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.

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!