Inchmale's Club in Portman Square, London - based on the Home House Club ?

This is a copy of the Home House Club, Portman Square, which may very well feature in some form in William Gibson's novel in progress Zero History:

Home House Club, Portman Square

At the north west corner of Portman Square, where it meets the southern end of Gloucester Place are three 18th Century town houses, which have been converted into a luxurious private members club.

The Home House Club (pronounced "hume", after the Scottish / Berwickshire aristocratic clan, to whom at least one British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home was a related) occupies Numbers 21, 20 and 19 Portman Square. The entrance to Number 21 is on the western, Gloucester Place side of the block, and Numbers 20 and 19 are on the main Portman Square façade.

This real life club, may have influenced the fragment of cyberpunk literary author William Gibson's next novel, mentioning as it does the character of Inchmale, who appeared in Spook Country

See some discussion on the official William Gibson board discussion forum
Inchmale's club in Portman Square, which speculates on a fragment of text (which may, or may not actually end up in a novel) released by the author on his blog on 1st January 2009.

CABINET (HAPPY NEW YEAR) posted 12:09 AM

Inchmale's club, in Portman Square, was called Cabinet. It was a peculiarly narrow place, apparently occupying half of the vertical volume of a townhouse whose expensively forgettable façade reminded her of a sleeping face.

[...]

Apart from a futuristic architect designed House bar at Number 21,

Zaha_Hadid_designed_bar_Home_House_Club_300.jpg

the interior decoration evokes 18th Century aristocratic opulence, including

Anthony Blunt Bedroom

Named after a former resident of House No 20 who had an apartment here after the Second World War during his tenure as Master of the Queen's Art Collection.

[...]

Anthony_Blunt_bedroom_Home_House_Club_300.jpg

This blurb conveniently forgets to mention Anthony Blunt's espionage career as a KGB spook, linked to the notorious Philby, Maclean and Burgess spy scandals, which rocked the British intelligence services in the 1950s and 1960s, and which was covered up by the establishment for many years, and which led to the stripping of his knighthood, when it was eventually made public. The treachery of the Cambridge Five spy ring has been hugely influential on British spy fiction, drama, tv and films.

Home_House_Club_Portman_Square_map.gif

Latitude: N51:30:59 (51.516433)
Longitude: W0:09:24 (-0.156541)

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hhc4_300.jpg

More images of 21, 20, 19 Portman Square:


hhc1_300.jpg

hhc2_300.jpg

hhc5_300.jpg

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About this blog

This is the ZeroHistory.net blog

Discussion and hyper link cloud enhanced literary criticism around the forthcoming new novel by cyber punk / literary fiction author William Gibson, which is currently in progress, and which is provisionally entitled Zero History.

See the Fragments of a Hologram Bill thread on the William Gibson Books discussion forum for the snippets of writing which have been released for discussion to the public so far.

Email Contact

Please feel free to email us your views about this website or news about the issues it tries to comment on:

blog @ ZeroHistory.net

If you have confidential information that you want to share with us, feel free to make use of our PGP public encryption key for blog @ ZeroHistory.net or an email account based overseas e.g. Hushmail

William Gibson's Twitter feed - GreatDismal

William Gibson is now a keen user of Twitter, rather than his now seemingly abandoned blog, so that is now the most likely place to find the latest news about his writing, or travels etc.

It is also the place to spot his occaisinal requests to his fans, for help with research on specific background details, some of which may, or may not, end up in the finished novel Zero History which he is currently working on.

William Gibson's Twitter stream - GreatDismal

"Zero History" hyperlink cloud annotation

For "Zero History", we aim to repeat the success of our collaborative "Spook Country" hyperlink cloud annotation - re-orderd into numerical Chapter sequence.

This has been commented on by the author William Gibson, and described by Emeritus Professor of English Literature John Sutherland as "the future of literary crticism"

Zero History blog & Node Magazine - hyperlink cloud literary criticism & annotation

Gabriel Hounds - Systemneustart

The German translation of Zero History is entitled Systemneutstart - "System Re-Boot"

A class of students at the Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany, have a group blog, which analyses some of the themes of this novel which they call:

Gabriel Hounds

Spook Country blog

Spook Country blog - SpookCountry.co.uk - includes discussion and hyper link cloud enhanced literary criticism of William Gibson's previous novel Spook Country

London CyberPunk Tourist Guide

As part of the preparations for William Gibson book signing and lecture event promoting Spook Country in London, during August 2007, this "local knowledge" guide to places of interest to cyberpunk fans was compiled, and has been subsequently expanded.

London CyberPunk Tourist Guide - http://CyberPunk.org.uk

Please feel free to add comments or send emails, to keep it up to date.

Links

Wikipedia entry for William Gibson.

Official William Gibson Books website: www.williamgibsonbooks.com

Wiliam Gibson's blog post announcement What's in a name? of Zero History as the title of his new novel.

William Gibson's Twitter announcement of the Zero History title.

See the Fragments of a Hologram Bill thread on the William Gibson Books discussion forum for the snippets of writing which have been released for discussion to the public so far.

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"Zero History" hyperlink cloud annotation

For "Zero History", we aim to repeat the success of our collaborative "Spook Country" hyperlink cloud annotation - re-orderd into numerical Chapter sequence.

This has been commented on by the author William Gibson, and described by Emeritus Professor of English Literature John Sutherland as "the future of literary crticism"

Zero History blog & Node Magazine - hyperlink cloud literary criticism & annotation

Zero History Cover Art

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Zero History blog Cover Art category archive

Zero_History_UK_cover_art_150.jpg

Systemneustart_cover_150.jpg German edition: Systemneustart approximates to "System Re-boot"

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