Happy Snow Day!
Written by Peter | Filed under General
Few sights are as glorious as a blanket of snow. Alright, 3cm isn’t exactly a blanket, but it was enough to make me happy this morning as I flung open my curtains to look at the lovely, crisp snow — before it turns into a vile grey slush later.
I took my camera out and took a few snaps from my window and on the way to Denmark Hill; if any other Flickr–using readers did the same, can they please tag their photos “se5 snow” so we can see them all together?
I hereby declare today to be Snow Day, the funnest day in the history of Springfield Camberwell!
January 24th, 2007
hmm, not so much fun when it took me over 2 hours to do a 40 minute journey!
Do you live in gairloch road Peter? I am house hunting and saw a house there (no.26 i think) yesterday. Giving it some serious thought.
I live on the corner of Gairloch Road and Shenley Road. If you can afford a house there, I envy you deeply!
@Lisa — I sympathise completely! Same problems! Grrr, traffic.
My train was 7 minutes late, but otherwise all was fine. Plus, I got to look at lovely snow out of the window.
£375,000 for that house on Gairloch Road seems very reasonable, maybe because it’s through Shannon, the old-fashioned Camberwell estate agent. I mean, that house on Shenley Road just round the corner would be £75,000. What do you think, Peter?
The people in all those streets round there seem as smiley as anyone in East Dulwich, because they’re sitting on piles of money, especially if they’ve been there a long time.
I mean £75,000 MORE. This snow has made me dozy.
I got some lovely pictures this morning at dawn, as I went for the camera before breakfast. They’re not online, though.
Thanks to those who recommended doctor’s surgeries, by the way — I am now happily registered.
Maybe I’m old-fashioned; I still think of £375,000 as a lot of money.
@Peter — Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. All we can be sure of is a burgeoning middle class solely reliant on their own upwards house price movement for social mobility, who will never find out the answer to that question.
How many bedrooms?
You might have unwittingly attracted some competition Shadsy..
There’s a 3-bedder house on Gairloch Road on homesandproperty.co.uk for £375,000 but it says it’s sold…
Donald Shannon is a bit of a cult figure in our house (also a bargain through him). He runs a tight ship. Oh yes and the snow is lovely.
I certainly won’t put my house on with them then. I have no interest in offloading for a bargain price!
Foxtons are opening on Lordship Lane soon. Usually when they open they do an initial round of 0% commission sales and as everyone knows they really inflate their asking prices.
I have pound signs in my eyes at the prospect.
AAaagh! I would highly recommend Shannons — they have great experience, local knowledge, and are very friendly. Besides everyone knows that Foxtons are evil / manipulative / torture small animals, etc. They are the Starbucks of the property world.
When I sell my house I am only interested in getting the maximimum return possible.
The last thing I want is to read on here that someone’s been crowing about what a bargain they got off me.
When I buy a house then I may consider Shannons. It seems they have their business model arse about face.
£375,000 is a lot of money, Peter, but not these days for a newly done-out house up the hill there, where there’s a great view of London, the streets are quiet, the houses are solid, the people are varied and uniformly happy to inhabit that area of Camberwell. I mean, if it weren’t for the railway, it’d be part of Grove Park.
I believe the streets are named after eminent lawyers who once made it m’learned friends’ preferred nesting grounds. Lord Lyndhurst could have posted on this blog as “Lord Lyndhurst”.
There will be no justice, however, till everyone is housed as handsomely as the people of the gently contoured roads Gairloch, Oswyth, Linnell, Shenley, Crofton (which its interesting kink halfway down), Talfourd and Bushey Hill, where there are more and more book-lined rooms appearing amongst the satellite dishes.
It’s good to see the books. Maybe some are by that mad radical William Cobbett, who complained that Denmark/Herne Hill was just two miles of stock jobbers. In fact he grumbled that between outskirts like ours and the great Wen (his word) there was little but houses and gardens for “the Jews and jobbers and the mistresses and bastards”. Let the good times roll!
Is there really such a thing as a good estate agent? Aren’t they all, yes, every single one of the jumped up parasites, utter C**ts?
bukowski333: seldom has a more indisputably accurate statement been made in the history of humanity. Thank You. Socrates, maybe even Sophocles, would be proud of you.
Olá Peter, lindas fotos. Há quanto tempo não nevava aí em Camberwell?
Happy Snow Day?! The Evening Standard was talking about ‘Snow Chaos’ Today! It’s like the Christmas we didn’t have and the end of the world rolled into one! (as long as your definition of the end of the world consists of the weather being a bit different).
Ola, dona Vilma! Nevou um pouquinho no ano passado, mas o chao era molhada demais e a neve nao ficou. Ultima vez que ficou branco assim foi em fevereiro de 2005. Um abraco pra todo mundo ai!
@ The Eyechild: I wouldn’t worry about it; The Standard describe something as ‘chaos’ at least once per week (I think last week it was ‘wind chaos’). Other favourites include ‘crisis’, ‘panic’ and ‘alert’.
http://tinyurl.com/2z2vde
On another note…
I have a weekly 5 a side game down at Camberwell leisure centre. We arrived there this week to discover that we couldn’t play because of wind damage to the roof. They ‘couldn’t say’ how long it would take to fix.
Anyone have an inside on this?
Richie, how much do you pay for the 5-a-side? It’s for an hour, I take it? Are there changing rooms?
It’s an hour, there are changing rooms and a shower that I’ve never been tempted to use. I think it was about £32 for the hour but I’m not chief organiser.
Last week we ended up playing on Ruskin Park. Jumpers for goal posts and rush goalie. Brilliant.
Alan, do you have a plasma TV playing the Extreme Sports Channel, a green mini and a fridge full of Perrier water? Just wondering.
Steady on with use of the word brilliant… I ended up getting a stitch and nearly vomited on my shoes.
Popped by this morning and they’re still closed (and still without cash tills…) due to ‘health and safety’
It is £32 an hour, or fractionally less if you’re a ‘Fusion Member’ and the changing rooms are as old school as you get, it hasn’t been redone in decades…
Thanks for that. I’ll pop down and scope it out.
Joe — I don’t work for Foxtons– I am a professional gambler.
I have a 28″ Sony cathode ray tube television probably playing tellytubbies or Pablo the little red fox, a new Jag, an old Jag and a fridge full of unwanted vegetarian leftovers.
This is a good ‘getting to know you’ game– anyone else willing to answer the TV, car and fridge quiz?
28″ Toshiba widescreen cathode ray usually playing Sopranos box-sets.
No car, but two bicycles, one for the city and one for hurling myself down the biggest hills I can find in the countryside.
A fridge that currently contains a spicy portuguese chorizo, a bottle of champagne and two bottles of San Miguel. I need to go shopping.
15″ LG lcd tv, shortly being upgraded to something i can see from my sofa. no car or bike, and a fridge full of ignored veg and a well used block of cheese. and two fish cakes (slightly past their sell-by date)
an enormous 52″ TV (a house clearance job that’s never quite worked), no car or bike (Richie had mine nicked from his work…) and a bottle of beer, some pesto and a very elderly Vegetable Slice that a thoughtless vegan brought to a party once…
I used to live in Brixton in a flat in a school conversation. Spent all of 2005 trying to sell it with ‘nice’ estate agents result: failure.
Got Evil Foxtons on the job, they sold it immediately at a higher price that the nice estate agents were going to get …
Further result: able to buy nice house in Camberwell …
Exactly.
Foxtons are going to float soon. I will definitely be investing some of my winnings with them.
dickdotcom
“I used to live in Brixton in a flat in a school conversation”
I reckon this could be the basis of a new Charlie Kaufman film. Imagine it: no one seems to be interested in this abstract concept of buying a property that only exists in a conversation at a school until a ‘Milo Minderbender’ character working for Foxtons manages to convince people of its true worth. Fantastic.
TV: 15″ Grundig CRT TV that I never watch.
CAR: No car, had both Vespa and bicycle stolen from my garage.
FRIDGE: Wine (rose and white), beer, tonic water, chicken, vegetables (various), fruit (various), oyster sauce, fish sauce, mint sauce, jerk seasoning, chili sauce, maple syrup, olives, jam (strawberry and fig), eggs, cheese (assorted varieties), quince jelly, capers, gravy, hummus, Christmas pudding, milk, fruit juice, fruit smoothie, cream, butter, nuts (assorted varieties), yogurt (Greek, mint and rhubarb), rice, baked beans, pitta bread and an eye mask. That’s all I can remember.
Exactly, Joe Damage, we are situationists. For instance, this conversation takes place on a screen.
Very cheap telly, just about colour, always showing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Fridge full of kid food, organic, only the best. Small car, four classic Raleigh bicycles, one for sale, no rear wheel.
TV: 24″ Toshiba (I think).
Transport: Shanks’s pony (bicycle stolen).
In fridge: a few vegetables; a tube of tomato puree; one bottle each of green wine, fortified wine & champagne; a carton of soya milk; ketchup; half a pepperoni.
TV: 24″ Samsung LCD — usually showing ER and Home & Away to Mrs Dotcom
Transport: Alfa 147 Diesel, BMW 650 GS, elderly and much loved Ridgeback mountain bike
In Fridge: mostly organic: some veg with mud on, various pots of jam, lots of yoghurt (fruit and plain), bacon, eggs, milk, fruit juice, wine for Mrs Dotcom as I am thankfully nearing the end of a dry January, harissa paste, mustard, mayo, cheese, hummus, anchovies, cream, cat food
Televisual: i just got my first big telly free off my mate “The Bear”, having always previously mistrusted the concept of possessing a TV any bigger than my own head.
Transport: old mountain bike from Re:Cycle at elephant and castle. it’s shabby but i LOVE it!
Fridge: Alcohol. Mustard.
TV: Widescreen Panasonic, not sure how many inches, but rest assured, it’s bigger than yours.
Car: My deranged chauffeur, Carstairs, stole my charabanc. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of it since.
Fridge: bottle of Stolichnaya, a Just Juice, pineapple chunks, two Tesco dinners (cod, chicken chow mein), and a slice of strawberry– and-fresh-cream cake I picked up today from Patisserie Valerie. There’s some vegetation in there as well, a holdover from the days of Lady H, no longer of this manor (see “Car”).
TV — None, I have a Sanyo projector which I use to watch films and comedic programmes
Car — Any mode of transport courtesy of Mr Livingstone and TFL
Fridge — Bosch, contents dry cure unsmoked bacon,creme fraiche,cod fillets,watercress salad,rachel’s organic milk,salami napoli,butter,yogurt,wholegrain mustard,chicken liver pate,humous and a bottle of Galician Albarino Wine…yum
TV — Goodmans one off my friend for £50 / ibook.
Car — Overground or Mk 1 Raleigh Burner red and yellow 1983
Fridge — Feta, milk, tabasco, tomato puree, parmesan, cheddar, falafel, olives, mushrooms, onion, bread, prawns, veal
I’m hungry.
TV — Philips 14″ stereo with analogue alarm clock on front and ridiculous pointless lighting array on its feet. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when I bought it.
Transport — Citroen vancar and small bicycles.
Fridge / freezer — Bosch ‘logixx’ frost free, ere, frei? Full of milk yogurt juice and cured meats, Black Forest smoked ham, etc from Lidl. Abel & Cole eggs and veg. Meaux mustard. Tom puree. Maggi tomato chilli sauce. Mayonnaise. Unsalted butter. Various cheeses. Frozen bread and guinea fowl stock. Margariat pizza. Buy tow get one free. Or something. From Waitrose. Don’t know how that got there.
TV 28inch CRT bought in a panic when the old one blew up 5 mins before the footy kicked off
Car: 4x4 (for the snow!)
Fridge: Wine, Water, Yoghurt, Milk, Old Jam, Cheese, Beer, Houmus, Swede, Spinach, Brocolli
TV: a small portable Matsui TV i “aquired” about 6 years ago from a friend
Car: a whole fleet of uncle kens lovely buses
Contents of fridge: Not very much as haven’t been shopping for ages. A quick look this mornign confirmed there was some cheese, various pots of mustard, pesto, pickle etc.., some lettuce, butter, apple juice, bacon and some milk.
Seems like a theme is developing. Your stereotypical Camberwellian isn’t overly bothered about telly, eats organic food and gets about by bus or bike.
Pretty admirable really.
That about sums me up i think!
I’m much more likely to spend money on food than a TV! to be honest once we all go digital i’m considering not gettign a new TV at all.
what is slightly disturbing is how many of us have had our bicycles or vespas stolen …
didn’t know you could buy Albarino in Uk — I’m impressed — a friend of mine owns the bodega and with all the liquid restrictions it was very hard to get it back into uk.…
20-something inch Phillips flat screen telly.
Car is a banged up Polo as I’m learning to drive. Once I’ve passed we’ll go back to an Audi.
Bosch fridge/freezer containing fruit, veg and dairy from Abel and Cole. Meat from GG Sparkes, pickles and chutneys wot I make myself. No wine anymore as my wife is pregnant and there’s no point letting it sit in the fridge to taunt me.
New question: what newspaper(s) do you read on a Saturday?
Newspaper: i get The Independent. i used to read the guardian until it sold out it’s principles over the iraq war. does that make me left wing?
The Saturday Guardian is good. The books section is very good. The mag is colourful. I will come out as a Guardian reader.
When the Guardian was still a broadsheet it was much easier to hide behind when you were squirming with hypocrisy and guilt.
For years I bought the Sun until that current daft bat became editor.
The question is, though, which Saturday paper do you buy?
We are such goody-two-shoes here, it’s good there is the occasional two-Jags amongst us. Diversity!
The Guardian on Saturday for the listings.
Any Daily Mail readers out there?
His Lordship buys The Observer for the Sport and Review sections. I have no need of the Jobs and Money sections, nor any interest in current events. I also buy The Racing Post, for obvious reasons.
It’s all kicking off on the Leisure Centre now
I don’t buy any newspaper, although I might take a peek at the free Guardian that always seem to hang around the staff canteen at work…
Hmm, maybe I’m not a stereotypical Camberwellian, though I have lived here for 12 years in the same house. Does that count??
My main tv is a large plasma with surround sound, used mostly by my partner to watch soaps and me to watch the cricket and comedies (if you’re English, they might be the same thing, I guess!)
I only buy one paper each week and its the Saturday Guardian.
I drive a ten year old BMW which has only 55,000 miles on the clock. Have been thinking of getting rid of it for several years as I hardly use it but then how would I get my shopping home each Saturday??
And I have a bike but don’t ride it much as I use the bus when I need to go into work — which is fortunately only about twice a week as I work from home the rest.
Oh, and in my food fridge there’s probably veges, yoghurt, cheese, smoothies, coffee and not much else. Need to go shopping.
In my beer fridge (yes, like a true Aussie, I have a separate fridge for beer and wine) there’s not a lot of beer but a couple of bottles of sparkling Aussie red wine.
TV: 32″ LCD for watching Buffy.
Transport: Bus only but but I’m interested in buying a moped so that I can get back and forth to work in Chelsea in less than an hour and a quarter. Is anyone interested in selling a bike suitable for a beginner? Also, does anyone have any recommendations about where to take the CBT day course? I was given a negative review of a place in Vauxhall.
Fridge: Multiple half-full pots of basil pesto and hummus which are used for smearing on to carbohydrates before consumption.
I read the Guardian or the Indie on Saturdays. I think the Indie is generally better (more features that I actually want to read, actual opinions), but I really like the Guardian Guide. It’s actually difficult to get through the week without Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn.
Like the Observer on a Sunday though.
Mark — what’s kicking of at the liesure centre? Just went down there and they couldn’t tell us anything.
I don’t buy a paper– I’m too tight. I read the Guardian and the Sun online. I also read Metro, London Lite and The London Paper most days. Again pretty frugal.
Try to read the Guradian weekend and Observer. Look at others often but never have time to make assessment of content so stay with above and don’t read them properly either. Get constantly irritated by vast quantity of pointless printertainment in supplements. Even a lot of BBC brodacast news gets to me like that now though Newsertainment.
‘Leisure Centre’: Apparently detailed announcement about due mid February. Recently, following the Community Council meeting last week, a lot of vexed speculation about its future has been raised. Again. This has been the situation for a VERY long time and really must draw to a close. Progress is essential.
A long time ago, I read the Sun. “For the football.” Nowadays I read the Independent; used to be the Guardian & Observer at weekends, until they lost their principles over Iraq. Now just the Indie.
I’d rather eat my own arm than read any of the London freesheets.
@eusebiovic: I had you down as a Morning Star reader.
I am a Guardian or Observer reader, sometimes a Times reader. We usually buy the weekend versions of these papers but I often find you end up spending hours reading all the sections and magazines and feel none the wiser…
I always feel more satisfied going for a nice long walk or going to the Peckham Farmers’ Market for some soil-laden veg from that lovely lady from Kent.
That’s why the old Sun was good — it was a quick digest of popular culture. You then didn’t have to watch all the TV programmes and other pop pap to keep in the know. It also laughed at itself and was secretly quite intelligent. Then Rebekah Wade from the News of the World got hold of it and made it paedophile-obsessed and “campaigning”. It used to be used in schools to teach economical writing, a friend of mine told me.
Newspaper: Observer/Guardian/Indy like everyone eklse (!) when I can be bothered to go out of the house to get one (rarely!) multiple blogs/news sites otherwise.
I used to like a scan of the nasties to get a fix of scandal — but can’t even bring myself to do that these days …
Re CBT: I did mine with Metropolis in Vauxhall many years ago and they were perfectly good. Though do not, for any reason at all, give them any money for any other good or service as they are uniformly arrogant @&^*%$£‘s
Thanks Dick. Interesingly arrogance was the reason cited in the other bad review I got of them. Perhaps I’ll steer clear (boom boom).
Peter/Everyone — Although I have a strong socialist conscience I’m far too young to have been a reader of The Morning Star!!! — I just happen to think that we had the free market capitalism in the time of the Victorian era and the abuse and uncontrolled side effects of that system led to a Socialist Era where people were actually encouraged to make an effort to be slightly more cerebral and make an effort for each other for the greater good — then that fell apart in the 70’s amongst the worst recession ever and the abuse of the more generous concessions of that particular system — So all that is happening now is that the clock is being turned back to replicate the mass capitalism of the Victorian era — It’s almost as if it’s been decided “Well Socialism failed so we might as well go back to how things were before” — I don’t agree with this, I happen to think that as a nation we should learn from the best elements of socialism and capitalism and make the effort to form a new ideology from what we have learnt — this would be the truly progressive path to walk down — Sadly I don’t think this is going to happen any time in the near future because Britain is in the back pocket of the United States economy — They say jump we say how high — Special Relationship indeed, it’s no more special than the appalling contempt the U.S Government have had for Central and South America,Africa and The Middle East ever since WW2 ended…
My flick account is screwy right now, but my SE5 snow pictures are in an album on my blog, http://bluedotcreations.typepad.com.
TV: 18″ colour something or other.
Car: I’m American, no chance I’m getting behind the wheel in London. Rely on buses, trains and what my dad calls “the ankle express”.
Fridge: Lots of veg, milk, cheeses, yogurt, coffee, maple syrup (yes, all organic), a bottle of champagne, and the ingredients to make a cheesecake for a friend’s birthday on Thursday.
Newspaper: Used to be The Guardian but the typos kept me from enjoying it (I was a proofreader in my past life) so I now read news online.
oh okay then
TV: don’t have one (yes, really)
Car: don’t have one, can’t drive, bike everywhere because I’m too skint and impatient to take public transport
Fridge: would be empty as I’d be happy to live on porridge (with honey) but my boyfriend gets to the market on his lunch break — mostly vegetables, sausages and leftover stews — nothing organic
Newspaper: Guardian, but mostly read online
Oh i read the Guardian too. I think at least one of us should be a Mail reader?
Next question — where do you get the majority of your grocery shopping? (answer honestly now!!)
I go to Sainsburys on Dog Kennel Hill with occasional forays to Somerfield in Camberwell, local shops and Peckham farmers Marker/Borough Market.
Dog Kennel Sainsury’s.
Has Lidl been given the flick, Dagmar? Must confess to doing a Sunday afternoon dash to Sainsbury’s and fighting for the last bunch of basil. Love Peckham Farmers’ Market for bread and the Kent lady’s veg. I do try to buy some veg from Cruson’s and the Olive Shop, too.
Butterfly Walk Somerfield maybe once every three months to stock up on basics; Spar to fill in gaps for basics between; meat from my top quality butcher in Farringdon, veg from grocer in Farringdon, occasional pitstops at markets.
I like the bread and baklava from Sophocles Bakery.
Mrs Patio does a weekly shop at DKH Sainsbury’s for groceries and mountains of nappies etc. Weekly organic veg and dairy box from Abel and Cole. Top-ups from Basic on Denmark Hill, Somerfields, Cruson, Sophocles. Emergency supplies (ie, booze) from Camberwell Stores.
Most things from abel and cole. Meat from Mr Sparkes in East Dulwich. Miscellaneous stuff from Sainsbury’s. Most other things from SMBS.
I walk to Lidl, Lulu, cycle to Aldi and drive to Dog Kennel Sainsbury’s. I think smart folks use Abel & Cole because it’s not that expensive for something that’s good.
The manager of the Somerfield is a nice chap called Mr Maple. He has the air of a downtrodden supermarket manager from the Simpsons. Soon I will ask him about the future of his shop.
@eusebiovic:
You might enjoy the book called “100 ways America is screwing up the world” then. No offence to American readers — its about your government and big corporations, not “ordinary citizens”.
I shop at Sainsburys DKH for most stuff, and occasionally go to Borough Market.
Another question: does anyone have any pets? I saw on this morning’s tv that some employers now give compassionate leave for pet owners, say if their animals get sick or die.
I have two “just over a year old” kittens. Not that I want them to die, of course.
Abel & Cole for most veg, eggs & fruit. They used to do unimpeachable bacon but it went down hill and watery. DKH Sainsbury’s until recently for many things but for years have done Lidl for ham & cured meats, tinned toms, olive oil, butter, multi vitamins, cod liver oil, peanuts and other snacks. These bits of their produce are all excellent quality and VERY inexpensive. Gherkins particularly good although they are hardly a staple.
Recently Occado for weekly stuff cereals bread milk. That butchers in East Dulwich for meat & birds.
Coop on Camberwell New Road used to have a good range of wines but about two years ago the range reduced. Still do good fair trade and organic but supply’s patchy. Hence Oddbins Dulwich for wine. They are friendly, knowledgeable and I know them now.
I have one of the best travelled wardrobes, clothes John Lewis, TK Maxx or outlet stores in Newcastle or Edinburgh or in Portugal when we visit parents / in laws. Weirdly it seems easier and cheaper to shop like this than doing so in central London. I don’t think there’s anything local for me or family on clothing.
I / we would rather do all this here in Camberwell.
Pets. Not exactly. Sea Monkeys. And no one seems to know what they are. I’m not even sure if they’ve hatched. I have a feeling sea monkeys are invisible. Like emperor’s clothes. My girlfriend says they are called sea monkeys (they appear to ‘live’ in water from the tap) because they are furry and eat bananas. Rather like the ‘magic beans’ we have, er, not growing, on our window ledge.
Pets: Mrs Dotcom insisted last year that we acquire 2 cats; Terry and Flo. About 8 months old. Terry is a deliquent teenager. Flo likes lying down.
Groceries: Riverford organic delivery for veg. Local organic co-op run by a neighbour for 6 monthly deliveries of muesli/olive oil/rice etc. In the last 10 seconds Mrs Dotcom has announced that she is about to go to Sainsburys on DKH for staples. East Dulwich butcher for meat. We now rarely go to Peckham Farmer’s Market cos of Riverford/East Dulwich butcher/own breadmaker etc which is a shame because their coffee stall is good. We still have about 40 (literally) herring in the freezer having bought 50 for £5 at the end of the market in about December. It can be a vg place to get late bargains.
Clothes: fave shop in London is the Paul Smith sale shop in Mayfair!
Pets are for widowed pensioners and the homeless.
I was considering getting deliveries from Abel and Cole but am worried about being around for when it is delivered — can you book a time at weekends or after work?
I don’t have any pets — i would love a dog having grown up on a farm and always had a large amount of dogs around but i don’t think it’s fair to keep a dog as a pet unless you are going to have a large amount of space for it to run around in and be there for it — dogs get very lonely if you leave them shut up in the house all day.
Abel & Cole deliver fridays in Camberwell, you can ask them to leave it somewhere (with neighbours?) I can’t divulge where they leave our box as someone may pilfer my swede or brocolli (all I seem to be getting at the mo — not that that’s necessarily a bad thing).
Pets — we inherited a cat from our wicked vendor who left it behind to starve (really, there was a 6 week period where the poor thing had to beg from neighbours). She’s lovely and we spoil her.
We are a no car, two bike household (much quicker than bus to work) — but i’ll happily admit that I’m a fair weather cyclist.
Papers — i read the independent and times online — does anyone else think the indie has got far too doom and gloom recently. I look at the covers of it some days and think, “Oh well, we might as well give up then”. Also get Guardian on Sats and Indie or Observer on sundays (depending if they have their music monthly).
Telly — I’ve no idea what it is, we’ve got one and we watch it far too much but it’s definiately not new.
Fridge — inherited from vendor, is a now fashionable mustard colour and full of veg, homemade wime (my sister is an organic hippy treehugger who lives in a field), and sausages.
Riverford leave our veg hidden in the front garden — spoke at length to them about safety/security etc and they insisted that they’d never had a single item nicked in several years of delivery …
Of course they haven’t. There’s no market for stolen organic veg because all of the value is in the brand.
If you were only concerned with cost you could buy the ingredients of a £10 box on East Street for less than £2.
If.
The implication people unscrupulous enough to thieve veg out of your yard wouldn’t care about pesticides and carbon defecits.
So many people in Camberwell seem to buy from Abel and Cole.
Maybe there’s a business opportunity for some enterprising person to open up an organic food shop in our area.
Seems to be plenty of shops going spare in Butterfly Walk.
There is a new organic shop on Bellenden road on Saturdays selling bread, veg, cakes etc (maybe that’s too far for Camberwellians). I get my organic veggies delivered from Farmaround and have been a customer for over 10 years so wouldn’t want to switch to Abel & Cole, although I’ve heard they’re v. good. A&C also distribute through local schools and give them a percentage, which is a brilliant marketing move. The good thing about Farmaround is that they sell lots of other goods, such as 5L cans of olive oil, which are competitively priced compared to Sainsbury’s and you don’t have to lug ‘em home. The downside of organic deliveries is that your dosh doesn’t get spent in said fab local shop in Bellenden etc…
Yes please.
My wish list of shops besides organic shop for Butterfly Walk =
1. Independent bookshop with coffee attached a’la borders (but not borders)
2. Italian deli selling salamis etc.
3. Cute boutique shop for buying presents for your mother in law and/or clothes shop for emergency going out tops (like Joy on the top of Coldharbour Lane)
4. Organic Spa (okay maybe I’m going a bit over top here or maybe I just had a genuis idea and I can quit my job evicting naughty neighbours and earn squillions)
None of the above if it means the 99p shop going.
I’d like a Borders, a Starbucks and a Costa, a Sainsbury’s and an M&S food. Oh yeah and an All Bar One or Bar Ha Ha, Pizza Express or ASK Pizza, Wagamama’s or Japanese Canteen and a Tony and Guy.
Would any of those sell crack? It would have to be Fair Trade, organic crack, of course.
So basically, Alan, you’d like Camberwell to be Clapham/Highgate/Muswell Hill/Richmond/any one of the 1,000 other identikit high streets that create the wonderful homogeneity of 21st century Britain?
It’s all about a butcher. Cruson and the Olive Shop do decent veg. There are delis that do alright stuff — if not amazing East Dulwich Deli style places (Metro Market and Chave De Douro). I seriously think there is a niche for a butcher. I for one would be a regular.
During my lurking, I’ve heard a regular cry from this blog for a decent butchers in Camberwell. I’m not a big meat eater, and when I do tend to buy at the supermarket (Somerfields largely, but I’m fickle) or Peckham Farmer’s Market, but I’m curious… What’s up with Kennedys?
Without financial constraints I’d definitely choose Highgate village over Selborne Village.
Unfortunately their relative merits are clearly reflected in the price of property.
Kennedy’s does sausage and bacon but you can’t get cuts of meat from there — indeed anything other than porky products I don’t think!
Yes, Kennedy’s is fine if you want any basic variation of swine flesh, but beyond that it’s extremely limited.
A butcher would be among my top choices for the area; here in Farringdon, where I work, we have the excellent Meat City, where the extremely knowledgeable Nigel sells a variety of top-grade meats, sourced from a farm which isn’t Organic, but where the animals are properly reared without intensive farming techniques or chemicals used in the feed or the use of antibiotics.
Delicious, and competitively priced. I almost bought some rabbit today, but decided to wait for the weekend.
Tomorrow I’m off to Netto in Peckham and will report back unless I get made into pies. I’m glad that Kennedy’s, a Camberwell institution long before the influx of organic cyclists, Africans, etc. is an old-fashioned pork butcher like the one in The Elephant and the Bad Baby.
Had a think– I’d like Camberwell to be like Angel. It’s got every high street brand imaginable as well as a wide range of independents. Only really lacks parks which we’ve got in abundance.
I used to live there in 1998 but I got sick of not being able to afford a lounge.
Alan, I think Bexleyheath has most of those shops, and it’s cheaper than Camberwell. Maybe you could move there. Apparently house prices are set to rise dramatically and all the poor people are going to be bulldozed whilst in their own flats to make way for loft style bungalows and more shops. Utopia.
And Peter/Dagmar; Kennedy’s do a good Christmas Puddings (seasonally), pease pudding, baked beans, cheese, pastry and eggs apart from swine based foodstuffs. Before Christmas they actually ran out of sausages altogether.
My Nan and Mum swear by Kennedy’s chipolatas, good south London girls the pair of them.
Thanks for the lowdown on Kennedy’s. I shall have to give their sausages a go some time. There’s old Kennedy’s signage over what looks like a derelict shop on Peckham Road, just next to the fire station, at the top of Southampton Way. Sometimes, though, I noticed the side gates are open and there’s definately some kind of business going on back there. Anyone know what?
Re Angel — I’ve thought about it too, and I think that area now has less individual character about it than either Highgate Village or Clapham. It’s like having a shopping centre on your doorstep. I’d be happy to get my general basic supplies here in Camberwell — food mainly, with the odd other store, like a bookshop, say– and then travel elsewhere for other stuff, such as clothes.
Used to live in Islington and regularly return to worship at the church of the Emirates. Walked to Angel tube last night in fact after enjoying the thumping of the spurs.
And while I loved living in Islington and used to enjoy shopping in Upper St back then, now I live here I *really* wouldn’t want Camberwell/Peckham to turn onto Islington, we’ve got far too much independent spirit and uniqueness about us and it would be a shame to lose that for the over-priced boutiques of Upper St.
Upper Street, good name.
There is a full moon over Camberwell tonight, maybe a tiny bit gibbous, but good enough for the Dagmar family: the Dagmar baby is musical and so much so that under the moon tonight she began to play the bath, like a trombone.
I will hand over the piglets for once to go to the private view at the South London Gallery, the drawings.
Islington is all right but you can’t throw a bottle out of a pub there, as we say in Denmark, without hitting a graphic designer.
I am so cheerful tonight with the moon that if I see a graphic designer at the show I will wrestle him to the ground and snog him or her!
hi dagmar, hope you enjoyed the preview at the slg tonight. myself and mrs sqdr were there looking after our friend’s little ‘un. at first he was freaked out and screamed his little lungs out, but then we fed him a banananana and showed him a spiderman comic and the drawing of the mouse and he calmed down a treat.
before long it was smiles all round!
it’s a good show, but i didn’t check it out properly. too busy *schmoozing*.
yeah!
I was schmoozing, too, looking round to see if I could see myself, etc. It is a good show, isn’t it? East Dulwich is near the Picture Gallery with its Canaletto, but we are more fortunate with the SLG and Netto.
Mel R, that used to be the Kennedeys ‘factory’. I used to frequently see men dressed in white carrying pigs heads in there, presumably to turn their lips and eyes into snags.
I quite like the building itself, to me it looks as though they are developing it but keeping the facade. Maybe it’ll be turned into loft apartments and called ‘The Pig Factory’ a bit like ‘The Piano Factory’ down the road and ‘The Jam Factory’ near Tower Bridge. Or what about ‘The Sausage Block’, ‘Chipolata Suites’, ‘The Green Back Complex’ or ‘Swine Heights’.
Mel R — The building on Peckham Rd is still Kennedy’s factory. The building next door (Pelican House) is being redeveloped into housing. The facia of Pelican House is listed, which is why the developers are keeping it. The tiles are in a bit of a state, though, so Gawd knows what it’s going to look like when it’s finished. Pelican House used to be a factory where blind people worked, but it closed some time back (I think over 20 years).
The Kennedy’s shop at the front of the factory in Peckham Rd was open for trade until about 1988, but I presume that its location and the proximity of the other Kennedy’s shops (Rye Lane, now closed) and Denmark Hill, meant that trade was slow.
Kennedy’s = the Pig Factory so Pelican House housed pelicans. Maybe the people of Peckham called blind people pelicans. “Them pelicans make pegs in there.”
The Peckham Society website is brilliant for old Peckham history and people’s tales of the areas — a pub bombed in the war with people in it, who can still be heard singing wartime songs some nights.
Netto in Rye Lane is so-so. There are tills at one end and trucks at the other. It is very cheap, probably 3p in the pound cheaper than even Aldi. It is redeemed by a strong yellow theme — there are bright yellow plastic handbaskets which you don’t get at either Lidl or Aldi.
Down to business, the alcoholic section is fascinating. There is a Spanish red for £2.08 called Baron Jon Noble Sir or something, but it’s 10.5% abv which is very suspect. I bought a Bordeaux at 13% for £2.79 called Fanning Lafontaine. I know that “fannings” are the dust particles of tea that make up teabag tea. I think there is a chateau called Fanning Lafontaine, I’m still researching. Anyway, this is a robust red and if red wine is good for you this one’s probably available on drip in French hospitals.
The tasting notes begin “Tasting notes”, and carry on to say “The attack is supple.” “Pleasant and rounded with good length” (every girl’s dream) it’s good with “grilled meat and roasted game”. Roasted game!
Rye Lane at night with all the lights and people is really something. It’s a bit grey by day, but by night it is the world’s bazaar. It must be four times bigger than Camberwell as a shopping centre and one of the most foreign, fascinating and safe-feeling streets in London.