and it should be arriving tomorrow. I will still be using my SLR but for the more quick snappier times this is going to come in handy.

I was looking enough to do attend a group interview with footwear designer Nicholas Kirkwood today, for The Manchester Fashion Network. Once it's up on the site I will post the interview on here, for all to see!

Thanks for all your comments on the last post regarding Tilly the dog, sadly Hollie had to have her put down a couple of days ago as she got much worse. It's really sad to think I won't hear her baking at me when I come through the front door ever again. Bye bye Tilly.


A special mention to That's So Yesterday, who mentioned me on her first video blog orrr vlog, everyone should check it out, it's a super cool idea and she does it really well. I'd do one but I have a silly Blackpool accent.