Carnaval del Pueblo

A lady dressed in carnival clothing holds a Brazilian flag
A lady dressed in carnival clothing holds a Brazilian flag

Lots more photos of the Carnaval are available in this Flickr pool, but most of them have restrictive licenses so I can’t display them here. Boyd Tonkin in The Independent gives it the thumbs up.

Author: Peter

Long-time resident of Camberwell, author of this blog since July 2004.

120 thoughts on “Carnaval del Pueblo”

  1. He does give it a thumbs up, but reading it yesterday I was annoyed by the usual slightly sneering tone of ‘aren’t I brave, going to SE London’.

    I quote: “On this Asbo-worthy patch of a scruffy, fragmented mega-city, surely the heartland of the ‘broken society’…”

    He does then go on about how great it was, but I wish every journalist wouldn’t feel the need to introduce SE5 and its neighbours in apocalyptic terms. No, it’s not Highgate. But nor is it Phnom Penh in 1975.

    Or am I being too sensitive? Maybe I’ve gone local.

  2. Pete W — my mate came over from Brixton so you’d think he’d be used to it, but even he said what a horrorshow the tower block next to the park looked like. Rain didn’t help. LOL!

  3. Review was spot on. Southwark is a leader among ASBO’s and guess what part of the Borough leads the pack?

    You have to have a thick skin ’round here. We find the bright spots ’cause its our home. But we can’t deny the facts.

  4. Fab foto, Peter. Pueblo carnival is the biggest and best, most bangin’ latin vida loca, breast is best, man is beast, festival in Europe. Cliche newspaper knowing-tone wonks need to say south east London is dodgy, but we have a rich life here, apart from, you’re right, newroad, they who intimidate, frustrate and repress us, depress us with all the repression of the oppressed, with the oppression of the emotionally deprived and dispossessed, oh yes, what a mess, but what a hot scene in the Burgess, kinda I wanna be your mistress if you got the sheer strength to undress me, I’ll step out of the waves like Ursula Andress…

  5. Very sad

    I guess it could be classed as the start of camberwell ‑it has an se5 postcode afterall- its very scary that the victim was apparently an innocent bystander: I have used that shop several times late at night myself.

  6. The further (if minor) bad news for Camberwell is that the Reuters story about the murder is tagged “Britain-shooting/Camberwell” on the agency wires system.

    There are thus now news editors all around the world who associate our neighbourhood with gang violence. It’s not unfair, of course.

    The saddest thing is that this young lad seems to have been an innocent bystander. I’m not saying it isn’t sad when a teenage gang member gets killed, but this adds an extra layer of tragedy.

  7. it can, and does, happen anywhere.

    And do DFS really think rock stars have such awful sofas in their homes? The advert is driving me mad.….….

    back to Camberwell matters — the coffee in Hermits is a hidden gem, as is the DIY store in the basement of the convenience store near Hermits.

    And the fact I can ride to work in under 30 minutes from home makes Camberwell fine with me.

  8. Totally agreed re the DIY. They are really good with advice/customer service and stay open until 11pm. Who needs B&Q.

    PS Brewers near Queens Rd station for paint..

  9. yes we are well provided for in terms of hardware/ DIY shops — many is the time I have called into the basement DIY shop and found exactly what I was looking for rather than having to go travel miles to B&Q Old Kent Road. There is also the hardware shop on Coldharbour Lane opposite Nandos which is also very good although not offering quite the long opening hours of the basement place. And Crusons’ range of flower and vegetable plants is more than adequate for my gardening needs

  10. Black people are compressed into the cities in Britain, which is a heavily populated country. It’s not like America as a model at all. American black people think that British black gangsta life is nasty, small, small-minded and spiteful. They do not like the Brits at all. You only have to read the autobiography of Malcolm X to get it.

  11. The DIY people in near the hermits Cave is indeed great — they have helped me out a lot recently trying to find odd hsaped bulbs for ovens, fridges and extractor fans.

  12. What’s it called though? I’m thinking Camberwell stores ir superstore but maybe that’s something else?

  13. Can I just say how gutted I am that DRINK STORE has changed its name.

    That’s the problem with Camberwell. No sense of keeping the good.

  14. I’ve used both many times. Better range, expertise, prices.
    Though if you’re stuck at 10.30pm on a Sunday then maybe, but like they say about DIY, preparation is everything.

  15. @19: It’s called Camberwell Food, Wine and DIY. As others say, a winning combination — where else can you get a bottle of wine and a couple of hacksaws at the same time?

  16. A bit of gardening stuff, but hardly any as I remember. It doesn’t do Oyster or much media either. But it is open late, and sells booze too.
    Power drills and Special Brew. A winning combination.

  17. @16 Dagmar
    I don’t get your point either. Don’t disagree with what you say, but don’t get what you’re trying to say. Am intrigued, however.

  18. I bought a full size axe there at 8pm on a Saturday night once. Could have been mid row in a local ale ‘ouse but was actually chopping down a bay tree. (Sorry Reg.)

    Have also bought palm sanders, floor stain and emulsion there.

    no need getting into a head to head with other great local suppliers though due to unsociable working hours and the fact that they have never let me down — actually came and replaced a tap once- then I do have a clear preference.

    Handy for 4T4LSAC too..

  19. I’ve long thought that dagmar’s posts are not be taken literally, but are rather a series of clues to the whereabouts of a bejewelled thing buried in lucas gardens.

  20. lol@26.

    Yes, I think it shows the commercial spirit of our local businesses, to sell the sorts of items that are urgently needed on a Saturday night in Camberwell.

    Baby formula, headache tablets, hammers and special brew.

    Seems they’ve done their research and are simply catering for their market.

    I bet somewhere sells knives late at night in Camberwell, too. Which is probably quite worrying.

  21. Once I got locked in Lucas Gardens at night — I was returning from the petrol station with my shopping and the park keeper locked the gates in sequence, in the opposite direction to which I was walking, so by the time I got to the Graces Road entrance, I was incarcerated in the magic garden.

    Ignominious as it is to confess, I was dying for a poo. In fact for various gastric reasons, the poo would stay no delay. I crouched in the bushes, away from where little children might play, and let go.

    For some days after, I monitored the progress of its decay in the wild. Who would not be fascinated! What a photographic project for the SLG, Tate Modern or Serpentine! Talk about arte poovera! Can you hear me, Piero Manzoni!

    Various creatures dined on the pile. But most constant — Florian, how prescient you are — were the “gilded flies” as King Lear called them, like brilliant active jewels, gold here, sapphire blue there, perhaps a glint of diamond, as they danced and dined, buzzed and sang as they busied about slurping up the excreta, till the pile went down and down — and finally, was completely gone.

    Caught, preserved and strung on a fine silver chain, what a byzantine and iridescent necklace they would have made, a macabre and mesmerising detail in a sinuous poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, a voluptuous meditation on the fascinating lure of the decay and death that one day we must all, each one of us, embrace…

  22. Just posted this to my MP, London Assembly member and councillors.

    TO THE ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES FOR LOUGHBOROUGH JUNCTION

    The stabbing of a man in Northcross Road last Saturday has left me feeling profoundly sad about Loughborough Junction. I’ve lived here for over 10 years and, while there have been some improvements (CCTV, refurbished terraces on Coldharbour Lane) there is an air of decline and i feel more scared about waling around than I ever have before. I feel there must be a link between escalating levels violence in the area and its neglected state. It gives the impression of lawlessness, that no one cares about the area, so it’s ok to do whatever you like — including attacking people.

    The area has long suffered from being on the edge of a range of administrative boundaries — we are on the edge of three parliamentary constituencies and on the Lambeth & Southwark Council borders. The area should be seen as a gateway to the borough — an opportunity to create a positive first impression. Instead when people arrive in Lambeth — either by road along Coldharbour Lane or by train at Loughborough Junction they get the impression that they have arrived in a slum. Boarded up shops, random and broken street furniture, graffiti, paving slabs loose and broken, dumped clothes and rubbish on street corners, litter bins overflowing…etc. No wonder shops remain empty — shopkeepers won’t take leases in the properties when the public realm around their business is so badly neglected.

    One of the biggest blights to the area is the industrial estate. It forms a barrier between the junction and the more affluent Herne Hill area. Commuters get off at Herne Hill even if they live nearer to LJ because they would have to walk past the industrial estate with it’s windowless walls onto the street and dark unlit areas. Does it really provide local jobs? It seems to be mainly used for religious worship. If the planning policy is not enforced then why not change it and allow residential or mixed use development?

    I would like to know what you, as my elected representatives are going to do to improve the environment and regenerate this long neglected area. I suggest a concerted campaign in following three areas;

    CAMPAIGNING & LOBBYING
    Surely there must be funding we can access to improve the environment in the area? From Europe, the Governemnt or the LDA? Both Lewisham and Southwark have successfully bid for regeneration funding for similar mixed tenure streets in Rushey Green and Bellenden. We need to be lobbying loudly to get a Loughborough Junction stop on the East London Line extension. We can’t let this opportunity to make a step change to transport in the area slip away.

    ENFORCEMENT
    Enforce planning policy on the industrial estate or change the UDP to reflect the sort of development that the local area needs.
    Other planning and building control regulations seem to be ignored as well adding to the “wild-west” feel of the area. Shops fronts are altered and rubbish is dumped with seemingly no intervention from any authority.

    INVESTMENT
    The paving — particularly around the station and shops is atrocious. Metal slabs are all that stops pedestrians falling into shop basements, paving is lose, broken and uneven, advertising sites block site lines. I find it hard as an able bodied person. It must be impossible in a wheelchair. We need new paving, street furniture and better lighting. Not just mega-wattage floodlighting which adds to the brutal bleakness of the area. It should be carefully designed and include input from artists and architects.

    I hope this does not sound too negative. I love living here. The area has some great features (Ruskin Park, lovely neighbours, urban foxes) and our street is a genuine mixed-tenure, cohesive community that has evolved and thrived despite rather than because of politicians.

    I look forward to hearing your plans.

    P.S. I have copied Kate Hoey, my MP into this. I hope that she will see fit to do something for her constituency instead of campaigning in favour of fox hunting or helping Boris organise the Olympics.

  23. Not sure that slagging off Kate Hoey was lifted from ‘How to make friends and influence people’.

    I also completely disagree with you about foxes — both the beauty of our oversized urban rodents and the right of people to continue hunting. But what do I know — I’m pro cock fighting.

    Despite this I thought that your letter was great and I hope you get what you are looking for along with the associated house price alpha.

  24. There was an inident yestedrday morning at Camberwell Daily News (next to Kamera Obsura, Morgan Berry estate agent etc). I saw police cordin off the area. Anyone know what happened?

  25. @35 good luck with it!
    I’ve long thought that L Junction is much “worse” than Camberwell or Brixton. Things go really downhill for those few hundred metres. A lot of people say that. Shame.

  26. I thought L. Junction was on the up; lots of building work underway, looked cleaner, etc; seems to have stalled a bit now, though.

  27. @ 35 The guy who was murdered was on Northlands Street he lived on Southwell Road. I live there also.
    Love-borough Junction I sit in a different ward and constituency (Tessa Jowell) to you but the same borough Lambeth. I have emailed my local councillors with a similar sentiments especially that of the problems of being on the Southwark/Lambeth border. What is very sad is that there is one solitary bunch of flowers at the spot from his parents. I wonder what they think of this area.

  28. On a positive note I went to the newly refurbished Cambria Pub on Cambria Road. it is really good, very glam, good food and really friendly Landlords Steve and Amy. I was not that keen before as it always had a few blokes in gazing mesmerised at the telly with no atmosphere. I was really impressed with the new look and a good addition to the area.

  29. I can’t agree with the letter. It suggests L’Borough Junction suffers from poor transport and should be renovated to look like Bellenden Road to weed out crime. Truth is, Bellenden has as much crime. And worse transport.

    As with Camberwell (and Bellenden), you can spruce up and paint over the cracks but they’ll come back. An East London Line and major Government subsidy to spruce up shop fronts won’t cure the underlying issues.

  30. Lboro J has its problems but I’d say its transport is OK (though I don’t live there, I’m familiar with some of the routes).

  31. I often have to go from Camberwell (big)to Loughborough Junction (small) to get the speedy, frequent transport connection it enjoys so have little sympathy for the perceived need to “lobby loudly” for improved transport. I also agree with Peter that it looks better than it ever has. Maybe you’re just getting tired of the place, love-borough junction? Good neighbours can be found in any place except posh ones in my experience.

    Having said that, I did hear rumours that many of North Peckham Estate’s finest shifted to LJ when it was pulled down.

    As for you Mr Dale, I propose a last-one-standing contest between your cock and a pit bull in one of LJ’s vacant units!

  32. I wish you luck, Love-Borough, but would recommend that you attend one of your local councillor’s surgeries and make the points you raise in person as well — they’re much harder to ignore than a simple letter and you’ll be able to judge from that if they are likely to be an ally to your cause.
    I favour baby-steps to improve things in your area — if you go along with a fully worked out manifesto of all the things that you want sorted, you’re less likely to succeed, I’m afraid. Start with the paving stones and end with re-routing the East London Line extension and building an 18 platform station where the Green Man is now!
    I empathise with your frustration about the look of Coldharbour Lane. I think most of those shops will never be tenanted and ought to be converted to housing.

  33. dear me — slag off whoever you need to — foxes are lovely, cockfighting abhorent and kate kate…kate.…what can one say??
    this is NOT about house price “alphas”
    wait til YOU get murdered for your primark socks dale .…

    see you next thursday !!!!

  34. @37 Kia Blue

    Nothing unusual at Camberwell Daily today. Maybe some minor incident outside? (i.e. stabbing that didn’t lead to a fatality. These go unrecorded now, don’t they? Like burglaries.)

  35. THE LADY OF LUCAS GARDENS

    by Algernon Bysshe Keats

    Late at night while wise owl hoots,
    She may be seen in long leather boots
    Striding silently the sward of Lucas
    In denim mini, with moon-bathed hooters
    Set off by her fossil-fly necklace,
    Clapped eyes on by only the reckless
    Nightime folk who dine on crack,
    Like those flies who slurped her cack.
    They yearn to climb her lunar hills
    Only — ah! — to fall into the ills
    Of the ravine of deadly desire below.
    Oh jewelled flies, they laugh, they know!
    Thus the purlieus of Camberwell
    Cast their irresistible spell!

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