REMEMBER REMEMBER THE 5TH OF NOVEMBER

Kentish Town’s The Forum featured Canadian post rockers Godspeed You Black Emperor last night.

Every once in a while you come across a band that you can’t stop listening to; that seems to become a soundtrack to your life. Sometimes you need the abstract, out of focus, blurry and seemingly transient with no connection to anything much. Every once in a while it’s the right combination of events, location and music that will re-surface in the future. The past anchoring the uncertain future. The best gigs are always in small-loaded-with-atmosphere venues, like The Jesus And Mary Chain at The Old Ambulance Station.

or The Dave Howard Singers at The Tunnel Club:

I suppose exception must be made when Thin Lizzy supported Queen at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1977. That was good. Oh yeah and The Stones at Rich Stadium in Buffalo in 1978. That one was good too! I got thinking about how important the atmosphere in the venue is to a great gig. The sterile surroundings of The O2 no match for the faded Victorian charm of The Forum or any one of dozens old music halls and theatres spread out across London still in use today.

Music Halls flourished in the 1850’s and were just that: Halls that music was played in. Of course in those days with no amplification it was all traditional cockney street tunes, dancing (ballet even!) and whatever you could bash out on that out of tune piano in the corner. Entertainment was pretty simple, the ‘acts’ could be of a broad variety, from amateur to professional and from magicians to mimics who impersonated some of the bigger music hall artists of the day. Perhaps you were lucky and caught the site of a woman in a glass tank who could eat and drink under water, or you could listen to songs by novelty musicians. Comic routines and short plays and sketches were performed in the smaller music halls of London, and the audiences were “perfectly pleased with dull songs, hoary jokes, stale sentiment and clap-trap patriotism”.

Sounds like a night out at The O2 in 2012!

So what started out as a bit of a knees up in a back room in a pub soon evolved into proper venues which were built for hundreds of paying punters.

The best surviving example of capturing the atmosphere of one of these Music Halls is Wilton’s Music Hall down in Shadwell, East London. The hall itself extends through a row of old houses along Grace’s Alley in E1. Fading paintwork, decaying wood and peeling plaster is all fairly aesthetic and can be easily fixed up but what’s more worrying as you wander around the place is the decrepit and crumbling ceilings, walls and roof. You get the feeling that it will all collapse at any minute. George Leybourne was famous for performing his tune ‘Champagne Charlie’ there during 1866.

How does all this relate to Guy Fawkes and “remember remember the fifth of November”? It could have been a music hall tune – there were a few nice little rhymes people used to sing. “Penny for the guy”...that’s a bit of an act isn’t it? It could have all started in a music hall as a bit of a laugh, a joke and a grim attempt at black humour. Stuffing your older brothers worn out clothes with newspaper, sticking the ‘guy’ together and propping him up on the street corner begging for pennies and then chucking him on the bonfire. In an act of barbaric vengeance the original guy got caught and was drawn and quartered for trying to blow up the Houses Of Parliament in 1605. Up until very recently our guy just got chucked onto the bonfire.  It was a part of the English condition and it’s a tradition that is fading away from Britain’s’ neighbourhoods. Instead we get a bunch of ghoulish children huddled at the front door not knowing this new tricking or treating craze well enough to say “Trick or treat” in order to get a sweet treat.

I just think there's a better story to be told about The Glenlyn Ballroom. This is where the Stones and The Who played in the early 1960's:

...or The Bambi Slam when they played at The Camberwell Odeon:

or when U2 played at The Half Moon in Herne Hill in 1979. They were discovered here fact fans!

It's kind of glorious isn't it? I mean the building LOOKS like it really means something.
Well anyway...the venue can stay the same...or it gets turned into a block of flats...we HOPE that the memories remain.

The Prince's Trust

Arriving at Charing Cross station, I noticed a helicopter hovering above Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square. The turbine engine giving off that distinctive high pitched whine seemed to merge with the sirens of the fleet of police vans screaming down The Strand towards Whitehall.

“Might be worth following”, I thought to myself clutching the camera I had brought with me. Just at the top end of Whitehall where it empties out into the expansive Trafalgar Square was a phalanx of police with their dayglo yellow smocks and their antique English police helmets...looking a bit bored.

Bored cops...below:

“Where’s all the trouble? It all looks pretty serene and peaceful to me” I thought. “Still worth a photo I suppose” as I snapped the bored bobbies with Whitehall behind them sweeping down and away towards Big Ben and Parliament. Inside the House of Commons, MPs were voting to raise university tuition fees which looked like it was going to happen even before the students decided to start their protests many weeks ago. The setting sun glinted off the tower of Big Ben as I turned and went about my work.

London always looks better when there’s a demonstration or protest on as the streets are emptied of traffic leaving the pedestrian to wander around without fear of black cab, double decker bus or white van man knocking you over.

The huge Christmas tree was glittering in the pre dusk sunset in the middle of the square and Canada House looked empty and abandoned. The building had no lights on, the doors were shut and even the provincial flags out the front seemed to be muted and hanging limp. With no breeze, no sounds of London traffic and a bright blue-turning-to-pink sky; it was an eerie, muted and calm atmosphere.

After doing my usual rounds and briskly walking through Leicester Square, up through the back streets of Soho and then up Berwick Street, I turned and headed back wanting to see how the students were getting on with their protest.

The streets really did seem to be extraordinarily quiet and there wasn’t the hustle and bustle you would usually expect during the rush hour.

4 PM and it was easy to pass through the Christmas shoppers on Oxford Street as I supposed all of the protesters were in Whitehall trying to get as close as they could to The Houses Of Parliament. The street market down Berwick Street was packing up. Discarded fruit and vegetables were crushed into the pavement. The few hawkers selling warm hats, gloves and over priced chunks of funny smelling cheese were easily bantering with each other about how the day’s business went.

 

The sleazy strip clubs and adult video shops next to Raymonds Revue Bar were gearing up for the usual clientele of tourists. Regular punters and a few seedy characters were out either looking for trade, drugs or a warm place to crash for a few hours before being moved on by the old bill.

It all seemed mundane and just like any other day except for  that clattering helicopter in the now dark sky being the only indication that something was going on down in Westminster.

There were a few lonely police sirens that echoed around the West End Streets and a few low murmurs of some shouting, but again, nothing that unusual about rush hour in W1.

By the time I got back to Trafalgar Square, the tourists were taking pictures of themselves in front of the now lit up Christmas tree. The pigeons were being fed and there wasn’t a single bus, taxi or suicidal cyclist to be seen. Peering down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace, the flag indicating The Queen was home was fluttering in the now chilly breeze coming in from the north. A spotlight seemed to make it glow.

The line of bored looking cops at the top end of Whitehall was gone to be replaced by a few students aimlessly walking up the middle of the road. “Looks like it’s all over” I thought to myself, “but still how often do you get to walk down this road without any traffic?”

It always amazes me to think of the history that’s been shaped and evolved on this half mile stretch of real estate - so much Empire won and lost, so many wars started, lost and won. Horse Guards, Scotland Yard, The Ministry Of Defence, Downing Street, The Cenotaph and a bit further on, The Treasury, The Supreme Court and into Parliament Square and the Houses Of Parliament, all this in a 15 minute walk. Just over there on the left is The Banqueting House - scene of a bloody royal story. Charles the 1st lost his head there in 1649; accused of being a tyrant and a murderer. The republic didn’t last long though. Too bad - they had it right for a brief 11 years! Now all these buildings were shut up, dark and quiet except for The Ministry Of Defence because there is a war on, don’t you know. Have you ever wondered why they call the armed forces ‘defence’ when there’s been so many offensive wars started down here along Whitehall? By the way, you can rent out the main room in the Banqueting House for posh meals, fancy celebrations and all sorts of aristocratic fun and games. My, haven't we come far!

A lonely looking matrix traffic board was flickering a message - its bright dots spelling out: “TURN LEFT HERE” warning traffic which didn’t exist...and then apologising “SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED”.

There was the large mass of a crowd off in the distance and a few muffled roars coming through a loudhailer. “WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!” chanted the crowd. I could see the crowd clearly now. It was like one melted, black mass strung out across Whitehall itself, a few banners and flags being waved by the crowd at what looked like nobody in particular.

To the right there were a dozen or so cops all dressed up in their riot gear with shields and helmets at the gates of Downing Street. There was a definite increase of tension in the air. That helicopter was now joined by another over Parliament Square, where MPs were just about to vote on increasing education fees from £3,000 to £9,000 a year.

I couldn’t see beyond the first hundred or so protesters and asked a guy next to me if anybody was allowed near Parliament. “No mate, they’re not letting anybody past that line”.

 

What line?

This line: Looks like they’re doing the conga doesn’t it? Popular slogan during 2010 was “You’ve Been Clegged”.

I had to peer over the heads of the protesters, but there, all in black and in riot gear with linked, strung out arms were at least 200 cops preventing anybody from getting anywhere past this point. Off to the left there was loud bang as somebody let off a firecracker which drew a cheer from the crowd.

Turning to the guy I was speaking to earlier, I told him to watch it because the cops were waiting en masse back along the side road next to the MOD. They were obviously waiting to form a barrier from that end of Whitehall to hem and kettle the protestors. He said “Thanks, I hadn’t thought of that”.

I wandered back up Whitehall to go across the Thames on The Hungerford Bridge but there was another group of 200 protesters coming down from Trafalgar Square. They were noisier and were shouting, swearing and knocking over the crash barriers erected to keep apart the crowds - “FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT”.  A couple of burly skinheads had joined them, this bunch had a different more menacing manner about them...but I left them to it as I still had a few errands to do on the other side of the river.

Up on Hungerford Bridge, I stopped to have a look at The Houses Of Parliament and Big Ben which were lit up by flashing blue lights and the dim glow of flames coming from Parliament Square. The MPs inside were voting - doing the so-called democratic thing they were selected to do by the people. Obviously not a happy process as smoke, helicopters and now a rising roar could be heard coming from very close to where the nominated members were sitting.

I could see flashes of light reflecting off something moving down the Embankment. It seemed there were little sparks bouncing off something which looked like a long, irregular shape - sort of like a snake squirming its way around a right angle in a side road towards Whitehall and the crowds I had just left. It was a long line of riot police the light reflecting off their upturned visors on their helmets. They were coming up around the back of the crowd and that last mob who looked like they wanted a fight.

It was a surreal sight. Daylight had melted into the black of night. Two helicopters were circling, their navigation lights flickering and their spotlights tracing trouble down below not 100 yards from the democratic process in action. Smoke from fires raging in Parliament Square was now almost obscuring the clock face of Big Ben. As a spectator, I could see the police unfolding their controversial ‘kettling’ technique ready to smother and surround the trouble makers as well as the peaceful marchers and young teenage students - everybody. They wouldn’t let them out. They cut them off as if depriving them of the oxygen to fuel their fires and protests.

“This is going to be nasty”. As I headed back across the bridge, I could feel the adrenalin surging through my body getting swept away by the sense that perhaps history was going to be made tonight.

Ok yeah, I’m a ‘protest tourist’, but you gotta admit, violent protests have their use especially if they happen this close to where governments are forming policy. Besides, this part of London has a long history of this sort of civil disobedience that goes back centuries. In 1886 living conditions for the poor were becoming intolerable and mixed with a deep recession a hard winter and high unemployment the scene was ripe for a mass demonstration in Trafalgar Square. The ensuing riot saw shops in Mayfair looted and the wealthy rich in their private clubs along Pall Mall thumbing their noses at the marchers while throwing bread rolls on to their heads. Socialism was on the rise and the wealthy establishment realised they couldn’t sit aloof away from the unemployed ‘street toughs of the East End and Deptford’ any longer.

 

But I digress. There was a definite change of atmosphere along Whitehall – the tension was rising and coming back along The MOD’s building, the noise was definitely louder. That mass of 200 aggressive protesters had broken away from that other crowd and was making their way back up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square. Not a cop in sight.

One of the helicopters was slowly following this splinter group, its searchlight tracing out the hooded heads. The black clad mob chanting and waving sticks where clever banners used to be such as “You’ve been Clegged”. More of those steel barriers were upturned and thrown across Whitehall. Tourists cowered in a pub’s door way - the inviting light coming from inside belying the anger and frustration coming from the crowd outside. A few people came out of the pub and joined the mob as it emptied into Trafalgar Square toward the Christmas tree. A chant went up, “BURN THE TREE! BURN THE TREE! BURN THE FUCKING TREE!”

Somebody had something on them which seemed to ignite it in an instant. The tree caught fire another huge roar went up and two civilian security guards retreated very quickly...presumably to the pub.

Still no cops - just a couple of police vans blocking the way down the mall toward Buckingham Palace, so the mob wound its way past Canada House up Haymarket and into Piccadilly Circus. The chants were getting louder as the street narrowed and I could feel the anger getting more intense. The traffic was still flowing through Piccadilly Circus as I followed behind the main crowd. The bright lights of Piccadilly Circus advertising McDonald’s, SONY and all the other excesses of a rampant capitalist society seemed to spur the mob on and chants of “TOP SHOP! TOP SHOP! TOP SHOP!” could be heard. These weren’t the jolly students with their witty slogans and humorous placards, more like professional anarchists with destruction and vengeance on their minds.

The object now seemed to be, to go up Regent Street with all its festive Christmas lights and Christmas shoppers, towards Oxford Street where the main branch of Top Shop was. There was another crowd of protesters coming down in the opposite direction clogging up the road - the traffic stopped.

The first thing I noticed was the siren and then the flashing blue lights coming up quickly behind me. At last the cops had arrived. There seemed to be a massive pause, a perceptible lull in the mob’s chanting for a brief second - like a sudden realisation; an awareness.

The blue lights and sirens didn’t belong to the riot police. It was motorcycle outriders, one police van, a sleek black Jaguar, one marked police car and one of those state cars that you often see sweeping along London streets delivering some royal to some appointment somewhere.

You can tell if there’s a royal inside by the emblem stuck on the roof like some badge of honour but it’s more like a mark and that a member of the elite wants to come this way and for you to get out of the road.

But not this time.

Not 20 feet from where I was standing I could see the future King of England Prince Charles and his wife Camilla looking a little bewildered in the back of this very obvious looking state car stalled in the middle of a pack of a now screaming and chanting mob. Charles was actually waving his hands in greeting, smiling a little nervously, as if he thought the crowd wanted to kiss the very earth he walked on.

Their passenger windows were wound down about half way and for some reason I thought, “Isn’t it a bit cold to be driving through London with your windows down?”

There was nowhere for them to go. The two crowds had stopped the traffic dead. At least 300 protestors had now turned into an angry mob intent on ransacking the posh shops along Regent Street.

Almost at the same time windows were being smashed, a fire was started in the shop front of De Boers. Tourists and Christmas shoppers started screaming and running in terror down side streets towards Soho and into Mayfair. The thick black smoke from a couple of fires was starting to curl into the air up through the Christmas lights strung out from one side of the street to the other.

 The lone helicopter’s spotlight now piercing the night gloom with its arcing white light giving the whole scene a feeling  of urban chaos as if this was Brixton in 1981.

A couple of police officers ran to the car which had now come to a full stop but this didn’t stop one mob member running up and shouting in through the open window, “All right Charles mate. How are ya?” He reached in through the window and grabbed something from around Camilla’s neck. The look on her face was sheer fear and terror. Obviously senses she had never experienced before in her privileged life.

“TORY SCUM TORY SCUM TORY SCUM, OFF WITH THEIR HEADS OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!” The shout went up and the car began to rock back and forth as the rioters were now kicking the doors and banging their fists against the still open windows. A copper shouted, “SHUT THE WINDOWS!”

I noticed something sailing through the air off to my left, a trail of liquid following it as it smashed with a metallic thud along the rear, left side wing of the car. Another cheer and more paint came from somewhere splashing all over rioters and cops alike.

What happened next is still a blur but all I remember is the “CRACK CRACK CRACK” of what I thought was more firecrackers. There were more screams from the crowd as they panicked and started to stampede away from the royals and the cops two or three of which had now drawn their concealed weapons and were pointing them at the crowd. “ARMED POLICE, GET BACK!” they shouted. I could see bodies lying on the ground and people scrambling to get away but falling over. Then there was a dull crack, like another firecracker - but this time brighter and more like a flare, and it came from inside the royals’ car. All of a sudden there was massive “WHUMP” and the car filled with a bright orange flame, the windows blew out and for about 50 feet around the car everybody was flattened by the force of the explosion.

------------------------------

During the next few weeks after the national state of emergency was lifted and the troops were sent back to their barracks and the public enquiry had started, it was disclosed that some of the rioters had milk bottles full of petrol. I remembered how quickly the tree went up in Trafalgar Square. With all the high tech police helicopters, CCTV cameras and mobile phone footage nobody has ever been caught and nobody remembers seeing who threw the petrol bomb in through the open window that killed the future King Of England that cold December night in 2010.

SHARPS AND FLATS

In London, the grinding poverty and squalid living conditions of the poor were described as “a reeking home of filthy vice” by the police in 1877.

Whole neighbourhoods featured overcrowded lodging houses and tenement buildings connected by narrow alleys with poor sanitation and no clean water. Untreated human waste, excrement from horses, dogs and other animals were left lying on the streets transmitting disease and infection to the human population via rats and flies. In the narrow lanes, the rubbish left was festering with germs and turned these areas like ‘The Rookery’, ‘The Nichol’, and Whitechapel (to name a few) into breeding grounds for killer diseases like typhoid, small pox, whooping cough, cholera, tuberculosis, measles, bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhoea and dysentery which ran rampant killing the weak, young, old and even the young and the strong (average life expectancy in 1850 was 20 years of age in these areas).

You get a very BAD feeling about what life must have been like from looking at these photos:

For more info: www.spitalfieldslife.com



For most of the 19^th century the lack of clean water, modern sanitation (‘the great stink’ of 1858 wasn’t ‘great’ for nothing you know), a struggling medical profession and coupled with a disinterested and aloof aristocracy meant the poor were brutalised and forced into parts of London strictly off limits to the wealthy or casual London visitor. These innocents were either from the outlying suburbs of London or from the rich areas and were called, ‘Flats’, by the street wise, feral, ‘Sharps’.

Of course London was smaller then but still had a population of millions - the poor living in squalid and cramped conditions virtually next door to the rich with all their finery and servants. The rich areas such as Mayfair were only a few minutes’ walk to the seething horror that was ‘The Rookery’ along St Giles High Street just on the other side of Soho and Charing Cross Road. This area is famous for ‘Gin Lane’ and ‘Beer Street’, the graphic prints by William Hogarth who depicted the area’s inhabitants in various states of ‘bonhomie’ or ‘madness, decay or suicide’. In Hogarth’s day (18^th century) is was safer to drink beer and gin than to drink the rancid polluted water drawn from the dead rivers that flowed through London and into the putrid River Thames.

Almost all the buildings from the 19^th century are now gone in this small patch of the west end with only 2 or 3 remaining such as the church of St Giles. It provided shelter and a place of sanctuary for so many unfortunates since the first structure was built in the 12^th century as a leprosy hospital (the current building is the third and was built in 1734).  Over one of the entrances is a disturbing mural carved out of stone depicting scenes not that far away from Hogarth’s ‘Gin Alley’. In amongst the cherubs is the extended arm of death clutching at the desperate and the dying.

The row of run down and dilapidated buildings at the end of Denmark Street under the shadow of the towering Centre Point sky scraper is the only remaining hint of what the buildings of this area must have looked like in 1875. The blackened hulks have been left empty since a fire a few years ago with the flats in the building going for over a million pounds each. The present owners obviously hoping that a developer will buy them out. You would hope that this whole block which connects with Denmark Street will be saved from the wreckers ball but the hasty destruction of the old Astoria Theatre (where Jimi Hendrix first burned a guitar on stage) just across the road doesn’t bode well for this prime piece of London history.

Using a bit of imagination, it doesn’t take much to visualise the bleak, dank, dark (there were no real street lights until the early 1890’s) and polluted side streets and alleyways of this area. With the ever present fog from the thousands of coal burning fireplaces and factories laying its suffocating blanket of choking acidic soup down to street level, this row of buildings and much of Soho still bears the scars of the suffering endured by the locals well into the early 20^th century.

While this corner of London is now relatively quiet, there are still signs of the recent past which has endured and has cast a long shadow across the decades.

Can I really go from Jack The Ripper to Johnny Rotten? There, I’ve done it. You can do anything when stringing a bunch of words together. The links are steeped in English history and each character represents a dynamic story reflecting life at the time.

It might be a bit of a leap from the Ripper to Rotten but like I said – use your imagination! Mr. Rotten was supposed to represent that dark side of English history anyway – that side of Dickens, Shakespeare and Richard III; the physical scars from unchecked diseases left to deform the human psyche. Johnny suffered from spinal meningitis when he was a child and the experience enhanced his on stage character; a modern day monster for 1970’s Britain.

Through this entrance in the middle of St Giles High Street are the rehearsal rooms where the Sex Pistols first played their instruments which were graciously donated by anonymous benefactors!

Denmark Street has been the centre of the music business in London for at least 70 years and it still hums and buzzes with Gibson’s down in the basement of The 12 Bar Club. The guitar shops are full and that same seedy rehearsal studio is full of young aspiring musicians dreaming of great things. The dreams of the locals 150 years ago must have been quite different – if they dreamed at all.

Just a bit further north next to Euston Railway Station is a black door. It’s there on the left of this photo (below).

No less seedy than that back alley next to Denmark Street and through that door and down the stairs is where another bit of music history was made. This is the door into Salem Studios (DOWN stairs in the basement –geddit?) where a band called My Bloody Valentine first strummed their guitars in London back in 1984. Salem Studios was home to a small coterie of like minded travellers (Canadians in fact), musicians, science graduates, future astronomers and perhaps a crossdresser or two. You might know the Canadians, they were in bands called Rent Boys Inc, The Dave Howard Singers, Gasrattle, Kill Ugly Pop and Underneath What...or perhaps you've never heard of them which is entirely possible. Maybe Rent Boys Inc started that business there on the right. With a name like that anything's possible!

It’s said that a sure way of measuring success is how much somebody is willing to pay for something on EBAY. My Bloody Valentines’ genre defining ‘Loveless’ album (original Creation Records vinyl pressing) goes for in excess of £70.00 - far cry from the racket they were making at Salem doing Ramones covers in 1984.

Who knows what people get up to in that basement these days but I wonder if it has something to do with crossdressing?

It was always a case of being able to improvise on the choice of transport from gig to gig for My Bloody Valentine and the other bands that dwelled down in Salem Studios. Some bands would need a van for the drums and the bass amps (usually 5 feet tall and a couple of hundred pounds in weight). Other indie operations might just need a co-operative mini cab company with a small fleet of estate cars but of course this can also have its hidden agendas plot twists and ghosts that can come back to haunt you in the future...

The cab driver only knows you for your brief journey in the back of his car but he always seems to know everything about you. He pulls up and you would begin to load up the drums and the other bits and pieces that make up the tools for making music. The pub is shut and the profits from playing in front of a couple of dozen people or so will go into the journey home. The mini cab is the only form of transport willing to take you back across the river into South London. There’s just enough room for the band and the equipment and as a bonus the driver may regale you with stories of his misspent youth in music, in rock ‘n roll, life on the road and of jamming with Jimi Hendrix.

“That’s a long time ago, man.”

“It sure is.”

That’s just about the only thing your tired and drunk body can really say as it’s been a long day and there’s still  all the unloading and stowing of the gear to look forward to.

You feel like you might be prying but your mind is still asking the question...”Fuck – did you really jam with Hendrix?”

You don’t want to doubt the guy but hanging out with The Stones and The Who in the early 60’s and playing a mean guitar does seem to indicate that there was a healthy future in the music business. So what happened during the last 20 years?

But you are too polite. The story is probably depressing anyway and you still have all the heavy gear to lug down a flight of stairs.

The conversation trails off but the unanswered questions remain and the pall of silence is uncomfortable.

Private thoughts racing, the past re-examined and futures only dreamed about.

There’s always a bunch of guys looking for a drive home, working hard and playing fast and living for the moment.

The taxi driver has a nasty habit of creeping back into your life 30 years later picking you up from where he dropped you off, but this time you are telling them your story and they are answering with silence.

FOOD

Everybody needs a fish and chip shop within walking distance of their front door. Ours is on Brockley Rise and is called, ‘W*****s’ (censored by big brother). I’m not sure if the current owners are called ‘W*****s’ (censored by big brother – I don’t want any trouble) as they seem to come from China. They do a good fish and chips (the children’s cod is the favourite round our house) and chicken nuggets and curry sauce, so all the things you need for a good Friday night take away. Friends of ours would come around sometimes and we’d order our food which would always “take about 5 minutes” for the fish to fry...and then we’d sneak off to 'The *******' for a swift pint.

Inside ‘W*****s'. You can sense the hungry anticipation in this striking photo that I secretly took. I love the movement coming in from the left. What’s he building in there?

There are other culinary options available just a walk away. One of the finest Indian restaurants in the whole city is literally at the top of our road. It’s called The ‘******’ (censored by big brother) and they have a life-sized Tiger sitting just above the front door, ready and waiting to greet you. The food in the ‘******’ (censored – by you know who) is excellent and they are always winning all sorts of awards. It seems to be full almost every night of the week and they are legendary throughout all of South East London. People come from miles around. They went through a long stretch a couple of years back of modernisation and sorting out the decor so it looks really ‘lush’ now on the inside. We went there once a couple of years ago. I thought the chairs were uncomfortable and the bill for 3 of us came to almost £70. We order from their home delivery service now as we aren’t that adventurous with our orders (Chicken Tikka Masala, Chicken Korma and Vegetable Biryani with Pilau rice and Nan bread), but the food still tastes incredible and we usually have some left over for the next day’s lunch.

There’s also a fantastic Turkish Kebab place as well. They have an authentic wood burning oven where they bake their own bread - their doner kebabs are ace. Nice and spicy, not too greasy meat, and the vegetables are plentiful, luscious and of many colours. I’m only allowed to eat those when there isn’t anybody else in the house.

There’s the usual pizza joints and a little restaurant that seems to cater for families but has a pretty good menu. I think it’s run by some Italians. There are also a couple of excellent greasy spoons. The best one is called; ‘The Big Plate Cafe’ (the censorship thing is dull now) and sometimes I’ll go up there for a cheese omelette and chips and a cup of milky English tea which we like to call ‘British Rail’ tea in honour of the tea you used to buy on the old British Rail trains. We’re pretty well stocked then for food from around the world plus we have a betting shop, a couple of coffee cafe’s, and a few grocery stores to get the basics from.  You can’t buy fresh fish, meat or bread so perhaps somebody could come along and open a bakery, a fish mongers and a butchers.

There’s also a trendy Tapas bar nearer to the station where all the young hip, single trendies go. It seems to be always full as well. There’s also a bar across the road with overpriced bottles of beer and a pretentious DJ playing hip trendy music. At night they have one of those bouncer types looking bored standing on the pavement. He’ll let you pass if he likes the cut of your jib. It’s pretty funny really because his responsibility seems to be to keep out the trouble armed with one of those velvet ropes strung between silver poles. I guess it gives the place a feeling of exclusivity. I prefer 'The *******’ (don’t you hate the internet police as well?) if I want to go out for a drink.

I should also mention that there’s another pub almost exactly between where we live and where some old friends live. It’s kind of in the middle of no man’s land, if you know what I mean. It’s okay but I prefer 'The *******’.

So we have a chippy run by some Chinese people, a Kebab joint run by some Turks, an Italian restaurant, an Indian place run by some Indians and the local egg and chips place run by some Ukrainians. A world wide culinary experience just a walk away!

Just a little side bar to the food story; we like to cook in this house and we have supported Jamie Oliver is his quest to be a multi - multi – multi millionaire by buying almost all of his books. Sadly we don’t seem to use most of them. What’s the point of having those cook books if you don’t use them? That’s what I say! We do experiment though and we’re always watching those cooking programmes on TV getting us all hungry and muttering things like, “ooh doesn’t that look good!” I got into the groove recently and pulled open a cookbook and decided to make a blueberry pie. Where did I get that recipe from? Not from pukka Jamie’s no no no – from ‘The Canadian Country Cookbook’ somebody gave us, probably bought from a charity shop.

For my birthday a couple of months back I got some lovely themed ‘Silver Jubilee’ merchandise, which I am really quite proud of as The Queen has been ‘on the throne’ for 60 years – amazing! They sent a bunch of boats up the Thames in foul weather to celebrate, now that’s real bulldog spirit I say. Apparently when she meets her subjects she asks each and every one the same question. “Have you come far?”

The Queen came quite far for a cup of tea the other day.

Canal

In 1809 there was a canal that connected the southernmost part of London to the heart of the city in and around Deptford. The system of locks went right through Honor Oak Park which then was still in the country. It was Kent back then (or was it Surrey?) and after all the forests were cleared to build the fleet that discovered (or to invade?) the new world the land was given over to agriculture and farming. It was one of those idyllic ‘green and pleasant’ land type vistas – you know the kind that you saw during the opening ceremonies of The Olympic Games with all the sheep, the cricket games and the English weather. Actually it just occurred to me that they forgot to have a fox hunt as well. Yeah, get some blood sport in there. A great ‘idyllic’ English pastime! Anyway back to our wandering canal. For some bizarre reason the route of the canal decided to go against the local geography which meant that just before Honor Oak Park (if you were travelling south in a sedate manner on a barge) you needed to go through 6 locks to go UP the hill at One Tree Hill. Now why would your friendly local canal architect actually want to go UP? The lay of the land at this point dictates that you would continue along a more level geography (as is currently followed by the train) through HOP and on to Forest Hill. So anyway, just slightly north of our current Honor Oak Park Station there are the remains of the lock keepers cottage buried there under the weeds and trees. Perhaps in another 100 years or so somebody might dig it all up and marvel at the stupidity of 19^th century man and his quest to go up hills in narrow boats. I don’t have to point out of course that the canal went out of business because if the impractical war against physics and the advent of coal powered steam locomotives, demand for cheaper and faster transport into the centre of London and the rise of the restless, hungry and expanding Victorian age.

So it was goodbye to all this:

And hello to all this:

DAVID BECKHAM

Just what is David Beckham trying to say these days with his facial hair?

The Pub

There’s a good pub up the road, it’s my local. Well when I say ‘good’ I use the term advisedly. It’s not really a nice place to go because it’s a dump – it should have been condemned ages ago even years ago and they should have shut it down. It’s the worst pub you could ever hope to visit. The decor doesn’t look like it’s been cleaned for a hundred years and the carpets are all sticky and ripped up, worn and frayed. The toilets are not worth going into and if you did, you might not ever come out. You can smell the urinals throughout the whole pub – it’s really quite powerful – the smell. Still it’s a good place to go and drink some cheap Fosters or some other lager – a good place to escape to and if you like sports they have that on those wide screen flat screen TV thingys. There’s a pool table as well and that gets used, there’s a dartboard and a couple of those fruit machines that you put coins into hoping you might get them back or more of them back if you win. There’s a jukebox with all the usual shitty selections and the banter in the place is pretty depressing if you decide to eavesdrop on some of the conversations. It’s a hardcore working man’s South East London pub full of brickies, plasterers, sparks, louts, layabouts, unemployed, blokes (and a few girlies) running away from something or somebody (the wife maybe, the kids perhaps) and we go there. It’s one of those places that hasn’t changed or gone with the flow. It hasn’t been turned into a gastro pub and it’s still of the people, by the people and for the people. You know the sort, real salt of the earth stuff. If they don’t live round here they live in Eltham or in one of the council flats littered throughout Honor Oak. There’s always the flag of St George up if England play and just 2 weeks ago they had her maj stuck up over a window which was shattered, the cracks magically being held in place by Liz. So the regulars repair your toilet, fix your wall, paint your ceiling and build your fence and support Milwall FC. Slogan: “No one likes us, and we don’t care”. End of story.

We live in Forest Hill.

We live in Forest Hill...

...or to be more precise the Honor Oak Park end of Forest Hill.

 Let’s start at the station where you would get off the train if you were coming for a visit.

It doesn’t look like much does it? You can’t complain though. From here it’s just a few minutes to ours or 12 minutes to London Bridge or 20 minutes to funky Shoreditch.

HISTORY

Forest Hill is in South East London. Many years ago it was indeed a forest. Now it’s more of a hill with houses and council flats rather than trees. The forest of the 16^th century was used by Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I to build the fleets that sailed around the world. The woods were cleared and the lumber dragged down the hill to the dockyards at Deptford to build the ships that would give England the empire it ran for 300 years. It’s the same empire that Hitler admired so much. So this area was used to help to discover (or invade – depending on your viewpoint) the new world of North America and here I am back, having come full circle. An ex-colonialist come back to have a look at what they did with the place.

History is a funny thing. It’s a bit slippery and elusive if you just look at dates and the pictures. You need to get into the stories, the subplots and the contexts of the people caught up in the history that shaped who we are, where we are and how we got here. It’s not really ‘his’ story but your story as well. As a kid I guess I just saw the thick history books and all those paintings in the boring museums as not very inspiring. My daughter has been on a few school trips to northern France and Belgium. I doubt she really appreciated what she was looking at when they spent a few days visiting the trenches of the First World War or the Normandy countryside. Maybe however it was the Auschwitz trip to Poland and talking with a camp survivor when she was able to begin to join the dots. Just yesterday she was studying for her GCSE exams – the Great War and all that. She was telling me about what she had to revise, about the German bombers and Zeppelin’s that moaned and drifted over the skies of South East London trying to find their targets, or any targets for that matter. She told me how the people of South East London were terrified of these huge Gotha bombers and the massive dirigible balloons which would force them to shelter in their basements or under their stairs. It’s strange to think that the family who lived in our house might have cowered under the staircase as the Zeppelins rained death from above. The Navy had built a string of gun emplacements on the highest points in SE London. I told her there was one on our nearest hill. It’s called One Tree Hill, 5 minutes from our front door. “We’ll go up there if you’d like and have a look”.

Of course back in 1915 they must have cleared all the trees (except for one of course) from One Tree Hill so they could get a clear shot at the first form of mass terror from the air. According to the plaque next to the emplacement they weren’t sure if they ever hit one these German bombers but they did manage to hit a tram in Peckham by accident.

There’s also a replicated beacon up there. These beacons were used to warn the locals of impending invasion by the Spanish during those fearful and uncertain years of the Spanish Armada. It was used just a couple of months back to celebrate by fire the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Back in 1602 the first Queen Elizabeth decided to have a picnic lunch at the top of One Tree Hill very close to where the current Oak Of Honor is still. There were also huge riots about a hundred years ago close to this spot as the local citizens rejected plans to make the area a golf course.

As with everything and everywhere in this country there’s always some history outside your front door, around the corner and down the road. There’s always a good story to be told.

Even though we have stood on that forgotten brick platform on One Tree Hill before and looked at that ignored beacon Laura didn’t really twig what they meant until she read it and learned about it in school. Now she knows what it must have been like to stand next to that gun looking up for those bombers and out over the City Of London out there about 6 miles to the north.

Here’s a pic of the gun platform, the beacon and a bench for relaxing. You’ll need to relax after climbing up the hill because it’s pretty steep and a couple of hundred feet above sea level.

And here’s the view looking north: St Paul’s there on the left and The Shard about 6 miles away.

Stratford's big bash

It cost £4 million to train each medal winning athlete and the whole thing cost £10 billion plus £4.30 for a beer if you actually got tickets.
There hasn't been this sense of national pride and celebration since 1966 and before that 1945. No wonder the Brits are reeling in amazement and wonder! It's been a great opportunity for the script writers and the spectacle directors to flex their imaginations on the worlds biggest stage.
National stereotypes get a decent airing in a bland environment and everybody can forget that they are British for 2 weeks.
Job done.
The pigeons will have the last word.

Busted bikes, mascots and lightning bolts

My bike's busted so this post will have to be photo free I’m afraid (well I could pinch a few from the web). Ok? Ok.

My 20 year old ‘Black Russian’ (I liked the name) bike which I bought from somebody down Brick Lane has seen me through 20 years of London traffic and saved me thousands of pounds. I shall give it a proper burial at our local Lewisham recycling dump...ha! ‘Recycling’ – get it? Oh never mind...

It’s been an interesting 2 weeks. Luckily I’ve managed to avoid the mayhem inflicted upon your average London commuter but haven’t avoided the wall to wall, stem to stern, east to west and north to south blanket coverage of the 30^th Olympiad. It’s like being bullied by one of those mascots. Have you seen them? Not exactly cuddly, not exactly cute and not exactly anything really. Sexless and with no sense of humour, which I'm sure isn't allowed as withering satire probably rubs one of the corporate sponsors up the wrong way.

See what I mean?

I’ve never seen anything like this Olympic razzle dazzle (and neither have the Brits it seems). The most pressing and urgent news story for most of this week (according to The Times) is just how do those beach volleyball people manage to not have the sand stick to their pert bottoms?

It’s the sort of attention given to the tense final stages of an England world cup football match (you know the ones where they get knocked out by those fluke penalty shootouts). Still it could be worse; it could be wall to wall coverage of a bunch of overweight pub people playing darts, drinking pints of lager and pretending that they are South East London’s greatest darts legends. They would be forever immortalised in The South London Press and praised in pubs across Eltham muttering into their pints of Stella. The thing about living in the UK is that it’s a constant bombardment of bad news 24 hours a day. Recession this, David Cameron that, Prince Philip making some rum comments, gloom and doom for our almighty financial services and it’s going to be a mix of warm (ish) sunshine and chilly showers all summer long.

I suppose the Olympics and all the wide eyed young athletes who have a completely innocent and untarnished view of life are bringing a sense of peace, hope and serenity to this sceptered (sceptical?) isle, this green and pleasant land, these Isles of wonder.

How can one people go from violent shopping trips in their local high street a year ago to cheering for the Brazilian beach volleyball team the next?

I’ve always said it’s something to do with the mystical leylines that have etched out the prehistoric boundaries of this country but maybe it is really more to do with the peculiar sense of social interaction the Brits have. Or perhaps it really is down to the fact that 'The Sun' does come out 7 days a week now. Hooray for Rupert Murdoch!

As the radio talk shows spout patriotic drivel about ‘Great’ Britain muddying the sporting achievements, there is an addictive human interest story which is at the core of the Olympics. These are kids for the most part and their personal tales of sacrifice, determination and commitment to something like synchronized swimming is splashed across the internet, TV, Radio and on huge screens set up in Hyde Park, Victoria Park and Greenwich. Better them than me I think.

Even a cynical old curmudgeon can get caught up with that Bolt blokes tom foolery and jolly japes after winning the 400 metre race the other night. Did you see it? Grabbing a camera and taking photos of the crowd...what a star...what a showman! Inspiring a generation indeed.

Speaking of inspiration...

With all this unfettered and energetic running and cycling and swimming and riding and sailing and leaping about and all this gold being won there is a downside.

I’ve actually quite enjoyed not having to put up with the usual parade of politicians and media personalities jockeying for position in the media as each frivolous news story gets an unfair amount of coverage. All the foul politicians and phoney attention seekers basking in the glow of an overactive digital media seemed to have taken a back seat almost for a whole week! Now of course with the cascade of medals being trumpeted by a biased media all the preening creeps have come out of the closet and are having their pictures taken with the golden Olympians. There’s David Cameron lounging in Number 10 with a ‘Team GB’ top on cheering for some sport I’m sure he used to play at Eton which I guess was croquet with liquid refreshment provided by Pimms – don’t cha know. Then there was Paul Weller posing with his old mate Bradley Wiggins, arms around each other all paly like. Maybe it was Weller’s naff haircut extending some friendly advice to Brad’s naff side-whiskers. Bradley has many fond childhood memories training on his tricycle at The Herne Hill Velodrome near where we live. I guess they will have to re-name it now. Somebody even managed to find Jimmy Page (with low alcohol beer in his hand) and Mick Jones (nothing stronger than a cup of tea these days, I hope) from somewhere and got them to pose with Jessica Ennis and Victoria Pedalton (oh do keep up!).

Even Morrissey got involved with the fantastic opportunity of some free publicity but he did push it a bit comparing the atmosphere with Nazi Germany in 1939. I mean maybe all those troops doing security will march off to annex Iceland or something having failed miserably in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is that what he means?

The gold medal winner for best publicity stunt though goes to our heroic mayor Boris Johnson all trussed up on a zip wire stranded 50 feet off the ground meekly asking for a ladder. He’s more buffoon than politician. A future Prime Minister!