Gross sights and smells of England, and London style

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HUBBUB: FILTH, NOISE & STENCH IN ENGLAND

By Emily Cockayne

Yale University Press, $35, 336 pages

London — After a Fashion

By Alistair O'Neill

University of Chicago Press, $24.95, 240 pages

REVIEWED BY JAMES SRODES

A friend of mine recalls being on a drunken revel in Beirut with Kim Philby, on a

Christmas Eve shortly before the notorious British turncoat spy for the Russians escaped to Moscow. Philby masqueraded as a Times correspondent, and both men turned nostalgic for London's Fleet Street newspaper district and the pubs thronged with drunken journalists like themselves.

"Ah, to be in Fleet Street on Christmas Eve," Philby exclaimed. "And see the peas and carrots steaming on the sidewalk." He never saw London again.