Eating, drinking, house prices — business as usual

First of all let me say a huge thanks to reader Joanna, who pointed out to me that the site feed* had stopped working a few months ago; I hadn’t spotted it myself, and no-one else had raised it either. Joanna is a long-time reader of this blog, including during the two years she spent in Rwanda. Now that’s dedication.

Thanks to someone I can’t remember, I’ve recently found the blog of local councillor John Friary, of the Camberwell Green ward. It’s very useful for local news; for example, his latest post mentions that the future of the Baths / Leisure Centre is not as rosy as it could be —  survival depends on Southwark being able to get £2m Government funding from a pot of £50m — which 200 other local authorities have also made bids on. News on the future of the Town Hall there as well.

The latest installment of My Middle-Class Weekends saw me and the wife check out the Saturday farmer’s market in Oval (which we can probably just about squeeze into Camberwell, as it’s at the very end of Camberwell New Road). It’s bigger than the Sunday market at Peckham, with more food actually cooked and served there. Peckham’s still great for picking up the basics, but for something a little more tasty — such as the delicious venison and mushroom pie we had for dinner — it merits a trip on the 436. And I don’t say that lightly.

Earlier that day we dropped a few items off at the PROS bring & take event at the Synergy Centre. Hope that went well.

Later we thought we’d try The Cambria, which everyone has been raving about, but after cycling over there we realised that a) neither of us had any cash and b) all of the outside tables were in the shade. It looks beautiful inside, but we’ll have to go back another time to review it properly. Instead, we wrang out the last few drops of sunshine in the Sun & Doves garden.

To close, some gossip; my mate at the pub says that the Camberwell Grove development isn’t selling well at all. After having to scale back their plans considerably (due to the opposition of the Camberwell Grove Society) they decided to make up their profits by charging more for the properties. Obviously the current financial climate has seen prices tumble, but St George have yet to follow suit; hence, slow sales. As with all gossip, I cannot vouch for its veracity.

If St George would like some free publicity, I will gladly sing their praises here in return for a one-bedroom flat. For a two-bedroom flat, I will also renounce my dislike of the Vauxhall Bridge development.

* In case you don’t know what feeds are, the BBC have a good overview; they’re much more convenient than visiting loads of sites every day. While on technical matters, the 30% of people who visit this site using Internet Explorer 6 should really consider updating to a modern browser; IE6 is old, slow, and potentially insecure. Ask a web-savvy friend if you don’t know what this means.

Author: Peter

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

99 thoughts on “Eating, drinking, house prices — business as usual”

  1. Also visited the Cambria recently and thought the burger I had was very nice, was a bit overwhelmed by the Chandelier frenzy though.

    Agreed about IE6 Peter, it’s over 6 years old and is incredibly insecure, quite frankly it’s rubbish.

    I’d recommend any of the following browsers over any current version of IE.

    http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
    http://www.google.com/chrome
    http://www.apple.com/safari/
    http://www.opera.com/

    Out of interest Peter, how many visitors to your site actually use IE6?

  2. Does anyone know Roy the Charity Man?

    It works like this, supposedly: he goes door to door collecting for charity, and comes back a few months later to show you the thank-you letters from the charities he supports.

  3. Yes, we have had several visits from such a chap, but I am not keen, there’s something of the Barry George about that character, charity works or not.

    The best thing is when the Witnesses turn up and the cats try and escape through the front door — the language turns Satanic and the Witnesses fly.

  4. I suspect a lot of the IE6 users are accessing the blog from work, using corporate PCs which are locked down to prevent us from installing better browsers.

    Loads of corporates still haven’t upgraded from the nightmare that is IE6.

  5. Had a really good night out in Camberwell last night at the Blue Elephant Theatre and Pasha. The theatre has a great play on at the moment, “First Class”. Only eight people in the audience last night, which was a real shame as it was great. The bar at Blue Elephant is also particularly pleasant… Why do you think more people dont’ go?

    As for Pasha, that’s an experience to be recommended. Go into the hotel, follow a very long corridor, and just when you think it must all be a joke and there’s no restaurant at all, the corridor opens up, tardis-like, into a spectacular restaurant that is literally bustling. Good atmosphere, good food, friendly staff, and Camberwell’s only restaurant complete with little bridge over a fishpond with waterfall!

    1. GC — you may like to know that on the strength of your posting, I booked tickets for myself & 2 friends for First Class at The Blue Elephant tonight and really enjoyed it. I’ve never been to The Blue Elephant before and what a really nice venue. There were about 15 there tonight. The show ends tomorrow folks, so if you have nothing else planned, go. Two very talented actors/writers just starting out.

  6. Camberwell in the Guardian today – or rather the old Cube nightclub (now Nia), as the second chronological location on a gangland firearm’s forensic CV (a shooting in late 2005). Happy days.

    I also notice that Thai House has done it’s annual ‘Doctor-Who-at-the-end-of-a-season’ bit and shapeshifted into another incarnation – this time a Chinese restaurant. I’m tempted to go in and quietly suggest they really concentrate on making some decent food rather than worrying too much about what colour the sign is painted.

    In other news, me and a friend went to the newly refurbed Joiner’s Arm’s the other day to find they’d pursued a somewhat ham-fisted excercise in gentrification: Aubergine coloured walls, an odd mix of a single low couch and lots of silly high tables and chairs, along with the superfluous wide, flatscreen TV flickering away in the corner. It was much nicer as it was.

    However, got some lamb ribs in the house sauce from Silver Lake last night, and they were proper Bo, I tell thee.

  7. surely the latest ‘transformation’ must be the ‘amazing’ works at the macdonalds. like there is an existing colour scheme is going to cover up the scumbaggery of the whole deal.

  8. @ 9

    Eyechild, The Joiners Arms looks o.k and at least they didn’t touch the original carpintery or the magnificent tiled mural in the public bar!

    Generally, I think businesses should be encouraged to totally reject steel shutters and cheap,garish u.p.v.c designed by plonkers with a rudimentary grasp of photoshop, that mentally stresses everyone out and risks triggering epilepic episodes in favour of more traditional signage made of wood and screwed on lettering…

    It the future! — It will help us to think and see more clearly

    Think Cruson,Caravaggio — simple,modest,minimal does the job…

  9. Roy the charity man is a bit odd. I don’t think he’s a fraudster, but the whole soft spoken geordie thing gives one the willies.

    1. Hmm. Me too, I think. I’ve seen him around a lot.

      Probably unfair to discuss seomone in public like this.

      In princple I give to charity when possible. What goes around comes around.

  10. @ 11 eusebiovic

    True, they could have messed it up a lot more. I guess I just feel a bit mournful when people try to ‘funk up’ a boozer, and make it worse than it was, because, yes, it’s easier to make things more complicated than it is to make them simpler.

    And if you’re referring to the butchering of the Kennedy’s shop front (surely the ‘prettiest, not to mention most historic shop front Camberwell had, then I’m with you all the way. That was criminal.

  11. @ 14

    I’m still fuming about the whole Kennedy’s sacrilige…

    Christine’s Meat and Fish indeed…

    IDIOTS

    I see that “DRINK STORE” has changed it’s signage…A shame they didn’t ask me for ideas, a great big illuminated UPVC Father Jack from classic sitcom Father Ted would have looked great on the frontage of that building above the sign…it’s what the local councillors would have wanted too…

    Encourage all Camberwellians to drink ourselves to death — No wonder John Ruskin pissed off — he saw it coming over 100 years ago!!!

  12. Unfortunately it’s the way it can be… Kennedy’s could have done something about their long term security as an ongoing business years ago but didn’t budge at all with the movement of time and, inevitably, eventually the movement of time moved them on; and Christine’s Meat and Fish came along to take the risk on in a different way, presumably in keeping with the changing times.

  13. Still don’t agree with the anti offy consensus on here.

    Implication that opening a cheap off license is going to create a plague of alcoholic tramps is nonsense. I am proud of the local booze prices. They couldn’t be any cheaper.

    As for Kennedy’s versus Christines then I just don’t get your point. Unsustainably unprofitable, previously maligned sausage shop is suddenly the symbol of a fictional golden era in Camberwell retail. Give it a rest.

  14. Alan, the probalem with Kennedys/Christines is not so much the style of the shop but what they did to the frontage. The frontage of the former shops on the Walworth road and in Bromley are now listed but as i understand the council weren’t quick enougth to list the one in Camberwell. In my opinion the new owners are fools as they have probaly knocked several thousands off the value of that property by doing what they did.

  15. I agree with Alan about the local booze prices. You can get a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon in a couple of the shops in Camberwell for £15.99. That’s the cheapest price I’ve seen in London (only Duty Free is cheaper), and I haven’t been reduced to talking to myself, urinating in alleyways or fighting in parks.

  16. @ 16 & 17

    I’m not referring to the actual business itself — Just that original architecture should be sensitively preserved if it has distinctive features

    I am not saying Kennedy’s should be still there trading, simply that it should have been restored and preserved and let out to future owners who can work with the building rather than against it

    Have you seen what they have done? — They can hardly fit between the refrigeration cabinet and the wall and they spent a lot of money — If they had worked with what they had I’m sure the expenditure would have been considerably less

    The Kennedy’s in Herne Hill has been changed to a fishmonger called “Cape Cod”

    They have worked with the original features only changing the shop sign and giving it a bit of TLC — simple!

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/routebus62/2200259918/

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/11189692@N07/2439114946/

    If you like cheap alcohol then I agree 24 hour off licenses are Nirvana — but we don’t need 20 outlets — that’s my point — only if you’re an alcoholic can the odd tuppence difference between each establishment be such a big deal…

  17. @14–20 — These piecemeal protection measures will always fall short of the speed of the market, particularly a distorted one.

    While shopping regeneration projects are confined to a Bellenden spotlight ‘n’ lick o’ paint and do not regulate planning and parking for local shops more widely long term, this will continue.

    Long-standing Camberwellers will remember the Art Deco shop frontage on Camberwell New Road (an elaborate wood-on-glass pattern), which was stripped out and boarded up five years ago to accommodate an unofficial residence. This within a conservation area epitomises the different approach to enforcement of commercial and residential planning rules.

    Even Christine’s treatment of Kennedys falls far short of the wholesale butchery of Denmark Road (Lambeth side), choked out of existence by residents’ cars. Breeze blocks have replaced shared community space and a literal window Momus like into the soul of the locality. The few remaining shops can be observed in the stranglehold of local motorist residents, blocking off frontages from visiting customers and suppliers and making crossing this busy road more dangerous for vulnerable pedestrians.

    There are also one or two people actively lobbying for the conversion of shops to flats who claim to have the “good of the community” at heart, and to do this out of a “love for Camberwell”.

    This is distasteful, as local shops are the most obvious outlet for local deprived and ethnic minority populations to express themselves entrepreneurially, due to racial prejudice within City firms. The argument goes that “they can only run fried chicken shops and nail parlours”. It just sounds like a coded right wing agenda to me, but if you live, work or trade in Camberwell then you’re entitled to your opinion.

    1. Oh, come off it, Regen! Thanks for granting us all the right to express our opinions — we were all a bit timid in putting them forward, but now we have your blessing.….…

  18. @8
    Where are the Blue Elephant and Pasha?

    @9
    Where is the Joiner’s Arms?

    Once I know where these places are I might try a visit!

  19. @ 20 How dare you, Eusebiovic! I AM an alcoholic, and I demand my rights!

    @ 22 Hotel Pasha is at the top of Camberwell Road.

    Blue Elephant is just off Camberwell Road,(turn off at the BP garage).

    The Joiner’s Arms is next to Pesh Flowers, I believe.

  20. What make of bourbon, Mark, and where is this mythical place called Lidl situated?

    That price is so cheap it must’ve been manufactured by Vladimir Putin himself to poison us all.

  21. This article sums up everything that I was trying to articulate…

    Shop signs have never been uglier. A stroll down the high street has turned into optical torture

    Charlie Brooker The Guardian, Monday April 23 2007

    I live in a town you may have heard of. It is called London. In many ways, it is a great place — excellent local amenities, a giant ferris wheel, and more than a few famous faces (Toby Anstis lives here, as does that woman off Holby City — you know, the nursey one). But there is a downside, too. London — like many other places — has a cancer; an unwelcome phenomenon that has been gradually spreading over the past decade, and is now reaching saturation point. I am talking, of course, about modern laser-printed uPVC retail signage.
    Shop fronts have never been uglier. I am not talking about the big chains here — they have spent millions designing their logos. They tend to look crisp and clean and, occasionally, even demure. I have got nothing against, say, Nando’s. No, I am annoyed by the little guy — the pound shops, the cheapo grocers, the off-licences and the takeaways with their horrid, shrieking signs. Frankly, I could not give a toss if Tesco bulldozed the lot of them and turned the entire nation into one huge supermarket. At least there would be some typographic consistency.

    A few years ago, shopkeepers had three basic options: 1) paint the store front yourself; 2) hire a professional to paint it for you; 3) buy some metal or plastic lettering and screw it over the door. Now, there is a fourth option: get a bunch of clueless, cut-price bastards to design a banner on a computer in six minutes flat, stretch it to fit and print it out using some hideous modern laserjet device filled with waterproof inks the colour of sick.

    As a result, we live in a cluttered optical hell of carelessly stretched-and-squashed typefaces and colour schemes that clash so violently they give you vertigo. Stroll down the average high street and it is like being assailed by gaudy pop-ups on the internet. It makes your eyes want to spin inward and puke down their own sockets.

    As if thoughtless font abuse were not enough, some signs even incorporate scanned photographs; a garish snap of some glistening meat surrounded by a yellow Photoshop “haze” effect, hovering over an electric blue background, flanked by the words KEBAB DUNGEON in bright red, foot-high Comic Sans crushed to 75% of its usual width. Jesus. Why not just punch me in the face and have done with it?

    The overall effect is depressing and disorientating. One computer-assisted eyesore after another, jostling for position, kicking good taste in the nuts. Surely this is more than the human mind can process? I would not be at all surprised to discover that the local crime rate rises each time one of these poxy signs go up. It is enough to put almost anyone in a bad mood.

    That is not just idle speculation. Well, all right, it is. But there is little doubt that environment affects mood. That is why we tend to paint our bedroom walls soothing, neutral, off-white shades as opposed to frantic lime green with Day-Glo orange swastikas. When I walk the streets of the tiny Oxfordshire village in which I grew up, my mind feels clearer. I can concentrate in a way that simply isn’t possible in London, where my subconscious is too busy trying to filter out the billboards and the lettering and the POUNDLAND ANY ITEM £1 OR LESS.

    Laser-printed uPVC shop signs are an atrocity. A sanctioned act of vandalism. They should be outlawed or, at the very least, be put through some kind of approval process in which a panel of graphic designers inspects each proposed sign, rejecting those with squashed typography or obnoxious colour schemes.

    Something has got to be done because it is only going to get worse. You know what will be coming next: animated shop signs with moving “wallpaper” backgrounds. Storefronts resembling god-awful homepages from 1998. Row upon row of them. Visual bedlam wherever you turn. Two months of that and our cities are going to be over-run with screaming maniac gangs; hitherto law-abiding citizens driven insane without knowing why, like the demented hordes from 28 Days Later.

    It is your fault, shopkeepers. It is your ugly font-abusing fault.

  22. If we had more chains we’d get better signage and cheaper hotel rates.

    The Camberwell Society is working on improving shop frontages. It’s one of the community groups getting things done so join and help.

  23. Somerfield is dead, long live err…the local shops?

    Since I buy 90% of all my groceries and food from the local shops, and only things like toothpaste and loo roll from Somerfield, it won’t make much difference to me either way when Co-op take over.

    I wonder however, what will happen if Tesco or Sainsburys’ take over one of the two stores. How will that affect the local area and shops?

    1. Well it appears a Tesco Express has now been approved over in the east side so perhaps we’ll see. Looks like it will be a good addition.

      You know Camberwell. “No supermarket chains allowed! Please open a Waitrose!”

  24. @29 — clarification: The Camberwell Society is working on improving frontages on Camberwell Church Street. It’s important to understand the geographical limitations of any action undertaken, however beneficial it certainly is, because most Camberwell community action involving planning changes or pledged funds is confined to the area between Denmark Rail and C. Church Street. This has been true for decades, and is unlikely to change.

    The best kind of shop frontages are invariably independents given fair trading conditions, but chains can look more professional than some of what we have locally. This is due to chains’ centralised design teams and because unfair trading conditions for independents mean that there is less development money for them to plough into design and marketing.

    @28 — I share your frustration, Eusebiovic. But this is what happens, as I explained in my earlier post, when you have no protection for commercial planning laws, by comparison to residential ones. Conservation area rules offer no protection whatsoever, unless the area concerned is within 100 metres of the Grove Lane/Camberwell Grove quadrant.

    Charlie Brooker is wrong to blame shopkeepers where the streetscape is poorly designed, there is pavement parking by residents and no thought for visitor parking. How about the satellite dishes, and SUVs parked on-street? An empty street is a beautiful thing compared to all that we know, as any one remaining here on a Christmas Day can attest.

    The street itself is an eyesore, far more than any shops. Why blame just shopkeepers for low aspirations, when they are shared by many locals and the prevailing planning wisdom of local authorities?

  25. Brooker’s columnist persona is so boring. He takes a tiny point and bleeds it dry without ever seeming to tire of his own witless observations.

    ‘Why not just punch me in the face and have done with it?’

    When are you free Charlie?

  26. Speaking of house prices.

    So the biggest pyramid scheme in history has been exposed — banks flogging worthless debt to each other until they all reached technical insolvency. Then they held a gun to our heads and extorted a £20,000 bailout from each of us in deferred taxation. (What suddenly happened to healthy free market principals of letting things go bust?) We’ll get to borrow our own money back — at devastating interest rates of course. Either that or lose any savings to savage inflation. But the best bit is that bankers get to keep their obscene bonuses after all. (BTW: Losses which caused Lehmans to fold $6.6bn. Bonuses paid by Lehmans in 2006 $8.7bn) Still, at least in SE5 we’ll continue to benefit from the trickle down economy. Excellent news if you’re someone’s nanny, a Lamborghini polisher or a coke dealer.

    I hope neither Alan or nobody else is in negative equity yet?

  27. Impossible to tell.

    Out of interest what value would you put
    on a 2 bed house in Selborne Village?

    There are a couple for sale around £300k but that’s only an asking price..

    Everyone is always very scathing about pyramid selling but I made some lifelong friends out of a sock chain letter and I still get regular consignments at no cost.. How much were your socks Butterball?

    1. £300K sounds very ambitious. £250K maybe.…but really who knows. I’d guess it’s pretty hard to sell anything at this point. Maybe wait for the Obama bounce in January/February.

    2. Aren’t the pundits saying something like 30 percent fall from the peak is to be expected? That’s put you in the region of £210K. So long as you’re solvent(ish) and have a job the point is moot cos your next place will have dropped the same amount.

      Obviously having a job is the critical point.

    3. And house prices have been increasing at the rate of 15–20% a year up until this year so its only if you have to sell it now will you lose anything.

      I’d say they would sell for more like £250,000 now — the 30% drop figures are for the country as a whole: the London figures are likely to be less pronounced as there is always a demand for London housing.

  28. With less than 30% home ownership in Camberwell, I suspect it’s one of the rare times when the likes of Chelsea and such fare far worse — especially as its the top of the pyramid experiencing the highest real-term losses. The 60+ percent here living in subsidised housing are laughing, for once. Socialism is back in fashion and Camberwell’s ahead of the curve!

  29. Nice but Hardly the reality.

    In essence nothing’s really changed exccept perception. The pressure is on, people are not going out and spending money like they did last year, and this slow down of spending affects everything.

    Camberwell will feel this more acutely than Newroad suggests — there is less financial cushion here than in most places in London.

    I predict a huge increase locally in begging, conning and burglary in the very near future.

  30. Also Newroad i very much doubt that the 60% of all non home owners in Camberwell are living in nice secure subsidised social housing. Many of them, myself included, will be living in unsecure private tenancies and sadly i think many of us will be the forgotten victims of the credit crunch. Our rents are already rising sharply to cover the costs of our landlords mortgage increases and we are vulnerable to buy to let landlords who may have over reached themselves and now can’t re mortgage so they justevict the tenant and sell up or even worse just get teh propoerty repossessed by teh bank — there’s much less incentive to keep paying the mortgage if if not your home.

  31. The topic was negative equity. Social exclusion and the impact of the downturn will no doubt have huge negative implications in our area where an overwhelming majority struggle and could care less about pub makeovers and prettier shop fronts.

  32. Interesting to check out Tesco’s turnover — £30 billion, compared to its profits, of £2 billion (6.67 per cent of turnover). This scotches the myth of its efficiency, which you can understand when the wasteful megashed distribution infrastructure is taken into account. Any betting shop or 24 hour alcohol licence place could beat this record into the ground. And I have no doubt that JJ Caterers’ margins are far superior.

    This, despite their strong position as freeholder of many of their premises, and powerful bargaining position as tenant for their leases. This, despite that their size allows them to negotiate rail freight in a way that small business cannot. This, despite the fact that Tesco are also a bank, and will have benefitted from injections of liquidity into the system in ways that competitor small businesses will not.

    To be fair, many local shops’ margins are also as waferly-slender as this 6.67 per cent figure.

    Makes you think though – what if Tesco, like most local shops away from the town centre, were not granted permission to build whole hectares of parking for each megastore, with market forces and the superior efficiency of alcohol shops cited? Such a vanishingly thin margin would surely be obliterated, were they discriminated against in this way, as small-shop shopping destinations are, by the local authorities.

    On to So’ton Way.

    Tesco Expresses are cited in the objective Wikipedia as stocking large numbers of high margin goods to compensate for the loss of economies of scale. If that is true, then So’ton Way residents will more often than not be paying over the odds for crud.

    The additional lorries will bring more danger, stress, noise and pollution for local pedestrians. But more importantly, they will condition the local street infrastructure, making it far more likely that continuing planning for the area will be done on a pedestrian-unfriendly basis. The area, which has real potential for a community, will be planned for as a lorry access area by the Council’s streets team. The yawning expanse of the Wells Way/Southampton Way crossroads is already one of the most intimidating prospects in London for a pedestrian, but I dread to think what is now coming.

    I would never wish a Tesco Express on an inner city area where I did not live. Not quite “Come friendly bombs”, but it’s close.

  33. Yes newroad i know the topic was negative equity and my point was it doesn’t just affect rich home owners in Chelsea but many camberwell tenants as well seeing as we have little or no rights if our landlords fall into negative equity and decide that buy to let isn’t the road to riches that they thought it was.

    I was also challenging your assertation that the 60% of Camberwell residents that are non home owners are sitting nicely in secure affordable housing that is simply not the case.
    Mark is correct that the downturn is goign to affect those non homeowning Camberwell residents much more than the Chelsea home owners.

  34. Rather foolishly, perhaps, we have chosen the precise moment global capitalism crumbles around our ears to tentatively put our house on the market. The word from a couple of the estate agents we’ve seen is that Camberwell is actually suffering more from the downturn as it’s ‘up and coming’, as the phrase goes. Places like Clapham, they say, have suffered less.

    I’d have thought housing in sunny SE5 was less over-inflated and thus had less far to fall, but apparently not.

    It seems that assessing sale prices is becoming even more of a back-of-the-envelope science than ever — the highest estimate we got was a full 50% more than the lowest. Barking.

    For the record, I’d like to point out that I still believe a falling housing market is, overall, a good thing.

  35. And on a lighter note, does anyone know whether the cafe in Chumleigh Gardens is open again now? Or can anyone suggest a good place within walking distance of central Camberwell to go for Sunday brunch with a 19 month old nephew in tow?

    1. chumleigh gardens cafe is running again but the days of really lovely vegetarian/vegan food are sadly long gone

      alternatively, tadim’s is always a safe bet, as is sun & doves

    2. Thanks for tips. We were looking for somewhere to eat on Sunday morning, so the Sun and Doves was no good unfortunately. I cycled over to Chumleigh Gardens about 10.30am on Saturday to see for myself if it is open. It was all locked up despite signs on the gates saying ‘Open 10am-5pm daily’. Shame. We ended up brunching with the Peckham yummy mummies and daddies down on Bellenden Road. It was child friendly if not wallet friendly.

    3. I love Chumleigh gardens and the cafe too.

      It’s a real gem even though it’s not as vegan friendly as it once was…

  36. Hi — the SE5 Forum would like to invite everyone to the following event:

    Camberwell knife crime symposium: 13th November 2008

    On 13th November, the SE5 Forum is hosting a symposium on knife crime in Camberwell.

    This event aims to:

    Begin a dialogue about this very serious issue in our community
    Bring people together to share experience, expertise and views
    Look at what is already being done to tackle knife crime and encourage young people away from anti-social behaviour.
    At the meeting there will be representatives fro local and national organisations involved in positive responses to the issue of knife crime.

    This is your opportunity to contribute to the debate.

    The event will take place from 6.30pm on 13th November at:

    The Wolfson Lecture Theatre
    Institute of Psychiatry
    16 De Crespigny Park
    London
    SE5 8AF

    A map can be found here http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/virtual/?path=/about/how-to-find-the-institute-of-psychiatry/
    There will be an invite with a proper map on the SE5 Forum website very soon.

  37. PeteW

    Don’t trust estate agents. I think you are right that Camberwell has had less far to fall, price-wise. And I reckon the sold-prices stats will prove it. Because first time buyers are extinct and banks can now only do realistic salary multiples, everyone is affected. At least the situation should save you money if you’re moving somewhere better. And if the long term effect of the crash is that more people can buy a home without being crippled with debt, that is a good thing.

    Some economists (not those with vested interests like agents, bankers and developers) believe houses won’t reach 2007 levels again until 2023.

    Whadaya reckon, Alain?

  38. Static.

    Several things to think about that are quite nice:

    1) Freaky Halloween Quiz at The Sun and Doves this Wednesday.
    2) Free ‘Dress to Depress’ fancy dress party with disgusting cocktails (lurverly actually), snack bites, food, DJ’s and a band called ‘IllerSapiens’ who are neighbours of ours and in seed of EXPOSURE and ridiculously generous prizes for being the stupidest, the coolest the most disgusting and the most boring’y dressed people in the SE5 universe. That’s on Fightday night 31 October.
    3) The S&D November Film Season is gay, and about time too. It’s been far too gloomy recently.
    4) First Sunday Jazz with the Jazzuits hosting from 8pm on 1 November.
    5) Neil Williams’ opening exhibition view (PRIVATE but everyone’s invited) is on Monday 10 November. Free booze but you HAVE to buy one of his fantastic photographs of London!
    5) Gaycamberwell.com launches at The Castle on 19 November
    6) The Sun and Doves’ Christmas menu is ready for visual consumption. NOW.

    There was something else.

  39. Ahh yes. All the above are available for viewing http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesunanddoves

    The other thing… just had a completely delicious delivered take away from JJ Caterers on Southampton Way (020 7703 3761). BEST Indian food had in the UK. AND great value too.

    My memory.

    Forgot the US election — showing live on Tuesday 4 November until the death. Or life. Or whatever 4am finish apparently.

    Salt beef, beigals, burgers, brownies and anything else to do with America available, like root beer, on the night…

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