Mobile Library
Written by Peter | Filed under Development
I took a walk around the Green this morning and the sight of the Magistrates Court reminded me that I was going to write something about the proposal to move the library. As you may or may not know, Southwark Council have an 8,000 sq. ft. prefabricated building in Bermondsey which is now unused, and they’re considering moving it to the plaza in front of the Court and using it to house the library (currently on Church St.), a meeting space, and cafe. You can see the plans in this consultation document [PDF].
The Camberwell Society object to the proposal on the grounds that the building’s just too big; it would occupy most of the currently open plaza, making it very cramped, and involve cutting down some of the orchard (which they say is ‘becoming lovely’, although I’d dispute that) and some and nearby trees. Also, planning permission was granted only last year for children’s play resources and tree re-planting.
They say the move is likely to cost somewhere in the region of £500,000, and the building itself has an estimated life span of only 10 years, so would rather see the money spent on developing the existing library and meeting spaces in the leisure centre. There would also be costs involved in breaking the leases that are held on the current property.
I received an email from someone suspecting ‘ulterior motives’ for the Council’s proposal, and the author has some questions that they feel haven’t been answered, including:
- Has an application for planning permission been made?
- What is the total projected cost of the move?
- Have estimates been made for repairs to the existing building?
- What will be done with the old building?
Someone on this blog mentioned a Tesco opening in the current library’s position, but I’m not sure if that was any more than a joke or speculation.
I have to say that I’m not against this proposal if it brings benefits, but I agree that the proposal for meeting spaces and cafe could easily be met by funding the leisure centre, in which case moving the library doesn’t seem to make much sense.
The Council are running the public consultation until 21 April; download a copy [PDF] and fill in your responses if you’re interested in making your voice heard.
The consultation is a bit of a joke.
It mostly asks what you want from a library. What it does not ask are detailed questions about what the benefits or disadvantages are of having this specific library building in this location.
I know that some of the librarians are unhappy about this because (surprise, surprise) no-one in the council seemed to think it might be a good idea to ask them what they thought. One of their concerns is that they may feel a little bit out of the way there and get less passing traffic.
Half a million for something that will only last ten years seems a lot. We could do a lot more with that if we had, say, an old bingo hall that could be made into a central community centre.
Right, off to do some gardening http://www.camberwellsecretgarden.co.uk (it’s looking lovely by the way) and then watch the grand national at the Hermit’s Cave…talking of which… big news there, but refuse to be the first to say it just to wind Brendan and Moira up.
As Brendan and Maura aren’t likely to tell anyone anything so here we go:
Hermit’s have got the lease on Funky Munky… We tried to get it as well but it was too much dancing around and they persisted more than we did.
Well done to them; I really hope they get it right — it will be great for Camberwell if they make a success of it.
They will make a success of it. They are they.
Dagmar you are, as ever, almost certainly correct. Or was I thinking of Alan Dale?
On the mobile library piece, and lest there be misunderstanding I have my flat cap on; this is my view NOT SE5 Forum’s (for those who don’t know; I am co founder, and now vice chair, and my habit of saying things on public fora appears to create confusion in some places about what I am representing when, really, I would NEVER say anything on the part of SE5 Forum without stating so very clearly). ): (:-) This is me.
It’s a shame but the way the library consultation is presented puts the administration at Southwark in a very poor light. Following Southwark’s silence (along with other political bods such as Harriet and Tessa) over Gala Bingo (where there was a very loud and car park full busy service this evening by the way); the planning department’s numerous odd behaviours over Camberwell for years; the very messy scenarios over Burgess Park consultation; the vacating of the Town Hall and taking Council business to the already rich north without so much a nod or a tip of the hat hasn’t helped either.
People KNOW a lot of this is to do with previous administration but to locals the traditional arms-length behaviour feels to have carried on seamlessly since Labour were elected when really, they had a good head start for getting some great PR in, and a LOT of people behind them, if they had played their cards right from the day they got in, what with that dreadful coalition in place at Westminster, to gain a LOT of feel good support among Camberwellarians — by tapping into a widespread wave of sympathy, even empathy, among The People toward any new local administration who got into power at such a calamitous time anywhere.
Instead of any attempt at a PR boost there has largely been silence from this administration since they got in and now this consultation doesn’t come across as a consultation at all. In the context in which it appeared this is more like an advert for a plan already hatched behind closed doors: ‘we’re doing this because we know it’s what you want, and we think you’re worth it, thank us and we might even try and put a few of the things you suggest in there when it happens. If you don’t like it? Well, you won’t get anything and see how you like that’ is how it feels.
It seems familiar. Things get done to Camberwell and few people locally appear ever to have an input into how it should be done before it’s too late. This has been going on forever as far as people who live and work here are concerned, with the exception of what happened to the Baths — and even that’s run into shortfalls and shortcomings recently which directly impact on people’s thoughts and views about the proposal to spend a LOT of money moving a building to a piazza in the hope of solving a problem there’s not any proof it will address adequately.
Camberwell needs a closer dialogue with its local authorities more urgently now than ever. The feeling held across a wide range of groups, individuals and even some of the local statutory bodies and third sector organisations is that Southwark is remote and closed off when it comes to anything to do with Camberwell. ‘Local democracy that’s top down and Stalinist’ is how several people have described the state of affairs for the Camberwell community in the past. To my own surprise even Labour insiders have said the same… off the record of course. And so it goes on.
Camberwell needs to be looked at holistically. This has never been done in spite of it having been asked for innumerable times. I know this was being suggested by local people from a wide range of backgrounds and opinions well before I set up business here in 1995 and to my knowledge nothing substantially has changed in all that time.
A Town Centre Manager has been on the cards for over a decade. The most recent development on that front is a ‘virtual town centre management team’ — of officers from both sides of the borough divide. How many of you know about that? A ‘Virtual Town Centre Management’ team of people who don’t live here, don’t directly work here but who clearly know all the nuances of what needs to happen to our town better than we do, I mean the people who live and work here who will be living with the outcomes of their decisions made remotely in meetings we know nothing about for decades coming.
That’s not Big Society, it’s not Civil Society, it’s not Localism. It’s not getting the best bang for our bucks. It’s not making anyone feel better about anything to do with their local lives.
It does not need to be so. It could change. It’s never too late.
And we’re back. Apologies for the lack of website on Sunday; hopefully it forced you, bleary-eyed, into the bright world outside.
Tonight, 9pm on BBC4, Michael Collins, the DJ of concrete council estate critical theory — his programme on council estates. Camberwell is sure to loom.
“The People of Providence”, edited by Tony Parker, was a fascinating collection of views from Camberwell estate folk. Parker was the British Studs Terkel.
Mark, I am constantly stabbing myself with my own stupidity, stubbing my toe on my own clumsiness and stumbling over my own cumbersome misapprehensions, mumbling as I bumble.
However.
The Hermits is a textbook example of how a pub should be run.
The Munky has been a different sort of creature but was always a real laugh. To have two versions of the Hermits as the Gates of Camberwell each side of the road bodes well for the world-weary entering herein.
Maybe there should be a Bridge of Sighs over the road for the safe decanting of revellers from one opportunity to the other.
I picked the National winner and got an each way on the 4th. Not bad eh, two results from three bets. Small stakes though.
Very interesting about Hermits/Munky. Much as I have spent many, many hours in the Hermit and visit each week, I do wonder what they (Who is they anyway? The snowy haired Irish guy? The buxom bar manageress?) will do with a space like the Munky.
Love the Hermit but on decor, music, food and the rest it has to score no points.
Or are they going to hand it to the art students? Be good if they could reinvigorate Munky. I shall watch with interest. A long time since I’ve been to the Munky after 11pm.
Looking forward to the Munky becoming the music/food wing of the Hermits. Wonder if they’ll change the name, and if so what too? IIRC it used to be called The Artichoke.
The Artichoke it was and after that it was Brambles and then it was Cafe Katz and then it became Funky Munky.
Peter, a long post is still awaiting moderation from some days ago. Any chance you can release it please?
That was a good programme by Michael Collins tonight on BBC4 about council estates, topped off by the mighty Heygate, hey, hooray, yay!
It’s no use saying the Heygate is not in Camberwell, because it is in Heygate, which is just as large as the SE5 which it abuts.
My man with the pint of Shires and pipe full of Churchman’s Old Shag billowing under the peak of his flat hat into the eyes of the nearby sound design and customer insight MA students reckons that the new Funky Munky will take some time to develop — years, maybe — unlike the whizzbang, self-consciously themed places which come and go. With narrowed eyes, he opines that any pub should be built up like a cairn with stones rolling down as the core slowly rises.
With that, he stuffs his dog into the pipe and is gone in an instant into the swirl of night fog that has taken claim of the early summer that has unseasonably intruded into the ever-changing yet never-moving crossroads of Camberwell life.
As I said in my library consultation response the roads around Camberwell Green need to be remodelled somehow so that the area feels more connected with the rest of Camberwell town centre — ie Church St and Denmark Hill. Currently the far side of the Green feels very cut off by the at times six lane road that runs through the centre of Camberwell. Also a nice bus station type arrangement near the Green (linked to a reopened Camberwell station) would free up the pavements greatly — whether the council has the political will to or means to press Transport for London is a different matter but we live in hope.
The redevelopment of the Munky could be good for the area — I can remember good nights upstairs there in 2003-5ish — I would have thought there potentially could be lots of demand for a late night venue in Camberwell.
@monkeycat & J Mark Dodds
Spot On…As ever
The library consultation is really poor — same old, same old — how depressingly familiar — I felt insulted filling it in.
Good news about the funky munky…It would make sense to let the art students have a hand on the tiller…
I’m sure Brendan and Maura are wise and experienced enough to rein them in if things got a bit too obtuse (although I like that at times!) — but it could work beautifully.
The Artichoke does sound like the perfect name for a gastropub though.
How about Carciofi? http://bit.ly/hkEQvO
J Mark Dodds
Looks Great…
I’ve just got back from the Lake District (North Lakes) and I’ve been stuffing myself with great food and walking it off in between.
I even got to the Hartside Top Cafe.
perfick
i’d quite like to see both the little roads around the green closed for traffic & the green itself extended onto the roads and onto the platform in front of the court — the two little roads are not tfl so, ‘in theory’ could be done. and it would make a massive, positive difference for the area and the people.
or a library+arts & culture/community centre in the former, reclaimed, gala bingo hall.
or the entire area around butterfly walk pedestrianised (so that the roads off church st link up with daneville rd) and the car park transformed into something beautiful/breathable?
It’s like an axis of booze. People outside the Munky checking out people outside the Hermits.
The kids and normals wondering through the middle as they make their way to and from their swimming lessons at the Baths.
Bizzaro set-up.
^edit: wondering should have been wandering. But it kind of works anyway… walking past the Munky wondering, who are these creatures?
Some good ideas there lili
I fear that the Camberwell Society’s officers and committee have lost some of their edge; the current issue of the magazine acknowledges that they’ve misread the mood of the membership. (There was also the embarrassment of being anti-bus last year. Did they have a view on the future of the cinema/bingo hall?
And on other matters can anyone recommend a friendly local who fixes washing machines? I think mine is fixable but it needs a strong chap (or chapess) to move it — beyond the strength of this OAP.
@SouthLondonJohn
Regarding the ex-Gala Bingo Hall/Cinema and the Camberwell Village Hall campaign…The official line was that the Camberwell Society didn’t wish to get involved whatsoever.
Although we were extremely dissappointed by their stance…the door remains open but alas we have heard nothing more.
It is interesting that you mention the magazine acknowledges it has misread the mood of the membership. I wonder if certain events over the course of the last year has caused some to question the way things currently stand?
So, Gabe, you are not a fan of the Heygate. Did you read that long article in the Guardian about the ‘Gate recently?
I just watched the Michael Collins doc on iplayer…I really enjoyed it.
As someone who lived in an L.C.C, 4 story red brick block whose parents moved there because we lived in cramped lodgings with a landlady — the flat inside was great, we always loved it.
But as the film explained it was the relaxation of the rules and regulations together with the hideous experiments of the late 50’s to 70’s period and then the Thatcher government which helped to undermine the strong social structures and relationships maintaining such places.
Then Labour becoming anti-Labour which did absolutely nothing to get back to the original purpose and point of some of these magnificent pieces of architecture.
Walworth Garden Farm has this coming up:
Free one-day workshop: Introduction to herbal medicine.
Open to anyone aged 19+
Tuesday May 10th or June 14th. 10-3pm.
at Walworth Garden Farm. Manor Place/ Braganza Street. SE17 3BN
This one-day workshop will take a brief look at the history and politics of western herbal medicine, then look at traditional uses of some common kitchen herbs and wild growing plants. We’ll explore one herb more fully in depth and then look at the different ways of preparing and using herbs, including making an ointment.
Places are limited. To book please phone: 0207 582 2652
or email: womenshealthproject@yahoo.co.uk
lili wrote
“i’d quite like to see both the little roads around the green closed for traffic & the green itself extended onto the roads and onto the platform in front of the court — the two little roads are not tfl so, ‘in theory’ could be done. and it would make a massive, positive difference for the area and the people.”
Firstly I must say I live on the Peabody estate on the green.
This seems to appear to be a good idea until access by emergency vehicles comes into the scenario. I’d hate to be burned to the ground because someone wanted more green bits.
Also how would I load the lorry if I decided to move, walk all my furniture 200 yards or so?
You could green the area from Church Street to the main gate perhaps, but then it would be just another area for people to drop used beer cans etc.
Greening the area fronting the court house would be good however, perhaps with paths as required. This area is very bland.
Just my two cents worth.
@Lili and Chunters: How about a compromise?
You could keep the road to the Peabody estate, but only have access from D’Eynsford Road round the side of the Magistrates’ Court. There would also be access to the OAP home and the terrible doctor’s surgery but there would be green “bridge” from the Green to the Orchard and the square in front of the courthouse.
Re the Camberwell Society. I think it is becoming an increasingly irrelevant organisation as it becomes clearer and clearer that it is only concerned with the retention of the look of buildings in a very small area around Camberwell Grove and Grove Lane.
I seem to remember putting a rather strongly worded comment on this blog to say how disgusted I was at the Camberwell Societies stance regarding the bingo hall. They are happy to complain about They seem interested only in that which directly affects Camberwell Grove and Grove Lane and the immediate environs. Nothing I saw in the latest copy changes that, but gladly will be corrected and still think their attitude to the bingo hall and their lack of raising objections smacked of naval-gazing self interest and showed that they have no real commitment to those who are less fortunate than them in improving the area other than to object to any building that doesn’t match their ideal (idyll?).
@chunters: fair point re emergency access — it may be that alternative access could be worked out ?
the one thing i was trying to do, rather than give ‘finished proposals’ is show that, if the council actually bothered asking the local residents what they would like to see happen, many would have many ideas, some workable, some maybe less so? x
I use the libraries at Camberwell and Peckham quite regularly, sometimes Newington. Having tried many services UK wide, I quite like this one. It’s one of the few times I feel I’m personally getting any tangible value for the £1K council tax I wear.
Though I’m not going to object to a new library for Camberwell, it does seem a bit mad that one of the main justifications for a new build and all the upheaval is that the kids’ books are downstairs and staff have to go round the back to get to the office. Is that all? FFS I thought the council was short of cash.
Also, in an effort to drive vistor numbers and stay ‘modern’, our libraries seem to have turned into web cafes. Folk there messing about on laptops, not like they’re studying either half of them. It should be about books, and reading.
All in, I think the current library is fine.
Saw this in the Standard today. FYI. I have no particular view on it, but Daily Mail or not it does seem a bit odd.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1376595/Council-spends-8million-making-school-meals-free–bid-end-poor-stigma.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
I support the provision of free school meals.
I think it’s a sensible priority. Certainly more important than electronic whiteboards.
I am at one with Alan
The council have introduced free school meals, but I understand that as a result they now need to start charging, or charging more, for after-school clubs to balance their books. There’s no simple answer, but putting off the parents of young children from going back to work or working full-time because they have to meet additional child care costs is likely to cause as many problems as are solved by free school meals.
For anyone who feels the Camberwell Society is not being an effective local force, the AGM is next month. Join and elect a committee that you think will do a good job.
I support extending the school day too.
Certainly a better use of funds than administering qualifications in ‘citizenship’.
A central library is essential to a healthy Camberwell. Only recently, I was reduced one night to reading the back of a Woodpecker cider can in a small, dark, cobbled yard. Squinting at the small print, I could make out the word “unit” and the word “limit” but could not quite tell the difference between the two. Rather embarrassingly, two friends passed by on their way from dinner to the Hermits Cave nearby and saw me interrogating the can, my lips moving slowly, my hand scratching my head.
Joining them in the pub, the interplay of “unit” and “limit” so confused the binary-system wiring in my brain that my resulting mental intensity began to discombobulate my two friends. Eventually, I was reduced to scribbling notes on pieces of paper to hand over to them, like fragments of text from a dead prehistoric language, before shambling off into the night looking for answers in imaginary runes carved between the London buses on the moon. They have not looked at me in the same way since.
Here’s ONE of the things that could happen, alongside the library, and a theatre/dance/performance/film/live music programme in a venue LIKE the Gala cinema building: http://www.3rdward.com/
Then there could be residential, a hotel and a number of other income generating things, community wardens and many vountary and third sector organisations could be based there too.
It’s a good model to repeat and there are many others out there already doing exciting things that are community based and financially sustainable.
I was once sitting on the pavement opposite Pacifico in Covent Garden, having been unexpectedly royally sick in the loos after too much Margarita (I didn’t feel even a bit pissed until I stood up to go for a pee) and was recovering with a friend who was similarly afflicted. He was ex Oxford and there we were looking like street drinkers who’d fallen into the gutter when John said ‘Oh my god NO. Hide me’. As Darius Guppy and three other posh bods strolled by… ‘Hello John, how are you?’ he said. They had been in that dining club together and this was the first time they’d bumped into each other after leaving college. At least I was invisible.
It was a long time ago.
On Thursday 5 May there will be a meeting at The Sun and Doves for people who are interested in registering interest for their children to attend the Michaela Community School which we hope will open for Year Seven in September 2012… http://michaelacommunityschool.co.uk/
Good call by the council regarding free school meals — Credit where it’s due. I greatly approve!
@J Mark Dodds
There are so many examples of what the ex-Gala cinema theatre building could be — The potential is endless as are the varying permiatations for what it could be…
Arts Mix in Bethnal Green Road in Shoreditch is another good example as is Albany Deptford — both are excellent but are limited by a shortage of space — The site in Camberwell doesn’t have that problem.
It’s space an asset and main advantage to do something truly fantastic and unique for this community and it’s environs. Which would leave a positive lasting legacy for years to come.
Alan, how’s our application for a boris bike stand on The Green coming along?
I can get as far as the petrol station dock at the top of Walworth Road, but have to resort to the bus from there.
Thought i’d say it now before i forget. Number 67 at the South London Gallery is now open until 11 from Wednesday til Saturday. Just eating cakes and food there now and it’s yummy! Will be back for more very soon.
ON the new school: http://michaelacommunityschool.co.uk/
There’s going to be an information evening at The Sun and Doves on 5 May at 6pm. If you’re interested please register via the website so we can accommodate numbers.
It will be a good opportunity for anyone concerned about new schools being set up by people rather than corporations or local authorities to meet the steering group face to face.
Had a Spanglish in the sun at No. 67 this morning; very tasty. I enjoyed the exhibition that’s on at the moment; it feels like you’re entering a television studio mid-shoot; there are cameras, scaffolds, and signage. Three screens show different films; on one, there are dancers in the same space you observe it from, but the footage looks as if it were shot in the 1980s. I liked it.
Tipped-off by Gay Camberwell on here, we went to Zeret Kitchen the other day. Vegetarian special for £7 each. Lentils, split peas and all that stuff I like. The sourish pancakes are different, thou.
The woman running the place has a fabulous, beaming smile. Worth going just for that.
Spanglish? That sounds cross-cultural.
@Mark — the school meet in your pub is mostly for parents with a child going to secondary school in September 2011?
@Gabe it’s for anyone really but if for parents it those who have children in year five and four now who will be applying for secondary entry in September 2012. ‘It’s too late for our eldest chhildren now what’s the point of bothering?’. My eldest son may well be going to a Catholic boys’ school. Nothing to be concerned about if you’re Catholic or want your children to have an education that is engaging and stimulating at the level they are used to. I don’t want my youngest to be in the same leaky boat.
http://bit.ly/fdjZlC
The Lighthouse mob are planning an Easter celebration and a Reggae weekend too at the Gala Bingo Cinema anything but a church building. It looks like they must have got planning permission for change of use after all?
If you have the fortune to be social mediad to the hilt and are Facebook enhanced then please do see HERE and perhaps become a ‘LIKE’ of the new Michaela Community School. It will offer a genuinely comprehensive, rounded education for a broad intake.
Mark, I actually support the school you are now supporting. But I am amused and confused by the silence on this blog. After all it is a Coalition backed idea and our own former Deputy Head of St Michaels Katharine Birbalsingh is behind it — she who was slated badly here by you and everyone else when she spoke at the Conservative Party conference. If this blog is anything, it is pro Old Labour and everything (far) left of that. Those of us more centrist or right aren’t exactly welcomed. So none of you think starting a free school ala Toby Young is a bad idea? Odd…but good news from my (minority) perch.
I thought she came across quite well when her book was serialised on the radio in March. But then it was her book so that’s not very surprising.
Mark certainly wasn’t very complimentary at the time, but it’s fair enough to change your mind:
I certainly think that a lot could be done to improve inner city education and I won’t criticise anyone for trying as long as they are well intentioned and not doing anything that likely to cause irrevocable harm to kids or the community.
“If this blog is anything, it is pro Old Labour and everything (far) left of that. Those of us more centrist or right aren’t exactly welcomed.”
If this blog is anything, it is neutral. I present stories as I find them, and try to keep party politics out of it — although as it’s a safe Labour seat, I’d say I’m more critical of Labour than any other party.
The commenters and general debate drifts left (although I’d debate the ‘far left’ label in the majority), but I don’t agree that anyone else is not welcomed; I am happy to say I’ve never censored any comment for opinion (I do occasionally remove personal details).
That said, comments will be disputed or debated — especially if your comment doesn’t chime with everyone else. I myself have short shrift with people who try to create a divide between ‘hard working people’ and ‘the left’, as if the two are mutually exclusive (I’m not accusing you of this, I’m referring to past incidents).
I would say that yes, if anything, I am ‘old Labour’ — the party of the working class; but that party no longer exists. However, I’m not rabid about it, I am a realist, and I try to keep this blog in that spirit.
As to free schools, I’ve no idea; I don’t have children, let alone school-age children, so I’m currently preoccupied with other stuff.
Fair point Peter, and I try to separate your quite political personal tweets from your fair moderation here. The “unwelcome-ing” comes from the masses (well majority) who do seem to get worked up if anyone deviates from the party line. Especially Dodds who shouts loudest. Fair enough, but now he goes way off piece and.…silence. Just find it odd.
Chin up David you’re not alone. We don’t all vote Labour. Though what use that serves in this ward I often wonder.
@David; I’m unclear as to how I have gone way off piece. And certainly not clear about what the party line on this blog is. I thought it is as Peter describes it.
The quote above is me being straight about what I picked up from The Press. Hissssss. Having met Katharine my view is better informed and, based on conversations with her, I’ll say that any caution I had is gone and I will support her to the hilt in setting up a new school. Education needs more people like Katharine.
IF you support the idea of the school then please do go and actually support it http://on.fb.me/enF6Yr and come to the meeting at S&D on 5 May.
If there is scepticism about free schools out there in Camberwell why not come to the infomation evening at S&D on 5 May and ask questions?
Reserve your space http://michaelacommunityschool.co.uk/register,
Perhaps it’s silly to point out that a great education for all should not be a political football but given that it is — it’s worth supporting this new school.
THIS just in from Southwark:
Are you a parent or carer who has recently applied for a Southwark Secondary school place for your child?
Southwark Council are undertaking a review of schools admissions and support for parents and carers. As part of this we would like parents and carers whose children have applied for a Southwark secondary school place to complete a questionnaire.
The council would like to hear about your experiences so we can make suggestions for improvements. We would very much appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to fill out a questionnaire. Please follow this link to access the survey.
Alternatively a paper copy is attached (I can’t attach it here;MD) with a freepost address to return.
If you have any questions or have more to say then please contact the Scrutiny team on 020 7525 0514 or email Julie.Timbrell@southwark.gov.uk.
Survey deadline is 13 May 2011.
HERE IS THE LINK IF IT DOESN’T WORK ABOVE: http://bit.ly/gxuNGG
<>
Julie Timbrell
Project manager
Scrutiny team
0207 525 0514
Julie.Timbrell@southwark.gov.uk
I seem to have posted as a jazz club. Strange thing. Meant to mention that tonight’s quiz (8pm at The Sun and Doves) is a fund raiser for Kings College’s new Adult Cystic Fibrosis Unit.
Rather unbelievably great prizes come along with it: dinner at Angel & Gypsies, wines from Laithwaites, stuff form the Fresh Flower Company and a lot more, including a widescreeen TV. WOW!
Teams of up to six people, £3 per person. No registration needed, just turn up and have a great time! Come early to get a good seat!
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor once had a pint of bitter in the Fox on the Hill in 1963. This remarkable story is told for the first time in today’s Daily Mail. Jack Richardson, the couple’s chauffeur, lived in a council house nearby and asked them over for Sunday lunch.
The library prefab seems a bit of a curate’s egg, a parson’s nose, a vicar’s nostril. The current library is a bit space poor but the prefab, though twice as big, looks like a poor space put in a funny place.
The librarians should decide.
Ha ha amazing! Good spot Dagmar. I knew there was a reason I kept an eye on this blog.
Here it is
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1378348/Elizabeth-Taylors-chauffeur-Jack-Richardsons-memoirs-He-dried-tears.html
We swear by the Daily Mail in our house. What will happen to their upright, simple sword of truth if the communist, homosexual judges prevent the Mail from revealing the shame of celebrities?
A large portion of Crofton Road is to be laid aside for due royalist, loyalist revelry on Friday 26 April.
That evening, Ed Tudor Pole of Ten Pole Tudor will perform at Jubilee Hall, Chagford, Devon 8pm-1am. Cheap bar, DJs, overall theme: NEVER MIND THE NUPTIALS.
IF you have a child who’s in year 3,4 or five and are concerned that the lottery system might not serve them or you as you deserve to be — come to the Sun and Doves at 6pm on Thursday 5 May to meet the steering group who are behind the Michaela Community School — a mixed school for 11 to 18 years olds which will be opening in September 2012 — and find out more about what this school could do for your children.
Good luck with the school…
Has anybody seen this one on Shakespeare Road…
http://www.evelyngraceacademy.org/
What is the deal these days? Are you only allowed to send kids to schools within the same borough in which you live? Before if you were on around the boundary lines of two boroughs then common sense would prevail…I even knew of kids crossing town to go to school in North London boroughs where the family used to live just because they once had a sibling there, so they qualified — It was 20 odd years ago though.
Oh yes, I have yet again commited the cardinal sin of the naive idiot who expects good reason & logic to seamlessly bond with the negative side effects of a totally unregulated free market economics taking away responsibility for funding these schools from the government because like everything else it’s far too expensive.
Still, lets not question it eh? At least we have the Daily Mail to continuously inform us of their righteous indignation at the state of things, blaming everything and everyone on their way to totally failing to make the connection between the two things every single flippin’ time — without fail.
You have to admire the consistency though.
Yours,
ever the fool
euse
p.s I drink my tea.
back in the gritty world of camberwell.
attempting to cross the road when the pedestrian light is very green can lead to ‘conflict’: tuesday night, as we got to the corner of wyndham road/camberwell road & went to cross the street (through green light for pedestrians), we were almost run over by a black cab. the only thing he had to say was ‘i never saw you.’ what he was doing running through the red light is another matter. unless he was testing whether we’ve had ‘pedestrian training.’
on friday (good friday? bad friday?), all of the police who weren’t on easter break swooned down to camberwell rd/wyndham road corner and blucher road, as, i’m told (still to be confirmed), there was a stabbing or a shooting in a barber’s shop; the perpetrators got into a car and police chased them into blucher road. this went on for a couple of hours.
On Friday I saw a parade through Camberwell in the evening. Looked like a Greek orthodox church. Anyone know where it was coming from and going to? Is it every Easter?
there’s a greek orthodox church on camberwell new road but otherwise no clue, sorry x
Yes, that was the good friday parade from the Greek Orthodox church. Came down from the church, round by the hermits up camberwell grove then round back down denmark hill and back to the church.
Speaking to Harry and his wife at Cruson this happens every year with Harry having to begrudginly close the shop early…
I’ve been on a bit of a spree around Bellenden Road recently. Tried the new deli, Anderson & Co (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/restaurants/review-23943705-pop-into-anderson-and-co-when-peckish-in-peckham.do), which has bread from Luca’s and Blackbird in E. Dulwich. Not a huge range yet, and seem a little disorganised, but there’s potential there.
Tried The Montpelier, which is much improved since I last went there. Really nice selection of beers (Freedom Dark Lager, yum) and the menu looks simpler; haven’t eaten there, but had lukewarm feedback from others.
And last night went to the pizzeria, 168SLA. The pizza itself was quite sloppy but the flavours were really nice. My starter was really amazing, though; burrata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrata) with parma ham and fresh pesto. Packed full of taste. Really good. Recommended.
That’s not a Greek Orthodox church, its St Mary’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral…
My last pizza at 168A was swimming with molten cheese and tomato sauce
the service at 168SLA has always been painful whenever ive been, the wait for food and bill when the place is half empty just seemed lay to me, so am apprehensive about going back, although am a fan of the cape cod pizza there! if they could speed things up a bit it would be a much better place to go!
Guardian article on the squats in Camberwell and elsewhere that have been raided by the police today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/28/police-raid-squats-royal-wedding
Other than aforementioned Crofton Road celebrations does anyone know of any Royal Wedding street parties happening — particularly on the LB Junction side of Camberwell?
The cafe in Myatt’s Fields is doing special cakes and whatnot so we (the family that is, this isn’t the Queen posting in disguise as I imagine she’s busy) shall head there if nothing else is going on but I’m a bit surprised at the lack of bunting. I guess everyone is too busy and/or cynical these days.
Head to Crofton Road, 2-6pm if you can’t find anything else. It will be a very merry do. Not just jolly cockneys but people from the Commonwealth will attend, so it will be a big laugh all round, just for a short time in life, eh?
Bring something.
The royal wedding is quite a subtle shoe-in for a better future. No longer will we have to live in dread that Beatrix Campbell will be Queen Bea or that Prince Charles will act the boss over us.
Tomorrow may be cool, a bit rainy, a little miserable. But that’s us.
We are the British, all of us, wherever we’re from — we stand on the British soil, every single one of us.
For that reason alone, we are ALL THE CHILDREN OF ALBION!
I saw the aftermath of the Ratstar eviction on Camberwell Road yesterday morning at about 0730. By that stage, the police were standing around outside chatting and joking with eachother, but there were about 40 of them and 10 heavily armoured police vans. The operation must have started in the very early hours.
Ratstar was a productive, creative squat — they had a good gig there a while back, well run, good atmosphere.
Camberwell Grove Early Years Centre (nursery) are having a fair tomorrow, Saturday, 2-5pm. Plants, books, food, fun. A good place to spend your drunk’s change.
Millwall v Swansea will be tasty.
On the subject of us all being the children of Albion and of Being British, Dagmar, don’t quite know what’s come over me but I have recently taken to wearing a Harrington jacket, drainpipe jeans and Doc Marten’s Solovair shoes. All bought from Jay’s Stores in Surrey Quays, where I bought the same garments almost thirty years ago when I was a waiter at Joe Allen. The prices have barely changed, which attracts me, and the men are the same who served the public there thirty years ago.
Donkey jacket and desert boots next.
Su Thai on Coldharbour Lane has new owners, Thai people they are, and the food, which was never bad, is improved. Worth a visit: http://bit.ly/lj7sKP
The information evening about setting up a new school, which is next Thursday at The Sun and Doves, is creating a bit of a fuss around the area.
Militant teacher union people are blogging and Tweeting about it in unflattering terms and trying to raise a rabble to disrupt the evening. Apparently now, having been a lifelong Labour supporter, I am a ‘Tory self publicist’. Reassuring to know that we’re so definitely doing something right.
http://bit.ly/lyPsYK
http://bit.ly/meL8FZ
Crofton Road street party was excellent — the gentle susurrus of banter, loads of drink, no-one drunk, every kind of people under the sun, all manner of games, Erin presented the prizes for best costume, xtreme laziness, no cars, a marvellous example of community inaction.
@Mark — I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other about your campaign for a free school (otherwise you’ll think I’m the tweeter!), but I suspect that the “Tory Self-Publicist” slur was probably aimed at Katherine Birbalsingh, rather than you.
You’re probably right enough Mushtimushta but the grammar is describing anyone in the steering group and the context is such (clearly now) that, if you, one, I, show any form of support for, or interest in, or even a glimmer of the thought of an interest in, a Free School (even as a parent with no place for their eleven year old in any secondary for 2011) — you are immediately branded a Tory supporter at best or an elitist, divisive and wilful destroyer of the state education system at worst.
It’s PATHETIC.
@ Mark — Good info on Su Thai, thanks. Long time since I’ve been there and it’d be good to have a change.
Good luck with the school. And yes, it is pathetic. Sadly that’s the way debate is polarising. Suggest doing things differently and you’re an unfeeling enemy of a mythical successful and fair public service. You’re BAD, you’re evil, end of.
So, in the late 70’s it was decided to get rid of grammar schools in London because it was unfair to cherry-pick the brightest pupils from working class families and give them a better education than everyone else.
As a consequence of this mostly everyone got a rubbish sub-standard education.
Nice. (Many Thanks, it was much appreciated!)
Now we have the situation where Free Schools are basically filling the void that was created and will prove to be to the modern day equivalent of the grammar schools which were closed for being so unfair.
Oh! The irony of it all…
Good luck with the school
There is a funny bloke going round Lucas Gardens smelling of seawater. He is muttering a lot and has a long beard. He is just the sort of fellow who will pop up teaching in the local free school, wagging his finger, that sort of chap.
“You are this, you are that, you are Shia, you are Crap. You are Celtic, you are Rangers, you fucking support Millwall else U R STRANGERS!!!!!!”
Personally I’m pleased that Osama Bin Laden has been mercilessly killed. I have become completely sick of political correctness politeness and mediocrity. I find I cannot have a conversation with my parents where I do not say ‘fuck’ at the annoyance and utter stupidity of it all. Whatever happened to apprenticeships and quality work/craftmanship? Somehow in our society now it seems that bad, dull, ignorant, stupid people succeed and good, clever, hard working people with vision fail. There are exceptions of course. But how can it be that the CEO of RBS gets a £7.5million pay package, with bonuses, when the business he is boss of lost £1.5BILLION? How does that happen? And when questioned about it he just says ‘I’m not at the top of the scale in this sector, although at the top of pay league in society but if they don’t like it they can always employ someone else’. WHAT? This utterly selfless prick is 50. He should be publicly humiliated. And don’t talk to me about footballers’ payscales or Charlie Sheen.
How is it that some NHS doctors earn over £200K and how is it that ‘tradesmen’ nowadays actually ask to borrow your tools or to sub them cash so they can buy a wrench, expect YOU to sort out their parking problems AND they leave their detritous on the job for the client to take to the dump? How is it that they earn more money than you do? How come traffic wardens routinely treat people as if they are criminals and simply get away with it? I was given a ticket a couple of weeks ago when I was putting money in the pay and display machine: ‘I gave you an ‘Instant Ticket’ there’s nothing I can do about it’. And when I swore at her and told her she cannot do that and that she was mugging me she just said ‘get a life’. Fuck ME.
And that’s not the half of it.
If you dear people really, actually, factually, KNEW the situation of what’s happening with pubs all over the UK you would, well, you would simply not believe it because it is so surreal it is not actually believable. it’s JUST like the bankers’ bonuses.
And if we, as a society, all were able to be frank and honest and open about our rubbish education system, maybe we would begin to get our priorities right. Faith Schools. PAH!
I hope the language did not dilute the message.
XX
M
Thanks for the support by the way guys. And, seriously, if you have the time, PLEASE do come along to the information evening on Thursday to show support — we really might need it if there’s a bunch of militant fools parading up and down the street.
GAH!
Quality rant, Mark. Worthy of the Internet.
Eusebiovic, weren’t grammar schools divisive as well? If you didn’t make the cut, you were artificially limited at age 11?
Should I have received some kind of polling card for the AV thing? Not that I’m paranoid or anything, but is it just me that hasn’t received one?
Or has the general apathy spread to polling card despatchers and deliverers.
Perhaps it’s a Tory central command conspiracy where they expect the inner city to be full of lefties who might threaten their first-past-the-post comfort zone.
Perhaps I ought to get out more.
I have received one.
No, I haven’t had one either Jes
@Gabe *bows* thank you, it was carefully worded for the internet. Incidentally, paradoxically, my first grammar school experience was completely ghastly and made me yearn for comprehensives.
@Jes. Funny that, I was thinking EXACTLY the same thing about polling cardlessness. I not seem to have one.
@Alan. You are so well organised no wonder you have received it.
I’ve got a polling card. But FYI, you don’t actually need one, as long as you’re on the electoral register; just tell them your name and address.
If you don’t know whether you’re on the electoral register, go to AboutMyVote.co.uk, find your local registration office, and contact them.
We have had no cards. We, too, should get out more, but we sit by the radio waiting for instructions from the government, dreading the sound of helicopters, pokka-pokka-pokka.
Not that well organised. On AV I don’t know which way to vote if at all.
Vote yes. AV is simply a better way of choosing a popular representative than first past the post, and selecting a representative who can best represent the majority of constituents is the essence of representative democracy.
The campaigns on both sides have contained a lot of hot air and nonsense. It’s a shame that this simple message has largely got lost in the arguments about which party will benefit most or whether the morality of MPs will be transformed in the process.
Well as long as you promise it’s ‘better’ than I think that settles it.
I’m not promising anything. I’m sure you’re quite capable of understanding how it works and deciding for yourself. I was just giving my conclusions.
Still, I don’t think the claim that it is a ‘better’ way of selecting a popular representative can be reasonably disputed. That wouldn’t necessarily make such a representative ‘better’ in other ways. For instance, you might think that a ‘better’ representative is one more likely to reflect your own political views, which seems to be the main concern of many commentators.
Changing the topic entirely. Anyone with a leasehold property and 50 minutes to spare might be interested to see this programme:
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/forum/read/8/33227/89394#msg-89394
One half of the story is about Tristan Rogers, who posted a criticism of his management company on the SE1 Forum and was taken to court with a potentially huge legal bill. The SE1 Forum website was also threatened with legal action.
Tristan bravely refused to back down and the company in question dropped their action after 9 months and paid Tristan’s legal fees. There’s no reason why I can’t name the company — as they took action through the courts, it is a matter of public record — but to avoid giving Peter a heart attack I won’t.
However, you can see which company it is by looking at the following post and the note by James Hatts (who runs the forum) on the SE1 forum website.
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/forum/read/8/33227/89394#msg-89394
The company even pressed James to remove his own note about the legal action, but he refused so that people would know what was happening.
So can I just finish by saying that I think my own management company, Peverel, are amazing. It’s amazing that they can legally get their insurance from brokers that are part of the same parent company. It’s amazing that they try to justify the fact that the service charge here has nearly doubled in the past four years. Certainly no one should suggest that the fact that Peverel’s parent company has gone bankrupt raises questions about the general competence of their property management division.
If everyone’s second preference counted in subsequent rounds, maybe. But giving only losing voters another bite makes it a no for me.
Taking account of the ordered preferences of all voters is actually very complicated and to be honest will only rarely affect the result when electing a single representative. Voting systems that can do this, such as the Schulze method, are incomprehensible to most people — and that’s not just political rhetoric, have a look at the explanation on Wikipedia. A proportional system, which unfortunately is not on offer, would be far simpler and also achieve a result that reflects the views of the population.
However, first past the post does none of these things. It’s not proportional and it won’t take into account anyone’s second preferences. Instead it encourages tactical voting. Why make people second guess the election result rather than just express their preferences?
I won’t go on about this any more. Sadly, it’s too late to make up for the failings of the yes campaign.
I’ll be voting Yes. AV is not a perfect solution but it’s the only one we’re offered, and it’s incrementally better than FPTP.
To be honest it’s not going to make much of a difference to us as we’re in a safe Labour seat, but to those in more varied seats it will mitigate the effects of being represented by a candidate who only 25% of the public voted for.
There’s been a lot of FUD from both sides around the issue, but the worst is that it’s somehow complicated; as if listing the candidates in numerical order is beyond the capabilities of our simple minds!
Some good independent fact checking:
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-av-round-up-the-truth-behind-the-claims/6364
And refuting some of the lies:
http://avlies.com/
I urge everyone to read them.
On the question of whether First Past the Post or AV is more complicated, this graphic is great:
http://paperbackrioter.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/avcomplicatedflowchart.png
why give a 2nd preference if you strongly believe in someone you vote for them alone, by AV you have to list 2nd,3,4,5th prefernce — lets face it you dont give a shit about 2–5 and they could end up winning! Sorry but VOTE NO TO AV
if AV worked, a lot more countries would be using it.
Er, no, under AV you don’t have to list other preferences if you don’t want to. If you dislike all other candidates equally, then just mark your favourite candidate.
But in reality, it must be rare that you would find all the other candidates equally distasteful, and if you did think some of those other candidates are better than others, why not express that preference. After all, if one of candidates 2–5 has to win, why not help influence which it is going to be and help select a candidate who has wider popular appeal among the electorate?
We get a second preference in the London Mayoral election and that system seems to have worked. Is it really a step too far to indicate 3rd and 4th preferences and so on?
I will be voting AV
…but deep down something tells me that it won’t make much difference unless we seriously start to question the wisdom of being anxious & paranoid about growth in an economy that reached maturity many,many years ago and is still relying on endless consumerism/consumption just to remain treading water or a mere percentage point above or below the surface!
Unless we start coming up with an alternative sustainable,responsible economic plan for the future…
Everything else is just pissing into the wind!
I drink my tea
It’s a bit like the play-offs. Last past the post. Just off the post. Gone to penalties. Drawn out of a hat. “No.29.” [Accrington Stanley.] “Will play… No.13.” [Bradford Park Avenue.] And the games will be played on the twelfth of never — and that’s a long long time.
on a totally utterly unrelated note, here’s a suggestion for se5 forum perhaps? (i’d completely forgotten my username & stuff for the forum, sorry)
on pretty much all other the ‘area’ web forums (se1, east dulwich, nunhead) there are very lively threads called ‘nunhead/east dulwich/etc councillors, how can we help?’ admittedly, the councillors who seem to be communicating with the residents are few (3–4 regulars) but it might be a good ‘prompt’ for our sleepy hollow?
@Frazzle: “by AV you have to list 2nd,3,4,5th prefernce” — as James J says, no you don’t. You can vote for one candidate only if only one appeals to you, or first and second if that’s your choice. You can vote for as many as you like, in order of preference.
“if AV worked, a lot more countries would be using it” — The most popular democratic system is Proportional Representation, but as I understand it the Conservatives refused to accept this as an option when the coalition was being formed; make of that what you will.
@lili — “here’s a suggestion for se5 forum” — you can be given admin privileges if you have ideas to take SE5 Forum forwards.
@peter: thanks peter, i just don’t have any free time left at all, plenty to do with people’s republic of southwark alone
the idea was more to open a discussion about whether others feel that this might be a good thing — public communication is i think desperately needed and this could be a fairly effortless and certainly inexpensive way of doing it (as no community council meeting will ever either attract or, more importantly, allow proper conversations)
x
I am voting YES; Because it’s the right way to vote.
@Lili. Good timing; SE5 Forum has been musing that very point and had a meeting recently with Southwark and among other things there was a discussion about communication. Exactly the points you touch on were brought up and The SE5 Forum site will be adapted to make the discussion board more prominent and we’re looking to make part of it over to a dialogue between the people and the representatives…
Saw Buster Martin’s funeral cortege on Camberwell New Road heading towards Camberwell this morning. Reminded me of his fight at the Fox on the Hill — http://bit.ly/JPvMf.
RIP Buster
I am voting YES
I shall be voting yes
@mark: brilliant. wonder if i should set up a psychic shop?
xxx
I saw his London Marathon cortege crossing tower Bridge in 2008, provided by Pimlico Plumbers — the blue vans with the cloaca related licence plates.
You don’t need a polling card, just go to your church /school, and give them your address
Tricky this AV thing. After studying Arrow’s theorem then the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem plus the Farquarson-Dummet conjecture coming up on the inside rail like a Lib-Dem waving a new good idea on a piece of A4, we are deep into decision theory, with a choice between cardinal utility and ordinary utility — Catholics would expect to see the second choice of utility to be venial utility or for there to be the dreaded mortal utility; socialists may hope to see public utility.
The New Statesman talks about “the paucity of arguments for FPTP” but that AV “is not a panacea”. Paucity? Panacea? Pardon?
The Guardian bring in a mathematician to help explain — he is called David Broomhead. Sweeping all doubts before him? No, raising even more questions, especially because he says AV will not get rid of tactical voting. Old Broomhead!
Labour MPs for AV include Harriet & Jack, Oona King, Diana Abbott and Joan Ruddock, also Benn pere et fils, Neil and Glenys, Gordon Brown and the MEP Michael Cashman (the pioneering gay Colin from Eastenders, a good egg).
Significantly, Jon Cruddas, Left-of-centre top thinker, MP for Dagenham and Rainham, who won the highest proportion of votes in the Labour Deputy Leadership election but eventually lost to Harriet, supports AV.
David Plonkett, talking of the argy-bargy that’s been going on between the yes and no campaigns, has said: “We are in danger of descending into the politics of the playground.”
The what? That piece of complete incomprehension says don’t vote at all or for for people like him and the Millipedes for whom politics (“pollicy” and “pollitics”) is the first-past-the-post concern of every genuine human person.
Tricky, this one.
And here comes Peter Mandelson, the man from Del Monte — he say yes.
IT’S SIMPLE. if there’s a complicated system, people won’t vote.
I was astonished to see that the S&D became a seething bed of political activism last night. Some of those placards were waved in a very aggressive way.
Free schools have been with us for donkey’s years. Once they were the exclusive domain of impoverished hippy parents, all wooly jumpers and sandals. Only the Guardian took them seriously.
Now that they have been embraced by the tories, free schools are viewed as the lovechild of the fascist right. Grey-suited profiteer head teachers cherry-picking pupils from behind the smoked glass of their sinister black BMWs.
The reality is probably somewhere in the middle, and probably always has been.
Yes of course, any kind of selective school is divisive. Whether it’s selective by fees, faith or specialist interest, by definition it’s takes a slice of potential pupils guided by it’s own criteria.
But we’ve always chosen our own tribe, in school, in work, in life. So it goes.
Encouraging a free school with a larger than average contribution of public funds is morally wrong. It’s the finance system that’s wrong, not the concept.
The fact remains that many (all?) education authorities are unable to offer the choice that has been dangled in front of parents. Choice was never a realistic option for most of us and it was dishonest of successive governments to offer it.
In the meantime, parents are mostly unable to opt out of the process. “Oh, this education system is crap at the moment. I’ll wait ten years until it’s better and then my kids can go to school.” Hmmmmm.
The Anti Academies Alliance, in it’s rather Anti Swedish polemic, assumes that free schools are created only to generate profit. Try telling that to the sandal-wearers of the second paragraph.
The only real option is to work within the system, warts and all. People have a knack of usurping politicians aspirations and producing unexpected outcomes.
Perhaps free schools will be a genuine reflection of the tribes that create them. Free of political dogma maybe free schools will produce broad, free-thinking citizens. Perhaps self-righteous indignation will become a thing of the past. It’s too early to say that free schools won’t work.
Blimey, what a long post. Sorry.
Not an endorsement, but here is a write up of last night’s free school meeting by the Anti-Academies Alliance.
http://fb.me/JKaLe4FY
Are there any secondary schools that aren’t academies left in this area? These days, pretty much every secondary school is either an academy or has specialist status for something, which similarly allows them to tap into additional funding. This suggests that the Anti-Academies Alliance don’t have much influence with school governors or headteachers.
Dagmar, you couldn’t vote in the referendum, could you? I note that Denmark doesn’t use FPTP, but a constituency system with proportional top-up. Doubtless too complicated for us.
The Telegraph’s James Delingpole was at the meeting too. He calls the anti-free school campaigners ‘evil’:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100086787/free-schools-the-stake-in-the-heart-of-the-progressive-vampire/
Not sure he can be trusted though. He says the Sun and Doves is in Brixton.
My, what a deeply unpleasant person Mr Delingpole seems. Just reading his article drove me to have a shower.
The forces of the dark empire have seized free schools as a mantra. Can the wishy-washy left have it back please.
Looks like the lefty parts of central London, including Lambeth and Southwark, have voted yes to AV. Won’t change the huge defeat on a national level.
The free school meeting was extremely interesting and it was good that the Sun & Doves gave the steering committee, as they style themselves, a chance to reveal themselves.
They really should go ahead and set up their school, but not with public money. They should just set up a good, honest, private school. The customers they attract and impress are cash rich, after all.
This is a very complex subject and not one for jokey tittle tattle here. However, the situation for parents round these parts for placing their kids in secondary education is not great.
And it is for this reason that I have to tell you now, that my next excursion in these pages will be to dismantle Mr Delingpole’s hastily and nastily scribbled piece, bit by bit, before I am tempted to do the same to his person.
James Delingpole’s article must surely be a piece of anti-propaganda for the Free School idea, no? Caricaturing Lambeth Council as stridently left-wing might go down well in wibbly-wobbly world that comprises large parts of The Telegraph’s readership, but really!
In an article where the writer poses as the defender of top-class education, I would have expected better than;
”.….the activist mob who tried to hijacked”.… & “…which will be open to all, regardless of race or religious domination.…“
Spellcheck wouldn’t pick up either of those, I suppose. And, it appears, realitycheck also failed in filtering out some of the more poisonous opinions in the rest of the article. I for one can’t swallow that responsibility for knife crime, unemployment levels & benefit dependency can all be laid at the door of Southwark & Lambeth’s state secondary schools.
Delingpole, Littlejohn, Toynbee, Hari — all about hyperbole and playing fast and loose with the facts to fire up the hard left or hard right. Criticise one, criticise all.
And yay for the ‘no’ victory, though I am sure I am “stupid and misinformed” for having rejected “yes”
@ Camberwell Green Farmer’s Market w/ a few others. Veg chilli for £4.
The price of flour must have hit the roof I just paid 2.80 for a loaf bread at the market, and the price of salmon.…dear dear!
Those of you interested in education should watch this animated lecture by Sir Ken Robinson. Only 10 minutes, very interesting.
Super link Peter.
I’ve been thinking about posting about the meeting about the new school but there seemed too many ifs and abouts about it so held off until now and now I’m still not sure what to say.
You might be right David.
What else links the ten areas that voted yes?
I have yet to find a good analysis of this…
Oxford, Cambridge, Hackney, Lambeth, Southwark, Camden, Islington, Haringey, Glasgow Kelvin and Edinburgh Central.
And what went wrong in Central Cardiff and Central Belfast?
Cardiff central was a near miss and Northern Ireland was a single area so that gives us a clue…
Alan Dale@
Could Universities — and the areas where there are a high percentage of students living (ie:due to lower rents) be a factor in what connect all the areas which voted Yes?
A lot of post-graduates (young-ish professionals?) live in those areas too…The arts led economic renaissance of Hackney is a case in point…
Just a thought
That certainly fits in with David’s theory that he wasn’t clever enough to vote yes!
Here are some of the steering group for the new school: http://bit.ly/ixzbUs
I think we gave a really good account of the proposition at the Sun and Doves’ meeting. The Q&A had to be brought to a close because it was clear that it was about to turn into a shouting aggressive anti Free School propaganda opportunity by a bunch of uninformed protestors we had the good nature to allow into the meeting. If their tone had been one of discourse instead of loud and filled with invective it would have continued in open session. Instead the audience were able to ask steering group members one to one about the proposal and the teachers who had come from secondary schools as far away as Croydon, considering applying for a job, were able to find out more directly. One prospective parent couple left in tears shortly after the meeting was called down, saying “I can’t understand why people who disagree with this have to be so aggressive, all we want is for our children to get into a school that’s not going to ruin their lives”.
It was emotional. I well up each time I describe what happened to one of my eldest son’s classmates — the one who didn’t get a place at all — and it was no different explaining how I came to be involved in the steering group from the outset in front of a hundred or so people in my own back garden. I’m totally behind this happening. I’m NOT a Tory and this is NOT a Tory plot. It’s for ordinary people and, Dagmar, the people most interested in putting their kids down for a place at Michaela Community School CANNOT afford a private place anywhere. This is NOT about privatisation by the back door it’s about providing a state funded school that actually works in an area that is patently desperately short of places.
http://www.michaelacommunityschool.co.uk sign up there…
alan dale@
I was just observing…not accusing anybody of being stupid.
By that rationale, then I was too stupid to vote yes, because I didn’t go to uni either
I just thought it was a slightly better idea than what we have at the moment …
In reality it’s the entire economic machine which needs to change — not the way we vote.
@Peter — the link in your earlier posting is really thought-provoking — thanks.
@Mark — your last posting is also much appreciated.
OK, so here is James Delingpole’s list of cartoony stereotypes from the free school steering committee at the Sun & Doves meeting last week, exactly cut-and-pastedly like this:
“… a snappy Asian private equity man who’s taking care of the financial side; a white publican in tears at the misery the progressive system had inflicted on his kids; a young white schoolteacher outlining a curriculum brimming with rigour and Oxbridge aspiration; Tony Sewell, built like a black heavyweight boxer, talking unapologetically about elitism; the white, fiery Oxbridge-educated head of maths talking about the extra, private-school-style late afternoon classes which over five years will add up to a whole extra years’ worth of education; then Katharine Birbalsingh herself in her lovely lilting Guyanan accent enthusing about the school in a way you just know is going to make her one of the best headteachers in the country.”
Tony Sewell was great as it happens, though Our ‘Enery and Our ‘Ali might take issue with the stereotype that he is “built like a black heavyweight boxer.” He is much more like a large and experienced educationalist and does not have to be described as “black” or like a boxer. Dear oh dear. He may have been handy 20 years ago, but he ain’t no Sonny Liston now. He is a solid, good bloke, full of good, surprising, bang-on, really nice ideas.
Why can’t he be put forward as the head? Look at what he writes in the Guardian. He’s good. Everyone can relate to him. Why does the head have to be Birbalsingh, who is obviously completely tonto — “lovely lilting Guyanan accent”? Dear oh dear. She will piss off everyone in the school from the lollypop man downwards on Day One.
She was strident. Being strident is not where’s it’s at. Say no to strident. Tony wasn’t strident. The anti-crowd were strident. That harpie! Greenham Common is over there love, calm down, dear. OK, here’s a knife, cut his bollocks off, then, if it makes you feel better.
That big, Bob Crowe bloke was a cropped-haired bruiser stereotype all right — would have lost to Tony in the first round, though. When whichever steering committer said that 50% of world leaders had been to Oxford, he shouted “Rubbish!” — he should have just left a silence, but he interrupted the dickhead, the fatuous thug, with some old WRP snake-bite froth blather.
There was no need to be all workerist and horrible.
Still, what IS all this from the steerage committee about Oxford? They kept going on: Oxford, Oxford, Oxford. They then brought on that charming lad as an example of a black young feller who was in his first year studying medicine — but he was at London. How humiliating. What a second-rater. Poor lad. Except he was good, like Tony, too.
Everyone knows that Oxford is full of posh, bumbling dumbos. Anyone who really knows, knows that really intelligent people go to CAMBRIDGE. Duh.
Some huge amount of money may well be taken from local secondary schools to fund the new school. Mark Dodds did well to give the steering committee — some of them Oxford-educated failed Tory general election candidates — a good hearing.
If the school goes ahead, that will show what Cameron, Osborne and the rest of the greased-mop cru are made of. It really will be a test of their judgement.
In the meantime, we should support Tony Sewell and hope he gets his liberty away from those cowboys.
Where is Harriet Harman? Camberwell’s local MP may well, like Mrs Jellyby in Dickens’ Bleak House, worry about the poor Africans in the land of Borrioboola-gah. But what about our own?
Life years ago in the Rift Valley was not great. But we were ALL IN IT TOGETHER.
Oxford can’t be that bad seeing as how they voted yes.
This private/free school has a bit of an Oxford and Cambridge fetish. It’s putting me off a bit. GCSEs and A-Levels are where it’s at.
Also, I can understand surrounding schools being concerned about the new free school. Won’t it absorb resources and aspiring families/children in the same way the private sector does now?
But the current situation is failing the entire area and many generations of school children have not had a fair shake.
So I don’t know what should be done.
No Gabe, GCSEs and A levels aren’t where it’s at.
Education is where it’s at. Broad-minded, fair, free-thinking young people generous in spirit and action is where it’s at.
Parents demanding quantities of GCSE and A level labels have created the current fouled up system, where children and young people who fail to reach some magic number are considered second-class.
I watched the video clip that has raved about on here.
Some sense in there but a fair dose of nonsense too.
I am glad I didn’t spend school brainstorming alternative paper clip uses as a group. If that’s broad minded free thinkin education then I prefer GCSEs.
Glad I wasn’t drugged for dossing about mind!
Jes, I get your point, for sure.
“Broad-minded, fair, free-thinking young people generous in spirit and action is where it’s at.”
Ideally, you get to that partly through formal, academic education. But without the A-Level, it’s harder to get the college place, and harder to make better money later in life. Not impossible, but harder.
A big problem in the local schools is that not enough children are educated to a high enough standard of GCSE or A-Level.
The kids themselves seem smart enough. I don’t think that’s the problem.
Either
1) Define a ‘genius’ as someone who thinks that something 600ft high and made of rubber could be a paper clip.
2) Discover that as children go through the education system there are fewer ‘geniuses’.
3) Conclude that education is in crisis and a new paradigm is required.
Or
1) Define a paper clip as something usually about an inch long and made of metal.
2) Discover that as children go through the education system most of them learn what a paper clip is.
3) Conclude that the education system is in an alright shape, but something should probably be done about those kids leaving school who still have no idea what a paper clip is.
am i just mis-reading the signs, but are southwark council really planning to close the entire of burgess park for 8 (read much longer) months.….except the cafe.… from the end of this month?
Just went to the Hermit. They really need to dim their white lighting.
@Paul B
That’s pretty much right. Most of the park is closing soon until spring next year. Some of the extremities, such as the Surrey Canal Walk, Addington Square, and the bits over towards the Old Kent Road will stay open. All the sports facilities and the children’s adventure playground will also stay open.
I live right next to the park and use it almost every day. It’s going to change a lot of my routines. But, I’m still on balance positive about the plans for the park and the closure is something I can accept.
At the last Friends of Burgess Park open meeting, which was last Tuesday, the head of parks at Southwark Council explained why it had to be done this way. They realise it’s not ideal, but trying to keep areas of the park open or zoning the work would add massively to the costs (we’re talking mid to high £100 000s out of a £6 million budget) and rightly they’d rather spend this money on making improvements the park.
This Saturday is the Burgess Park May Fair. In the evening, there will be an outdoor screening of Slumdog Millionaire. Come and enjoy the park before it closes. There will be information on the day about the plans for the park. Details here:
http://www.friendsofburgesspark.org.uk/index.html
What will happen to Carnavale Del Pueblo this summer then?
Ten years from now in the revitalised Burgess Park, Del Pueblo will be bigger than Notting Hill. You heard it!
It will be in Brockwell Park.
WE will put together a fact sheet that lays out the basics about the School we are proposing setting up. It should answer a lot of questions and fears about Free Schools and open the questions up to more specific issues that can be dealt with simply.
Here is another shameless publicity photograph of the group:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/5709212607/in/photostream
To be fair to Ken Robinson, and to be fair to the steering group of the Michaela Community School it’s not about paper clips and it’s not about Oxford per se and by the way the references made in the pub garden — to standards the school will stimulate children to aspire to — were to Oxbridge / Russell Group universities of which Kings College London, where Chidi is studying medicine, is a member.
These allusions are aimed at describing what a good education should do to the development of people’s mind. A competent education should exercise and broaden the mind’s scope, not restrict its flexibility and imaginative remit — which is what our education system seems does rather well for most people.
My own experience is that I was bored rigid for most of my school years. I didn’t go to bad schools; it’s just the way education was done was bad for me. And for most of my classmates. It worked fine for those of us who just seemed naturally to fire on all academic cylinders. Which I guess was about ten percent of us. The rest of us were just bulking agent for the school’s performance ratings.
Education education education.
I stopped watching television daily/nightly as a matter of course about twenty years ago and stopped reading newspapers around the same time. I found they were bombarding me with too much stuff, made me fascinated in stuff I didn’t want to know about, made me feel like I was a massive underachiever, and made me feel frustrated and depressed.
A year long course with this outfit helped make me feel like I was finding myself again:
http://www.commonpurpose.org.uk/
They are naturally hated by people who believe in conspiracy theories:
http://www.stopcp.com/
The kind of people who remind me of some of the people who were in the picket line last week but at the other end of the political spectrum who promote this sort of thing:
http://www.antiacademies.org.uk/Home/free-schools
http://www.antiacademies.org.uk/Home/free-schools
Really James? Or just a sensible guess?
I would have thought it more likely to be in Southwark Park than to move to Lambeth…
@james: interesting — last tuesday, at the walworth community council meeting, cllr garfield adamantly denied that most of the park was going to be closed off, saying, ‘i don’t know where you got that information from.‘
could it be that councillors don’t really know what’s really happening?
the business of the money they’re spending and/or saving is a joke because, to the best of my knowledge, this is still either not completed but certainly not public. it’s like we’re expected to ‘trust’ them? and/or base our decisions/opinions based on faith? this rings way too many bad bells :S x
What was initially tabled as a problem of lack of provision and has developed into questioning teaching methods.
Definite scope creep.
What is in it for you to get involved in this experiment Mark? Wouldn’t your self interest be better served by relocating?
Alan, I googled it:
http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/carnaval/2011/
Lili, I’ve no idea what councillors do or don’t know, but it’s decided, contractors are arranged and all this information is public. It’s been in Southwark Life, Southwark News, South London Press, it’s on every entrance to the park. It’s available here:
http://www.friendsofburgesspark.org.uk/12.html
and here:
http://www.southwark.gov.uk/news/article/309/work_on_multi-million_pound_burgess_park_transformation_set_to_start
I’ve also just emailed you some other information which I’m not sure is available online.
I’m going away until next week, but we need a new post here; any offers? Existing authors, feel free to log in; new authors, mail me soon: peter@camberwellonline.co.uk.
Did people already know that the Mayor of Southwark and councillor for Peckham ward died on Monday?
Peter John has written a nice tribute to him on his blog.
http://cllrpeterjohn.blogspot.com/2011/05/cllr-tayo-situ-mayor-of-southwark.html
Hi Mark, what is the proposed selection policy for this new school?
Geographic, academic, monetary, ideological, religious, desire to go to a Russel Group university, good at piano (or violin), yer face fits, random, recommendation?
Assuming it goes ahead, it would be popular.
Sad news — Fatal stabbing on Calais Street near Myatts Fields Park
Scope creep is a good phrase, Alan. There is many a creep associated with the ill-named free schools. Mind you, Jes is right in saying that education has been abandoned (by New Labour) in favour of stock-market style alpha-seeking.
The sweet, decadent smell of private education wafts out of the nostrils of Blair, Cameron and other bleating MPs too nice to mention. They are slick, these guys, but they are thick.
Come on Lib-Dems, pull out of the coalition before the country falls into violent division. Look at Scotland, they’re literally going to kill each other if they go nationalist. The same will happen here if Cameron grovels after Blair on all fours like a fag.
@Mumu, just saw this morning, the kid was 15, terrible waste.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13370825
Has anyone seen the life size metal sculptures of the Predator and Alien monsters on Camberwell Road?
They were outside the Pre Loved Furniture shop on the corner of Camberwell Road and Wyndham Road earlier this week but have now moved up the road to a hair/nail shop called Blush (a few doors up from Pasha Hotel). They look a little something like this: http://www.premiumfountains.com/popup_image/pID/117?zenid=a0775d0ea63d70a19474afca5429ec6e
Does anyone know what the work being done in Ruskin Park is?
@pk — i was there when they wheeled the sculpture in front of blush & was all excited & trying to find out who made it but didn’t get any answers. i kept telling people it was a darth vader (not that i remember the film) — where are predator & alien from?
@joe damage: was there no consultation
?
@joe — EDF are laying electricity cable from their site on cambria road over to denmark hill. As a local resident and friend of the park i don’t recall being consulted on this. However EDF are supposed to be giving the park lots of money on completion of the work to compensate for all the agro.
Anyone been into The Phoenix lately? Rudest bar staff I’ve ever encountered. It’s as if you’re ruining their day by asking for a pint.
Alternatively, I went into Hooper’s on Ivanhoe Road — welcoming bar staff, friendly locals, great atmosphere.
Guess which bar I’ll be returning to, and which bar I’ll be slagging off to all my friends?
These people never learn, and then they’re surprised when they have to shut down.
@Norman Maine
That was my experience at the Phoenix a year or so ago — I havent been back.
The George Canning seems to have improved under its new manager — I went there the other day and it was good to see that food improved and all staff very welcoming even on a busy day. I will be returning again
@mumu
I walked right by the Canning, based on previous experiences, but I’ll give it another go.
Hoopers is excellent.
I go there loads since the new manager started.
Wasn’t as keen when the owner ran it.
Too much bloody awful jazz. Also struggled to forgive him for the name change and the wannabe East Dulite marketing..
Shurely NOT Alan. Not like that about Jamie Hooper?
Looking forward to the Kerfield in its next incarnation:
“The Crooked Well”
Anyone remember The Warrior at Loughborough Junction? Think THAT could be a pub/bar/restaurant again?
Will come back on the admissions criteria (although there is information on the school website http://www.michaelaschool.co.uk) and an explanation for Alan as to why I don;t just relocate. It’s about ethics and standards.
Jamie Hooper? You mean he named it after himself?!
I should stop teasing. It’s a great pub in a lovely corner of Camberwell and for that we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
We should name a pub after him or something…
Mark — in your response could you please include a detailed rebuttal of the theory that it’s some sort of Messiah Complex!
Interesting big lorry today on the main drag — http://www.funny.eu
If you are feeling blue, look up funny.eu
Good god Alan what are you on about? How come I never see you in Hoopers when I’m in there?
@lili — Predator and Alien are from the films of the same names which have led to multiple sequels of each:
Predator — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_(alien)
Alien — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(Alien_franchise)
And they meet and do terrible battle in Predator vs Alien and breed in its sequel. This is a film I alone like.
Even the hybrid wouldn’t survive long in Burgess Park. Thanks for the information about what will close and what won’t. I couldn’t quite figure out whether this includes the path that divides the park in two and provides the main thoroughfare. Presumably not? The chinese pensioners, cyclists and runners will revolt if so.
Florian, I’m afraid it does include that path. The council looked at keeping it open, but the cost of putting up hoardings the entire length, which would be required for health and safety reasons, were prohibitive.
As I said, it is annoying and disruptive, but hopefully worth it in the long run.
Sweet Jesus. OK, thanks. Worth it in the long run I suppose.
I wasn’t being subtle Mark — I was drawing parallels between your ethically driven self sacrifice and that of Jesus Christ.
I am surprised you’ve not seen me in Hoopers. I love it in there. They have the best beer in all Camberwell.
Perhaps you avoid it when there’s football? Or maybe you don’t know what I look like. Fat, wooden leg, — hard to miss really.
OMG, you must be careful with that fag near the wooden leg.
Alan, I’m flattered. Really. And I’ve never taken you for one to be subtle. There’s no sacrifice involved really. Because of serendipitous circumstances I have some time on my hands that I can devote to the school set up — and it so happens that it’s local, on the periphery of a lot of networks I’m involved with or already have experience of, and there’s a bunch of very capable, focused, clear thinking people involved, which makes it a very exciting project that has a lot of merit.
I do avoid the footy at Hoopers — next time I’ll look out for the leg and the fat.
Here’s a piece that got onto BBC London: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13392612
Anyway this thread is about consultation for the repositionable building the council want to put in front of the magistrates’ court.
A much better plan will make sure this is a temporary measure and will make a better use of all the resources available:
Put the building on the south end of Camberwell Green. Where it’s obvious. Install the library there, and a community hub office, temporarily. Use the building as a means of attracting / channeling / funneling people to the piazza/plaza in front of the magistrates’ courts where community activities will be introduced once the trees there now which are all dogs that should never have been planted in such an urban space are removed and replaced by fewer and better specimens.
Ideally relocate the functions of the magistrates courts to the old town hall and make the splendid building on the piazza into SE5 Civic Centre.
There is a lot more that can be done with Camberwell than ever has been and it’s a discussion that’s sorely needed.
A Development Trust could get most of it done and it wouldn’t cost the local authority a penny. I bet a new secondary school could even be part of a bigger vision. If there was a vision at all that is…
Off to buy a cheap summer jacket that has enough pockets to substitute the functions of a handbag.
Don’t forget the police station.
Was walking past the Sun n Doves about midnight the other day after a heavy night on the bev, and saw a woman crouched down grabbing handfuls of the greenery out the front.
Is it rosemary? Really ripping into the plants she was.
I stopped and asked loudly — you sure you got enough there?
At which point she stopped gave me a shrug and walked on, stuffing the branches into a bag.
Herb theft. What next.
The open mic night at Hoopers was quite interesting last time I went. Some OK country / folk acts on. Rare to get live music in Camberwell.
thanks for the explanation about the predators etc. i thought there was a comic called ‘predator & alien’ that’s where the confusion came from. never heard of the predator films either. must catch up i guess :S x
Does Camberwell have an entry in Eurovision? We are an entity. That surely gives us entry.
Come on, Lilli, there’s still time, will you be our singer? I will accompany you on a Persian lute I bought from Persepolis.
Imagine. Now over to Peckham. “‘Allo, we give our 12 points to…” (dramatic pause) “Camberwell!” BIG CHEERS.
hehehehe i would’ve done it easily. except that i wasn’t even aware twas eurovision last night. we watched the lovely episode of dr who as written by neil gaiman instead
camberwell would’ve won obviously
Thanks Phil G. Yes it is rosemary. Half of it was stolen when it was first planted. Whole plants just pulled out. It only takes a few antisocial people to make a neighbourhood difficult for everyone.
The Alt Ego draught beer at the Ivanhoe/Hoopers is wonderful (as are the men). And it is Monday tomorrow so I better pull myself together.
J Mark Dodds@
Does it not occur to people that you can snip the tips off of a rosemary plant without having to pull the whole thing out and steal it?
the camberwell carrot is here http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthwark.co.uk/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1528:camberwell-carrot-coop-fundraiser&Itemid=3
I was passing the Strata Tower development in the Elephant this evening — now there was something it reminded me of since it was inaugarated but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Then out of the blue my subconscious threw out this long repressed childhood memory of some truly awful TV from the late 70’s…
http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/jan2009/3/1/D9680923-AE98-8278-263158EB61E43857.jpg
Link ain’t working Lili.
Clickety-click.
Nice spread for Katharine Birbalsingh and the free school in yesterday’s Monday) Standard. She looks great and the journalist was fair-minded. Open day is Saturday* at the old Lilian Baylis School for anyone who wants to go along and find out more. Up Oxford.
If only Cameron, Osborne and the Eton ‘n’ Oxford fellows would ensure that the funding was not taken from the state school system, it would be very interesting. There should be more private schools for better off people from the cash culture who are not necessarily part of the establishment. Good luck to them.
Katy B the dubstep diva was in that nice back page interview bit of ES Mag on Friday. What is it about red-haired girls from Camberwell/Peckham that makes them so appealing? Doooouze point for Peckham from Camberwell. Camberwell, can we hev your vote plis. Yis, doooousze point for Peckham from Cemberwell.
And pulling even further away from Oxford on the Surrey station is Nunhead Cemetery, the sort of place that is not just 2–1 on, what ho, but a totally inevitable destination whether you have been to Oxford or notsford.
They say in the Dead Mail this week that on the Nunhead Cemetery Open Day next Saturday*, the whole of the Goth world in Britain will be there away from their desks working at the Revenue, etc.
No time to flesh this out more here. Have to put them kids through the mincing machine. We home pickle ‘em. Harvard here they come.
Apologies to everyone — People’s Republic of Southwark website is temporarily offline, as we simply outgrew our existing web hosting package which could not deal with the massive increase in traffic and used up all of the web resources we have. Ari the web wizard is working hard to fix things as soon as humanly (and wizardly) possible. In the meantime, please keep an eye on our facebook group page here http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=20080627167, where we’ll be posting news as and when they happen.
Le PP is getting a big makeover ahead of it’s resurrection. Looks like work is afoot in Munky too. That should make two new changes in SE5 for the summer. Johanssons for dinner seems to be struggling. Must try it afore they stop.
Dagmar, Did you know that Katy B went to Lyndhurst Primary School (as did my three daughters). I should have called them Grace, Maude and Dagmar!
AH HA (as a Scandinavian princess might say). I thought many locals would know Katy B. That Lyndhurst seems to be the place round here for hatching chicks.
It could work out well putting the library by the court house, spatially speaking.
It would help spread Camberwell centre out a bit. At the moment there’s ribbon development along the main roads. Us humans like to meander around a bit.
Regeneguru had some good ideas like that.
tonight’s view from the top of the hill:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickwoodford/5737789346/in/photostream
Free Schools.
Liliana on twitter explaining why she supports the campaign against a free school in Lambeth.
“@Brixtonite tis cool. the ‘free’ school madness has to stop. and all the other madnesses”.
Why has she not taken Mark on here I wonder?
Wo
Great mix up Davo.
@david: what’s with the fighting talk, eh?
warm up for cage fighting?
it’s not really secret that i think privatisation of public services, including education, cannot be allowed to happen.
it clearly may not be the most popular view but frankly, my dear…
I agree with Lili. Regrettably privatisation has happened already and on a large scale. And the state has made a cock up of a lot of education provision too.
@lili
I can assure you that it’s most popular with me
The following is an excellent book…
http://www.earthscan.co.uk/tabid/92763/Default.aspx
This band just wonderful at The Crypt on last night.
“Rarely has a band taken the jazz scene by the scruff of the neck and given it such a good shaking as Get the Blessing. Winners of the BBC Jazz Award 2008 for their debut album “All Is Yes” (Cake/Candid), Get The Blessing are currently one of the UK’s most exciting live bands. Featuring bassist Jim Barr and drummer Clive Deamer from trip-hop legends PORTISHEAD, plus the twin horns & electronics of saxophonist Jake McMurchie and trumpeter Pete Judge, GTB have forged a unique signature sound that defies easy classification, yet never loses sight of thumping tunes, monstrously infectious beats, or joyous collective spontaneity. Their second album, “Bugs In Amber”, perhaps best described as the post-jazz soundtrack to an imaginary low-budget James Bond movie remade by Tarkovsky and starring Buster Keaton, also received widespread critical and popular acclaim. With influences ranging from Ornette Coleman and Tortoise to Blondie and Samuel Beckett, GTB consistently confound expectation. Prepare to be teased, beguiled, soothed, spooked, jolted, and ultimately uplifted.
“this outfit will surely recharge the jazz world” (BBC Music)
“the heavyweights of the contemporary jazz scene” (The Independent)
“cool…stylish…irresistible” (The Telegraph)”
I agree (though I wouldn’t normally pass on a quote from The Telegraph).
Good one Maude; I’d just like to point out that I had The Blessing at The Sun and Doves in 2007. They were FANTASTIC:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesunanddoves/sets/72157600337224635/with/537090645/
When no one could be bothered to come and see them. And it was Some Kind of Blue (that’s US) who booked Get the Blessing at the Crypt last night. Because ours wasn’t the preferred ‘tender’ I wasn’t there last night to see them. Actually, unfortunately, I was babysitting.
@ All… following ensebiovic’s recommendation I am emboldened to point you in this direction for the way business should be done:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Corporation-Humanity-David-Erdal/dp/1847921094
And here for how education would be better joined up:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Our-Minds-Learning-Creative/dp/1907312471/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301422133&sr=8–1
And propose that the two should come together in a school not far from here; A well run state school with vision…
And here’s a talk you might enjoy: http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html
Wagner 92012 ploughed his furrow through Camberwell yesterday, hauling a long, long train of low loaders like, pages of musical staves waiting for the colossal images of the master.
Actually two good book recommendations. “Prosperity Without Growth” opens a good conversation and asks some good questions and received strong support for the robustness of its research. However, the weight of sound opinion acknowledges its answers/solutions are lacking and unworkable. But a good effort.
Erdal, Beyond Corporation Humanity, offers some excellent ideas. Once a Marxists, even fighting Thatcher in the miners’ strikes, he learned real life in China and admitted free markets are the best way to assure greater prospertiy for all. His ideas are good. And his realisation that a mix of markets with humanity are what made New Labour attractive, and the “New Conservatives” more electable. He’s worth the read, and his solutions workable.
O
Kathy Kirby has died. This daughter of Barkingside had a colourful life, even having a fling with Bruce Forsyth. Their like will never be seen again amongst us.
Wagner is a Class 92, purely an electric locomotive designed for use through Eurotunnel, therefore hence working on both electricity supply systems, AC/DC and Ace of Spades. The Class 92 are amongst the most handsome, complex and well designed diesels ever made.
They were manufactured at Brush’s erecting shops in Loughborough in the 3 years from 1993 to 1996. Who cannot forget the Brush Type 4? But does everyone know that Brush, the founder, was not a cunning Englishman like his name suggests, but a famous American, Charles Francis Brush, from Ohio.
Oh, hi.
O
I love trains and books. But it is difficult keeping up after a birthday lunch when my glass never seemed to be empty. And like a good working class girl I always finish what I’m given.…politely. And then a pint of Gilt Complex at the Ivanhoe/Hoopers this evening. That is what it was called (I’m not making it up). And so to bed.
Just watched the new Adam Curtis documentary on BBC2
“All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”
Amazing, thought-provoking stuff — if the truth is out there, I think this is as close as we’re going to get — this is why I pay my licence fee — A throwback to the days of enjoyable,informative programming.
Much like his previous work “The Power of Nightmares”
Maude, I have a small library of trains ABOUT books including “The Lost Engine Sheds of Britain” (or something like that) and “Britain’s Magnificent Deltics” (or something like that). I remember as a small girl standing on a railway bridge over the GNER line in the black peat fens near Holme waiting for the mighty Deltics to rush between my legs on their way to Edinburgh!
I always finish what I am given, too. We are the salt of the earth, our type! x
ah i forgot to say so none of us got ruptured :S
I went to the crypt to see the jazz on Friday night, and I agree they were excellent.
Did anyone see Willard White on Sunday night at St Giles, benefit for the Camberwell Choir School?
Missed Willard — only did the newsletter out about him. Someone said he was brilliant though. Can’t remember who now, had a headcold, still do. Feel dizzy, spinny. Did I ever say that I used to work at Joe Allen in Covent Garden? Dropped in for a night cap the other day and had a chat with Jimmy, the pianist, who’s been working the keys there for a generation or two. He’s outlived most of the famous people and still going strong, amazing man really: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/5754432023/in/photostream/lightbox/
He told me there’s going to be a benefit for Claire Rayner on June 5 — comedy for charity:
http://www.allgigs.co.uk/view/artist/68616/Claire_Rayner.html tickets still available, Mr Fry will be compering
There are two funny bookshops down Greenwich. One is called Halcyon Books where every book is a quid. They have stock coming in every day — it’s a good bookshop.
The other is even funnier, at 258–60 Creek Road, the Greenwich BookPlace and Gallery, owned by David Herbert, a fine Middle-earth Gandalf-figure in a denim shirt, roughly 1,500 years old, who describes the place as his “habitation” as well as his business place in his application to the council not to be demolished. The Edwardian building, once the Beehive pub, probably gave up serving in 1938. David Herbert is holding out against compulsory purchase.
The Lord Hood pub at No. 300 has been saved after public protest, is described as charmingly shabby by a hilarious reviewer attending the Greenwich jazz festival.
Signs of NOTE
In an office:
TOILET OUT OF ORDER.….. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW
In a Launderette:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT
In a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS
In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN
In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD
Outside a secondhand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING — BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?
Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS
Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR
Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR
Notice in a farmer’s field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.
On a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR — THE BELL DOESN’T WORK)
And, from Northampton General hospital:
http://moblog.net/media/c/r/a/craigeee/useful-advice-from-northampton-general-hospital.jpg
When is DKH school fair?
@Mark
Saw a good one in Hong Kong in the window of a bar:
“Happy Hour All Day”
LYNDHURST SCHOOL FAIR SATURDAY 2 JULY 2011. This year they will have llamas for the children to ride on. Their book and record stall is still the finest in the business. Their bric-a-brac stand is full of the most life-changingly valuable, Christie-and-Sotheby-bound treasures you have bought for 30p. The school have by far the prettiest mums and the handsomest dads, not to mention the sexiest teachers. The children are therewith the bounciest spawn in the borough, their tails flicking and their brains exponentially jack-and-the beanstalk beanstalking. Up with the state kids! They are good kids and no mistake.
A lot of coincidences and chance meetings recently got me thinking about Camberwell again. I’ve been saying, for YEARS, that Camberwell needs help.
Peter noticed this story and put it in his Twitter feed yesterday: http://tinyurl.com/3kojhpa
I was on the periphery of this event and helped organise something that Kings could use to show what a vibrant, wonderful and happening place awaits newcomers to the area: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/5748193569/in/photostream/lightbox/ This pretty impressive display of what is good about Camberwell came together ENTIRELY out of thought, work, time and effort being put in by four people for nothing, No money exchanged hands, there was no incentive other than wanting to big up SE5 out of the goodness in their hearts.
Kings is a BIG organisation and even they have to beg and borrow and plead for help and free work by people who live and work and love here to try to show prospective staff from all over London — and the world — that it’s worth coming to work in Camberwell. Clearly something ain’t right.
Tracy Allen, of Art’s Bar fame and I bumped into each other after she’d had a meeting with Kelly O’Reilly, director of Camberewell Arts Festival (in the context of C.A.F. having had ALL funding cut by Southwark. — How to create ‘One of the three most significant annual festivals in the borough.’ festival on an empty tank is an interesting challenge).
Anyway we had a long chat and it was good, we went over the past fifteen years of what’s been happening in Camberwell. Reminiscing I suppose you might call it. Oh did we have a laugh. The conversation brought up lots of memories and to recap on what’s changed in Camberewell in this time, if you take the whole, it’s rather like the whole was a bit like watching paint dry, flake, and fall off a wall.
I’ve previously reported here that managers of three banks in Camberwell, Nat West, HSBC and Lloyds, all had mentioned to me that they have severe recruitment problems in Camberwell because of the same perceptions held widely about Camberwell.
People (monkeycat? Jes?) have told me that I’m too down on Camberwell and even too down on The Sun and Doves and what’s been going on with my pubco partners for the last decade or so as well and it have suggested that it just puts people off. Well, there’s a truth in that, someone blogged a review of the pub saying the landlord (me) is too political and mouthy and customers don’t want that stuff rammed down their throats. Well. Hell I don’t care. Because someone’s got to say it, it’s bleeding obvious to me through both business and home life on the borders of LBS and LBL, and if no one points out the bits that just don’t work — those bits will never change.
Camberwell suffers a serious dichotomy which perennially keeps it in the grips of where it is. And where it is perennially IS NOT GOOD.
ON the one hand… it’s not crime ridden, it’s not run down, it’s got good shopping (if you know where to find it) and good people and events abound and transport links are great and it’s even affordable by comparison with most other areas.
ON the other hand — just bluntly contradict all these statements and you have made an equally accurate valid and true statement about what a hard place Camberwell is.
There can be no place more ready for Big Society than Camberwell. It has the networks it has the committed people it has a vision it has knowledge, skills, ambition, it has resources unseen untapped and languishing. It HAS to change.
And it has deaf authorities. Enough for now.
This is NOT me representing SE5 Forum by the way.
i’m sure i didn’t imagine this but i recently saw a reference to a camberwell community council meeting somewhere &, as importantly, a reference to a camberwell project body (or something along those lines?)
when was this meeting? what happened at it? (there doesn’t seem to be anything on se5 forum)
who/what is this team and how do we get in touch with them?
The wild flowers in Lucas Gardens are insanely beautiful. If the world is coming to an end, this is a lovely way to go. Our climate is becoming similar to that of Barcelona.
The George Shaw paintings at the South London Gallery are also sublime. The SLG has come good. The recent pretentious video putterings have almost brought the gallery to a credibility halt.
Poverty knocks, but Camberwell is still incredibly rich in variety for such a small area.
The whole place — or space as they would call it at the SLG — though the space is mainly between the ears in that context — the area, especially Peckhamside, was crawling with punks tonight, many of them originals, some of them from the Hanseatic countries. There must be a Bussey Building gig, ja?
Yes, just checked, it’s SCUMFEST. Excellent. There was a t-shirt in Warwick Gardens this evening , “Fuct Fast Toxic Wine”. Punks fly in from all over Berlin to come here for this event. It is ever so good.
Rise up, ye long lost, long debodied, rebel spirits of Albion!
I went to the Royal Festival Hall yesterday to meet a friend and stumbled across an exhibition to mark the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain. It’s free, small, but beautifully formed. There’s a 1950’s sitting room, a couple of films on loop and a 100 panel quilt with each panel made by individual women in 1951. The panels represent each year from the Great Exhibition of 1851 to 1951 depicting the important historical events of each year.
If you’re at a loose end one afternoon, pop along and have a look. The strong impression I came away with was how the Britain that hosted the Festival is so far away. It’s fascinating.
Nice find. The past is gradually catching up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13592652
And in the North East too… Makes me proud to be a Geordie Dagmar.
On your point about the past catching up here’s a snippet from Abraham Lincoln’s address to Congress in 1861:
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country”.
I am on a fucking roll.
Sepp Blatter is the Latin name for cockroach.
The South London Gallery was closed today, Bank Holiday Monday. What a statement.
There is no art today.
What wankers.
Someone has planted some roses and lavender next door. Not the SLG, probably, but by the guerilla gardener. SLG cannot see that far.
Closed on Bank Holiday Money? Oh, but they are so weedy & needy, they must close on that day.
Fine, fine-art farters. THHHTWWOOOEP! Poor! Woor! What a pong! Posh or what?
You go down the Tate Mod today, the same day, packed.
Twats.
The SLG and their overcool caff attached, and staff, diffident and detached, are fattening their heads on the new Arts Council money taken from other places.
Not to open on May Bank Holiday Monday says it all about their attitude and pathetic middle-class staff — all comfy today in Oxford, Cambridge, Gloucestershire, Mudchestershire and Tuscanychestershire.
Kunst.
@Dagmar
Aye! I hear you
Which is why the ex-Gala Bingo Hall proposal for a cinema and community arts centre was such a good idea.
The SLG is a very fine place to spend an hour but if it was going to a major conduit to improving Camberwell as a place to live,work and play — then it would already have done so many years ago. It’s not enough on it’s own it needs something else to play off against and create some waves of far reaching energy that extend across the whole of South East London and beyond…
Went to see this blue plaque yesterday:
Dan Leno, music-hall comedian, Akerman Road, Camberwell, London SW9 6SW
Is this the only blue plaque in Camberwell?
Is it actually in Camberwell?!
@Alan Dale: Dan Leno plaque is in SW9, so I’m calling not-Camberwell on that one. In SE5 we have blue plaques for Sir Alan Cobham and Joseph Chamberlain, and a number of Southwark plaques: http://reeddesign.co.uk/inspiration/blueplaques/index.html
@alan dale
I know where that plaque is…it’s quite a large double fronted Victorian house.
Officially it’s Brixton but right on the edge of Myatt’s Field side of SE5
Alan Cobham is in SE15.
Great link. Thanks.
TOTALLY totally tots.
The bingo would be a dream. A dream come true, a citizens’ palace, a place of culture and contrast, a place of secular congregation, of fun and happiness, of rebirth and regeneration, a place to admire where old and young of all faiths and creeds and incomes and tints and taints could rub shoulder by shoulder and marvel at what a place of wonderment Camberwell truly is. But there is no vision and there is no cash among the masses so it will be a wrong un — another wrong un liek Dickie Dirts and the other former cinemas, the other places of potential amenity that went the way of poor planning and thoughtless blinkered visions for our humble district.
I read the other day that Fred Manson, once head of public realm, or regeneration and planning, an American import with visionary impart in these parts, now is a director at Thomas Heatherwick Studio, Thomas of the Seed Cathedral in Beijing and the Rolling Bridge somewhere posh down by the Thames. Shame Fred’s legacy in Southwark wasn’t so glorious as his current glorious position looks like it will be.
What about the library — has it all gone quiet? Or is that my imagination running away with me? AND I don’t care what anyone says about consultation — I have three friends who live in three different parts of Camberwell all right slap bang next to Burgess Park and none of them, they swear, solemnly, on the lives of many reverend forthright and upstanding council officers who do not live in the borough, got a nod, a wink, in inclination nor a leaflet, a knock on the door or a question asked by anyone, about what the park might mean to them, past present or future, — until they read in the local press that the consultation was over and there would be a celebration of wood being removed. As it happens none of them are the people who got up trees and they did not complain to anyone — they were and are all too busy keeping up with their busy lives.
Thought you might like this:
And this — the last sixteen years at The Sun and Doves:
ALL my comments are moderated Peter, even without long https in them. Anything you can do about that?
Gordon Comstock, the somewhat bloodless hero of George Orwell’s “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, complains of headlines in local London papers like, Dismembered Baby in Cellar in Camberwell, “displayed with positive pride”.
Let us not lest we forget that whatsername was here for several years, Irish Murdoch, no Jean Brodie. Muriel Spark, ’tis.
Deptford High Street is a blast, has anyone tried it? Like Apocalypse Now mixed with the Rumble in the Jungle. It’s a world of its own and a very engaging locale. We may do well to remember that betting shops are valuable social centres. There are several on that short street, each with its own, funny old clique.
Anyone in possession of a 20 quid note can have a really great awayday in areas adjacent to ourn.
Dagmar — the SLG is closed every Monday, bank holiday or not.
Bit of redecoration at The Phoenix and a new menu. Not been in so don’t know how much things have changed. Looks like they’ve lost some of the sofas anyways.
Simon, I had forgotten that. There would have only been me and my raggle-taggle army with me anyway on Bankollidaymonday, with them demanding sweets at the till in the SLG shop. Nevertheless, SLG are in showbiz, leisure, whatever, and should make something of public holidays.
Arts organisations in places like Derby have been totally got rid of with this year. The SLG give $$$ to INCREDIBLY vain, pointless video art people, so it’s no wonder the gallery doesn’t have many visitors.
The SLG is not Centre Parcs, for sure, but it needs to GET REAL so that working people can visit on their BANK HOLIDAYS.
If they want to learn about the market, they should go down Deptford High Street. The market there is so “lively” as they say in the arts world.