North is pretty, Green is vile
Written by Peter | Filed under Events, Places, Shopping
I’ve changed my route to work in the morning, now cutting across Burgess Park and down Portland Street. I’d never realised how nice it is down there; behind the Aylesbury Estate there is a mass of social housing built, if I’m not mistaken, at the beginning of last century, and all beautifully cared for. Also lots of little parks and gardens. It’s a really pleasant street to cycle down, much better than the Walworth Road route I’m used to.
In stark contrast, however, is the bottom of Denmark Hill and around the Green. On the bus back from Brixton last weekend* I noticed that the whole area’s getting scruffier; a few more of those open-fronted yam shops and a few more stalls selling cheap tat starting to spring up, plus the ugly metal grill on the front of the former Kennedy’s and the empty units scattered about. Really, it’s dying on its arse. It’s quite sad to see. Every month sees a decline in variety and (perhaps) quality; anyone who thinks high street chains are going to open here is likely to be disappointed. It’s becoming fragmented. I’m sure this is a subject that deserves more analysis, so please feel free.
But all is not lost! Away from the centre we still have lots of social diversity, and pretty soon we have Camberwell Arts Festival 2008. You should have received some lovely leaflets and guides through your door recently which explain all the events, but if not you can visit the Camberwell Arts website and decide for yourself what you’d like to attend. It all kicks off on the 14th June, which is next Saturday, and goes on until the following Sunday. I will most likely not be attending anything which could loosely be described as performance art, as it makes me grind my teeth.
On an admin note: first, I’ve just updated the software that powers the site, so if anything behaves weirdly please let me know. Second, I haven’t had the time to keep the site updated as frequently as I’d like, owing to work and some potentially interesting developments therein. If anyone would like to help me out for a little while (or even permanently) by writing here, you’d be very welcome. No salary is involved, but you will have the opportunity to take a load of personal abuse from tossers who think they know all about you, despite having never met you. Sound attractive?
* I went to the Ritzy to watch Indiana Jones; it was… um…
I never have understood why cyclists use Walworth High Street and the roundabouts at Elephant. The well marked cycle path is far better. Though someone did say a lot of the shall we say avid cyclist take the harder route just to complain about lack of respect, which is the reason I even hate to admit I cycle.
Its horses for courses — some people want to use the most direct route to cycle to places whereas others prefer to take a more leisurely route, neither is better. The council must recognise this and ensure that when developing new cycle routes it does not neglect to implement improvements to the general roads to make them more cycle friendly — in many cases local authorities (although on the whole not in London) think they have provided for cyclists by merely providing a cycle path when to make a place truly cycle friendly they must offer cycle tracks and improvements to public roads.
newroad — I do not recognise the argument that there are “no-go” areas for cyclists on the roads (except where they are actually illegal, such as on motorways). I actually use the quieter route usually, but if in a hurry I would take the roundabout directly, and ride centre-lane, demanding 1 metre’s breadth either side from motoring overtakers. Less is not just assault, but often attempted murder under the protective veil of effete road traffic laws.
Certainly some cyclists can be mildly irritating and do the rest of us disservice. But I would rather dress up as a phallus on a sirrus and do wheelies along Walworth than be seen dead driving less than 2 miles to the local supermarket, or be caught in a car in a cyclist box at a red.
I don’t drive. I don’t have a car. But why can’t this debate ever be reasonable?
The route is neither leisurely nor indirect. It’s easier, quicker and safer. For everyone. Cars can’t go everywhere cycles go and thus it’s fine that sometimes, cycles can’t go where cars do. It’s not combative, it’s common sense.
If we always start with cars=evil and bicycles=good, then we get nowhere.
Peter I believe the social housing was built by the church, if I’m not mistaken. The one just before East Street in the square between Portland and WW High St when cycling north.
newroad, I recognise the danger of polarisation in this debate; credit to you for trying to walk the tightrope.
However, I do not agree with the underlying premise that some motorists — not all — will extract from your argument; that cyclists on busy urban roads deserve “everything they get”. There is an argument that the parked cars along both sides of the shortcut roads create an even greater hazard for cyclists than fast-moving traffic along Walworth, particularly when a car moving from the opposite direction is thrown into the mix. Most drivers I know don’t check their wings before flinging open the driver door to make a pedestrian exit into the public highway.
If the Council puts up a sign saying no cyclists, I will comply with the law, as usual. Lobby for it — I will not oppose you.
Until that time I have equal right to share the road, and any motorist “punishing me” for my presence on a busy road by overtaking dangerously is committing the crime of assault at the least. It’s purely about the mechanics of evidence, and our cultural acceptance of serious RTAs being a “part of life”.
I went to see Fung Foo Panda at the weekend.
A langoustine cyclist dismounts and walks into a Camberwell pub. “Sorry,” says the barmaid, “we don’t serve sticklebacks.” “Cycle paths,” says the langoustine. “I beg your pardon!” says the barmaid, “Any more of yore cheek an’ I’ll ‘ave you served up with fritters!”
I will find rare agreement with Regenguru on the point of free/subsidised parking, which is seen as a right. As part of a wider wish for council housing to be means tested on a regular basis (and not passed on for generations), I would propose Council Esates not provide free car parking. And if someone has a car, it would be counted as an asset to their income. For special needs and those who use their cars for work, there could be exceptions.
A bus goes into a pub. “Do you have oysters?,” he asks. “I told your langoustine mate,” snaps the barmaid, “we don’t serve bivalves.” “Khyber Pass?” says the bus. “Crustaceans!” groans the lass, “End of the bar, turn right.”
It is a rare thrill to negotiate the double roundabout at elephant at full tilt. The back route is more pleasant though, but has its own dangers with the overweight dogs of Burgess and the deranged costermongers of East Street Market. Have you Peter found the magic route which allows you to cross Old Kent, avoid the Elephant, and appear unflustered on Blackfriars Road?
so Indiana Jones no good then; anyone seen Chet Baker biog Lets Get Lost? I saw it years ago, but was in a ‘spiritually distracted’ phase so recall very little, except how beautiful Chet was before the smack.
Peter, I’m pretty happy to do some blogging for you. I can do opinions when pushed, and suspect people often say disparaging things about me anyway…
Let me know
“deranged costermongers” – good one. Part of the streetscape though, I like that they’re there running the market.
Elephant roundabout at full tilt is a thrill too far for me.
The back way is easier… Across the New Kent Road, through Trinity Square, Great Suffolk Street… and onward
I often see people I know from Camberwell, Peckham, or East Dulwich, riding this way. It’s fun to ride with friends; it reigns in the racing instinct.
What’d be cool is if you could find some local teenagers or students studying English or media, or whatever, to write here.
Kids are probably studying blogging by now.
We just got the Camberwell Arts Festival fliers through the door. Looks great.
“Under Growth” by Rachel Gomme will be my top pick. Walking is art, right?
The Elephant roundabout is a source of much unresolved debate for me and Mrs Dotcom … I enjoy navigating it on my bike, dressed in lycra or jeans, she flatly refuses to set wheel in it …
As for the back streets/main road debate, I actually feel less nervous on Walworth road than the back streets — I feel car drivers are more cautious on main roads and less likely to come charging out of a side street without stopping to see if a bicycle is coming …
I was hit by a car on the Elephant this morning; wrote off my bike! A thrill, but not a cheap one. Is this blog possessed?
@14 — thanks for your positives, D-MAN. CA’s director, Kelly, and all the artists have put a really superb programme together; Peter, check out some of the fantastic music that’s on, especially Perunika at the Crypt on Saturday 21st, and the lunchtime classical concerts at the Institute of Psychiatry.
BTW it’s always important to remember that events like this are closely evaluated by funders; bums on seats really do count. So if someone asks you to fill in a response card, plese do.
Enjoy the Festival, and be happy.
Florian, I hope I’m right in assuming that if you can write a post you escaped relatively unscathed, but wish you a peaceful day nonetheless.
florian — hope you’re OK, and that you got the driver’s details. You may not realise the full mental and physical impact of the accident until some time afterwards, so call a solicitor straightaway because his insurance needs to cough up.
He won’t change his style of driving if he doesn’t at least lose his no claims, so an offer to replace the bike doesn’t cut it. Go through the channels please — for the sake of us all.
Peter — to come back to your point in para 2…
It’s about rent.
That simple.
Drew can you explain further?
It seems to me if the rents are high, how can these ‘tat’ shops afford them unless they are doing a brisk business? And if they are, and assumedly doing better than our longed for botique deli, that means a lot of people (customers) want them. So I’m confused. Do we want the Council to enforce rent control to bring about our middle class aspirations?
St George have finally published some information on their topical Mary Datchelor development — and they promise rows of “authentic” Georgian townhouses — hmmmm, am I the only cinic? The architect apparently dusted off his his architectural history books, noting that “this sort of architecture has got to be good or it looks terrible”. Now I have never seen believable mock Georgian, but I dearly hope he has.
Full scoop on pg 44 — 47 of attached link.
http://www.stgeorgeplc.com/index.cfm?articleid=15
I’m not a fan particularly of St George but yours is a cheap shot post.
They’ve hardly ‘finally’ published details. They published them for five years. Two (three?) of the plans were soundly rejected. The final approved plans were only public display and open for numerous consultations.
And they stood at Butterfly Walk for weeks with detailed plans, architects to answer questions and samples of the materials they will use.
So based on all those detailed plans and such, I would ask how someone can now suggest it’s been held in private and will be rubbish: did you speak up during the appropriate time? Do you reject the hard work of the Camberwell Society working group and Council planners who are now pleased with the plans? I think it’s time to accept we did a good job of ensuring it will be high quality and look forward to its benefits.
easy tiger — I was merely pointing out that I am yet to see a successful rendering of a new, old building. It was not an attempt at slandering the architect or the council or indeed anyone else in the wider approval network for new developments.
clearly this is a topic close to your heart, so I apologise if you have misconstrued my comments.
Sorry. Not particularly dear but it’s dragged on for five years and we should move on. It has to be the longest consultation I’ve ever witnessed.
There was the ‘mock Georgian’ v ‘Georgian’ debate you would’ve enjoyed. Apparently if it is done to high standard, it is Georgian. Even if done in 2008. Dunno.
Woa Florian — hope you,re ok.
I’m fine thanks. Many admiring glances at the bike as it went to the head of the triage queue at the repair shop today. Every cyclist must have his or her war stories, and I now have a corker to run alongside the one about the deranged costermonger.
I’ve noticed a lot of the places around the green (eg Kennedy’s, the shop next to it) have been sold.
Any thoughts on who’ll move in?
There is alot of good mock-geogain around but because its good you cant tell. The city of Bath is full of it and it is all the better for it.. but yes there is also alot more bad. The plans look good although i cant help but wish they had listened to the Camberwell working party a little more and not had such a long parade of identical houses facing camberwell grove.- its now down to the materials they use.. pointing, windows, slates, bricks etc..
Sorry to hear Florian and glad you are okay. Seriously, check out the alternate routes to avoid the roundabout. It was a bit confusing for me at first but then when I sussed it, I realised how much easier (and safer) it is.
Mock anything, especially Georgian, can end up a cheap pastiche, but with quality materials and the right scale/proportions, the buildings will be better than many of the alternatives. Infact, I wish other areas of Camberwell were treated with the same sensitivity as Camberwell Grove. New builds near me have dominated their area. And they look sufficiently cheap to convince me they are the slums of the future.
The model of St George’s Camberwell Grove development in their Visitor Centre is exquisite. The cars and figures are so true. Just our luck to have this improvement built at the start of the downturn. Several large military choppers flew down the Thames at about 6pm. I thought there’d been a coup and that David Davis had taken over with the support of the armed forces and had replaced Elizabeth on the throne with Lady Thatcher.
What a liberty, I thought, 10,000 langoustines marching on Downing Street, 20,000 cyclists passing Buckingham Palace in formation, forty fahsund fevvers on a frush… is anyone else finding reality hard at the moment?
Reality?
Oil shortages? Petrol prices? Oil company profits? Banks not lending? Footballers’ pay? Biofuel production creating staple food famine? Food prices in the third world? Arctic ice 1.5 metres thick in winter? Nuclear power stations commissioning? Pub Companies’ share prices against their exposure to debt? Kelvin McKenzie standing as MP?
What is reality? Reality is as tough as biltong in a dry mouth.
Yes. Yes! Thank goodness for the Guardian guide to pond life yesterday. We should be grateful to that head girl of our conscience, that pillar of our consciousness, for furnishing us with such a, such a… “Foldie” is their description of what it is. Talk about the nanny state we’re in! “Here is your guide to pond life, here is your foldie.”
Green is vile is balls.
The Green is getting nicer all the time. Our kids use the playground there now. It’s hugely improved. It’s a well landscaped useable public space.
As for the wider area around the green then of course a shop that closes down is going to get boarded up. So what? What ever opens may not have all of the meaningless historical sentiment that we seemed to have attached to our now defunct previously unwanted sausage shops but at least it will be able to trade. If not then then the one after… eventually we will have progress. And I believe that busy ‘yam shops’ are progress compared to an empty sausage shop.
There’s certainly nothing vile about yam shops. That’s ethnocentric nonsense.
Have you ever bought and cooked a yam? How many yam shops before you try it? How many roads must a man walk down before you can boil him a yam?
Ya, man.
I was brought up on yams.
Was invited, and went, to the opening celebration of Camberwell Arts Week last night at House Gallery. Thanks to Kelly, Drew, Melanie and everyone involved for a really good evening. I was lucky enough to be able to come with my ‘partner’ (she is my girlfriend really) because our kids are away for a week with the grandparents. Had a great time.
Stopped off at the New Dispensary on the way home. Good in parts but begs the question: WHY?
Has anyone else noticed a springing up of ‘churches’ in warehouses in the area recently? There’s two near me; Destiny International Christian Assembly at 95 Camberwell Station Road and another that doesn’t advertise its existence at 108 Warner Road. They don’t have planning permission. This really annoys me.
The New Dispensary
cycle route: if you’re heading more westwardly, avoid the horror of the E&C roundabout system: turn left at top of Walworth Rd [just before Dragon Castle] into Hampton St, bear right, cross Newington Butts when the green bike is showing, past the new park behind E&C leisure centre, on to Brook Drive, then across the Imperial War Museum garden, King Edward Walk beside Morley College, then on to Westminster Bridge Rd just before Lambeth North tube. the humps on Portland St give me the hump
Beautiful day. Just spent half an hour in Brunswick Gardens waiting for the kids. Now we are in Lucas Gardens enjoying the sunshine. Nice.
Seize the day, indeed, dman!
One of the emerging highlights of Camberwell Arts Week, with its exponentially ever more spontaneous and surprising practice, is the Front Window multisite domestic location personal narrative space show, where people put up their art in their front windows.
Not everyone gets to be invited to the exclusive House Gallery opening soiree.
However, everyone can show their stuff in this exemplarily inclusive, typically Camberwell, up-for-it, c’mon if yer think yer art enough scheme.
Go to the website and join in now! You will be transported to the strartosphere of the Camberwell art scene in one uplifting, invigorating and liberating act of self-expression.
Dagmar, my apologies, if I’d thought about it for more than a microsecond I would have invited you and your fantastic poetic observations on Camberwell. If you are coming on the Pub Crawl tonight„ or anything else during the FESTIVAL week do please say hello.
Of course what we’d really like is to have someone like you on our Board of Directors… You fancy? Come talk to me.
I’m a cyclist. I cycle to work every day. I’m also a jogger and jog less frequently than I should. On Monday whilst jogging before work I got mown down by a cyclist who was cycling at full pelt down Camberwell Grove. I would say the blame was equal — I saw him before I stepped into the road and made the decision that I would be more than halfway across the road before he got close. I did probably underestimate how fast he was going but I was already half way across the road when he struck (I landed on the white centre lines) and there was plenty of room to go around me and nothing obscuring his vision. The road was empty save for one car coming up the hill. I can’t say for sure but I assume he was not concentrating at all, I presume enjoying going down the hill and listening to his headphones. I hit my head quite hard on the road and have a few interesting bruises. I’m okay though although was a little concussed and shaken up at the time. He stopped to make sure I was okay, and I think was a bit traumatised by the experience. The feeling of having a bike plough into you at full pelt is not one I would recommend and I wasn’t feeling like stopping to have a chat about it.
I want to say though that I don’t hold it against the cyclist , and hope he’s okay because he came off too. I love cycling down that hill too and pedestrians can be bloody annoying and do stupid things. I hope he thinks twice now about cycling with his headphones in and pays more attention to what is going on in the road in front of him.
Be careful everyone!
Drew, my good man, I was merely using the idea of the necessity of the existence of bourgeois structures and patronage for pre-revolutionary culture, to leverage the inspired anarcho-individualistic FRONT WINDOW, the part of Arts Week where anyone can show whatever they want to show in their front windows. Anyone can join in by going to the festival website.
By the end of the festival, almost every window in Camberwell will be scintillating with visual expression and the town will be crawling with media — Lord Bragg here, Dame Bakewell there, that effete bloke from Imagine here & there — the dealers will be knocking on doors and questioning small children and Camberwell will buck the national trend downwards for morale, house prices and creative banality.
To put it another way and push the blue sky further, when Denmark does not qualify for Euro 2008, that is art. When England does not qualify, that is just a sort of David Davis-style Carry On Westminster cock-up.
How nice Euro 2008 is without England!
Green is v-i-l-e. Does Dodds always take cheap shots at any other business giving it a go in our third world town? If you’ve got all the answers, why don’t you start a group and change things? Should take you little time since you got it down man. Loved Pete’s jab at Africans. Not pc mate!
Sittin watchin the iron lady bio on bbc 2. What a lady. Turned this country round. Dodds must be from up north. It’s all big business’fault and gov’t ought to take care of our every need. spare no expense! Credit crunch? Blame banks. Not the idiots who kept on borrowing. Footballers salaries? Who you think pays for all those tickets and jersies and tickets abroad? Notice all council flats have sky dishes?
You’re sitting in on a Saturday night watching a documentary about Margaret THATCHER?
JohnnyM you’re totally full of it yourself. Come on clever pants tell us who you are. Tiny Tosser.
My apologies, my last post wasn’t what I meant to say. This is closer to it.
JohnnyM. You’ve got it completely wrong, you’re always projecting your own sadly diminished, twisted understanding of what’s going on around you and mistaking it for other people’s views and motives. YOU are the only person on this blog who takes cheap shots at others while hiding behind a convenient veil of anonymity. Perhaps that gives you a thrill. Others here have more courage, eloquence and generosity than you and without doubt contribute far more to the local community in their daily lives.
I don’t make cheap shots JohhnyM, I make observations which I don’t have a problem backing up if asked to. You, on the other hand, cannot help spraying flippant bile and nonsense out your rear end proving you are nothing but a tiny minded little Tosser. You must get though a lot of toilet paper.
That feels a bit better.
Dulwich Ukulele Club were great last night at the Castle. They are a sort of miniature Alabama 3. They are incredibly well drilled, very tight and together for an 11-piece. They ought to include some more mellow numbers — it’s not all about thrash and anger, especially if you are (well) over the age of 30 and imbued with East Dulwich well meaning. Perhaps they should do some Beach Boys numbers, for instance. They’d have the audience at their feet for Kokomo. The trains to Newquay will soon be packed with ukulele surf types, so this would be a very current tack to take. They finished on “Can’t Go Back to Camberwell”. We ought to have our version of their band.
On Indiana Jones. The bit at the end is a little pedestrian isn’t it? Couldn’t George Lucas have come up with something less, err, believable? Played out by a Ukulele band maybe.
Camberwell College Breakfast this morning.
Fell asleep watching the Maggie thing on Saturday. Seemed like just another excuse for the miners strike and the tank footage.
She definitely did turn the country around and we are now in a stronger econonmic position as a result. The question is whether it needed to be quite so painful and with such drastic social implications.
Read Rumours of a Hurricane by Tim Lott. It won’t change your mind but might give you an insight into the lives some of Thatcher’s victims.
Where’s the tolerance gone Mark? JohnnyM makes some interesting points from his ‘vile’ Camberwell debt trap. He’s going to need his £8.5k per month to buy his way out of this one. Have a heart.
On the yam front I have to confess that I’ve only had it from 4T4 Lip Smacking African Cuisine and never prepared it myself..
Dagmar — I went to “It’s your Round” the art show upstairs at the Bear, where I laughed more than I have in a while, and then on to the second sitting of Yara El Sherbini’s hilarious orientalist pub quiz at the Sun and Doves, which over-ran a bit so by the time I got to the Castle, the Ukes were leaving. But I did see them last week at Brockwell House and jolly good they were too. Then on to Lottie Leedham’s installation at the Dark Horse, which despite being the Festivals Chair I wasn’t allowed in to see; but I am given to understand that secrecy and brotherhood was the whole point. I was too tired to make it to Duckie, but have to say the opening night of the festival was packed out, buzzy, and artistically innovative.
Suits me, Sir!
Good stuff Dagmar. Afraid I had to go for dinner to friends’ for various reasons and couldn’t make the first night of the festival.
Alan. JohnnyM can squat in his virulent mind set forever. My tolerance is evaporating as I come out of the shell I was in as a result of over a decade of commercial abuse at the hands of a big company and the toll that took on me.
I’m going to have a think about Maggie and report back rather than give a knee jerk reaction.
Margaret Thatcher “There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.”
I watched the the programme on BBC4 last week it did try and show her as a driven woman who had some warmth. And oddly as feminist paving the way for other sisters
Phooey me and my sisters have already planned to have a big party when that old witch finally dies.
History my be kinder to Maggie but still have a hard time being equally kind. It was a difficult time to live through.
Mark, I like the S&D’s. And we’ve all lived through your struggles and always wished you well. But I must admit you are very quick to judge (sometimes harshly) other similar business ventures in the area. Perhaps it’s competition and fair. Let’s give The Dispensery a chance before we write it off. I suspect they may struggle too, if I’m honest.
Alan, art college nite is tonite. The girls look great, the youths look sylphy, there’s something there for everybody, artistically speaking. The Cave will be the place to be!
Thanks Newroad. It must be my writing style that makes people think I’m quick to judge new competition but, actually, I want good stuff to happen in Camberwell. After my first visit to The Bear I recommended going there and said the food is easily the best in Camberwell. On Caravaggio I was disappointed because it promises so much more than it delivers, Amarylis, unfortunately, is disastrously weak, The New Dispensary I enjoyed and thought was pretty good — This is what I put on flickr next to the link (http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/2576650090/) I used above:
secretlondon123 Pro User says:
“This is back as a pub again?
Is it affordable this time?”
a shadow of my future self (me) Pro User says:
“Can’t remember how much it was. I didn’t pay for the drinks. Not remarkably expensive I think.
I prefer it to the old Old Dispensary — the layout is much more comfortable and space is much better used. What they’ve done with the front door has greatly improved access, quite simple but clever really. It feels like a bar in Ireland. Problem is, it’s not in Ireland.”
NOW THAT SEEMS PRETTY POSITIVE. I had a drink, I enjoyed it, I said so. I hope they do really well, I really do — it’s certainly one of the most competent openings in a long time locally and the people behind it clearly know what they’re doing. I just wonder seriously whether there is demand for this kind of bar here. If I had the opportunity of taking on this site (and I would be very reluctant to take it on because of where it is) I would have done it as a speakeasy and concentrated on spirits, cocktails and bottled beers. What the new owners have done is almost along those lines but with a reasonably authentic Irish slant which, because of O’Neill’s Filthy McNasty’s and the other chains has become way overplayed. Individuals do it better than chains but whos’ to know this when they walk into the Old Dispensary now?
Camberwell needs a lot better at every level of catering. This would be good for my business. And I concede that S&D needs to be better too. Now that I have a certain amount of mental and literal freedom as a result of my Appeal Court win, I will be concentrating on helping improve standards all round.
@ Comment 56 — Gnomee
If I bring a coffin to dance on, can I come to your party too? Please?
Gnomee thanks for being direct about your take on Thatcher. After thought, and reflection, I have nothing good to say about the woman or her legacy. Much needed to change in the UK but it didn’t have to change in the way this dogmatic tunnel visioned monetarist chose to do it. In my view EVERYTHING that is ailing in the uk bears the echoes of that time and the particular way in which she chose to dismantle a state. And just look at Regan’s and her legacy over Russia. They gloated over the fall of communism, stood back to watch the USSR’s death throes with glee. They should have got in quick and helped put a competent capitalist democracy in place.
I’d pay for the Ukulele Band to play at the dance.
Them Dulwich Ukulele Club were good. They remind me in many ways of the Balham Alligators, a superb Cajun band from Balham. Their singer was so swayed by the music he went a bit nutty. I was in Balham today, quite a pleasant place with a large Co-op funeral parlour that is open for business 24 hours a day — no hanging about. Hari Krishna have premises in Balham, too. There is also a Waitrose.
Camberwell Arts Festival Week gathers pace. My own turn in the graveyard this afternoon singing “Jesus blood never failed me yet” on stilts went unnoticed except by some crows, magpies and pigeons peering up my frayed denim miniskirt.
I lived in Balham when the main supermarket was called Presco. Then it became Kwiksave and then Safeway. Now the supermarket on the same site is Waitrose.
Need more be said innit.
Dagmar the birds really appreciate your denim.
The Northerner.
I have a balham
alligators album somewhere and saw them a few times. one of the top uk cajun combos for sure. Are they still going? I think thatcher’s hair was impressive. Liberating the falklands too. She was grim for the north though. Less so for the south (big bang and all that)?
Dag — when you sing Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet, do you follow the part written for Tom Waits, or the part Bryars recorded the tramp singing? It’s artifice vs authenticity time!
Mushtimushta course you can come, hey there will be lots of us. Though if there are more than 4 does that constitute an illegal rave?
I can forgive many people being misguided even Regenguru who automatically assumed that the car was at fault when Florian had an accident. As yet we do not know Florian did not say! Florian glad you are OK. Forgiveness could never go as far as Thatcher though!
and I lurve Waitrose but could we ever possible have Somerfield become one? I would be skint as I always spend far too much in the one in Balham on the rare occasion that I go there, thank god it is too far away.
I sing the Waits whilst me rear end plays the trombone. Art for art’s sake, I say. Last night the Hermits Cave was packed with talent and Grove Lane was blocked. Across the road I noticed that sign saying “Taste of London, Lesbian Cuisine”. There are paintings dotted everywhere round Camberwell — in the Hermits, some comedian has slashed the Phokela.
Tony Blair looked and talked like the younger Margaret Thatcher. Both have their merits but war is always hell. The Falklands was a nightmare, any war is. They wouldn’t let the wheelchair men sit at the back of the Falklands Westminster victory service — gave the wrong impression.
My generation grew up on Thatcher and can never support conservatives.
The generation that’s just come up with Bliar at the controls can never support Labour.
I’d guess it just goes around in circles like that.
Fault is a social construct. But I was static at a junction and royally reared. So draw your own conclusions. Back on the road now. And did the Elephant this morning, with no flashbacks.
I’m told that keen cyclist GW Bush always fits in a bike ride on every leg of foreign trips. I’d like to think that when he was in town this week he eschewed the delights of the grounds of Windsor Castle for a quick spin round the E&C roundabout and up the Walworth Road. Did anyone spot him?
Funnily enough, I did watch W’s full press conferences here and in France and was somewhat impressed. Put aside his horrible delivery, I thought he held his own and actually made sense on some subjects. I was testing myself to see if I could take filters off and judge for myself. Odd.
He came by S&D for a pint.
That is, of course, a lie.
“Pope Not To Visit Hackney”
Miles Pope?
Strong reactions to Thatcher season.
My view is that New Labour’s betrayal of the north east was far more serious than that of the Thatcher Government.
Miles End Road Pope. Labour could hardly have been called upon to deregulate unions and the post-war set-up. It is a real irony that the miners were doing such stupid un-needed work. Blokes died or were injured year after year in mines. It was a sort of chauvininism that kept it going. Aberfan, you name it, it were a bad do, coal.
Men being men is a bad do. It is iron-lady-onic that it took a woman to dismantle the old daftness. It was incredibly ironic that (a) the Falklands War saved her popularity bacon and (b) brought down a literally fascist regime.
However, Harold Wilson’s great achievement was to not to take Britain into Vietnam. Thatcher and Blair legitimised violence. War is just the pits.
Still.
Camberwell Arts Week brings its own anarchic psychic energy to our bosom.
Interesting point Dagmar. Perhaps Maggie did what needed to be done, but surely there was a softer way. It would be fantastic if George Bush will be proven to have done the same: democracy breaks out all of the Middle East, etc. etc. But I won’t hold my breath. Afghansitan could use a boost, far too many deaths at present. God bless ‘em.
BTW, can I just say: Good; Serves you right.
People out of control of their lives.
Should I report that I had a long chat with Waitrose’s head of property today; interested in Camberwell?
Who knows?
I think ‘no’ is a pretty sure bet.
Three less mature trees on “Camberwell New Road.
There aren’t enough lifetimes in the household concerned to recoup this assasination of carbon sequestration, even through the most austerely green asceticism and street level campaigning to save the planet. But with two motor vehicles to the bad already, it’s not a good start.
Strange — edit system isn’t working. The link is http://www.se5forum.org/forum/index.php/topic,821.msg3933.html#msg3933.
I’m not a member so can’t reply on the se5 site. So car owners are now also tree killers? Terrorists?
At least now you can argue to lock ‘em all up for 42 days without too much effort.
Isn’t Waitrose the very definition of a middle class area? There are *plenty* of people with money to spend around here, so maybe it’s not that far-fetched.
Not sure I’d use it much myself… I try to avoid the big supermarket chains on principle. Apparently Waitrose isn’t so bad as Tesco on ethics, so that’d be good too.
Terrorists, New Road? — I don’t have any information on that but I’d be interested to hear your sources, and how this relates to Camberwell, as the loss of mature trees clearly does. Clearly some of my posts are hyperbolic, but I do feel there is an overlap between the mentality shared between certain motorists — not all — and tree killers, in terms of obliviousness to the environment.
Please join — it’s easy and takes less than a minute. You get the right to initiate threads, vote in polls and create polls to vote in. You just need an email address and a joke name, like you do here. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be the same name.
Er…deep and end come to mind.
Agree with Peter on the convictions. I hope life means life.
I had to cut down a tree in my garden. My next door neighbour reported some kind of subsidence and her insurance company instructed neighbours on both sides to chop down a total of 6 trees. I tried to fight it, even paying for an independent tree surgeon to report (findings: zero chance that my tree was contributing to the neighbours subsidence) but to no avail.
I think most tree chopping-downs are due to this kind of knee-jerk reaction to subsidence from insurance companies rather than clearence to make way for driveways. Could be wrong though: no data available on tree-deaths you see.
Richard Reynolds’ new book “On Guerilla Gardening” is just great. The blog is brilliant: http://www.guerillagardening.org. What do you think, Reg? Is not not excellently executed — the concept, the book, the website, the photographs of beautiful plants burgeoning in the concrete desert of the Elephant, the whole thing?
Achtung, I cannot edit my “not not” typo above. Scheisse!
I’d shop at Waitrose, I love it.
Waitrose ain’t gonna come to Camberwell. Dulwich, maybe. Waterloo/West E&C, maybe. Kennington, maybe. But not Camberwell.
Dagmar, I like it — people who think about the quality of public space. Wyndham and Comber need their attention. Who is this ethereal Ajax that surlily refuses us amendments?
More greenery on the flat rooves of garages is needed, and owners who have built without permission should be forced to coat their rootfops with soil half a foot deep, and maintain a wild garden there. Council tax concessions for all gardens are needed — people are paving over their collective garden hectares, as if they had no space inside for wellies.
Come the flash floods they’ll be wringing their hands, and any absorbent household items.
Oh, good, if you like it, Reg, then it must be relevant, intelligent and have some roots in reality. I thought well, it’s one of those kinda fluffy weird hug-me notions, but the book, the blog, the idea and the results are just stunning.
Guerilla Gardening. Love it.
Reminds of the “I love Peckham” thing “creating reckless acts of wanton improvement.”
http://www.ilovepeckham.com/
Waitrose in Camberwell? Don’t be daft.
Camberwell is going down, not up. It’s a Netto next for us.
Have to say that generic yam shop is more useful than the sports shop was, though I mourned the latter’s disappearance.
Let’s just hope that more yam shops don’t appear. Don’t want the place looking like Peckham.
Thanks for the I Love Peckham link. May I just say that in the projects list the use of a toilet in relation to Peckham is particularly apt.
peckham or cambwerwell, same thing really. brixton, new cross, kennington, walworth, nunhead… all the same vibe, right down to the yam shops and pound stores.
I thought the toilet was quite funny. If you got to go…
many times i’ve sat on that bench in warwick gardens though, so I can apopreciate that
I’d add Lewisham but not Blackheath, and subtract Kennington, which is more like Blackheath, but definitely a swath of similarity. I like it personally.
It will be a very sad day when the good folk at Cruson and Sophocles decide to call it a day…
Some of the other stores around Camberwell could certainly take a few tips regarding aesthetic and presentation from these old stagers…
Camberwell is at its best early on a Sunday morning. You can see that it’s actually quite nice, with loads of variety to suit all our many groups of people. It’s at its worst when all those groups are out in force and it can become a very exhausting visit, which only escalates the rudeness factor. It’s just chaos and horrible.
As I’ve said before, I think working with what we’ve got and some simple solutions could make a huge difference, though it’s not all doom and gloom as it is right now. We certainly don’t hurt for choice or consumers.
Bagel King is coming to Camberwell!
Newroad, you’re right about Sunday morning. What could it be that makes it seem so quiet and peaceful then?
Here’s another instance of us agreeing — “we don’t hurt for consumers”. Serious buying power resides hereabouts. The main choice being made, however, is regular shopping trips to East Dulwich to spend money there, the local facilities being found wanting.
Bad architecture and ill-conceived rudimentary town planning are the reasons why Camberwell is what it is
The fact that it’s best bits work at all are nothing to do with local authority
Butterfly Walk has been nothing but a huge negative for Camberwell ever since it was built — One of the hundreds of Thatcher-era white elephants that were built up and down the country by dodgy spiv entrepreneurs who blagged the money but had no concept of anything else
Also allowing apartments to be built in the middle of Wren Road facing the car park was a big mistake (no offence to any residents of those flats, it’s not your fault)
It is possible to get it right though as the early 80’s Selbourne Village development proves (My bet is it was conceived much earlier) — My only criticism being that Selbourne Road should have been kept as a residents only through road to Denmark Hill, that bit has always looked shit — Horrible little stumps of former streets are the tell tell sign of classic bad town planning
Butterfly Walk should of been an open plan plaza with retail units on the periphery and market stalls in the middle — think of all those lovely fruit and veg stalls that it would of provided
But the opportunity has passed and now…it will never happen
I also see that a complete vulgarian has decided to strip out the grade II listed contents of the old Kennedy’s sausage store and installed a lowest common denominator cheap red aluminium shutter on the front together with a cheap softwood door from Wickes (or somewhere) painted black.
The Kennedy’s in Herne Hill next to the Train Station is now a fishmonger and guess what? — The whole thing has been kept intact and looks absolutely fantastic and is a real asset to the community
I feel really negative
Actually the architecure is far superior to surrounding areas, a true ‘village’. Most is just a bit rundown or covered up. Look at East Dulwich and Kennington. Both are quite simple by comparison. And both are on busy steets too. Yet they both have nicer shops and such. It’s down to the population and as I’ve said, we should embrace it and I prefer it. We cater for all sorts and do it pretty well. The only things I can’t get in Camberwell are clothes and furniture. Neither of which I would shop for in smaller shops anyway.
Waitrose head of property is going to run a few things past his researchers who will come back to him within a fortnight with the demogs and then he’ll get back to me and we’ll discuss further.
I am not holding my breath. BUT, it’s not been turned down out of hand. And Waitrose has a new policy of expanding into less obvious areas. Face it, if one opened here, we’d have people coming from Dulwich and Brixton any way. So why not here?
Quite frankly, I think Waitrose is next to heaven. And John Lewis is on the other side.
Newroad @ 105
I was not referring to the old architecture (Georgian,Victorian,Edwardian) — merely pointing out that the majority of it from the 60’s onwards in conjunction with bad town planning is very poor — Butterfly Walk being the classic example…
Waitrose isn’t that much more expensive for a basic shop than Somerfield…(ie:the difference is negligable)
Not a lot of people know that…but they should
Mark, I would appreciate a Waitrose so that I can buy calves’ liver, food of the gods, that cannot be found within a 2 mile radius of the Green.
Also there is no fresh fish here (I don’t trust what is sold at the market on the Green, because something often stinks around that place). But fortunately we are an ethnic-minority-rich area high in low-income groups, which means that according to Government statistics we are likely to dine principally on burgers, ‘shakes n’ frahd chick’n, so that’s alright then and let’s keep planning on that basis.
Regeneguru — I’m probably going to regret engaging with you directly, but here goes–
Your “Thatcher Government” link article in posting 76 does not persuade me to blame those around me for voting for the band of small-minded tw*ts that comprised the Government from 1979 to 1997. Why? Firstly, because even in 1983, Labour’s worst showing during that period, Labour won 51.6% of the votes cast in Camberwell & Peckham (the other 48.4% were shared between the Tories (24.2%), the SDP(21.8%) and the NF (2.5%). The second reason is, even those that voted Tory did not all, by voting that way, sanction the continuation of 3 million unemployed and many of the other vicious policies that the Tories were responsible for. You implore voters not to be “tribal” (which is just a bit patronising) but simultaneously exhibit very tribal behaviour in your attitude towards motorists, to cite just one example (but there are many).
I, for one, will be dancing on the old cow’s grave when she eventually pops her clogs. And there are a few others out there who will be joining me. We are not a tribe, as such, but a loose association of bloggers with a common grudge. Get over it!
Regeneru comments (108) that there is no fresh fish in Camberwell. That is not true: the Chinese supermarket on Denmark Hill opposite the Butterfly does a very good selection of very fresh fish.
In fairness Julian, I said I didn’t trust that fish because of the stink (whenever I have approached the vicinity).
Mushtimushta, you raise too many points for me to deal with at once. Let’s debate this over at the Forum, which it is quick to join: http://www.se5forum.org.
I have friends who are motorists.
Fish which is truly fresh shouldn’t smell fishy — the stronger the smell the greater the level of decomposition…
Which is why I mentioned the fishmonger in the parade of shops next to Herne Hill Station that has taken over the old Kennedy’s shop that was there
If only they had done the same with the Camberwell one — but we are at the mercy of people who don’t know how to feed themselves so they rely on fast food establishments
It has nothing to do with low income but everything to do with lack of basic culinary skills education and buying in to whatever bone the free market decides to chuck at us…
for eg: I hate Subway — anyone with a single solitary braincell in their head should really know that a sandwich shop isn’t supposed to smell anything like that place — but still they go on walking through the door like the good, assimilated, brainwashed proles that they are and parting with their £2–3 for a “fresh” sandwich made out of dough that has probably been frozen for a year and the cheapest,most heavily processed foodstuffs that even the most undiscerning 24 hour food store proprietor would baulk at if they were asked to stock it in their chiller cabinet…
The GX Gallery facelift looks really good, nice re-pointing. At 105, I am afraid I have to disagree regarding Selbourne Village. I feel it to be a misplaced suburban underdevelopment of a site, which, with its many cul-de-sacs and narrow alleys, feels intimidating and unsafe. The use of red brick is totally out of place and oppressive and the design and cheap build quality of the houses is terrible. However I totally agree with you regarding the apartments in the middle of Wren Road and that car park would have been better as a square for a market.
NickW @ 114
Oooooh!
I think Sir Alan Dale will have something to say regarding your comments on Selbourne Village…
I do agree they should of been private residential through roads rather than cul-de-sacs — Like I said the Selbourne Road stump next to the Indiaah & Pizza Hut looks completely wrong and slightly intimidating
Just what is the British obsession with cul-de-sacs? I’ve never got it…
@89 — subsidence and heave. LARGE trees being cut down can cause heave, ground rising — the opposite of subsidence — due to a change in the ground’s water content. Previously the tree’s root system would have removed water from the ground through transpiration and, the tree suddenly having being gone, the ground can literally swell up as a result of the extra retained moisture. Conversely large trees planted not far from building foundations can cause subsidence for exactly the other reason, the ground shrinks gradually as they absorb moisture — so causing foundations to collapse. Then there are the potential problems,separate from heave or subsidence, with root systems physically invading foundations and drains. Sounds like none of these were problems in your neighbours’ case?
@103 Bagel King; well let’s hope not but it has to be likely. Was that prediction an irony, a guess or an informed nod?
@105 the charms of Butterfly Walk; pretty much totally agree. It has always been a scandal that it was built as it is and exactly where it is. It is a shocking mess. There is hope though. But hope resides in small places and a number of serendipitous possibilities happening in the near future.
Camberwell is on a crossroads right now. Much good can happen but there is not a lot of time before the roads close for another couple of generations.
@109 I agree about the stink of the fuish shop but am fairly sure it’s the run off on the pavement that stinks rather than the fish counters or fish themselves.
@113 Subway is difficult to stomach at any level.
@114 GX is a pretty fantastic beacon for Camberwell and should be supported as much and whenever possible. They have great vision for an architectural landmark on the top of the building.
Alan Dale might have something to say about that.
GX Gallery and Paul’s Olive Shop rock.
I’ve brought various noodles and other asian dry goods form the fish shop in Denmark Hill and those have been very good — although i admit i am slightly dubious about the fish as well. that is more to do with the fact it is sitting on open counters on a very traffic heavy street — i tend not to like my fish with a light coating of exhaust fumes!
Re: the smell i see that the shop also sells Durian fruits which maybe responsible for some of it — Durian absolutely stink!
@116 There’s a sign up on the shop next to the key-cutting shop that says something like, “Bagel King Coming Soon!” I doubt it’s a joke.
Greggs although far from great are still the best if you want a cheap sandwich/snack or something to satisfy a sweet tooth…
To be fair there isn’t a lot of competition — but they are better than all the Americanised chains — if the Bagel shop was to be a replica of the one on Brick Lane then that would be a very good thing indeed…but it won’t so best not to get excited
I realised that what really stresses me out about Camberwell, what I’ve come to really HATE in the past two years, is the incessant, neverending sirens that go on all the time.
Yesterday on a walk from the crossroads to the park I was passed by about 8 vehicles with sirens on.
You’d think that was normal near a hospital, but most of them were police cars.
And it wasn’t unusual. Often walking from the crossroads towards the art college / town hall I’ll be passed by several vehicles, not all together, all with sirens BLARING out. Usually it’s the police, doubtless doing a really important and wonderful job.
Of course, who’d begrudge a siren to speed up an emergency response. But can all these coppers really be doing it out of necessity? You have to wonder.
Especially when lying in bed late at night and you hear one going off. And this morning there was one at 6.20am. Sorry — there’s no way that road is so busy a siren is warranted at that time.
Anyway, let’s not get distracted on whether cop cars need sirens. Of course they do.
It’s just the constant, bloody endless wail of them all the time. Many of my guests who also live in London have commented on it.
Tired of it, really.
Thanks for the answer about Bagel King Norman, we can look forward to the King’s New Clothes.
@120 I’d forgotten but before I had children I used to go to the bagel shop in Brick Lane early in the morning — errr late at night — 3am-ish quite often. Took loads of friends there. Somehow always even enjoyed their strangely rubbish milkty instant coffee as well. Standing outside in the freezing mid winter lips and tongue burning on the polystyrene cups eating bagels thick with salt beef and hot mustard.
YUMMEEE
Gives me an idea…
Come to Goodwood with The Sun and Doves on Wednesday 30th July.
Sorry there was supposed to be a link in the post above
@122
Mmmmm Salt Beef and Mustard — that Ol’ Jewish classic
Golders Green and Stamford Hill is a bit far for your average Camberwellian to travel to and Gaby’s in Soho is a pale shadow of it’s former incarnation…
God forbid that we’d have an American bagel shop.….
By the way, well done Tesco on revised plans for Old Kent Road. Bigger supermarket, lots of space for small independents, affordable homes, investment in cycling lanes and (not mentioned in this article but very impressive) improvements to Burgess Park via its new Community Trust — and quite significant ones, too!
Every Little Helps: http://www.southwarknews.co.uk/news/00,news,10922,440,00.htm
I think the Bagel shop will be a branch of the 24 hour one on Walworth road rather than a branch of the Brick Lane Beigal Bake surely?
I’ve never been to the Walworth Road one as my hunger for bagels in the small hours of the morning is not enought to tempt me off the nightbus onto the Walworth Road! However if the bagels are nice i can see this as a positive addition — it would be nice to have somewhere that offers late night snacks that are not chips, kebabs or fried chicken — as i’m not keen on any of those.
Going by the sign, the bagel shop seems to be some kind of joint venture between the Eroma internet cafe and Bagel King, both on the Walworth Road.
Mind you, signs can be misleading. I see from the clapper board outside The Fusion on Church Street that they are offering a £450 lunch! Either they missed a decimal point or Heston Blumenthal has taken over the kitchen.
Police sirens at Christmas = Camberwell Christmas carols! Heard it said many times by people not from the area
I’ve never understood why bagel places, in particular, have to be 24 hours. I’m as partial as anyone to a bagel at 3am after a few drinks but it seems a bit masochistic by the owners.
On a completely different topic, I don’t suppose anyone can recommend a good specialist auto electrician in the locality? Evolution Autos off Fielding St — a great recommendation from this site — are keeping the mechanics of my elderly Bedford van ticking over very nicely, but the electrics (think an East German telephone exchange circa 1952 but without the inherent reliability) need an expert, and one with some patience.
Or the Camberwell Chorus as they are more generally known.
@116 — we bought both of these facts to the attention of the insurance company Mark, but to no avail. Like a sentencing judge, they were unmovable: the tree must die!
Asked the council about a TPO but apparently a tree must be of benefit to the public to have a TPO slapped on and that means visible — so in a front garden or on a public road or other public space.
The increasing use of sirens in the past few years is all part of the terrorisation of Britain. Keep everyone on edge. Look here’s a bizzy being busy! Let’s get more CCTV in!
Mark — some interesting tree facts — thanks.
Richie — one powerful public benefit argument is the maintenance of biodiversity, as trees are host to numerous predators of moths, ants, ‘roaches and rodents — of more than passing interest to the average Londoner as their circle of predations greatly exceeds the property on which the tree is situate.
Another is preservation of garden and green space, with trees strengthening soil, preventing it eroding, and preventing it being paved. Great for the flash floods from upstream which are in store for Londoners in the next decade or so.
Others are air quality, disruption of strong winds that buffet buildings, absorption of sunlight and heat capable of damaging brickwork and causing problems for neighbouring properties, regulation of humidity, absorption of noxious gases from neighbours’ DIY, entrepeurial experiments and amateur mechanical repairs.
Let’s face it, they’d get around that too — planners just hate trees and it’s not rational. Three mature cypresses newly hacked down on the New Road with no requirement to replant, is proof enough of that.
Boris Johnson will double bus & tram fares for 75,000 of London’s poor.
On the bright side, his floppy hair is so charming; and that tackle in that football game was hilarious!
Early days for our Boris but he does keep me amused. His Trafalgar art bit yesterday was vintage.
‘Planners hate trees’. ?! Still Regeneguru, you have to find merit with the Tesco plans. Not sure if they include trees but good news elsewhere.
Newroad — hardly news about the planners, who mostly view trees as an unnecessary complication in an otherwise perfectly ordered and predictable world.
Tescos thing sounds good, but reads like a press release. Need a lot more information before forming a judgement.
I look forward to the tennis courts for employees, if they can spare a few car parking spaces.
I’ll be very interested to see what kind of independent trader can prosper next door to a gigantic Tesco. Also: that’s some disgusting architecture.
Uh, I’m confused. What does a Tesco expanding on the Old Kent Road have to do with people who live in Camberwell? No one’s actually going to go down there to do their shopping, are they? Not unless you’re going to drive down, in which case you’ll get bad juju from Regeneguru.
The development of Myatt’s Fields is of much more relevance. It’s going to have a pond and a cafe and everything! And they’re going to renovate the third tennis court! Nice!
http://www.thecansfestival.com/
Leake St seems to bare a permanent legacy of Cans. Get down there and have a look.
It’s right next to Avis so you can return your Mondeo then stroll through Leake St to get the 176 back to Camberwell.
I am very excited about Camberwell but then I just had two pints of Shrimpers and some Joloff rice.
Flip side — I saw a tramp begging at one of the windows on the Grove. He asked me for some change but I just shook my rice at him.
Interesting to hear that people fear the nooks and crannies of Selborne. Terrifying cul-de-sacs?! The only thing frightening about living in a cuntysack is the crushing normality. But perhaps you lot are just as normal as me. Maybe even more normal. Doubt it. I am very normal. Last week I sat next to my doppelganger on the train. Happens a lot. Avoid Denmark Hill Station. It’s full of us. Normal normals.
That said I’m always the only cracker in 4T4. Perhaps that’s why I went there in the first place. Craving originality in this city full of clones. On the London Bridge train I am a WASP drone. In 4T4LSACuisine I am a Whafrican. Pathetic.
Try 4T4 though yam haters. How can this town be so full of yamophobes? You took a wrong turn somewhere. Retrace your steps or convert. I can’t be Camberwell’s only yamaphrodite.
Sorry Norman you are right. Burgess Park is not technically Camberwell. But some of us remember when it was.
The Tesco plan includes money to improve Burgess Park via their Community Trust. Sorry to step outside Camberwell and well done for Myatts Fields.
@142 Err… A large part of Burgess Park is in SE5 — not Tesco though — and it is fairly local. The people who live in Grosvenor Park consider themselves to be in Camberwell.
@141 Yamalicious Alanalicious Daleicious you are a man without fear. I was brought up on yams yet somehow the thought still freaks me out. I must repent.
Tell it to Norman. He doesn’t want to hear about things that will improve Burgess Park. Myatts Fields is Camberwell’s only park to him.
Of course the Camberwell Community Council serves neither.
That’s probably cos Myatts Fields is in Lambeth and i think Camberwell Community Council is run by Southwark.
Myatts Fields is a lovely park but Burgess Park urgently needs some love and attention! Perhaps we could get together and bid for some of the money that Boris has promised for Park improvements to make Burgess Park less rubbish.
BTW Camberwell also has Ruskin Park which is a very fine park.
@Peter — the traders used to do nicely where that supermarket now stands, until the mid-century, all stripey canopies and blooming wares spilling out onto pavements, with proud apron-clad independent shopkeepers.
Then came the Luftwaffe, Tesco, and the second great age of the national parks — car parks on this occasion … a planning system which carefully stacked the odds in favour of the new obesogene bulk-buyers and throwers-away, and passed applications to convert shops to residential as easily as wind.
Why improve the green parks, though? Nature, innit. But it’s a shame that mature trees are being chopped down wholesale along our roads. These are what links up the green park biotopes and help preserve what little urban biodiversity we have left, as the industrial farmland we call the countryside prepares for an invasion of suicide genetics by Monsanto.
Dagmar. You have been rumbled. You don’t live in SE5 at all but are an invader from Belsize Park
see bottom comment
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article4193011.ece
I like Burgess Park. I used to jog round it before my knee went (shrapnel, don’t ask). I can’t think how you could improve it, though, unless you opened a pub and a Mexican restaurant slap-bang-wallop in the middle of it.
I think Burgess Park is pretty good already. Could do with improving the entrances so bikes can get in but joyriders can’t, but it’s got good facilities and lots of open space.
I agree. It would benefit from removal of the old road beds from when it was a neighbourhood and with better lighting. Night time can be scary, yet it is the logical route for many walking home. Shame the cafe shut down but maybe one will replace it. And the old pub is becoming a youth centre, which is good news. The closing of the children’s play area was bad but a community group has secured a grant to replace it. I think smaller, neighbourhood associations like the one doing the grant bit are the way forward. They focus on achievable improvements. And the Community Trust for the Park, which will administer the Tesco funds, are working too. Shame no one could get that going here despite a lot of talk.
Newroad — a lot of good stuff there. Anyone been to Central Park?
Burgess could shake it down no problem.
But it would need a bit of thought.
“Night time can be scary, yet it is the logical route for many walking home.”
Who in the hell walks home through a park AT NIGHT?
No wonder you white folks keep getting mugged. Buffalo girls go around the outside.
Round the outside? Round the outside?
Setting up a Development Trust to manage the future of Camberwell Baths was discussed last year but the Friends of the Baths and The Baths Campaign group did not agree this was a possible way forward so the idea was binned alongside a whole load of other possibilities that weren’t looked into.
An announcement is due soon on what will now happen to the Leisure Centre in the absence of a local solution having been agreed. I predict a massive hoo ha.
Camberwell behaves like a load of cats in a pen.
On the Future of Camberwell note, developments at SE5 Forum for Camberwell are:
New website designers have been engaged. They are Wise Tiger. Expect some radical changes to the website soon. Not before time either for Peter Gasston (he of this, your very own Camberwellonline.co.uk/blog) to whom many thanks for initially setting up and saving the Forum website as an act of simple community minded generosity.
The Forum will soon be incorporated and will have a new address, telephone number and, for the first time, an office. The Forum office is in central Camberwell, tenure details and t’s and i’s are being finalised now.
The individuals on the board have all been through governance training and each now has a specific area of responsibility. ON this, Laurence Benson, Institute Secretary of the internationally acclaimed Institute of Psychiatry, Chairs the board, having taken over from me earlier this year.
My job is Camberwell Business Development — a role that I intend will do what it says on the tin. Develop business in Camberwell. I will be doing this job one day a week, likely Tuesday, regularly once the office is set up. So if any of you have ideas, suggestions for practical input I want to hear from you NOW! If you know shopkeepers or business owners (solicitors, banks, bookies, yam shops etc) locally who you think might like to get involved with the regeneration of the business side of Camberwell, please do tell them to contact me. At the moment contact is via mark@sunanddoves.co.uk. When the website is done there will be a whole section devoted to business.
A Camberwell arts, crafts and local produce market is being worked on now, to begin next year. Mentors in this are Urban Space Management, whose involvement in Camden, Greenwich and other successful markets across the UK will be invaluable in making a market here work well for the long term.
I think the Baths folks are doing just fine. I know they struggled to get other community groups to help out, except for a steady stream of advice but no action. The latest: http://www.southlondonpress.co.uk/tn/News.cfm?id=9494
Camberwell Baths must surely feature as part of New Labour’s campaign for free swimming for all, so I would expect central government funds to be available very soon.
In other news, surely not that little?
I’ll leave it to the able group working and not backseat drive. They had enough of that to tie them up for decades and are fine just getting on with it with action-oriented people keen for results. And wish them well.
Evening Standard article very interesting. Hopefully their efforts to give back will help them find a better way. Improving cycling lanes is a great start given no other community groups have managed it.
Er, I think Living Streets have done a just a little bit more for London’s cyclists than Tesco.
However, you have converted me to the cause, and I look forward to identifying the next Tesco-branded Parliamentary lobbyist whispering furiously into the PM’s ear that the presumption in motorist on cyclist accidents should be that the motorist is at fault, for insurance purposes.
That is the case in Belgium, Holland and Germany, and accident rates fell dramatically following the introduction of the presumption there. And that’s what’s important, right?
Indeed. We’d both no doubt agree those working to move things forward are far more effective than those who may bang on via various websites with theory that leads nowhere. Completely agreed. Well done Living Streets too.
@Newroad. I’m sure my information is inadequate even though I did sit on the Leisure Centre working group last year.
Mark, great news that there is a real focus on retail business in Camberwell. On Camberwell Baths there has been some good progress,we now know that the three submissions are by Fusion (Brockwell Lido etc), Ash Sakula ( architects, specialising in sustainable, community projects) and English National Ballet. I understand that the first two companies have would want to keep the pool, but the ENB does not. No one has seen the plans yet, but hopefully they will be released soon. Mark’s comments about a Development Trust/local solution not being found are a bit misleading. The cost of renovating the Baths will be upwards of £6m. Southwark Council would only give £1.5m. Everyone looked behind all the cushions on the sofa but couldn’t find the coins to make up the missing £4.5m. A Development Trust is only a mechanism for managing a community asset, it does not magic the money up. Unless there is another secret stash of dosh that only Mark knows about.…
Thanks Jubilee and well done. That was my understanding too. The Baths folks felt hi-jacked by lots of complicated solutions meant to widen the remit — but no real help. And you all came up with a good solution by staying focused on the issue at hand. Well done and good luck. Would ENB use it as a space for Ballet or is this just a potential investment for their business arm?
I’m pretty sure that ENB want it as extra rehearsal space. The thought of lots of lithe dancers wafting around Camberwell is both appealing and surreal. It’s a great shame that their bid did not include a pool, because it would have been pretty irresistible.
Real shame. ENB are great. They’ve been instrumental in supporting dancers in struggling Eastern European countries that lost all dance programmes and are rebuilding. Another good match for Camberwell where many newcomers move to get started. Anyway they could revise? I’ll stop driving. But what a great match that would’ve been…
ENB have a BNP supporting ballerina too don’t they? Not sure she’ll like it around here.
@162 “Mark’s comments about a Development Trust/local solution not being found are a bit misleading.”
Ahem. I disagree. The local authority was prepared to offer the £1.5,000,000 as effective seed funding for a Development Trust for development of the Community Asset — i.e. the building that is Camberwell Baths… Whilst that money would have to be put towards maintenance of the property, it could simultaneously have been applied as Seed Capital Investment in a new entity — Camberwell Development Trust — which would own the bricks and mortar (and the land adjacent) to the baths — an entity free of the constraints a local authority faces in not being able to borrow or raise investment against bricks and mortar in publicly owned property.
I’m not sure I’m describing this intelligibly. A Development Trust could own the baths and use the value of the building to raise loans for capital investment. A local authority cannot do this. Fusion was unable to do this because it did not have a long enough lease to raise money against. A Development Trust COULD do this. And DT with a bricks and mortar asset worth perhaps £4 million (I really have no clear idea of the true value of the baths) £1.5 million seed fund could achieve a lot. Raising £6 million would not be so hard. And factually, £6 million isn’t enough anyway. A far more ambitious program for development of the baths is what was and is needed.
From what little I know of current circumstances I am very encouraged by ENB’s presence. I personally think it’s high time that the likelihood of the loss of the pool should be faced up to.
And we should collectively be discussing what the impact of ENB coming to Camberwell might be, welcoming them with open arms and working together in finding a pragmatic, viable solution to the loss of a community asset like the baths and planning out how we can replace it locally with the modern, state of the art leisure facility we all, our whole community, deserve.
Think about the police station and the land behind it; the town hall and what will happen once Southwark embarks to Elephant and, quite frankly, the magistrates’ courts, the piazza there, Camberwell Green and the bus stations.
@155: That should be on the SE5Forum site. IMHO, that’s why the SE5Forum hasn’t engaged; no information is given out.
I agree Peter. Information could not be given out last year because everyone in SE5 has their own agendas, including the ‘authorities’, and diplomacy demands that everyone is polite and never gets to the crux of the matter. Believe me, even that post above made me think ‘should I be doing this?’.
IN my view the Working Group last year was derailed from the outset by a hidden agenda which was that many people on the group believed the council had let Camberwell down and they — ‘the authority’ — should somehow find £6 million to put into the leisure centre because it was their duty, not the local community’s, to find a long term ‘sustainable’ solution for the baths.
The issue was put out to tender by default because WE could not get our act together as a community and find common ground that served everyone’s interests.
Now it looks like the sacrosanct pool is going to go. To even suggest this as a possibility was regarded as Heresy a year ago.
I don’t care really what happens to the pool. It Should be a great swimming experience but it isn’t. I might have an ideal scenario where I was swimming backstroke down this wonderful, beautiful room with a gorgeous balcony and ceiling but in the end I just want to be able to SWIM locally, comfortably. And I can’t. And neither can my kids.
And do other things which I can get elsewhere easily but not on my doorstep. I WANT THEM ON MY DOORSTEP.
@168 Peter. I now see you were referring to 155. Again I agree. It will happen. Sorry I missed the point prior to 169.
Anyone know what’s happening at the Cambria?
On small shops. I do my best to support them, but they don’t do themselves many favours by selling food that’s past its best. Cruson, many of the Peckham yam shops, and Paul’s olive shop all fall into this. And it’s not like they’re loads cheaper. (except the yam shops)
I’ve been into Cruson looking for fruit n veg only to walk out cos half of it is so knackered. Have bought dips from Paul’s that’re on the cusp of going off, and don’t taste any better than the supers.
I hate the supers though.….
Curson, sorry.
4T4 OK but a decent Chinese fried rice or Caribbean rice and peas beats jollof rice anyday!
The retention of the pool is an important health and social issue for the people of Camberwell. With local obesity levels so high, poor mental health and nothing for kids to do, it means that purposeful, fun activity which involves social interaction..like swimming.. it essential. Where are the 1,000 Camberwell primary school kids, who currently are taught to swim there, going to go? There’s no inevitability about the Baths closing, in fact exactly the opposite. It aint over till the lady in the swimming cap sings.
Had to laugh at the comments about Selbourne Village @ 114, having lived there for nearly 25 years it’s one of the nicest parts of Camberwell. Plenty of the neighbours have lived here since the houses were build, testimony to a liking for a traffic free environment. Cheap build quality? The builder was Wates so there was nothing cheap about them.
Hey
Check out the Guardian Weekend supp — big advert for the new ‘Camberwell Grove’ development.
£1m for a townhouse.
Ouch.
Incidentally I do not think that keeping crap transport in camberwell will help the disadvantaged and keep house prices down. It _will_ keep house prices down, but at the expense of any interest (political and commercial), and any money coming into the area to help out. Southwark are more interested in “Bankside” and all the photo-friendly places.
We need good (nee the best) transport in this area. Buses don’t cut it. We need a system that can run on a timetable to encourage business etc into the area and, ultimately, bring more money that filters down to the people who truely need it.
There’s an amazing book ‘Emergence’ by Steven Johnson which has a very good angle on transport / deprivation and has appropriate references etc to academic papers. It’s an compelling read (mainly about bottom-up organisation in complex systems) and certainly blew my mind.
Anyone been in to the New Old Dispensary yet, apart from Mark?
The design only half works. The booths are good, but the beer-barrel seats are strange and relatively uncomfortable. Drinks are expensive. A pint of Staropramen and a G & T costs £8. I think this is because they do the Irish thing of charging over the odds for a mixer (they don’t seem to have soft drinks on tap). It’s definitely not a summer pub, but might be cosy in the winter.
On the positive side, the food looks okay, they’re getting in live music (6-9pm every Sun), and the clientele are lively (I’d describe them as “well-behaved Silver Buckle types”, although I think myself and Alan Dale are the only people who post on this blog who have actually gone for a drink in the Buckle, so that might put people off).
I’ll go for a roast one Sunday and stay for the music, before making a definitive statement about the place.
@176/7 robp — Your opinion on the public transport systems that serve Camberwell are held by many other bloggers on this site, so you’re not alone, but I don’t share them. We have Denmark Hill and Loughborough Jn to the south, Peckham Rye and Queens Rd Peckham (and further afield, New Cross/Gate) to the east, Oval to the west and Elephant to the north. We have in the region of 25 bus routes (which are more regular than they’ve ever been and I think do cut it). I don’t own a car (or a bike) and can’t imagine why I would want one because I can get anywhere I want with a little bit of planning. Even the recent spate of roadworks (Walworth Rd, The Green) haven’t caused me any problems — because I just change route. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Agree with Mushtimushta about Camberwell’s public transport system.
There aren’t many places in inner London that you can get a direct bus across every bridge in London from Vauxhall to Tower (ok, I know someone will probably say “but not lambeth”, but you know what I mean.)
The buses might not run to timetable but they are generally fine, as mush says, with a bit of planning (ie. leave home a little earlier, etc.)
Onto other things — why I love Camberwell no. 845:
Just came back from a wonderful brunch at Caravaggio. Its brilliant, cheap and serves plentiful portions with a smile. Nothing seemed too much trouble for the staff. The write up they got the other day in the Metro was very well deserved, I think.
And while I was there, two eastern European sounding chaps came in for a coffee. They got to chatting with the waiter and I heard them say they were “holidaying in walworth”.
Now I’ve heard walworth called many things in my time, but never a holiday destination.
I guess they were venturing a little further by making a visit to Camberwell.
Wonderful!
Agree completely re: our good transport. We’ve better transport than East Dulwich — many of whom take the same buses we do but for far longer. It’s a bit lazy to think a tube or train station would transform Camberwell. I believe it would un-do something special.
As for the pool — fight for it! While I respect Sir Dodds, it’s a bit rich to rubbish the SE5 Forum for being ineffectual for many years since you started it and led it. But good luck with a fresh start.
@robp — the hardest thing in the world is for a local to see how some parts of Camberwell, and the business community, are desperate for improved transport, if they do not personally need it themselves.
Only a tiny minority of households now own cars and even less park on-street in this high-residential density area of inner city London. But you have to ask why there are still so many cars if transport really is so great for everyone, not just your own personal commute or favourite shopping journeys to the centre at times convenient to you.
Someone who lives in Wyndham Road or by Burgess Park does not have a realistic tube/rail option. Sure, they can bus it to the tube/rail, but that involves a double transaction, i.e. waiting and transferring twice, which is highly time-inefficient, and therefore justly unpopular. More shuttle buses, less on-street parking, and more local rail options are what is needed to encourage inward investment and keep locals spending locally.
Both examples have buses to major tube/train options in 10 minutes tops. That’s better than East Dulwich.
And as I’ve said before, I’m happy to see parking permits cost more and believe Council tenants should have automobiles part of a wider means testing on a regular basis. If they can afford a car, and it’s not for work or disability, then they can afford to pay more rent.
But car parking/ownership is not a big issue here nor is lack of good transport. And locals do spend a lot locally. Sg just spent this very morning, as did my wife and I. The high street was booming with shoppers spending loads. And there are very very few shops sitting empty.
My earlier comment is what is commonly called an “opinion”, Regen. It is not intended as a dissertation (otherwise it would have been as long as one of your postings).
@181 perhaps it was a rhetorical comment and doesn;t need a response but “it’s a bit rich to rubbish the SE5 Forum for being ineffectual for many years since you started it and led it. But good luck with a fresh start.” I haven’t any idea what that means.
There’s been nothing ineffectual about the Forum if that’s what you mean. Some people have been beavering away in the background constantly getting things done.
Who’s rich? On Friday, we went to IKEA, Croydon, to buy an ASBO cat basket and some TRURO plastic trays in the sale. There is a whole range of MODEST knobs and BARNSLIG sundries. They have some slogans of interest to the psychogeographer: “Home is the most important place in the world.” “Getting your future home couldn’t be more easy.” The environment in the store is stark and usefully sterile, a feature of modernity to serves the highlight the curves of anything organic.
No-one’s saying there’s a crisis for 9–5 commuters, Newroad, whose needs you are thinking of.
But few disagree that increased business activity and inward investment would benefit Camberwell, and the transport needs of business — including rail freight — may just not be the same as you envisage for commuters.
I don’t think you fully take my point about waiting for both bus and train on board fully, separate to the journey time itself. It is the waiting part which is the double transaction, not the travelling journey time. That is why several posters point out that once on the bus, they remain there until their eventual destination. I also disagree that it is fair to compare low residential density East Dulwich with its get-a-seat rail station, richer demographic and superior shopping and leisure amenities, to SE5.
I continue to be disappointed with those who think So’ton Way residents do not live in the “real Camberwell”, so their transport problems should not be planned for. Is there even one reader on this blog who makes the cumbersome Walworth bus and Elephant Rail changeover on their way to work, that will show themselves now? Just one?
You wait for an insight about transport in Camberwell and three cheap restaurants come along at once.
Another update — spent a leisurely afternoon in Camberwell yesterday. Haircut at Teamworks — again, always very friendly.
Then thought about a drink at Funky Monkey, I see they’ve recently got under new management. Didn’t fancy any of the pub grub though, wanted something a little more substantial for early dinner.
So wandered up to the Castle and had an excellent steak for around £10. The food at the Castle seems to have picked up a bit, judging by the number of happy customers at 6pm having meals. Anyone else eaten there recently?
Shame they’d run out of Blanc though, but in the spirit of Euro 08, I opted for a San Miguel instead.
On the way home, marveled about what a lovely suburb I live in — lots of nice places to eat and drink in and quite an interesting place to explore, if you ignore the odd dross still clogging up the street (please tell me why a solicitors needs a shopfront at street level???).
I know some of you will shout that there are loads better places — claiming the likes of east dulwich etc — but there are also a hell of a lot worse (anyone been to Sydenham or West Norwood lately?)
@a89 Solicitors at street level: Hartnell’s opposite corner of Wren Road from Lloyds is perfect for a seriously good bar.
Called to the bar, indeed. Let’s not be beastly to the Germans this evening, they play nice. Shearer & co. are ridiculously anti-German, it’s embarrassing. We went to the Horniman this afternoon and stumbled on Nzinga again, the African drumming and dance outfit — they are stunning. http://www.nzingadance.org.uk
NZINGA!
Viva!
Ikea is an odd place. And hard to get to. Surely you didn’t drive? Uh oh.
We got our car from IKEA. It is not very fast. The food there is strange. The pasta for children is made from plastic. The coffee is decaffeinated only. Still, their cars are cheap. We have the VULVA. Very reliable.
The reliable Vulva. That reminds me… I must do my sit-ups.
Is your Vulva versatile enough for regular family outings Dagmar?
These days you could get a bus… What a nice sunny day! One of the pleasures of Camberwell is to sit by Burgess Park lake with a can of beer on the way home after work. Tatra beer is interesting, the Polish brew named after the mountain range. At 6% it transforms the view, though the can does not have the usual Polish “since 1066″ heritage tale of the tape. Also, like many Polish beers, one of the words on the exterior rubric reads “krak”. What is that?
Working near the site of the Old Nichol at the moment, very haunting.
Dispatches last night: The Truth about Street Weapons.
I switched on and thought “hang about I recognise that road” and surely I did for it was Paulet Road, featuring in it’s second tv appearance for gang and drug related crime within a year.
I used to try and cocoon myself with the (naive) belief that it wouldn’t happen “on my doorstep” but I’ve given up on that because surely one day it will.
genfink — Paulet Road is just a few footsteps away from the erstwhile Denmark Road shopping community, decimated by conversions — mostly hideously ugly — of shops to residential. One of the monstrosities is perpetually for sale, and little wonder.
These were once the hub of a vibrant local community before the usual local authority lazy rubber stamp approvals. Lots of residents’ cars parked buttcheek by jowl right where customers and suppliers would have wished to briefly visit to avoid a fine. The chippies can confirm the difficulties their suppliers have oft faced.
Shurely no connection between this community fragmentation and a rise in lawlessness and ghetto culture on our local streets?
Scary to see that Genfink. London is odd that way — you live not too far from pockets that rival Mayfair. Sadly your bit falls among some of the worst estates in London. I believe the group close to Oval rated as one of the worst recently in terms of crime. Yet it is only a half a mile from Cleaver Square and its idyllic village feel or Albert Square, which sits amid a lot of danger but could be Chelsea.
Still, you got post no.200.
Regeneguru @199 – I don’t suppose it would ever occur to once you’ve got your ranting hat on, but several dozen people actually live in those flats you sniffily dismiss in your previous post, are perfectly happy there, have never had the slightest hint of trouble and occasionally read this blog. Have you set foot in one of these people’s homes? Your talk of ‘lazy rubber stamp approvals’ doesn’t hold much water when you review the original planning application for the conversion of the laundrette on the street: rejected for a whole hosts of reasons, almost all related to the fact that the plans are not in keeping with the character of the street.
I sympathise with many of the sentiments you express on this blog, but to start dissing individual homes seems a trifle unnecessary and against the community spirit of the whole endeavour.
Hello everybody else, by the way. Keep up the good work and keep enjoying Camberwell. I know I will.
Street crime lessened in New York because there was an increase in street sellers and small shops, both of which were often 24-hour vendors, who were the eyes and ears of the streets, or seemed to be, anyway.
According to Levitt and Dubner’s FREAKONOMICS, crime in New York, and nationwide, lessened because of the resultant effect of the Roe vs Wade abortion bill. A controversial theory that has not been disproved, and is no longer widely discussed because of its implications.
I’ve lived in South London for the whole of my life and, in my experience, shopkeepers are the least likely people to get involved when a street crime has been committed.
Zero tolerance and santising the red light areas also reduced crime in NYC. Boris talks about zero tolerance.
I think the flats are nice and living on high streets is a good thing. We don’t need as many laundrettes and even banks as we used to (dare i say post offices). It’s a good use of space when housing is so short.
Yeah, no, shopkeepers don’t rush out and thump malefactors over the head with a cucumber, but the deterrent effect of there being little hubs of people has an effect. I think this is what Reg means, above, rather than insulting the people whose flats used to be small shops or pubs.
Reg has insulted everyone who owns a car, drives a car, voted Labour, removed trees for any reason — while excusing the gun toting anti-social people as victims of big bad car owners. His exageration and bluntness turns loads of us off Dagmar. Sorry. I’m not alone.
Ha! If you voted labour and cut down trees, what do you expect…
Dagmar, thanks for your supporting argument.
JH — yes, I have been in one of the aforementioned Denmark Road conversions for a soireh, but I am concerned with the outside. I had no intention of insulting the occupants, but I do believe they would respond positively to a Compulsory Purchase Order by Lambeth, subject to satisfactory compensation and re-housing. I was ignorant of the honourable exception you mention of the launderette, although I could scarcely have doubted the landlord would have tried his luck.
Norman Maine, I’d be interested to know how many hue and cries you have observed. I have seen only one since the mid-90’s in Camberwell, and in this both passers-by and traders were involved.
Newroad — On residential density, I reckon that a few more flats are justified, rather than the car parking spaces angled for by most developers (27 spaces for a recent application to convert one warehouse in Farmer’s Road). ‘Ticularly when you consider that the car park footprint of many new local developments is four times that of the flats themselves. After all, who would be so contemptuous of the car-less majority of Camberwell as to suggest that life here without a car was unviable?
Besides, it’s counter-intuitive. Shops are at street and eye level, inviting the grand public in to share increased community space, in reality just an extension of the thoroughfares along which we stroll. Whereas the inhabitants of converted shops often erect net curtains and “Vote Labour” posters to get passers-by to look away. On that subject I’d like to be quite clear that any invective is directed at the owners who do the conversions, and the planners who pass the applications without considering the cumulative effect of several such conversions, past and future.
Each application on its own merits.
Those residents who leave their cars parked long term in front of shops do worse than loudly breaking wind in the company lift, daily. Those who pavement park, as along Denmark Road, are not just anti-social. I put them in the same bracket as petty criminals, and believe they are more harmful to the community. They are vermin.
I make no claims about “all drivers/motorists”, but merely point out cause and effect. “99.9% cyclists, etc.” — now that is exaggeration. All I have pointed out is fact — that on-street parkers are parasites in that guise, whose cars take public space away from the local community, and hinder social interaction, but give nothing back. We can debate the extent to which this is parasitical, but not the fact. This is cause and effect observed, no insults. Perhaps they are otherwise upstanding citizens who guerilla garden, although I doubt it for the majority.
Declarations that “local shopping wouldn’t work if you gave it fair trading conditions”, whilst presumptuous and contrary to Mayoral policy, are all very well, but the perma-parkers pray God that local residents never get the chance to vote for fewer cars on the street in CPZ consultations, an approach more motorcrat than democrat, freeing me of the need to respond to the accusation of insulting Labour Party supporters.
Some trees are more important than houses.
Shall we all agree that such is for the SE5 Forum website and those keen to debate such should rehabilitate that failed enterprise to continue their debate?
Let’s get back to a new post (please Peter?) and talk summertime in Camberwell.
I second Newroad.
I want pub and restaurant reviews, hilarious tales of petty crime, a bit of culture, and JohnnyM winding people up, please.
Norman. Here here young person.
I’m well bored of these endless, circular debates about planning and transport and a “vision” in Camberhell.
Because — simply — it’s a dump, a crime caked toilet, a busy crossroads and very little more.
A place where if I go into a shop and buyer and seller are able to communicate with each other beyond the exchange of cash and grunts of bad grudging English then I walk out thinking — wow, community spirit!
So let’s stick to the basics please. Food and pub reviews. Tips on haircuts and TV aerials. Silly anecdotes.
Norman Maine I echo your call.
Stand at the corner of the green and the crossroads. The road up to Walworth is FIVE LANES wide. That’s wider than a dual carriageway. And it’s the same in all other directions. Just how charming do you think anywhere centred around a motorway crossroads is ever going to be?
So: The Old Dispensary’s revamp. I don’t like it. The bar booths are interesting, but that’s all. Felt grimy, crap. Still, at least the folk forced out of Jack Beards when it went uptown have got somewhere to drink.
Taste London. Really like this place. Lentil rice v good.
Lamoon. Thought this was going to be the usual Chinese slimy slop, but it was a pleasant surprise. Cheap too. But with all those hot plates going off and no ventilation you’ll leave with your clothes tainted. Extractor fans please?
Wow, I’m flying now. That barbers near Nandos on Coldharbour: use it at your peril! Some old dude with few teeth and bad BO made a right mess.
Yep. Not a good choice of barbers. He’s awful because cars park outside his shop.
Sorry.
Must now try Old Dis…
@213 Phil G:
gosh, if you really think that Camberwell is a “crime caked toilet”, I’ve got to ask, why do you live here? Seriously.….. not having a go at you or anything but maybe you should start to think about moving ???
I really couldn’t see myself living anywhere that I would describe in such a way.
It would be like working somewhere that you detested — er, but maybe you do that too.
Not looking for an argument, just intrigued.
You should look to move, for your own state of well being. You gotta live somewhere you’re happy in, mate.
Camberwell like many other places is what it is and nothing else so perhaps we should just enjoy what is good about it…
We have gone back to the future — yes we have copied America but they only copied our Victorian blueprint in the first place and made it an even more aggressive beast — which was some achievement, and no mistake…
SG, my pain is real. I’m trapped here. It’s all I could afford, all I still can afford. The other bits of London I looked at were even worse (New Cross etc).
Sigh, how our dreams die.
But back to Camberwell. It’s OK really, it has its moments. I like bits of it, just not the whole. I’ll move in a few years, assuming we still have a functioning economy.
In the meantime I try to enjoy what’s good about it. Mainly the Hermits and a few restaurants. I quite like convenience of DRINK STORE too.
@219
Phil, whenever I go past DRINK STORE on the bus, I always think that when that replace the current sign with the next photoshop designed upvc disaster — they could at least be decent enough to create an image of Father Jack from the classic Channel 4 sitcom “Father Ted” to give us all a good chuckle…
A quick check of crime stats may show surprising rankings for the area (1 worst in total number of crimes during last 12 months and % change comparison to year on year)
http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/index.php
1 East Walworth 23.8 (-4.3%)
2 Herne Hill 21.7 (+8.9%)
3 Camberwell Green 18.6 (+15%)
4 Oval 17.9 (+11.5%)
5 Brunswick Park 16.7 (+2.2%)
6 Newington (Elephant-ish) 13.8 (+18%)
7 East Dulwich (shock) 13.6 (-3.9%)
8 Tie: Coldharbour 12.9 (+10.1%)
– Tie: Faraday (West Camberwell) 12.9 (-4.7%)
10 Peckham 11.3 (+16.2%)
11 South Camberwell 11.2 (-10.6%)
12 Kennington 10.7 (+0.8%)
13 Vassal (Myatts Field-ish) 10.1 (-26.1%)
Surprised about Peckham and East Dulwich. Vassal (Myatts Field-ish) does well, though note drastic reduction.
Herne Hill at No. 2 has got to be the biggest shocker.
sg mentioned that Funky Munky is under new management. I haven’t been in there in a good while (stroppy bar manager pissed me off), so does anybody know what this entails? New food menu? Getting rid of the outdated selection of beers on tap? Bringing back Darren on the decks?
whoop whoop, i may live on a ghetto street but the park is a beauty.
So, can anyone recommend a good window cleaner, preferably one who’s happy to do a 3 storey house?
Ate and drank in the Bear the other evening, surprisingly good, better than expected wine list and a civilised “patio” in which to partake of a nictoine fix. Not bad value for money either.
I live in the Brunswick Park area and the crime stats can probably all be attributed to one particular house — which got raided yet again yesterday morning
Maybe that’s why the stats are up — the police are actually doing something in these areas and hence more crime is being reported
Or is it just that crime is getting worse there, hard to tell really I guess
I straddle CGreen and BPark. My theory is the Crown Court. Police immediately arrest those who get off of one charge with another — right on the steps of the court. Surely. That’s why the stats go up?
Probably not.
Love the Bear. Big welcomed addition.
And I’m missing Alan Dale. Are you there big guy?
I love the bear too, brilliant quiz night on a tuesday, good wholesome fun, and good wholesome food too.
If anyone in Camberwell desperately needs to know the time in Milan, Tokyo or Sydney, just pop in to Eroma/Bagel King and all your questions will be answered!
Ah a good vibe has returned to the blog. Camberwell is full of nice surprises!
Great kedgeree at the Bear.
Nice cream cake at the toilet.
Kedgeree at The Bear! That’s my favourite ever dish. I’m on this, toot sweet. I shall compare it to the kedgeree I once had at The Ivy. It’s a playoff — Camberwell vs Soho!
Their Sunday Roast is worth a look too
Big Man?!
Agreed– follow The Bear.
Been away from my seat for a little while.
Does everyone realise that St George are asking close to £1mill for a 2 bed house?!
CamberwellInever!
Don’t know if they’ll get it in tth current economic climate — are there any incentives — eg deposit paid etc..?
I might go along this weekend to the open day to have a nose at houses i can’t afford!
‘Safe as houses’!
London prices haven’t been shaken so bad and will recover. I remember the 90’s when we were scared by anti-capitalists ‘chickens coming home to roost and it will never recover — we must return to state control, etc.’.
Then look what happened. Suspect they’ll sell slower, but at good prices. And welcome welcome St George. We’ve been waiting for you such a long long time.
Hannah, what a nice change you make from grumbly men complaining of crumbly Camberwell. Yes, exactly, there are some flakey bits in Crimeberwell but you can’t have your cake and eat it. The work will continue, to build Camberwell Grove, and it will be grand. The people arriving there are likely to have jobs, money and excellent prospects, not to mention toilets.
Apparently Ray Lewis is a very naughty boy. Boris’ man is on the Lambeth list..
That’s the trouble with preachy anti sleaze. Invites scrutiny.
Sack the Mayor and bring back the booze!
And so it was.
That the bloggers liked the new blog.
But they just wanted Peter back.
240, woy, I’m avin’ that.
241, lots of fun.
242, balls to you.
243, woy, woy
@236… Dropped your knickers a bit quick there newroad, no?
broadly though, i’d agree, more people with a bit of money to spend will be good for the area.
i always fancied living on camberwell grove
Hopefully the people who move into the Mary Datchelor in Camberwell Grove/Grove Lane will be able to influence the insular paltroons who work for Southwark Council into addressing some of the problems that we’ve been discussing long before the camberwellblog ever came into being
It’s truly amazing the influence that can be exerted by a group who aren’t considered a part of the great unwashed by local councillors
I was in my birthplace Belsize Park yesterday, visiting someone who was rather poorly in a hospice. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe my parents should have tried to stay in that area.
It reminded me of Dulwich Village and Herne Hill but on a far greater scale…but I still didn’t see a street with the unique features of Windsor Walk — what a shame that the Kings College Trust has never looked after this road and when it has spent money they have built such a crass standard of development…
I would argue our local Councillors (and all in Southwark for that matter) give unequal time and energy to those on Council Estates (representing the poorest among us). That’s the biggest voting blocks and I think you’ll find they spend more time on their issues than on any others (espscially since they are their landlords). Not sure if they are the ‘great unwashed’ but I think it’s what you are suggesting. They get far more attention, and more investment than most. Look where the latest round of community grants went.
Yeah, save and work all your life and, unless you’re rich, you’ll end up in a care home alongside someone who couldn’t be bothered to do so, and is getting it for free.
This principle applies throughout society.
A housing association runs my block. Their tenants are doing very nicely. The owner occupiers, who in some cases earn less, get nothing but bills and grief to pay for yet more unnecessary services to tenants.
What’s your point Phil? No welfare?
It’s obviously true that having a welfare safety net will create inefficiencies at the margins but what are the alternatives?
Furthermore, you seem to imply that people only save and work all their life to pay for retirement benefits that are given out anyway. Who are these dimwits?
Save and work all your life and you certainly increase your chances of being rich and are also likelylto have a much better time between now and when you relax into your pissy seat infront of ITV next to a benefit fraudster.
If you genuinely believe you’d be better off on welfare then surely youy don’t need me to tell you what to do?
Annual means testing. No hereditary rights.
council housing made easier and fairer.
But it’s a lovely day so get ready for wimbledon and lazy days…
250, woy!
Edits don’t work. Sorry for typos.
@246
I always regard myself amongst the great unwashed — naturally
I’m not that bloody arrogant…
I don’t wash either.
How come Dulwich swimming pool got an upgrade and Camberwell didn’t?
The social class of the Dulwich residents and their shrill yet articulate lobbying wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would it?
I doubt it given that Peckham pulse dicks on both…
Nope. Moor underprivileged footfall at East Dulwich. And we spent multiple millions on Peckham.
I’m all for standing up for the poor, but when the evidence shows they’ve been given so much, it sort of makes you look foolish to play the card incorrectly.
I’m all for standing up for the poor too. We wouldn’t be rich without them. That’s for sure.
D-MAN @253
Exactly — It’s as simple as you’ve said and nothing else
There’s no better advantage than to have worn the correct school tie
I guess my point is the system doesn’t work.
In my block, people whose rent WE are subsidising include:
– a bloke with a very nice sportscar (£30K+ of metal)
– a bloke who shouldn’t be there because he’s subletting off a subsidised tenant
– a well paid medical professional.
– a woman who runs a business from the block, who certainly isn’t short of a few quid.
So, we’re all paying their rent. That’s not welfare. It’s grotesque.
They gave multiple millions to Peckham, the poorest of the area which is only three bus stops away. And Dulwich serves far more low income people.
And they are giving us 1.5 million plus working with us to get external help.
And they refurbed many other Leisure Centres across the Borough.
Such unfounded hogwash is why they simply do not know what to do with Camberwell.
But yes, you are right. They ignored us because we are the great unwashed.
I tried to join East Dulwich leisure centre when I lived there (yes, happy days).
What an utter, utter dive it was. I can see how it’s easy to blame well-off sharp elbowed folk for getting the goods, but that place really needed it.
Mind you, so does Camberwell.
I cancelled my Peckham Pulse membership this year after 2 years there. Substandard gym. Some awful clientele. Just got tired of it really, especially when they increased the prices. Good pool though.
I used to use Peckham Pulse but gave up for similar reasons.
The changing rooms were always dirty and i disliked the unisex swimming pool changing rooms — i’d rather have single sex and no cubicals.
The classes were badly organised and often cancelled at the last minute. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating i used to do kickboxing classes there and i now belong to a private Martial Arts club where i train in private gyms across central London and my weekly fees work out much cheaper than using Peckham Pulse.
If i want to swim i go to the Oasis Sports centre in Covent Garden — it’s clean , reasonably priced, well run and pleasant — why can Camden manage that but not Southwark?
It sounds wrong but the clientele at Oasis is quite different.
Not sure why gov’t should run leisure, they are notoriously bad. Add to it a client base that doesn’t respect the facilities and you’ve a recipe for disaster. Truth is we could pump 8mil into Camberwell only to find it run down yet again in 1 year’s time.
Hannah — yeah, I used to go to spinning classes at Peckham. The instructor was useless, and I’ve been to classes in many gyms.
Looking back, Peckham Pulse really is the pits. What’s worse is that we’re paying council tax for leisure, and then paying again for membership, and it’s STILL rubbish.
I work near Oasis on High Holborn. Is it good?
Newroad, you can complain about spending money on poor areas, but that’s the price for keeping a lid on things.
Relatively, it’s good value, especially if you’re well off.
Not complaining. Just using hard evidence to prove your whole argument was flawed.
But if you tell me you fought hard at the countless meetings re: the Leisure Centre, then I will be glad to entertain your facts about the outcome. Otherwise its just ill informed barbs thrown out post-fact that only make things worse.
@Phil G
Speaking as a Council tenant, I can tell you that it doesn’t feel like the Council is totally focussing all the borough’s resources on me. And I’ve never claimed a single benefit in my life, didn’t “inherit” my tenancy and don’t own a sports car (can’t drive, actually!) So please, don’t waste any of that bile on thinking that you’re keeping ME in the lap of luxury. Perhaps my ownership of a computer to leave this posting means that I should be means tested and removed from my home of 20 years? If you have an illegal sub-letter, I’m sure you know how to resolve that one. One telephone call is normally all it takes.
Newroad has one point — that throwing money at a problem doesn’t always solve it. Inner city areas like ours need policy solutions, not just 100% grant-funded project work.
It is wrong to suggest public sector management is never the best solution; that encourages a lazy PPP approach. The lesson from New Labour is that any organisation tends to take a more relaxed view of spending taxpayers’ money than their own.
The No.1 challenge of finding something to run the Baths was always about making the Green seem like an attractive destination — but no campaigner picked up on that, so all we’ve had is a pavement replacement and a new toilet.
reg @267
Well maybe the influence of the new Mary Datchelor tenants may well pave the way for a town centre masterplan in Camberwell rather than leaving it at the mercy of the lowest common denominator…
I’m sure their presence will guarantee at least a couple of East Dulwich type businesses to open on Church Street
A limescaled toilet at that, what was it? Crime scaled? Grime caked? Corncrake? Cornflaked? Carrot-flecked? The Baths are great for toddler gyms and the Pulse good for toddler swimming. The toilets in the Baths are very pongy — remind me of remote Greek islands. It’s good. Anyway, daytime people with small children — these are people who really appreciate the Baths and the Pulse. Now that the economy is going down the toilet, useful local places like them will be even more valuable, but less affordable, as the money recedes to the distant suburban rim.
We already have many ‘Dulwich type’ shops, whatever they are. Be nice to have some more. I’d also challenge you to show me where the ‘Dulwich elite’ campagined for investment in their Leisure Centre. It was actually a quite dispassionate, very straight forward analysis across the Borough and given the severity of so many Centres, was a good result for a way forward. Our local Councillors did little — they are the ones whose Governments let them rot. Now local people are finding a good solution. Despite folks hyjacking it with issues of parking and Councillors like Alison McGovern pretending to be effective. Go local team. You’ll do it in spite of the obstacles by (mostly) local people.
‘Snot about the leisure centres, although they’re symptomatic. Proof of the existence of some kind of Dulwich Connection may be found in the Council’s successful resistance of the designation of Dulwich as a high-residential-density area despite overwhelming pressure from Mayor Ken and central Government.
Camberwell has better architecture and more conservation areas than Dulwich, so why are the high-rise porthole window breeze block cheap builds planned for SE5, instead of SE22?
Local Labour councillors did not lift a finger in protest, because campaigning for quality of public space is something of which the mythical working class would disapprove.
So it’s who you know rather than what you know?! Who let the dogs out?!
Now that we’ve realised then the surely plan should be to get to know some people.
All that is still oh so familiar. Groundhog DAYS.