80 thoughts on “Big Day Out”

  1. Didn’t forget.

    For me the dancers who danced to S Club’s ‘don’t stop moving’ were the highlight.

    Some fabulous Indian dancing too.

  2. Anyone else as miserable as I am about the Burgess Park closure — more than an extra hour/week commute, and swapping pretty and safe park cycle route for rather more deathly and stressful Walworth Road traffic. Thanks Southwark Council. I know the park needs to close to improve, but couldn’t we have kept that path between Albany Rd/Portland Rd and Southampton Way open just a little longer?

  3. Agreed: it’s crap. I can find no clarity either on when it all shuts down. As of the weekend, both east and west entrances were open. But all signs are this is about to end.

  4. That path cuts through one of the main areas where the earth works are going to take place. I’m not sure it would be very safe cycling through an area full of heavy machinery moving tonnes of earth around. The date for the closure of the park has already been pushed back a while it seems, but is now imminent as this landscaping needs to be completed by the autumn, so that the new trees and plants can have time to become established by the reopening next spring. Unfortunately, experience in Burgess Park shows that new plantings will get ripped up unless protected.

    My lifestyle is going to be transformed for the next 9 months. Not only will I be living next to a building site, my usual routes to the north, east and west are blocked. But I’m not miserable. Just hoping that the inconvenience will be worth it in the long run.

  5. The highlight of the Camberwell Green fair on Saturday was definately (spelt like that for emphasis) Khadijatou Doyne and her band Slo-burn. She is about 12 feet tall and is a Guyanese bouillabaise with ingredients including Nina Simone, Mike Tyson and Naomi Campbell. Her charismatic act was so potent as to be scary and made her seem like a 12-foot amazon, but after the show she came across as being of medium height, well educated and having the fitness and bearing of a contemporary dancer. She was really special.

  6. does anyone know whats going to happen to Pauls olive shop? it seems so sad that its empty! and whos tried Tadims since its reopened? it looks good when i walked past earlier!
    great news about the cinema too! (if ive heard correctly!) where do we go from here? is there anyway to source the money, get the council to reconsider the ibrary etc?
    just thinking out loud!

  7. The event on the Green was fun. It was quite “man from the council”. Barriers, instruction on where walk, etc. I can sort of see why. Lots of the regulars were getting busted for drinking by the security people (“busted” in this case means cider confiscated and escorted out off the Green).

    The gymnastics display was really good.

  8. Also, we went to the big swim with all the steam and coloured lights. That was good. Thanks Bathlady for the tip-off

    This was the first time I’d been for a swim at Camberwell Baths since the renovation. It’s excellent.

    Great for the kids too. They get to go once a week with the school for free.

  9. @Frazzle — Tadim does look good. It used to be my favourite cafe in Camberwell. I liked to sit by the window and watch the world go by. Only problem is now it looks like now you have to sit in the back room.

  10. @Frazzle — We ran into Sotiris’ widow, and she is looking for a tenant for Paul’s — she said she would give the tenant her recipes for taramosalata, houmus etc. She clearly doesn’t feel up to running the business on her own.

  11. IF the cinema’s true it’s a many millions project but that doesn’t make that sort of money inaccessible. It would need a mass effort by locals to do it. I don’t have time right now. I’m fighting a pub company and working on setting up a pub company to take over the pub companies.

    Met with the Plunkett Foundation today. That was interesting.

    Paul’s Continental. Hmmmm.

    OOOPS! Almost forgot. Here’s some of the pics from Get Set Southwark. Must point out too that SE5 Forum pulled this off by working with Southwark AND Lambeth. A bit of a FIRST that was. Which we’re all really rather proud of. Thanks to everyone (and that is a LOT of people) for putting all the work in.

  12. What an extraordinary Rite of Spring was played later, in the evening, at Harry’s Car Park in Peckham. Well done, the band. Stravinsky in a multi-storey. What a story.

    The bar there cannot cope with the demand. It takes initiative to deal with that situation. But the sunset was also special. Some things are organised by leisure professionals. Some things just happen.

  13. Caught the 343 bus from Southampton Way to New Cross Gate on Saturday, which is the first time I’ve been further South East on this route than Rye Lane. It’s a bit of a circuitous route and once the bus leaves Peckham Rye, it goes down some roads that you wouldn’t expect buses on. Towards the end of the route, it climbs a hill that you think it will never make (somewhere near St Asaph’s Road). The ascent made me hold my breath!

  14. Went to Tadim on Saturday; the place feels warm and welcoming again, and the food seems to have had a shot in the arm too; it was all very fresh and full of flavour. The owner’s brother is an architect and he was the one who told his brother to put it back to how it was before, getting rid of the (as he called it) ‘hospital waiting room’.

    @Mushtimusta: The descent is even more amazing.

  15. mushtimushta — i did the same the other day after catching the east london line for the first time after a party in haggerston!
    i couldnt believe how quick it was, and even better that its going straight to camberwell by next year!

  16. @Frazzle — hadn’t heard that bit of news. What;s happening to the route, then?
    Went to the Cuming Museum exhibition that Dagmar mentioned a while back today — from Elephant to Camberwell. It’s small, but quite good. The film “London Borough” is pretty good & on permanent loop. Gives you a feel for a Camberwell that has disappeared in many ways. The curators have got a bit carried away with their role, in that they spend much more time on the labels alongside each exhibit explaining where the exhibit came from, rather than describing where the photo/painting is in modern day Camberwell/Walworth.

  17. @Dagmar Stravinsky’s Rights of Spring: they were rehearsing last Friday above the cinema on the fifth floor of Peckham multi storey car park.

    It was a wonderful moment in a wonderful day in a marvellous weekend. I didn’t think all that was possible around here.

  18. mushtimushta — the east london line will branch off from surrey quays to link to clapham junction, via peckham rye and denmark hill. its set to be completed by the end of next year, which is why the works are started to be carried out at denmark hill station
    i must check out the cuming museum!

  19. Shame. Would be great to have the bike scheme down here. There’s a big south-sized hole in that map.

    A tip, thou, for getting home. You can dock a boris bike at the top of Walworth Road (by the shell garage) and then get a bus for the last leg to Camberwell. Better than waiting for a bus home from town, especially if you have to change buses, and more especially useful late at night.

    The East London Line should be good. Seems like you pretty much have to go via London Bridge to reach that part of town on public transport at the moment.

  20. Yes you can, but costs (especially since Boris has increased bus fares by nearly 50% since he came in). Might as well just get the bus.

  21. east london line/overground is good…

    I have many friends in Hackney — which is a royal pain in the arse when travelling back south late at night — now I can get the tube to Honor Oak Park then get the P4 bus which literally drops me off on my doorstep…can’t wait till the Denmark Hill extension opens.

  22. London Overground/East London Line extension is a great new addition to the transport network, I agree. But I’m not so sure that TfL’s attempt to provide a network map on their trains in line with the usual Underground Line maps on tube trains is such a success, because of the sprawling nature of London Overground. I think they should sub-divide it and create new route identities: http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/Reviews/Resources/Overground%20(Alex%20Golner).gif

  23. Yeah, I got excited by that too, but it was all LIES. Still, good that we’ll be connected to Clapham Junction, but bad that we won’t be connected to Victoria any more.

  24. We will be connected to victoria. 2 or 3 direct, non stop trains an hour. And hopefully the 3 per hour peak time ones will be more spaced out and not only a few minutes apart as they are at the mo.

    I have never been that fussed about the fact that the SLL is going. We will get so much more. and instead of London Bridge we get trains to Blackfriars, Luton, St. Pancras, Clapham Junction, etc

    See maps on this page:
    http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/15403.aspx

  25. Ah, OK. I was under the impression that Victoria service was stopping completely. The train to London Bridge is less of an issue as I can walk to Peckham Rye.

    We get trains to Blackfriars, etc, at the moment, but the frequency will be increased.

  26. And nowhere are there any serious plans to reopen Camberwell station/ connect us to the tube/bring in a tram.

  27. If they can’t run to a bike stand, a tube or tram seems unlikely. I’d rather a tram. Better than going underground.

    @eusebiovic — you’re going over to honor oak by bus then catching the new line they have there to the East?

    Also, going eastwards you can train it from Peckham Rye to Lewisham, and then onto the DLR. It’s sort of okay. A bit of a hassle.

  28. @gabe

    It’s a lot easier via Honor Oak…the Peckham/Lewisham DLR route is long-winded and like you say — more hassle.

    The P4 boneshaker is quick, nippy and goes through Dulwich Village which mentally — is a lot more relaxing!

    Originally, there was a proposal to make the overground stop at Loughborough Junction but it was abandoned because apparently a small section of new viaduct would have to be built.

    A great shame really — LJ is much unloved but the potential to raise it’s profile as a highly useful connection point is vastly under-rated.

  29. @Monkeycat/All,
    Sorry about the map — I hadn’t noticed that it was somebody’s fantasy route map. But hopefully, you get my original point anyway.

  30. These are indeed the dog days our Florence sings about. News comes in of the East London line coming here, news goes out of the East London line coming here. Nothing really happens.

    Nice.

  31. There are not any serious plans around here because not enough people get behind anything — other than making observations on blogs.

    On the ground there’s a lot of activity but by and large it’s separate stuff, like choirs and other groups putting energy into particular projects they have immediate interest in; they don’t link up to put their combined strength behind substantial, larger scale things.

    It’s the way it is. If it were different we’d get change happening in Camberwell much faster than it does. It’s Camberwell’s own inertia that keeps it where it is. Progress Without Change.

  32. @J Mark Dodds

    You have a valid point — I’ve tried to get some enthusiasm going but it appears that our efforts are all in vain…

    This is too much of a fractured community and we have a council which is institutionally defeatist — and when they do attempt to achieve something often get it totally wrong and produce something ill judged, poorly informed, woefully executed and continuously repeat the same mistakes of the past.

    Re: Elephant and Castle

    http://thecarandtheelephant.com/chapter/context

  33. The Cambria is a rather fascinating pub, to say the absolute least. The Gay Camberwell website describes it as being “recently revamped” (you can say that again, you vamps ‘n tramps!) and highlights the “chandeliers” (what can they be for?) and “blowsy wallpaper”. Certainly, there are various flyers on the sideboard for “dog walkers” (what are they?), poodle primpers and other ornamental dog fluffers.

    It is most definitely a palace of delights.

    Their biergarten is proper 1930s Berlin and ideal for a canoodle and mouth-watering strudel. In fact orally round, the food is gorgeous and well priced. They are onto a winner in this cool, quiet banlieu of Camberwell.

    The Gay Camberwell website cites that “crisps are clearly considered pass?§¶•ªºº–??œ?†¥?“‘åß?ƒ©???¬…æ«å??ç????÷¡€#¢?§¶•ªº–??å¡ — ”

    DARLINGS! I was trying to effect the “e” with a cute accent!

    “… crisps are clearly considered passe.”

    No, not so, not so.

    They sell Red Sky crisps for a quid a packet including “Mykonos Squid” flavour. Yes, bloggers! A quid a packet. Every packet, a squid. The “Essex Oyster” crisps simply slip down. The Anglesey Sea Salt crisps are made with genuine Halen Mon, Soil Association Certified sea salt flakes.

    A pound a packet! you say? Consider that these gourmet crisps cost £1.75 from Ocado and £1.99 from Organically Speaking.

    Gay Camberwell should really update their site to take into account the fact that the Cambria is a Quentin (as pubs blessed with excellent crisps used to be called in old Soho polari).

    They still refer to their own pre-review perception of the Hermits Cave as being “a rather rough old man’s pub” — blimey, don’t they mean the Vauxhall Tavern? They have spied in the Cave “slightly older people”.

    !

    !????!!!

    Anyway, well done the Cambria, it is such an enjoyable place.

  34. @Dagmar

    Yes, The Cambria is a fun place…it is my local and a 1 minute walk from my flat

    Amy & Steve have done a good job…a little camp perhaps but everybody seems to like it that way — including all the old skool locals who used to congragate in a hypnotised state around TV which showed sky sports — nobody misses it these days

    All in all — I’d say a resounding success!

  35. It is a lovely place, Eusebio. The people who run it really have a fun attitude to life, it shows throughout.

  36. Dagmar I am glad you have found the Cambria.
    Yes the Cambria is a lovely local with lots of different events for the community.

    Stitch and Bitch on Tuesday’s

    The Cambria Community Choir who just broke up for summer with a concert and support from Hazel O’Connor last Monday.

    Film Club in the winter

    Pub Quiz etc

    Good beers and wine and easy for women to go on their own.

    Steve and Amy are great hosts and work hard to keep people coming back.

    http://www.thecambrialondon.com/

    A really good community pub

  37. Not to mention really quite good drag cabaret over Sunday roasts in the upstairs room. Re the crisp situation — having been rebuffed once, we’d never asked again, but I’m delighted to hear they are now installed.

    We have been rather lazy about the Gay Camberwell website in the last few months — I blame my Masters exam and now dissertation. Maybe I’ll give it some TLC in September…

  38. Gnomee, any pub with easy women is right at the frontier. The new Funky Munky is looking increasingly interesting and intriguingly enigmatic.

  39. Oh sweet christ no: Jenny Agutter’s leaving Camberwell.

    I’ve never seen her hereabouts, but the thought that she’s close gives me great comfort.

  40. Let’s get real here. The new Funkhy Munky is looking like nothing is happening. And THAT is enigmatic.

    Jenny Ag never was in Camberwell, really. Not like she hung out here — EVER. Refer to my post above but she was a relative newcomer — many of the people who don’t engage are here, were here and will be here and they will not shop local.

  41. No, plenty going on the the Funky Hermit. Just going at their own sweet time. A bit like the Hermit’s Cave.

    Should be opening in a couple of weeks if rumours are to be believed.

  42. Jenny Agutter is a local as well as national and world treasure. She carries her fame well and is very courteous, generous and friendly hereabouts. Her career is multifarious, regardless of her typecasting in the ‘Children.

    Camberwell salutes Jenny Agutter and looks forward to her visits from the probably much nicer to live in one way or another west Cornwall.

    Grumpy middle-aged men, weep ye into thy ale!

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