London Loves...

London Loves.....Gigs

2012-01-04T22:15:00.034Z

Last year bulldozers demolished London's best concert venue the London Astoria to make way for the Crossrail project. A sad moment for many London concert goers not to mention the G.A.Y community.

The size and shape of the Astoria - somehow large but intimate at the same time - and the ability to see the stage perfectly from downstairs or upstairs made it my personal favourite.

I saw some marvellous gigs there including The Libertines euphoric first big headline show in early 2003. Afterwards, being amongst the last to leave, we exited sweating into the chilly Charing Cross Road to find a gaggle of schoolgirls gathered around a tall bedraggled Burberry-coated figure leaning against a lamppost; Pete Doherty. Why he was hanging around outside the front entrance of his own gig I still don't know. Maybe he wanted some fresh air. Maybe he was waiting to score some skag. Or maybe - as later events suggests - he just wanted to meet his fans. I still have his scrawled autograph on a travel card somewhere but he managed to succesfully evade my attempted kiss on the lips. Ah, those romantic pre-Oyster card days.

That was a special show as anybody who was there will testify. It took place in near darkness. Very low lighting, a very nervous shy Pete and Carl presumably on a lot of drugs wearing leather jackets with nothing else underneath just bare sweaty chests. Two shambolic frontmen and a juggernaut of a rhythm section. John barely moving and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else but there. Gary pounding the drums at ear splitting volume.

The opening chords of 'Horrorshow' ringing through that venue like a pneumatic drill and the chaotic, sprawling, anarchic moshpit that accompanied every song was electrifying. A call back to the old days of gigging. Punk rock for a new generation.

Somewhere in the midsts of time my ticket for that gig got lost. Probably in the crowd. I lost many things in that moshpit; a pair of spectacles, a jumper, my sanity..... But I've kept the tickets to pretty much every other concert I've ever attended in London. And here I've compiled a few of the tickets to gigs that have meant the most to me. You've probably all got favourite gig memories so please do share yours in the comments section below.

Nirvana, Brixton Academy, April 1994 - The gig that never was

I kick off with a gig that, sadly, never happened. A gig I looked forward to more than any other in my life. I was 13 years old when the tour was announced and remember asking my nan to book tickets for me and my best mate Graham. When they arrived via Stargreen box office - one of London's few remaining independent ticket outlets, located on Argyll Street, a place I thoroughly recommend instead of Ticketmaster et al - the anticipation was almost too much to bear.

Nirvana meant so much to kids of a very specific age - my age. They occupied a small window of time in between the indie of the late 80s and the coming of Britpop and Oasis which changed 'indie' music forever. Nirvana were the last of the truly alternative bands. They have become misunderstood in the course of time as a depressing, overwrought, teenage angsty band. In reality they were just a very heavy, very loud rock'n'roll band with an incredible sound, a ferocious drummer and an unbelievable singer/screamer. And they were showmen - trashing their equipment after every show to entertain the fans.

A month before the Brixton show Kurt Cobain overdosed in Rome midway through the European leg of the In Utero tour. The tour was postponed and Kurt flew back to Seattle to recuperate. He never recuperated and was found dead on 8th April at his home having blown his brains out with a shotgun. The postmortem found that he killed himself on the 5th April - the date of the gig we were supposed to see.

Rage Against The Machine, Brixton Academy, September 1993 - My first ever gig

Look at the state of this ticket. It gives you a rough idea of how messy it was in the Academy that night. Sweaty, riotous, celebratory. An amazing way to kick off my London gigging days. I still remember buying the ticket from the box office a few weeks before the show. Talk about pre-internet era! Buying tickets IN PERSON. Some work colleagues and I recently relived the magic of buying tickets in person; trundling down to the Scala one lunchtime to get Kurt Vile tickets. No booking fee and seeing the ticket printed off there and then from the machine - of such things dreams are made.

Anyway, Rage Against The Machine. Another angsty, grungy, heavy band. This was an Anti-Nazi League benefit show with a really big bill of support acts and my brother and I queued up from about 4pm (note the doors opening time of 5pm). We were pretty much first in the queue. The line-up as I remember it was: Lush, Headswim, Billy Bragg, Senser (who remembers them??) and Rage at the height of their powers. I was a very scrawny 13 year old and there were some very large metaller type men in the crowd. With every mosh I was lifted fully off the floor with no control over my own body movements. Amazing, truly amazing. How my (usually very strict) mother let me go to gigs like this at that age I do not know. I suppose she had no choice in the matter, she could see nothing was going to stop me.

Compulsion, LA2 (later the Mean Fiddler), June 1994 - The naughty gig

Who remembers the band Compulsion? Nope, didn't think so. Who remembers the LA2? Yeah, some of you do. The London Astoria 2 later knows as the Mean Fiddler was situated just yards from the main Astoria and the entrance was a very exciting lit stairway going down underneath the bowels of the West End. It was a sweaty, thrilling little club venue that hosted Popscene - the britpop club night which along with Loony Tunes at The Dome in Tuffnell Park was the place for teenaged kids with floppy haircuts to dance to Blur, Ride and The Inspiral Carpets in those heady days called the 1990s.

Who were Compulsion, you ask? It's not really important but here's a taster.

Why was this the naughty gig, you ask? The answer involves ampethamines, parents and expulsions from grammar schools.

The gig was tremendous and was notable for the lead singer wearing a t-shirt upon which were scrawled the words 'STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON'.

Oasis, Wembley Stadium, July 2000 - My favourite gig of all time

Say what you will about Oasis, they know how to play a rock'n'roll concert. This was my favourite ever gig for many reasons. The location, the fact it was meant to be the last ever concert before the old Wembley was knocked down (sadly Bon Jovi squeezed another gig in later in the summer therefore nullifying that claim), the weather, the atmosphere, the support acts (Doves in their pomp and a rejuvenated, reunified Happy Mondays) and above all the sheer banter.

The concert took place amid uncertainty as to whether it would be Oasis's last ever gig. The brothers had come to serious blows just weeks before. This was the second of two nights at Wembley. After the first night Liam Gallagher went on a massive all-night bender arriving at the show on the Sunday still pissed and high and cursing everything in sight. The gig was televised live so we got to re-live it all again when we got home. I still have the video. Gigs just do not get more entertaining than this. Oh and the music was pretty special too.

Eminem, London Arena, February 2001 - Worst gig of all time

Perhaps the shittest, most depressing concert that has ever taken place in London. The venue in docklands under the shadow of Canary Wharf was picketed outside by gay rights activists angry at Eminem's 'homophobic' lyrics. The audience consisted of kids with spiky hair and braces accompanied by their mums, mixed with wannabe badboys smoking spliffs and doing 'gangsta' hand signs. The main event featured an American man wearing a boiler suit flailing around with a pretend chainsaw wearing a Jason mask pretending to pop pills and kill people. Every song cut out halfway through to be replaced with weird cartoons on the big screen. Half way through I simply walked out - perhaps the only gig I've ever left midway through. What the hell was I thinking???

Fugazi, Stratford Rex, May 1999 - Loudest gig ever

So deafeningly loud that one could hear ringing in their ears not just days afterwards but in between songs! Bizarre venue. Not surprising really as this is a bizarre kind of band. Look at the ticket price - £6! In 1999! Don't mug yourselves off guys. Guys? Oh.

Tindersticks, Highbury Garage, November 1993 - Cheapest gig ever

Ok, so the Fugazi one was comparatively cheaper, inflation wise, but the Tindersticks for a fiver?? You just wouldn't get that these days. Intimate pre-'Relentless make-over' Garage. Audience of thirty somethings and middle aged fogies and us 13 year old kids too young to even drink. A nice couple bought us each pints of ale. Our mate's dad collected us afterwards in the car. Not exactly rock'n'roll.

The Strokes, Alexandra Palace, December 2003 and Interpol, Alexandra Palace, November 2007 - Closest ever gig(s)

I love a gig that is within walking distance of my house. Who doesn't, right? None of that post-gig public transport hideousness. As a long time Wood Green resident and now as a Crouch End resident I love it when decent gigs take place at Ally Pally. I can go to the local pubs I like beforehand and laugh at all the poor bastards who have to trek back to south London or wherever.

I can see it from my window now as I type, the old palace sitting up there on top of the hill overlooking all of London. I've been to a few shows there. These two were easily the finest. And look at those pretty concert tickets too. Splendid. Really fucking splendid.

My (girl)friend collapsed near a bus stop on the way home from the Strokes one and we had to call an ambulance. That wasn't so good.

Babyshambles, Rhythm Factory, May 2004 - Weirdest gig ever?

After the Libertines imploded the Doherty idolisers - myself included - followed him everywhere he went and supported him in everything he did. For a while. This, one of the early Babyshambles gigs with the early line-up when Pete was still borrowing the guitarist and drummer from the brilliant, short lived White Sport (who were also on the bill ) was bizarre. A sweatbox Rhythm Factory with emotional drunk, high youngsters falling all over the place, kissing, fighting, groping.

We waited til about 1 or 2am for Doherty to finally show up and run onstage clearly very high on crack to give a thoroughly abrasive, dishevelled, disconcerting set most of which just sounded like feedback and a clattering banging sound. At one point Doherty tried to light a cigarette for about 2-3 mins. Afterwards I shared a taxi back to Finsbury Park with some girls from the north east who were crying because they'd finally got to see their hero play live. Really weird.

Morrissey, Kentish Town Forum, November 1999 - The day I hugged Morrissey

Anybody who knows me knows the extent of my Smiths and Morrissey obsession. In 1999 a friend and I went to see him play four nights in a row at the Forum in Kentish Town. I attempted to get onstage on each of these four nights. On one occassion Morrissey spotted me crowdsurfing toward the stage and put his hand out to pull me onstage. For a brief moment, merely seconds, I put my arms around him as he sang 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me'. I buried my face in the back of his neck which was incredibly sweaty. The sweat was cold as he had just been off stage before returning for the encore. That's about as much detail as you need...

Here's a picture of the moment, which somebody actually captured and put up on a Moz fans forum site....

Radiohead, South Park Oxford, July 2001 - Best ever non-London gig

Ok, so, in a blog about London things this is kind of cheating right? I do apologise. But I couldn't write an article about gigs without mentioning this one. And, well, Oxford is close to London, right?? It's just down the M40.

This was a fantastic gig despite the heavy, consistent, pouring rain. Supergrass and Beck supported but nobody cared about them. This was Thom and the boys at the absolute peak of their powers coming back triumphantly to their home town. Quite formiddable.

I attended this gig with the young members of the Mystery Jets who had just completed their bacchelaureates. Posh, eh? Blaine's mother (who lives in a village nearby) tried to get me to persuade Blaine and Will that pursuing rock'n'roll was not a fruitful path while Blaine's father Henry - also a Mystery Jet - retained a thoughtful silence and a half smile. I half heartedly told them that maybe they should continue with their studies. Thankfully they ignored me.

London Loves.....A New Pair of Trainers

2011-08-12T13:54:00.030+01:00

Many esteemed writers have had their say on the London riots. Most of the comment has been eloquent and heartfelt but few have really been able to put themselves inside the heads of the rioting kids. Instead I feel we ought to listen to the kids themselves - the products of this environment. And to those who grew up in the area where the whole thing exploded.

I left off for a while for things to simmer down before wording my response. Partly because the whole thing was at turns depressing, confusing, sad and at times even comical. Partly because I didn't quite know what to say. This blog is about the things London loves after all. And the vast majority of Londoners really did not love these riots. In some quarters there has been genuine hatred directed towards the looters; an incredulity and sheer disbelief at what was happening on our beloved streets, to our beloved shops, communities, buildings, houses and citizens.

The hate-filled, angry responses towards the looters did not surprise me. These responses came from people who have voices, people who index highly within the social networking sphere and aren't shy about tweeting and facebooking their disgust. Middle class, relatively affluent people, some with young children, most with a mortgage and a comfortable job. People with nice things furnishing their houses and disposable income in the bank to buy more stuff to adorn their homes (even if it means going further into our overdrafts....tut tut). People like me, people like you.

What I've tried to imagine over and over in the last few days as I saw kids smashing in the windows of JD Sports in my own beloved Wood Green (where the real looting of commercial high street premises began) was "if I was a 14 year old kid right now, would I be doing this?" The answer is no I don't think I would.

Yes I was angry and anarchistic as a kid, yes I didn't have the trainers and computer games that I wanted but I didn't grow up in poverty dependent on parents who were dependent on benefits, alcohol or drugs. And I didn't therefore have that sense of helplessness unique to poverty.

Many of the Londoners expressing disgust at what happened this week have probably never been inside a council flat. Not to generalise about council flats, but they are often sparsely furnished, undecorated, chilly and damp. This might sound like a 1980s cliche. It's still true now in at least 50% of cases even in spite of the amazing work done to social housing schemes under New Labour.

My response I suppose needs to be broken down piece by piece because the London riots were not a singular entity but a hotch potch of strange events triggering echoes in different suburbs. Wood Green, a place where I lived for 20 years of my life until moving out a matter of weeks ago is not a rough area. It is poor yes, multicural certainly. But people are generally happy and treat each other with respect. There is however a difficult relationship going on within the community. Above the shopping mall and high road there are council flats where families with young children and teenagers live. I've seen these kids spitting off the balcony onto shoppers below, chucking things off, smoking weed up there, comparing pitbull terriers. It's almost a hidden world above the shopping paradise below. They are bored, penniless, naughty and watch everyday as the capitalist machine rolls on and consumers pile in driving 4x4s from surrounding posher areas like Muswell Hill and Crouch End to do their shopping. They watch the capitalist machine they are not part of day in day out. And they get pissed off. And when they can, they nick stuff from the shops.

I'm not here to discuss the socio-economic reasons why they are bored or penniless or want to steal stuff. What I am saying is it's a reality that seemingly 90% of the population cannot understand, and that is where London society has failed.

If we cannot understand children being so disengaged from lawful, civil society that they are prepare to loot then perhaps, instead of simply criticising, we should make an effort to understand and look at what it is in London that is broken and needs fixing.

I would like to draw a distinction however between looting and violence.

While I can understand the mentality of looting what one doesn't have and what one is prohibited from having because of an entrenched system of disenfranchisement I cannot understand the wanton violence towards people and the destruction of property we have seen - particularly burning down buildings.

In the early hours of Sunday morning I watched a 1930's art deco building in Tottenham burn to the ground taking with it 23 residential flats above. On Monday I watched a building in West Croydon burn furiously for an hour also taking with it people's houses and independent businesses. The wanton, almost senseless destruction that took hold of Enfield, Ealing, Clapham and other quiet suburban areas baffled me as much as it baffled 'outraged of Tunbridge Wells' and yet I agree with some of the 'liberal commentators' who have spoken out against the massed ranks of public opinion. The system that has created inequality in these London boroughs - the economic wheels powered by a morally bereft banking system, supported by complacent politicians who further alienate the youth by closing youth centres and pricing them out of an education system increasingly aimed only at the privileged few - these are the things that should outrage people. And we should all be outraged at ourselves and our own complacency for failing to recognise how disaffected young people are in London today.

Finally, and sadly, the trigger for all of this destruction was quickly forgotten amongst the clamour and the madness. Mark Duggan, shot dead by police in Tottenham, was a black man with a young family living in a predominantly black area of London. Black men on the streets of London are 26% more likely to be stopped and searched than their white counterparts. While London has made huge strides forward since 1993 when in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence killing the Metropolitan police were described as "institutionally racist". For many in areas like Tottenham, Edmonton, Lewisham, East Ham, Harlesden, Southall and Brixton there still exists a tense stand off between ethnic minorities and the police. That this simmering tension was brought to a head by a killing is sad. Sadder still was that the furious response - a peaceful march that descended into violence - shocked so many of us. The majority live light years away from these downtrodden areas and it is not our place to cast judgement without first attempting to understand or to reach out and help poor communities.

As with the Rodney King beating that triggered the LA riots, America was shocked by the ferocity of response from the black community. But why? Here was a man being savagely clubbed by police officers only a generation on from the civil rights movement and the end of the Jim Crow segregation laws. Here in London, a place I like to think of as more racially integrated than LA, Duggan was shot dead just 25 years on from the Broadwater Farm riots - an episode of Tottenham life (in which a black woman died in her own home during a police raid) that left wounds which have never really been fully healed

More recently in 1999 in Tottenham Roger Sylvester, a black man with mental health problems died after being held down by six police officers for twenty minutes. The unlawful killing verdict was later quashed at which point his family "opted out" of the legal process.

There are other frequent incidents of poor policing and insensitive police attitudes in Tottenham and similar areas; many go unreported but are noted and memorised by the black community. It is easy to ignore what many of us do not have to face on a daily basis. The policing of these communities still has a long way to come.

The best that can come out of all this sadness would be that London becomes tighter, stronger and more unified. The famous 'Blitz spirit'. This has already begun in the shape of organised clean ups and the wonderful 'Why We Love Peckham' noticeboard outside a smashed and boarded up shop.

Quite frankly, what London needs right now from all of its inhabitants be they black, white, Turkish, Asian, policemen, looters, shop owners, MPs or residents is, quite simply, love.

Remember London loves you and you love London.

Peace.

London Loves.....Buses

2011-06-12T20:51:00.025+01:00

by Joshua Surtees

Typical. You wait for ages, then two blogs come at once. A bit like London's buses.

This city has a strange relationship with public transport. London apparently has the best transport system in the world and the worst system in the world at the same time. And buses embody this strange dichotomy more than any other mode of travel.

On Friday night after a 3.5 hr epic Ibsen play at the National Theatre we decided, in hindsight wrongly, to get the bus back to Kings Cross rather than walk across Waterloo Bridge and get on the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden. We thought it would be fun. And, to be honest, we couldn't be arsed to walk. It was dark, raining, and windy. And there were loads of tourists huddling under the shelter looking tense and wondering if this was what is referred to as "a British Summer". The thought of a warm bus delivering us jauntily through London streets to our destination was comforting. 20 mins later, the optimism had worn off and we were huddling together for warmth. Tired, hungry, and suffering from post-Ibsen stress disorder, we cursed miserably at everything in our wake. Especially the wretched tourists. At least 10 other buses had pulled up at our stop, offering sanctuary to the lucky few. 168s to Hampstead were abundant in number. The no.4 to Archway mocked us like some kind of delinquent. Even the 243, that masterpiece of a route that terminates in God's own country of Wood Green, where the streets are paved with gold (and general litter) gave us a knowing look as it chugged onwards. The 26, 341, 188, 76, and last but not least the no.1 to Tottenham Court Road; all arrived and departed as per schedule. Later........much, much later it seemed to our tired, Ibsen-ravaged minds, the 59 finally showed up. No apology from the driver. Not even a look of guilt or shame in his eyes. In fact possibly a glint of satisfaction "I've got the worst job in the world, but I have the power to make you extremely late. And cold. And wet."

Halfway through our severely-delayed journey, a ride that had been bumpy, stop/start-y and, in truth, further marred by a loud cross-aisle conversation conducted in French by two gallic chaps, the driver informed us that the bus was terminating at Holborn and turfed us out into the damp, black night once again. Whereupon, Boris Johnson appeared out of nowhere, creeping out of the shadows, slapped me about the face with a wet fish and ran off shrieking up Chancery Lane like an albino on speed.

Ok, I made the last bit up. But every citizen of this wonderful city recognises the point I'm trying to make.

Another 'funny' incident involving waiting for a bus occured this weekend. At about 4pm on Saturday afternoon I found myself once again on the South Bank but consuming much lighter fare this time. Disney's The Aristocats at the BFI with family members including a 3 year old whose birthday we happened to be celebrating and her 4 year old brother. In short, my beloved niece and nephew.

Needing to get back to Crouch End we navigated Waterloo Bridge (this took an unprecedented 45 minutes to cross owing largely to the fascinating spectacle of boats and water and people on boats on the water all passing directly below us). On Aldwych we waited for the usually reliable 91. Half an hour later we were still waiting. "Something must be happening in Trafalgar Sqare" we muttered vaguely to each other. And something was indeed happening in Trafalgar Square as we soon discovered. Suddenly in the distance, fast approaching we saw hundreds, no thousands of naked people heading towards us. It was Naked Bike Ride day and clearly they had stopped the traffic. To be fair, if you're going to be massively delayed then this is probably the cause of delay you'd most likely choose; simultaneously entertaining and a little bit wrong.

My niece and nephew didn't think it wrong though. Just massively fun. Merrily they waved each cyclist past as if cycling naked through the city centre was the most normal thing in the world.

There are many London bus tales from my 30 years of riding on them. None quite as slapstick or bawdy as Reg Varney and co got up to but varied nonetheless.......

I've cried on buses, laughed on buses, been drunk on buses, been sick on buses. Been mugged on a bus, been mugged off on a bus, been kicked off buses and fallen off buses. Cursed bus drivers, praised bus drivers. Got lost on a bus, woken up in Tottenham Hale at 3am on a bus. Lost money on buses, found money on buses. Chatted people up on buses, been chatted up on buses. I've seen a friend (accidentally) spit in the face of a rudeboy on the bus (wind/open window/velocity is a tricky combination to master when phlegming out the window.)

Blimey, I've even driven a bus. For about a day. It was a difficult time in my early 20s. A passing phase. Not one I'd care to repeat. The experience did, however, give me a newfound respect for drivers. When I saw the work rotas including 5am starts and 2am finishes in horrendous, life-disrupting rolling shift patterns my spirit was soon broken. When I carefully considered the thought of driving a huge vehicle containing lots of moody, strange, demanding people almost non-stop for 8 hours a day on London's traffic jammed, polluted, noisy, chaotic, roadworked, traffic lighted, potholed roads. Well, let's just say it wasn't a career opportunity I embraced with open arms. I took my £100 training money at the end of the week and never went back. Even now though I can still recall the driving instructor up at the Wembley training centre screaming, literally screaming at the poor trainees as they attempted manouevres in the relative safety of the training yard, and it sends shivers up my spine.

So, essentially, have a bit of respect for the poor buggers. They may be moody, unsympathetic, rude, bad at driving and bordering on the psychotic. But there's a reason why. Any job where you think "would I do that for a living?" and the answer you come up with is "no", is a job for which a certain degree of tolerance and empathy should be directed toward those who undertake it on a day-to-day basis.

Hmmmm....where is this blog going? What's it's final destination? Is it out of service? Does it terminate here?

I wanted to wax lyrical about Routemasters. The glorious, quaint red beasts that used to prowl our streets. Ding-dinging their way from Clapton Pond to Victoria (the 38) or from Liverpool Street to Westbourne Park (the 23). I sincerely mourned the passing of these beautiful machines. They encapsulated the picture postcard image of an antiquated London clinging on to the remnants of the past. They conjured up romantic ideals of a 1950s/60s transitional period. A London recovering from the Blitz, then swingin', then roughing it through the tough economic climate of the 70s. The band I played in in the mid-noughties even wrote a love song dedicated to the subject entitled 'Death of the 73'. We couldn't understand why something so elegant, so historic, so quintessentially London would be taken away. The main claim was environmental. Which seemed incongruous in the face of how many cars clog the streets. Alas, the green march of time continues apace, and rightly so, but it's sad that allowances couldn't have been made in this instance. Instead the loathed bendy buses were launched. Nobody to this day has a nice word to say about them or can fathom why they were introduced.

The last ever routemaster bus journey took place on Friday 9th December 2005. The 159 from Paddington, passed slowly along Oxford Street with customers desperate to get a last ride, and many a tear in the eye of the old codgers who'd ridden them for years. It reached its final destination (Streatham) just before 3pm and was driven ceremonially into its permanent grave (Brixton bus garage) by Peter Hendy the Commissioner and Head of Buses at London Transport (sorry Transport for London ....I'll never get used to that one.)

I suppose I'm a sentimental old fool. I view change with suspicion. I don't like it much. The newly designed routemaster will hit the streets in 2012 in time for the Olympics. It's a lovely design, but it's ultra-modern. Not a patch on the authentic real thing.

I'll leave you with some of London's best (and worst) bus routes.

29 - Wood Green to Trafalgar Square (this bus passes through some serious ghetto-age and was famously referenced by Johnny Borell - remember him - in Razorlight's live shows.) It used to be a double-decker and I once saw somebody smoking heroin on the top deck as it rolled through Camden Town. Ah, the good old days. It's a bendy bus now. Which is an absolute travesty. A genuine contender for worst bus route in London.

210 - Finsbury Park to Brent Cross via the delights of Highgate, Hampstead and Golders Green it passes within touching distance of Karl Marx's grave. Used to be a quaint little single decker. Now it's a beast with two decks. Is nothing sacred?

88 - Camden Town to Clapham Common. Although I'm loathe to include a largely south London route, this is arguably the most picturesque, scenic route in London. From Great Portland Street onwards it's a tourist's dream taking in the busy shopping thoroughfares of Oxford Circus, Regent St and Picadilly. Next Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Past Tate Britain then across the river and into the gritty, urban hinterlands of Vauxhall before coming to a stop in the delightful confines of Clapham Old Town with its buzzing gay bars, Surrey-born trust funders and Australians trying to buy cocaine and out-drink each other.

73 - Seven Sisters to Victoria. While it has, like many other routes, been reduced to bendy bus status it is still a classic. It takes in the extremes of London, from its downmarket starting point in Seven Sisters through trendy Stoke Newington, Essex Road, Upper Street it then chugs along Euston Road before heading through the West End to the glitz of Bond Street, round Hyde Park terminating in Victoria.

London Loves.....Raves

2011-05-24T20:32:00.027+01:00

by Joshua Surtees with photographs by Molly Macindoe

Photograph by Molly Macindoe

On the 31st December 1997 in the pissing rain and howling wind accompanied by two school friends, one affectionately known as 'Bungle' after the Rainbow character, I found myself trudging down an ill-lit road next to a reservoir flanking Tottenham Marshes. Heading towards a desolate industrial estate, we called the 'partyline' again (an 0909 number connected to a recorded message giving directions to the venue). In the centre of this bleak scene the silhouette of an enormous warehouse could be seen and the closer we got to our destination the louder the thud of electronic beats became. The distant repetitve banging became more distinguishable, the flickering of light rigs began to colour the dark skies, the blaring of horns reached a crescendo. At the entrance a Scottish man; half punk, half new age traveller (as the 90s press liked to call them) stood outside holding a bucket and a can of Fosters. In the bucket were coins and, upon receiving the gruff encouragement "a few quid please lads" we deposited a few pound coins 'entrance fee', shuffled into the darkened interior and were quickly swallowed up into another world....

Photograph by Molly Macindoe

The scene we encountered was similar to the one above, only much darker, more crowded and far more disorientating. The venue, we quickly realised, had once been an abattoir or meat factory. This was evidenced by large machinised meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, huge conveyor belts and various bits of slicing and dicing equipment. The size of the place was almost unimaginable. Each room was the size of a football pitch. Each contained a soundsystem playing either techno, jungle or gabber. Gabber (fast, pounding techno music invented in the Netherlands) is not for everyone it has to be said and we quickly passed through those halls while taking in the sight of topless, 40 year old men in cowboy hats and huge clumpy space boots 'dancing' to the beats. Eventually finding our way to the central area where crates of Fosters were piled in a makeshift bar and onsale for £1.50 a can, we found other schoolfriends and exchanged awestruck greetings. We raved all night and left around 8am the next morning when daybreak had arrived and light ascended illuminating scenes of carnage. The party itself, so we heard, went on for days until the police finally lost patience and shut it down.

That night was my introduction to the free party scene ('illegal warehouse raves' to you and me) and it was certainly an eye opener. Being predominantly a rock'n'roll kind of guy I never got quite as carried away with the rave scene as others have. To maintain any kind of frequent appearances within that scene requires both the constitution of a water buffalo and the stamina of a long distance runner. I had neither. Many schoolfriends however were seduced. Not least Molly Macindoe, a photographer from Southgate north London who spent the next ten years documenting this extraordinary, hedonistic, rebellious underground movement and who has just released a beautifully put together book of photographs taken over the decade-long period.

It features touching portraits of some of our old schoolfriends.....

Photograph by Molly Macindoe

And some astonishing shots of landmark buildings around London including the '50 Pence Building' in Waterloo. Now demolished this building stood derelict for years, a hideous relic of 1970s 'modernist' architectural ambition gone badly wrong. It had been squatted for years and earlier free party protagonists had thrown raves there in the early 90s. At one of these early raves, hosted by old school soundsystems like Spiral Tribe, a young man, the son of an MP tragically jumped to his death off the side of the building. The final send off on Halloween 1999 was less tragic, more tumultuous and flamboyantly raucous.

Photograph by Molly Macindoe

For me, the ingenuity and imagination the rave organisers showed in picking the London locations is what made the scene so special. These were buildings lying empty in ruins. Filthy, devoid of electricity supplies or running water, windows broken, utterly neglected and destined to stay like that for years. Soundsystems such as Crossbones transformed these spaces into living, breathing, mind altering events full of colour, energy and sound. Very, very loud sound. From derelict Victorian warehouses such as the one on Beachy Road in Hackney Wick where the party lasted for 13 weeks...

Photograph by Molly Macindoe

...to modern developments such as Millharbour on the Isle of Dogs, formerly housing the head offices of the 'Fantasy X' porn channel....

Photograph by Molly Macindoe

And perhaps the greatest rave of all in a 20 storey disused office block on Shoreditch High Street....

Photograph by Molly Macindoe

This party took place on the eve of the new millennium, New Year's Eve 1999, and turned out to be the last illegal rave I attended. Arriving as usual after midnight there were hundreds of crazy kids shouting to be let in. The 'door staff' (again Scottish punks seemingly off their faces) struggled to contain the enthusiasm and, though the buckets were offered, many must have entered the building that night completely free of charge. On each of the 20 or so floors was a different soundsystem and in the winding central stairwell connecting the floors an army of ravers shuffled up and down all night seeking out new adventures, new people to talk to, new friends to be made. I danced to drum'n'bass until the early morn and departed without many of my worldly possessions save for a t-shirt and an enormous smile. God knows what the early morning tourists on the Central Line made of me.

God knows what the early morning commuters made of these ravers in the space formerly known as 'cardboard city' under Waterloo Bridge, now home to the IMAX cinema.

Photograph by Molly Macindoe

But thank god for the organisers, the soundsystems, the DJ's, the bar staff, the doormen, the dancers, the fire eaters and the party people. These people followed a tradition established with the dawn of the Acid House movement in 1988 and the M25 raves in fields around the outskirts of London that gave the legendary Orbital inspiration for their name. As youngsters we had heard tales from elder siblings of Sunrise, Fantazia, Raindance and Tribal Gathering and revelled in the flyers we saw on their walls and the tales they told of setting off in Ford Escorts up the A12 to fields in the middle of nowhere where they would become, as Alan Partridge might say "briefly mindless".

The Criminal Justice Bill legislation arrived in 1994 under John Major's government, putting an end to impromptu outdoor gatherings of thousands of E'd up youths. And thus the free party scene was born. Out of a need to dance. A need to rave. A need to reject heavy handed governance and establish a vibrant subculture. As a reaction to the commercialised, sanitised rip-off that the live music scene in London has become.

Thank god that Londoners love to rave.

Out Of Order by Molly Macindoe is out now published by Tangent books priced £29.99
See Out of Order picture gallery on guardian.co.uk

London Loves.....The Veil

2011-01-23T13:15:00.025Z

Photograph: Shannon Dermot Friel

Ten years ago I worked as an apprentice telecommunications engineer. It involved a fair amount of driving around London from site to site (usually telephone exchanges in office blocks around the city; Old Street, Southwark, Docklands etc.) One day, on Commercial Road I saw, possibly for the first time in my life, a group of girls all of whose faces were covered by niqabs (the full face veil).

They were clearly girls and not women as they had their school bags overflowing with books and were chattering to each other in that excitable way schoolgirls do when waiting for a bus in the morning. It was an astonishing sight and, for me, perhaps the first tangible signs that a stricter form of Islam had arrived in London than previously seen.

This was pre 9/11 a time in London where the term Islamophobia was virtually non-existent. In those 'innocent' days, the 1990s, when racial harmony largely prevailed in this hugely mixed city, before the world went war mad and racial and religious divides became evident even in multicultural London, it was commonplace to see muslim women and men from Somalia, Pakistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and other places wearing distinctly Muslim attire simply blending in with the other cultural garments of everyday London - the turban, the kippur, the rastafarian hat.

How different has it felt for practising Muslims in the decade that has passed since? A decade of overt global prejudice towards this particular religious group. An era of false media portrayals and an environment in which even the former Home and Foreign secretary Jack Straw felt it appropriate to recommend women in his constituency not to cover their faces when attending his political surgery.

How self-conscious and stared-at must young women in hijabs (head scarves) have felt? And the niqab (or burka as it's sometimes known) is on another scale of aesthetics all together - prompting, in some parts of England, outright discrimination. It has become a symbol of 'othering' and a fallacy has arisen around it that assumes it is automatically and by its very nature an oppression of women's rights. That idea is surely too simplistic and hypocritical. It is claimed strict Islam forces women to cover themselves. In Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states this is largely the case. In London it is almost unanimously a woman's choice (taken of course, within the context of family background and community norms). The hypocrisy of labelling it oppressive is that women of all cultures (British, American, Jewish, Burmese, Maasai, Hindi) are all 'forced' by their societies to wear certain types of clothing - see the miniskirt, the 6 inch stilleto heel, the Hasidic Jewish women who shave off their hair and wear a wig in its place. It is in fact true to say that many men are also forced by their societies to conform to wearing 'appropriate' clothing. Yet people single out the veil as oppressive because they feel threatened by it.

I wrote last year for Ponderboxes on the French government banning the niqab in all public places and argued this was a clearly racist piece of legislation and a violation of human rights. It is worth imagining what such a move in London would instigate. It would be quite frankly unthinkable. It is something to be proud of that all Londoners, not just Muslims, would feel subjugated by a piece of politics like that. Because, despite claims by notable figures such as Trevor Phillips and George Alagiah about the failure of multiculturalism (depressing, inflammatory and unwelcome publicity-seeking comments) London continues to thrive on its diversity. Multiculturalism adds interest, excitement, brilliance and a wealth of experiences and opportunities that are absent in cities where everybody looks, sounds and thinks the same.

It is hugely positive that despite the continuing presence of Islamophobia in our society, Muslims themselves, and particularly Muslim women, have rediscovered a confidence, strength and pride in wearing what they like, where they like and celebrating their religion not hiding it.

This is wonderfully represented in this set of photos by Australian photographer Shannon Dermot Friel. Taken discreetly, almost secretly, but respectfully in locations across London from Regents Park to Bethnal Green.

There are stories and life histories behind each of these pictures that it would be tactless to imagine here in this blog. Instead I find these images provide a reminder of the beauty of the veil and Islamic dress. They serve to normalise a sartorial choice that has been negatively pigeonholed and the wistful, placedness of the women within ordinary, mundane urban ambiences shows how such dreary settings are enlivened by finely tailored nods toward times and places infinitely more intriguing.

All photographs © Shannon Dermot Friel 2010

London Loves.....Tea Parties

2010-09-30T20:22:00.018+01:00

Jane and Joan Ash, a mother and daughter who lived on the Liverpool Road estate from 1955 to 1983, are peering at old photographs on the wall when suddenly a loud cry makes them both jump. "I remember you!" Swivelling round they are met by a familiar face beaming with excitement. Rose Copsey also lived on the estate for almost forty years and has come back to mark the milestone occasion.

Jane and Joan Ash lived on the estate for 28 years

Within seconds the Ash and Copsey families are embracing their former neighbours and reminiscing about old times. It is one of many touching moments that occur throughout the day at the Centenary celebration of this hundred year old London housing estate.

Former residents Wendy and Rose Copsey

Built in 1910 by Samuel Lewis founder of the Southern Housing group, Liverpool Road estate is an enduring success story in a city where many social housing experiments have tried and failed to provide a hub for communities. On this estate, unlike many owned by the local authority Islington council, the community are encouraged to be at the heart of things. Tyrone Willis, the estate’s facilities manager, remembers a time when the tenants association met every week and virtually ran the place. “They were fundamental to getting things done here, they had authority and when they spoke the housing association listened.” Nowadays its core members are getting older and the younger generation are less inclined to vocalise their needs, but the tradition of close community continues. A few years ago the former washhouse was re-built as a community centre where kids come to play and adult learning sessions take place.

Tyrone Willis and family

While many residents have come and gone over the last century, the estate looks like it will still be here in another hundred years, thanks largely to the maintenance that has gone into it by a housing association that seems, more than most, to care about the wellbeing of its residents.

To mark the centenary Tall Tales, a community art collective, have recreated an Edwardian era tea party and displayed art work around the estate including hundreds of yards of bunting the residents helped to make.

A band plays the Charlestown while battling with the wind blowing away their sheet music. Inside the community centre, Helmut Feder from Tall Tales is in charge of the fancy dress party in which residents dress up as characters from the period – soldiers from the Great War, doctors, even Samuel Lewis himself – then have their photograph taken against a backdrop of the estate in black and white. Feder tells me many of the costumes are borrowed from the National Theatre’s costume department and are authentic. “Some of them are actually very valuable,” he says with half an eye on the kids crashing around in bowler hats and army uniforms “it’s my job to make sure I get it all back in one piece.” I wish him luck and leave him to his fretting.

Dressing up as Edwardian characters

Tall Tales have also gotten hold of the original residency books; thick volumes detailing the families living in each apartment, the occupation of the father, how much rent they pay in shillings and a note keeping track of their movements. Rose Copsey moved to the estate as a child in 1948, her daughter Wendy was born here in the mid-1960s. Both of them have now moved on but Wendy’s brother still lives here. “Looking through these records is so interesting. We’ve seen so many people we knew from our time here. Log books seem like an archaic way of doing things now but much more romantic than just typing it into a computer.”

Tenancy book for Block B Tenement No.8 from 1910-1955

Everybody here – artists, housing officers and tenants – recognises the importance of the event, but where does the money for such things come from and will it still be possible with the looming government cuts on housing and other public services?

Tom Dacey, chief executive of Southern Housing group explains that while his organisation are not for profit, they are still required to make a surplus each year, most of which is brought about through property sales. “This surplus, funds our Economic and Social Regeneration work such as the celebration at Liverpool Road. We also get grant assistance from external agencies and occasionally the state. Every pound of surplus generated is ploughed back into our core business.”

Tom Dacey, CEO of Southern Housing, addresses the crowd

Southern Housing’s resident profile policy equates to around 80% of residents paying affordable rents 5% intermediate rent and 15% low cost home ownership, a model that allows maintenance and rebuilding work to be carried out without government subsidies. But Dacey is more worried about the impact of housing benefit cuts for some of his residents than the risk of the government spreading housing association subsidies more thinly by reducing the grant rate per unit. “This could be the most challenging environment we have ever experienced but I would like to see the fine print of the spending review before going overboard with criticism – nobody disagrees we need much more affordable housing so why would the Coalition damage the only volume providers?”

While Dacey is still pondering the meaning of ‘Big Society’ as most people are, he feels events like the Liverpool Road celebration are vital. “In urban locations, residents in high density estates may not know their neighbours or the broader community. Ways have to be found of breaking the ice and getting people to see the value of working together to achieve common aims.”

Breaking the ice with inner city communities is what Tall Tales and its creative director Gadi Sprukt are all about. Having already curated the magnificent Market Estate project, this centenary event constitutes another notable success. As Sprukt finally takes a seat to relax over a cup of tea and scones he surveys the scene and feels satisfied. “This was meant to be more intimate than the Market Estate. This project wasn’t for tourists or hipsters or art directors, it was for the residents – a way of saying ‘thank you’.”

The full extent of housing cuts remains to be seen but housing minister Grant Shapps would do well to heed the warning of Tom Dacey that sacrificing community events like this one would be a counter productive step in the coalition’s duel aims of creating a big society and revolutionising the future of social housing.

Click here to see Tall Tales' photos of the whole project.

London Loves.....Police Car Sirens

2010-07-18T18:52:00.014+01:00

For seven years I've visited Vendee twice a year to stay at my mother's farmhouse in the middle of the French countryside. In all of those visits I have never once seen or even heard a police car, policeman or policewoman.

Driving back into London straight from our Calais-Folkestone channel crossing on Saturday evening (the route taking us through Eltham, Lewisham, Deptford, New Cross, Peckham, Walworth, Aldgate, Shoreditch, Islington, Hornsey, Crouch End and Wood Green) we counted five police car sirens within one hour.

Us Londoners see a huge number of police cars every day, and the cars we hear but don't see are even more vast in number.

My old bedroom was a converted loft at the top of my house and my window would be permanently open all summer long. The soundtrack to those summer nights was "WEEAA-OOOO-WEEAA-OOOO".

In case you're wondering, that is the sound police cars make. It's not NEE-NOR-NEE-NOR anymore like it used to be in the 80s. Which makes me wonder; what noise do kids make when playing police car chases these days? In my day it was undoubtedly the NEE-NOR of the Rover SD1: possibly the most unprofessional police car ever manufactured...

Nowadays we have proper, Americanised, professional police cars; not black and white anymore but silver, sleek and ominous...

The noise of the police car siren has become almost omnipresent in London. Hang around any major junction for about 5-10 minutes and you are guaranteed to hear one (and if not a police car than certainly an ambulance or fire engine).

But where are these police cars going and do they really need to make so much noise getting there?

The cynical part of me thinks they put their sirens on just to get to the McDonald's drive-thru more quickly. Let's face it, McDonalds is the place we most frequently see the police. Either there or by the side of the road stopping and searching black motorists.

But my less cynical side knows there are many serious for the sirens we hear - particularly when three or four go past at once - and we all hope to god that the old bill would respond promptly if we were in some kind of trouble. It is deeply troubling then to hear that Metropolitan Police targets for responding to emergencies (set at under 20 minutes by the previous Labour Government) are to be scrapped by new Home Secretary Theresa May. I don't know about you but I would have thought reaching an emergency within 20 minutes would be an absolute minimum requirement for the victim if for example they were being attacked, bleeding to death or under some other kind of personal threat.

Clearly some emergencies are prioritised over others. Anything to do with "terrorists" these days will prompt an immediate response - an armed response unit. Whereas a mugging or break-in, you'd probably be put on hold. To be honest, most emergency calls are put on hold. Kind of making a mockery of the word 'emergency'. In the case of this ridiculous 999 call recently made by the Guardian's London blogger I would not only have put Dave Hill on hold. I'd have hung up on him or further, investigated him for wasting police time. Throwing stones at buses? Stones at buses??? Whatever next, Dave, a water balloon dumped on someone's head?? A stink bomb chucked into an off licence?? Kids talking too loudly at the back of the cinema????

It is often easy to overlook the serious things (not stone throwing) that happen in our city and in our neighbourhoods. Many of us generally walk around London as if we are indestructable superheroes completely oblivious to any dangers. And, that's one of the things that is great about this city. We should be able to walk streets carefree. But, while nine times out of ten the police sirens are simply breaking up the monotonous daily routines of the constabulary (paperwork, McDonalds, petty shoplifting call out, chatting up drunken Essex girls), here is an interesting (slightly morbid) website called Spotcrime detailing geographically some of the crimes (mostly stabbings to be fair) that happen in different parts of London. Next time you hear a siren, it may well be on its way to an incident like these.

Personally I find them strangely soothing. They lull me to sleep in a way that the total tranquility of the serene French countryside never could.

London Loves.....Chicken

2010-06-09T23:51:00.016+01:00

by Joshua Surtees and Shannon Dermot Friel

“Gimme, gimme, gimme fried chicken” sang Freddie Mercury a long time ago. And, to be fair, he had a point.

What that point was exactly has been lost in the fullness of time. And, while Freddie is sadly no longer with us, fried chicken, lives on.

From the humble beginnings of the colonel’s secret recipe all those years ago in Kentucky – a time of innocence in the Deep South where rednecks lynched black people and then ate fried chicken – we now live in a world where KFC, Chicken Cottage and Nando’s are an integral part of our furniture. Especially in London. You can’t move for chicken.

A friend of mine recently moved into a house where the housemates were keeping chickens in the garden. Each of them had their own chicken. The chickens are dead now. A fox ate them. They didn’t even have a chance to coat them in bread crumps and chuck ‘em in the deep fat fryer. But this blog is not about hand reared organic chickens, it’s about battery farmed, antibiotic fed, diseased broiler chickens. You know, the kind most of us eat.

It’s been clinically proven that fried chicken, consumed over a period of many years, will kill you in the most painful way possible. Try telling that to the party animals spilling out of Hoxton Square in the early hours of the morning. The chicken burger (with cheese, obviously) has surpassed the doner kebab as the food stuff of choice for the incapably pissed Londoner about to board the night bus home. And not only is it great when massively pissed…..it’s also great the day after a massive piss up. KFC is now officially the essential hangover meal. In fact, it’s the only time you should really eat fried chicken and feel ok about yourself*. There’s something about the greasy, salty, fatty thigh of a plump, cooked chicken that screams “eat me now” to the dehydrated, starving, just-woken-up-at-2pm-on-a-Sunday youth of today.

*the only other permissible time to eat fried chicken is when you only have £3.27 in cash in your pockets and can’t be bothered to go to a cash machine. Don’t get me wrong, you can try to get to a cash machine, but the fact is you’re likely to find a fried chicken outlet way before you get to the ATM. Shit, there’s one within 3 minutes of my front door. It’s name? Cozy Chicken. That’s right, Cozy Chicken. What, you gotta problem with the name? What’s wrong with you? I would have thought the derivation obvious. No? Ok, no.

And so we get to the crux of this blog. The essence here is not the lemon scented wet wipes, it’s not about the choice between beans or coleslaw (it’s a tricky one, but coleslaw is the correct answer), it’s not even about popcorn chicken (whatever the fuck that is), it’s about the incredible phenomenon that has emerged on our high streets over the past 15 years or so – the fake KFC shops.

These have always fascinated me whether on Kilburn High Road, Newington Causeway or Tottenham High Road. And yet we Londoners turn a blind eye to this rich comic tapestry, they have become so everyday and mundane we don’t think twice. Even the major chains get away with ridiculousness. Chicken Cottage for example. Cottage?!?! As in, a cottage for chickens? A seaside cottage perhaps, sleeping six? What about Chicken Bungalow. Chicken Villa. Chicken Winnebago. Chicken Yurt. Chicken Youth Hostel. Chicken B&B. Chicken Semi-Detached. Chicken Maisonette…….. I could go on.

When I pointed out the ridiculousness of this brand name to a friend a few years ago, he fired back two words by text: 'Guantanamo Chicken'. I still, to this day, have no idea what the hell he was on about.

So when I discovered a brilliant young Australian photographer had devoted an entire album to these brilliant social snapshots of our modern age London I was overjoyed.

Without further ado, I give you in glorious Technicolor, a brilliant photographic homage – Kentucky Fake Chicken by Shannon Dermot Friel.

London Loves.....Politics

2010-05-14T17:09:00.020+01:00

Well, well, well. A Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.

Who’d have thought it possible, eh?

Well....me, for one.

It was clear Clegg was not to be trusted. But millions out there – probably a substantial number of you reading this now – were seduced. It will be interesting to see whether you ever vote Lib Dem again. My hunch is no. So, while throwing that historic party into the limelight for once, this election may also have destroyed the Liberal Democrats and all they have ever stood for.

My brother’s mantra throughout the election campaigns “once a Tory always a Tory”, referred to Clegg’s time as Chairman of the Conservative Association at Cambridge and his days lobbying for the Tories in the European Parliament. Leopards do not change their spots.

What words, one wonders, did Cameron and Clegg (two blue blooded aristocrats who called for change in British politics and ousted a hard working, Minister’s son from Kirkcaldy) exchange whilst shaking hands outside Downing Street as the photographers clicked and flashed? Probably something about crushing the proletariat…

It’s enough to make you turn to anarchy. Or at least communism. It’s enough to make you want to emigrate. In fact, I write this week’s London Loves in Monaco; the heartland and veritable symbol of non-dom tax avoidance. The kind of place Lord Ashcroft spends most of his time, whilst pouring his fortune into a Tory campaign to govern a country he never sets foot in.

But how did London fare in the election, and where does it sit in the wider scheme of British politics?

Vote-wise, London is always an oddity. Unlike the metropolitan centres of the North West, Yorkshire and Scotland which are staunchly 100% Labour, London constituencies tend to swing from red to blue regularly; with a bit of yellow cropping up here and there to spoil the pretty pattern. Even overtly partisan boroughs, like Islington – where locals for years punished Labour and Margaret Hodge for the child sex abuse scandal that rocked the local authority’s social services department from the 1970s-90s – can suddenly swing from Lib Dem back to Labour. Or Haringey council, a perpetual Labour heartland, turning yellow. Why? Who really knows? Except to say these occurrences are highly localised and often linked to changing demographics (influxes of affluent professionals and exoduses of traditional constituents).

It so often goes beyond tribalism and comes down to the character or celebrity of the local MPs. A Kate Hoey in Vauxhall or a David Lammy in Tottenham, for example, tends to guarantee a vote for their powerful, visible presence and representation within a community. Previously, heavyweight figures like Margaret Thatcher in Finchley or Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate commanded similar awe.

There are also some generic political rules in London’s geography. Outer London suburbs like Bromley or Twickenham tend to be Conservative, populated as they are by a higher proportion of bigots and city bankers. While inner city wards like Hackney or Camberwell, with poorer, ethnically diverse communities feel more protected by Labour’s enduring commitment to social equality.

It was these inner London communities who fostered and cherished the GLC in the 80s. Livingstone’s Greater London Council was important for many reasons, but above all for giving a voice to the disenfranchised who suffered under Thatcher’s selling off of council houses and poll taxes that punished those on the lowest incomes in the poorest boroughs. As a child I was taken through London’s streets on GLC marches and Ban the Bomb protests. I wasn’t really aware of the societal context of those movements at the time but in retrospect I am deeply proud that my mother introduced us, so young, to these fundamentally important socialist ethics.

I remember a time when the Socialist Worker newspaper was vociferously and militantly sold in many public places. Nowadays, it seems confined to Crouch End Broadway or Mare Street for risk of causing offence elsewhere.

The times changed in 1997 after the Canonbury alliance of Blair and Brown contrived their masterplan in that restaurant on Upper St. No longer, it seemed, was there a need to protest or to be overtly Marxist. The good guys were finally in power, bringing with them Kinnock’s old school socialism heavily disguised as centre-left capitalism. I, more than most, felt the enormity of the celebratory mood of that day in May; even though, at 17, I was frustratingly too young to vote. Born in 1979 – the year Thatcher came to power – I lived under a Tory regime for my entire youth witnessing a London scarred by poll tax riots and a GLC smashed, taking for granted the cardboard city under Waterloo Bridge. It’s easy to forget how bad things were under Thatcher and ignore all the good the Labour party has done to improve this country. But, believe me, under Cameron and his sham coalition, you will soon feel that polluted tide rolling back in and lapping at your feet.

Yes the Labour party made mistakes. I worked at Parliament in 2003 when virtually every MP in the Commons – excepting some Lib Dems – voted to support Bush’s invasion of Iraq. And Labour is still now being punished by the electorate for that gruesome mistake, even though the vast majority of the same electorate, regrettably myself included, did not object to the war at the time. By punishing Labour, the electorate has welcomed in something much worse that we must all now live with for five years or longer.

But, if you ever feel disillusioned about politics, my advice is this: take a stroll down Whitehall, past the stern grey stone of the ministries, the cabinet office and Downing Street, past the Treasury and Foreign Office to Parliament Square, to the seat of government and breathe in the air of democratic British politics. Yes, London may be resented by many parts of the country for ruling from afar, detached from the reality of life in Plymouth or Redcar. Indeed Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland recognised this and took political action. But the fact remains; this is where your votes count. Everything that is constitutionally, legislatively, legally and politically decided is done so in these historic buildings. Our position in the world is overseen here, the laws of the land battled over in those two small chambers with green or red seats. It is inspiring.

And if you seek political inspiration on a more humble scale, then take the example of Barking & Dagenham; for too long plagued with the tag of being a racist borough. In the 2010 general and local elections here the BNP led by Nick Griffin held 12 council seats. Not only was Griffin roundly trounced and told to take his fascist politics elsewhere, but every single BNP councillor lost their seat in the council. Local activists, including the tireless John Cruddas and Billy Bragg, joined the local community – the people of this area stood up, rallied and smashed the BNP.

Well done Barking & Dagenham. London is proud of you.

London Loves.....the Tube

2010-04-24T14:56:00.045+01:00

In 1978 Paul Weller told us he didn't want to go Down In The Tube Station at Midnight. Two years later he claimed he was Going Underground. "Make up your mind Paul!", people screamed at their wireless radios. But those people had become confused.

The tube Weller sang of was the kind of place where innocent men were attacked and robbed by right wing thugs while simply attempting to bring takeaway curries home to their anxious wives. As well as being a microcosm of a dysfunctional, depressed Britain, it also summed up exactly what the tube used to be about.

As much as we like to complain about the twenty first century London Underground (the ticket prices, the delays, the strikes) there is so much less to complain about in the modern, sanitised version than there was when I was growing up in the 80s. Back then the tube was a hazardous stinking hell hole occupied by rampant mice, pompous businessmen and alcoholics passed out in their seats with cans of Super Tennents.

It was a place where the trains looked like this…

And the seats looked like this…

A place where football hooligans would wreck carriages, where people died in horrendous fires and horrific train crashes. Aged seven, the Kings Cross fire in 1987, seemed like the epitome of my worst nightmares. Trapped underground while a raging fire prevents your escape. It’s quite staggering that it took this disaster to happen before smoking on the tube was banned. I remember the smoking carriages on the old tubes. They quite literally stank like ashtrays.

While the tube is still a dangerous place where you can be blown up, shot dead by police, faint from heat exhaustion or fall on the 630 volt electrical tracks, the refurbished underground is a thing of beauty compared to its dark past.

The Jubilee line is a beautiful piece of engineering and architecture. The station at Westminster – the essence of futurism.

A kind of bat cave of chrome metal from which one emerges blinking into daylight, greeted by the looming edifice of Big Ben casting its benevolent eye authoritatively over the civil servants.

Canary Wharf station is another example of classic modernism and a delightful way to end a journey, even if the featureless plazas of capitalism outside are grey, cold and alienating.

But we don’t need to look exclusively at modern developments to find artistic beauty on the tube. The 1930s art deco stations at the end of the Piccadilly line are grade II listed buildings whose original features are largely intact.

Arnos Grove station, designed by Charles Holden in 1932, is a thing of beauty (in marked contrast to the bland suburb itself). Astonishingly, the Guardian’s architecture critic Jonathan Glancey named this place alongside Sydney Opera House, the Guggenheim and the Empire State building as one of the 12 great modern buildings of the 20th century, describing it as “a Roman civic temple” and “a work of art that lifts the mundane into a noble architectural spirit”. I recently left my hat on the tube. It was handed in at this station. I didn’t hang around to admire the modern classicism, I was just grateful to have my hat back.

The neighbouring stations of Bounds Green, Southgate and Oakwood are also Holden works and have been designated places “of special architectural interest”.

The warm red tiling of the Northern line stations at Tuffnell Park, Belsize Park, Chalk Farm and Mornington Crescent (below) are similarly comforting and inspiring.

But when it comes to things of beauty (and I don’t mean the long legged girls at Notting Hill Gate or the dashing gents at Bank), it is commonly acknowledged that Harry Beck’s original design of the tube map is one of the greatest works of simplification ever invented.

Its modern equivalent stays true to Beck's immaculate design; discarding the notion of actual geographic location and distance in favour of logic - plotting the randomly scattered lines and stations in diagonal, vertical and horizontal straight lines. Allowing travellers (not tourists mind you) to easily navigate the rabbit warren.

And yet, while I mock the tourists and their lack of London knowledge, I admit that I too once got lost on the tube. The mitigating circumstances were that I was so drunk I could hardly see but still, the embarrassment of having to ask a fellow passenger which branch of the Northern line I should take from Euston was painful. Especially as the passenger was an American tourist. Asking an American how I get home in my own city...Priceless.

I’m aware that I’ve missed out many elements of the tube in this blog – it’s just such a huge, unwieldy entity it’s impossible to cover even a fraction of it. There are many, many stations I’ve never visited and probably never will. The furthest I’ve ever been is Theydon Bois, on the Essex border; a stifling example of cosseted middle England. But, the extent of the tube is phenomenal – the Metropolitan line goes as far as Watford in Hertfordshire or Amersham in Buckinghamshire. Quite ridiculous if you ask me but nonetheless the inspiration for John Betjeman’s wonderful 1972/73 BBC documentary Metro-land.

So, where I’ve neglected the fantastic Docklands Light Railway, the quaintly extendable East London Line and the absolutely pointless Waterloo & City Line, this is where I’m relying on you readers to fill in the blanks. Give me your favourite stations, most detested lines (the Hammersmith and City, surely?) and your tube tales.

And the latter - tube tales - is sadly where our transport system is lacking. You’ll have noted the lack of anecdotes in this article. There’s a reason for that. Nothing ever really happens on the tube. It’s the place that concisely sums up the notion of reserved London. Millions of people on a daily basis heads buried in books, ears plugged with headphones, eyes not daring to make contact with anybody else’s. The closest we get to incidents of note are when a station gets evacuated or Romanian gypsies start playing their accordions – sadly a rarity these days. You get the occasional drunken rows or Italian tourists squealing with laughter but largely the tube is a place for silent reflection, much like a monastery. But without God.

So instead of anecdotes I’ll leave you with a few bits of etiquette...

1. Never speak to anybody on the tube. Ever. If they speak to you, just smile, nod and carrying on reading your book.

2. Read a book that literally everybody is reading. That way you feel part of a community. A few years ago it was Memoirs Of A Geisha, more recently The Da Vinci Code, right now it’s the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Buy a copy. Don’t worry that it’s complete shit. You’ll fit in. You don’t even have to read it, just pretend.

3. No eye contact. N.B this is a rule I frequently try to break, but to no avail. Nobody ever looks back.

4. Offer your seat if an old person or pregnant woman gets on. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed. Don’t think ‘oh my legs are so tired’. Just stand up and say “here have my seat”.

5. When the driver announces that we’ll be delayed for a few moments to “regulate the gaps in the service” tut loudly and shake your head at the inconvenience of it all.

6. If the platform announcement informs you of delays caused by “someone under a train”, have a little giggle. It’s a funny expression, enjoy it.

7. (And this is fundamental) if you must kill yourself by jumping under a train, do it somewhere remote and overground. Somewhere where they can get to you easily and clear up the mess you’ve made. My personal recommendation is Turnham Green. It’s perfect for a suicide. Here the trains only stop during peak hours. If you go at any other time of the day the tubes pass through at a minimum of 30 mph. You’re guaranteed to die at that speed and, what’s more, you can do so in pleasant green surroundings. Don’t under any circurmstances kill yourself at Marble Arch at 6pm on a weekday. That’s just selfish.

8. If somebody does jump under your train at Marble Arch at 6pm on a weekday tut very loudly and shake your head at the inconvenience of it all.

London Loves.....Skinny Jeans

2010-04-02T09:54:00.045+01:00

Mercedes Bunz thinks skinny jeans are finished.

So does Blockhead.

Mercedes Bunz and Blockhead are so wrong on so many levels.

First off, Mercedes, putting Kate Moss and “not fashionable” in the same paragraph? Oxymoron of catastrophic proportions.

Secondly, the skinny jean transcends fashion. For people like me with calves the size of freshly planted elm saplings, the invention of the skinny jean was more important than the wheel or combustion engine – who needs motorised transport when you can strut around in jeans you look good in? Seriously. You should see me wearing baggy jeans, or even normal jeans. I look like a famine victim who’s been donated random outsized clothes from an Oxfam campaign.

Normal. Jeans. Are. Too. Big. I had to live through the grunge and Britpop movements of the 90s, when jeans were ripped, corduroy, tie-dyed, turned up, anything but snugly fitting. They were normally Levi 501’s. I bet there are kids out there today who don’t even know what that means.

I would look at pictures of Paul Weller, or other Mods from a bygone era in envious longing for their super-tight jeans. Then, finally, they arrived. Suddenly, Kingsland Road was awash with scenesters who were actually proud of their twig-like legs. What a revelation.

At first they were meant for women not men. But when has that ever stopped me? Half of the clothes I wear are meant for women. My first pair, in 2005, were black Lee’s. I vividly remember the Swedish shop assistant allaying my fears that they made my thighs too prominent “people will just think you have shapely thighs”. Now, that’s what I call customer service. I still have the pair in question. Though they are now washed out to a virtual grey, and are ripped in the crotch to the point of indecency, I can’t part with them – they’re part of my cultural heritage.

Thirdly, Bunz makes the crucial error of aligning skinny jeans solely with hipsters – which is a term that doesn’t really exist in London anyway. It’s as if she hasn’t been to Topshop recently or taken even the briefest stroll down Oxford Street. Everybody’s wearing them. Maybe that is the true meaning behind Bunz’s anxieties; she doesn’t want to be part of mass fashion? She wants something more minority, more elitist, cooler. Hmmmm…bring something in Mercedes. I’m dying to see it. Some fisherman’s waders perhaps?

No, seriously.

No. Seriously.

The fact is skinny jeans are perfect. Anybody can wear them – and I’m not just saying that.

You don’t have to look like this to get away with them.

I’ve seen loads of girls with fuller legs wearing them on the tube, they look great. That’s what Lycra was invented for.

In some ways it’s just about having the confidence to put ‘em on, go out and flaunt them. Sadly, many people’s answer to lack of confidence is to cover up. But, look how great Beth Ditto looks here. Don’t be afraid! People have shapes and bumps. I have a bit of a belly. Not ideal on an otherwise skinny man. It’s fine. Get over it.

But, if you really feel they aren’t for you, then where do we go from here? Well, Mercedes touts an idea at the end of her blog piece - “something a little bit wider and maybe made of wool”. Interesting idea. I used to wear a pair of red wooly trousers. They weren’t knitted for the purpose I appropriated them for and whether they worked or not is massively open to question. But this was 1994, wooly trousers must have moved on a bit by now? Surely?

And when the day comes when the laws of fashion dictate we really must move on from skinnies, surely it’ll be to something even smaller? Every modern technological evolution involves reduction in size right? So maybe the next step from skinny jeans is micro jeans?? Jeans so slim you have to be airlifted and shoved into them by a squadron of paratroopers? I’m up for that.

Or, as one commenter on Bunz’s blog suggests “what about wearing no trousers at all?” Again, I’m up for that.

But looking for a genuine solution, and with the slurs and abuse of my work colleagues ringing fresh in my ears (“now you’re 30 Josh, are you going to stop embarrassing yourself?”, “they’re painted on”, “they’re so tight you’ll do yourself a hernia”, “get an elasticated waist band man”, “they’re so tight you look like you’re pregnant”, “they’re so tight I can see the outline of your cock and balls” etc.), I went into H&M on Wood Green high street and did the unforgivable, I caved in to peer pressure and bought two pairs of non-skinny jeans. One white, one black. I felt mature. Normal. Boring, even. After all, I’d actually bought some clothing from the Men’s section. I was proud of myself.

I still haven’t decided whether they work for me or not. I’ve decided the only way to wear them is with big old fashioned 90s style Reebok trainers. They just don’t work with skinny shoes.

The following Monday morning I went in to work anticipating the imagined praise I would receive. Has anyone even noticed? Have they fuck.

London Loves.....Art

2010-03-10T23:29:00.033Z

"We are the plankton of modernisation"

The Market Estate in Holloway, North London will soon be demolished.

Designed and built in 1967, the housing estate represented a Utopian vision of modern urban town planning. The 'streets in the sky' concept; the idea of raising people above the smog and smoke of the city, was greeted with enthusiasm by a generation moving on from post war Britain. Residents loved their new apartments and welcomed this mid 20th century version of modernity with enthusiasm.

Forty years later the estate is deemed not fit to live in. The security, plumbing, structural safety and architectural design of the properties have become fractured and archaic.

Over the past few years the Market Estate residents have seen their brand new flats being built and soon they will see their old flats torn down. It's a conflicting time for some of them; a moment for celebrations and tears.

Before the bulldozers move in, the housing estate was transformed by 75 artists into a vibrant art gallery. Using the flats, courtyards, corridors and lifts, artists made these formerly public and private living spaces come alive with colour and sound.

On Saturday 6th March the public were invited to attend a one-off unique artistic experiment, the Market Estate Project.

In this audio gallery, curators Helmut Feder and Nathan Lyons from Tall Tales, former director of the ICA Philip Dodd, actors Selom Awadzi and Luka Vardiashvilli from ISO Theatre Productions and 10 year old Keehan give us their individual takes on the Market Estate Project.

(Audio gallery requires latest version of Adobe Flash player. If video does not appear please download latest version.)

Artist credits: Mauricio Carneiro & Beo De Silva 'We-Waste Room', Boyd Hill 'Where Will I Spend My Happy Days', Hinchee Hung & Nigel Goldie ' 'Behind Closed Doors, Jess Blandford & Joe Morris 'Fluorescent Yellow Room, Augustine Coll 'Market Estate's Treasure Hunt', Arnaud Dechelle, Minako Kurachi, Francois Cassin & Dan Savage 'Morning Rituals, HTA & Higgins 'Drawing Rooms, Rob Smith & Fritha Jenkins 'Zipwire', Anna Lopez 'Anyone Else Isn't You', Clarisse d'Arcimoles 'The Good Old Days', Mauren Pereira 'You Are Cordially Invited', Rebecca Glover 'Untitled', Analema Group in collaboration with LCI 'A-Field', Rosa Connor & Afsaneh Gray (ISO Productions) 'Rather Than Words Comes The Thought Of High Windows

Sponsors of the Market Estate Project: Southern Housing Group, Higgins Construction PLC, HTA Architects, Philip Pank Partnership, Islington Council, Arts Council England

London Loves.....the North/South Divide

2010-02-28T21:43:00.023Z

(ADVISORY WARNING: SOUTH LONDONERS PLEASE STOP READING NOW)

On Friday night I found myself stranded in Balham. Ejected from the bowels of the London Underground and keeping at bay thoughts of being savagely raped and murdered, I sent the following text message to a few close allies:

Northern Line fucked. Signal problems at Morden. The driver terminated the train at Balham. I’m now walking the streets surrounded by evil south London cunts.

If I’m never found alive, I reasoned, at least there’ll be textual evidence of my final movements.

I steeled myself for the slog to my destination: Tooting Bec (why, oh merciful God, why? …and what’s a Bec anyway??). I passed several icons of dejection whose symbolic meanings were alien to me: Balham Youth Court, an off licence called The Wine Junction, the budget German supermarket LIDL and a sinister building with a sign saying United Services & Services Rendered. “What are these unholy relics?” I screamed internally.

Finally, I began to encounter familiar signs. Fitness First, Nando’s a Kwik-Fit garage. Thank god. The temporary haven of something vaguely resembling civilisation…

Although you may not have guessed from the sentiments above, I’m actually beginning to quite like south London. Admittedly it’s a patronising fondness tinged with snootiness, but fondness all the same. I suppose my newfound tolerance has arisen from the fact that, over the past few years I’ve spent far more time south of the river than is healthy. It’s a secret liking, full of shame and regret. I can’t admit it to my north London friends. I’d be ostracised and marked out as a traitor.

As with most divides, the key to bridging the gap and getting over your prejudices is simply to bite the bullet (quite literally if you live in Battersea) and give it a try.

There are nice places south of the river. No really, there are. Dulwich, Kennington, Richmond, Greenwich, Camberwell. But for every quaint little Putney, there’s a Peckham, Lewisham, Nunhead or Plumstead Common.

Maybe it’s just a titular thing, but some of these names are enough to send chills down the spine of any north Londoner. They sound weird. They denote a barbaric wasteland perpetually stuck in 1952.

it goes further than simple linguistics. You have to be a Londoner to fully understand the north/south divide. It’s an innate, instinctive sense of right or wrong, heaven or hell. North and south London are just…….different. When I sounded people out about the differences I was told “it feels different”, “they speak funny”, “they're backwards”, and “it’s just not right”.

These comments might appear racist. If south Londoners were a race. But they’re not. They’re just a few million people who lucked out in the postal lottery birthplace stakes.

And, because there’s so little migration and cross breeding, the two sets of population gene pools remain largely isolated from one another. In a few rare cases people do migrate. Out of necessity. Or the threat of divorce. I’m not sure I could ever live down there. I’d be constantly looking over my shoulder for the knife in my back.

It’s not just us, the common folk, who see north London as superior. Nearly every building and area of notable significance or officialdom is situated in the north. Trafalgar Square, Parliament (the SW1 postcode fools nobody), Buckingham Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Gherkin, the BT Tower and so on and so forth.

Perhaps the real difference is indeed phenomenological. North London is more built up and hilly. Streets seem narrower, more congested, busier. South London is flatter, and greener; it feels more open and sparsely populated. The architecture of both is remarkably different. Both have beautiful Victorian and Georgian buildings but the style varies. The metropolitan inner city in North London extends much further geographically, so even in zone 3 you are definitely still in the city. Whereas, most of the inner south is located very close to the river (and therefore the centre); an argument often used to claim southern superiority. By the time you get to zone 3 south you are in total, undeniable suburbia.

Although we are nominally sworn enemies, whenever two people from each clan get together and talk, they get along like a house on fire. Generally we enjoy the banter. Perhaps we’re not all that different after all? Maybe it’s just psychological. Maybe that big old, bendy river makes it feel different. As an old acquaintance pointed out, east and west London are far more different than north and south. He gave me a list of places that are symbiotic twins or replica versions of each other. Edmonton-Thornton Heath? Both equally grim. Belsize Park-Blackheath? Both equally fabulous.

I’m not sure how to end this blog except by saying these old engrained prejudices need to be challenged. East/west Berlin unified because the people had no choice, black and white in apartheid South Africa got over their differences (slowly). North and South can love one another. Give peace a chance man.

London Loves.....Love

2010-02-20T14:55:00.010Z

Picture courtesy Nick Boyce 2009

When a barn owl builds her nest, that is love
She may expel, orally, a crushed chewy mouse
But her love is mostly internalised
Transmitted momentarily in acts of regurgitation
Not a soft or fluffy love
But love all the same
Love at the coal face

A rain has come in the dead of night
It batters down the roses
Threatens cobwebs affixed upon streetlights
In the commuter belt long legged Susan stirs at 2am
Reaches for Apple
But not nutritious or vitamin packed
She pines for Alexander at a conference in Frankfurt
Romantic machinery
Digital love

Mrs O'Doherty sobs increasingly
Where is my daughter?
She ponders internally
How have I lost her?
Who is Ricardo?
My purpose of rearing has come to an end
Love enduring
Affection paused

Lily works Sundays at the hall of mirrors
Trapped on the pier
Walton-on-the-naze
Bored and deceitful, caring and boastful
She loves 6 or 7 in every 10 male customers
But they love her boss
Despairing, she jumps in the Channel
Just for a swim
Who loves the North Sea?
Only the fishermen (6 or 7 in every 10)

Harry chops cows up
“It’s all done electric now”
40 or 50 cattle per day
Rumps and shoulders
Hooves and brains
Eyes no longer seeing
Ears fallen deaf
The milk of human kindness
Harry does not love anybody
He has a list of people he hates

Abdul Aziz paints his girlfriend’s outline
His cleric has told him God does not like images of the human form
Abdul loves his girlfriend’s bottom
And her vagina
And the way her legs taper from hip to ankle like a rounded obelisk
“How can God not love this?” he blasphemes
His girlfriend sometimes wears a veil
Hidden love

When a badger is killed by a farmer and lies unmoving in a ditch
Its cub nuzzles up to it
It does not know yet
That is undying love

London Love/Hates Tower Blocks

2010-02-08T21:30:00.037Z

I've always been obsessed with tower blocks and council estates. Some say it's an unhealthy obsession. I disagree. Others will see this piece as middle class snobbery wading through working class life like an American tourist on a cultural exchange visit to Baghdad. Again, I disagree.

If anything, middle class snobbery was imposed upon estates at the point of conception. Evidenced by ridiculous sights such as the name John Keats House affixed to the most unpoetic building you've ever seen in your life.

These are nothing short of in-jokes invented by architects to amuse themselves (Fatima Whitbread Mansions etc...) The Arden Estate in Hoxton is the best example of titular misattribution. A Shakespearean theme emerges as you explore its ugly hinterland. Lo, my liege here lies Macbeth House, and what is this good knave, but Juliet House? Not content with desecrating these characters you soon discover Oberon, Falstaff, Bianca, Miranda and lastly Caliban all assigned to truly hideous buildings. And yet the latter, Caliban Tower, is oddly appropriate. If any building were to sum up the shipwrecked, deformed, deranged half man/half beast character from The Tempest this monstrosity is surely it.

High rises are often so outlandish in the mediocrity of their design they become beautiful oddities capturing the eye and imagination. And sometimes they are so disgusting they provoke projectile vomiting.

But the people living in them are wonderfully warm and remarkably positive. Estates and their impoverished communities guarantee you a far friendlier welcome than the opulence of Sloane Square.

As a child I was hypnotised by the sight of tower blocks at night. All those lights on in each little bedroom. All those people living literally on top of each other, surrounded on all fours sides. The bundle of tightly packed human life seemed so cosy and protected. Strength in numbers. Little did I know of the piss stenched hallways and broken down lifts .

At age 5 in a park one sunny day in the mid 1980s i watched the demolition of two tower blocks in Hackney. The event has always stuck with me. The loud bang. The hundreds of pigeons flying into the air. The delay between the detonation of the explosives and the collapse of the block. The delighted cheering and smiling from the assembled local community. The space in the air where moments before two symbols of Thatcherite oppression had stood blocking the sky.

The sound of laughter, dogs barking, sound systems pumping, scooters revving, TV soaps playing through an opened window, kids playing on the swings, old people nattering away in corridors. The everday sights and sounds of the estate. But, every estate has a finite lifespan. And for some the end is imminent.

The Heygate Estate, Elephant & Castle

Human sounds are largely absent on the Heygate estate. Soon this silently sprawling world of ghosts will be no more. Row after row of former homes are boarded up with metal panels sealing doors and windows. Even the most hardcore squatters have been deterred by eviction notices warning of the imminent demolition.

I first noticed this estate in the heart of Walworth whilst standing outside the Corsica Studios under the arches of the railway station one summer night. Opposite me stood a huge, dominating rectangular sea of phosphorescent lights and concrete. It felt like a vision of a Warsaw suburb from the communist Soviet Bloc era. I was awestruck by the dualism of its shimmering majesty and cold hearted oppression. Returning home I googled it to find it described as an estate with "a reputation for crime, poverty and dilapidation."

Walking around it five years later on a cold but sunny afternoon in February feels like that opening scene from 28 Days Later. Yet even more desolate. A surreal detritus of discarded toys, broken glass and deflated footballs litter the untended gardens and trees. Oceans of satellite dishes point in unison toward the sky waiting in vain for a signal that will never come to transmit pictures that will never be seen.

And yet, astonishingly, amidst the desolation, signs of life still exist. As you wander through echoing walkways, across doomed footbridges, through puddles of collected muddy water, past infinite grey sheet metal, all of a sudden you find yourself looking through a window into a perfectly normal kitchen scene with dishes on the draining board and cereal boxes on the table. You have found survivors. Survivors like Riikka, (below) from a remote village of 3,000 people in the east of Finland and her flatmate Cindy from Sydney, Australia.

Smiling and bemused as she opens the door, Riikka, aged 20, explains how they moved in to the crumbling flat last December and expect to be moved out by June at the latest. "I'm going to stay 'til they demolish the place" she says, defiantly, "we like it because we can do what we want. We probably wouldn't have moved in if the community had still been here".

When I ask if they throw parties, Cindy, 23, who earns a living selling theatre tickets offers a sheepish grin and a semi-guilty confession. I suspect the parties are more frequent and wild than they are willing to let on. The fact they have just got out of bed at 3pm and the sight of every available wall in the flat covered in home-made murals ranging from beautifully abstract paintings to childish surreal graffitti (ejaculating penises, talking clouds, He-Man etc.) gives an apt indicator of the lifestyle of this apartment. I ask if they ever get scared being so isolated and alone. "It feels a lot safer with nobody around. Police patrol regularly now. It's not as scary as the [occupied] flats near the station." I ask if they are artists and they laugh "no, not at all" as they set about creating another artwork. Their home made art, like the rest of the Heygate, will soon vanish into thin air. I leave them to their painting.

On Rodney Street I encounter another survivor. Born in 1938 and having lived in Elephant & Castle all her life, Yvonne Castelle (below) has survived a lot more than council bureaucracy and botched town planning. World War II for example.

She remembers the days before the Heygate estate when streets of picturesque 'two up two down' Victorian terraced houses characterised Walworth. Looking up at her bedroom window one night she felt certain the world was on fire. "Daddy the sky's all red". And it was. The neighbourhood had been set ablaze by German V1 rockets. Her dad hurried Yvonne, her three sisters and pregnant mother down into the Anderson bomb shelter. The following night she witnessed another strange skyscape; barrage balloons as far as the eye can see. The simple, yet ineffective method of deterring low flying bombers. She was eventually evacuated but soon returned.

Later, her career in dancing, cabaret, variety performances and acting took off (she shows me the book of photos she keeps in her bag), yet she remained living at home with her parents. Then in 1969 disaster struck when, on the set of a film called Moon Zero II, she fell and was paralysed in an accident. Pushed, she claims, by a jealous co-star. "Six foot seven she was! And what's worse, she was German. I still haven't seen the film to this day!" Yvonne remained bedridden for 10 years, and when she finally emerged, wheelchair bound, the streets she once knew were no more. The behemoth Heygate estate had been erected.

So, after 36 years of living with it, what does she think of Southwark council's plans to pull it down? "I think it's disgraceful. There are thousands of people without homes in this country. It turns out the government only meant for these flats to last 30 years. They say the new flats will be cheap but you can tell it'll be for the rich; gated communities." She attends all the local housing meetings and feels aggrieved at the lack of care shown by local authorities and central government. "People should have right of tenure, not the council selling the land from under their feet. Thatcher started this whole thing in the 80s. And I voted for her. I'd like to blow her up and dance on her grave when she dies". She certainly knows her stuff, Ms Castelle.

So where have all the people gone? "Some of them have been put on the Aylesbury Estate over there" she points into the distance, "which is ludicrous because that's being pulled down soon too. Others have gone to Dulwich. That's alright, it's a better area."

Heading on I bump into two Community Police officers who have patrolled here for the past two years. "It's quite sad really" says Ross, "some people have lived here 30 years, they don't want to leave". Gemma, his beat partner explains how they'd got to know people here and were friends with them. She doesn't know where they are now.

On the towering menace of the Claydon block, an Eritrean woman with four children chats to an elderly family neighbour. She doesn't wish to be named or photographed, suspicious of my introduction as a journalist. Her family are the only people left on the 4th floor. That's about 35 empty flats surrounding her. It's the same on the floor above, and below. Despite the presence of the police she doesn't feel very safe. "It's very dark, here and the heating goes off all the time. I don't have heating right now." Why have you not moved yet, I ask? "I'm waiting for them to offer me something better." Despite her trepidation about the future she is still smiling and laughing as she closes the door to feed the kids. Brave, spirited and determined.

As I return to my car, heartened and proud of what I have seen I pass the Latin American Multicultural group and its colourful display of carnival costumes. I pass the defunct doctor's surgery and the Angelus Temple Foursquare Gospel Church where a small group of black teenagers are having lunch, taking a break from singing and playing instruments. I pass the Institute of Traditional Karate and Performing Arts which, it occurs to me, is rather a strange combination of physical activities. All of these things will soon be gone. The sounds of human beings are largely absent on the Heygate estate. But those that remain have stories to tell.

London Loves.....The Night

2010-01-29T12:42:00.009Z

by Gregg Morgan
(author of the If I Were Built blog)

"Beasts of prey and great cities alone in nature remain awake when darkness comes; the one in search of death, the other in search of an extra hour of life" HV Morton

London wears winter well. Why? London loves darkness is why. This sprawl of space and ideas comes to shuddering go when the sun packs up and heads south. In London the stars don’t come out at night in the sky, they come out down here - in the wonder of possibilities. We’ve given up our view of the heavens to look for them in this City. This city that can give or take a night’s sleep. London loves the night as it desires to extract just a little more from life than Nature intended.

The daylight hive of the capital, The Square Mile, dies a lonely nocturnal death – save a few bankers wasting electricity under motion-sensitive lights contemplating deficits/bonuses and probably China – as vitality courses into the surrounding streets of London. From the gaudy doorways of Soho, the thunder-dome of Camden, the meta-hip of Dalston, the unapologetic trash of Shoreditch to the celebs, paps and wannabe-papped of Mayfair, South Ken and Notting Hill, London is, in Ginsberg’s words, ‘’burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night’’.

Night is a time for pleasure, for friends, pubs, lights, lovers, music, secrets, sin, architecture, cabaret, clubs, gigs, restaurants, football, theatre, film, food, drugs, raves, house parties, convenience stores, markets, strangers, celebrities and snappers, for people. London sits at its desk and sofa on groundhog days waiting to find a story out in the gloom. Does the city ever look as majestic as when it is lit up at night? Cycling over London Bridge at night, Tower Bridge a beacon of belonging, these are the kind of moments that make you realise why we live here. Indeed cycling - another London love - is at its finest when the moon is in the sky. The streets are all but emptied of the foes of pedestrians and traffic and a serene peddle becomes sublime. I can heartily recommend a moonlit cycle from Hackney to Smithfield Market. Should you wish to distract yourself with a trip to Fabric or the superb Jerusalem Tavern when you get there then that is up to you…but the architecture-in-motion of the City, the Barbican, Clerkenwell or whatever route you choose to take is phenomenal. Plus at the end of it you get to wander around one of London’s nocturnal delights, Smithfield Meat Market. Even in darkness the capital is concerned about its pounds of flesh. Pescetarian gadabouts might like to set a course for the pre-dawn marvel of Billingsgate Fish Market.

Much like Huey Lewis didn’t need no credit card to ride the Love Train, you don’t need two wheels to enjoy this ride though. London by-night is the perfect setting for the budding flanêur– be it endless quiet lit nooks and crannies, or centuries of grandeur, innovation, tribute and awe, or just the incremental timeline of the skyline – all of it set to an almost peace made starkly precious by the contrast of the light-induced hubbub. It might be for the brave-hearted, and not for the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, but a walk through the city at night is like a long reviving exhalation as London meditates before the chug and onrush of tomorrow. You might even bump into Will Self. Never before have I experienced such calmness cocktailed with a twist of media-induced fear as when walking home at night in Hackney. And never does tomorrow feel further away as when you see it born. Watch the sunrise here - this City that twinkled long before you, will rise and fall long after you - and time will freeze for you…until the early/late train/bus yawns by anyway.

It’s not all fun and games of course. What of the army of workers permanently defying nature to provide for those who only rebel on a temporary basis. For starters the glorious and undervalued night-bus driver, forever offering a long tunnel home despite having to put up with this racket. Praise be to the N38 and N55, always there when the bicycle isn’t and booze might have been. So we can get home but who will feed us? I recently interviewed one waiter from the 24-hour Turkish eatery, Somine, on Kingsland Road. This chip-on-shoulder-free gent had been happily helping to feed Dalston through the night for five years. Five years of working 7pm to 7am! That the man was happily married with kids should serve as a jolt to all our attempts at finding peace, love and understanding with all these nights to call our own. Then there is the hallowed convenience store. My local? The Turkish-owned shop on the corner of Lower Clapton Road and Clapton Passage, a true godsend, it’s never closed. Every part of London has one as the night can no longer deny us milk, cigarettes, chocolate or beer. Then there are the street cleaners, the bakers, radio hosts and producers, taxi drivers, those bankers looking east, doctors and nurses, paramedics, police, fire-fighters, newspaper deliverers and of course bagel vendors plus many many more besides that make London by daylight tick over.

I’ll leave you with the words of Darren Hayman and Hefner. From the glorious ode to London that is ‘We Love The City’, I still think it’s one of the best opening lines I’ve ever heard and kind of true to this day…

‘This is London not Antarctica so why don’t the tubes run all night?’

Now it’s over to you for your London love, what are your starry London remembrances? Any night-buses of note or secret stargazing vantage points? Or do you know any unsung heroes of the night that make London love the dark?

London Loves.....Foxes

2010-01-22T12:50:00.030Z

by Lu-Dos-Tres
(creator of the crossfrontier blog )

London loves foxes and foxes love London. They’re everywhere, from sprawling suburbs dotted with parks, to the concrete jungles of inner city estates.

I remember the first time I saw a fox. I couldn’t have been very old, maybe ten. They were quite rare, strictly nocturnal animals who are, or more to the point, were very shy. In the early nineties, you would have been lucky to catch a glimpse of one. They seemed as wild as wolves and yet harmless as cats. Afraid to approach humans, they would dart off at the first sight of us. Yet their reclusiveness only made them more intriguing. The 'wily old fox' saying casts them as the embodiment of cunning. Indeed, what could be more cunning than the fox; a cute little animal that strikes only to eat pet rabbits under the cover of darkness when no one is looking?

But the funny thing is, no one ever blamed foxes for their pillaging. They were untouchable. If a rabbit was eaten, it was the fault of whoever left the latch open on the rabbit hutch. Foxes had somehow managed to muster political clout in (sub)urban households, and even right up to the upper echelons of the Houses of Parliament.

Seriously. By the end of the nineties, the country was up in arms as people came out on to the streets to defend foxes. The citizens of London in particular, protested, en masse, at the inhumane sport of fox hunting. They derided its cruelty to foxes and the pleasure it gave to old-fashioned country gentry. In turn, country folk descended on London to defend their way of life, and decry city people as ignorant. It was a heated polemic, featuring physical violence and police arrests. It finally ended with the outright banning of fox hunting in 2004.

OK, so maybe the ban was not strictly down to the cunning of the fox. But, it must be said, that their popular image definitely played a part. What if, for example, it had been rabbit-killing rats that the hounds and huntsmen chased down and savaged; would we have protested then? No we wouldn’t.

Foxes seem to know about the media game and working it to their own ends. Their media savviness can even be traced back to the 60s. They worked their way into the dictionary, with ‘foxy’ a slang synonym for ‘sexually appealing, exciting, attractive.’ You’ve got to admit that was a masterstroke by the fox’s PR people. The definition has endured the test of time and has been propounded by artists such as Foxy Brown (pictured right), and more recently the Fleet Foxes – not that they’re sexy.

Its penetration doesn’t stop at the English language or the music industry either. Like most people, my first image of the fox came not from a real fox at all but a cartoon fox; Disney’s Robin Hood film. Remember? Robin Hood as a fox, King John a Lion, the King’s soldiers all rhinos. Classic. I loved it.

Then there were the Animals of Farthing Wood! Featuring on children’s television from 1992 to 1995. Another classic. Again the foxes leading the show were moral crusaders against… erm... the baddies of the forest?! Or something…

Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox. Where we all rooted for the fox to triumph.

Fellow brethren of my generation, I think we have been mightily brainwashed.

Oh well.

The fox is having the last laugh. Immune to hunts in the country, they’ve come to urban centres in search for more excitement. Fox immigration is high. Local communities all over the capital have reported rises in fox numbers.

Inevitably, fox crime has got worse. I don’t know about you, but when I was a boy, I never saw rubbish bins half emptied out in the street. Now I see the remains of last night’s supper strewn across the front lawn, week in week out.

I’m no expert fox criminologist, but I blame it on the young‘uns. The fox cub hoodies. The first generation to have grown up free of the fear of the hunt, and the associated discipline that that enforces. Quite an astonishing behavioural trait adaption.

They’re certainly not shy anymore, that’s for sure. Only last month, a fox was spotted shooting down the escalator at Walthamstow Tube Station. TFL ticket inspectors did not let it continue its journey… it blatantly hadn’t topped up its Oyster card.

It did, however, come coolly came back up the escalator, where Kate Gray managed to capture this magnificent photo on her mobile:

Photo: copyright Barcroft Media

London Loves.....Music (pt II)

2010-01-13T20:45:00.013Z

Hello London lovers,

Just a very quick part II on music; my favourite subject in the entire world. Apart from sex. But I'll save that for another blog.

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm a little bit obsessed with this Lily Allen tune. I also absolutely adore this original video. The one where she rides around London on her little bike. It fits the bouncy, Brazilian-tinged, sunshine music perfectly. God knows why her record company decided she needed a more flashy, mainstream, over produced video when the song became a hit.

There are many London-themed songs. London by The Smiths, London Loves (obviously) by Blur, London Calling by The Clash, 'A' Bomb In Wardour Street by The Jam, I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea by Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Hairdresser On Fire by Morrissey, Dagenham Dave by The Stranglers, Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, London Bye Ta Ta by David Bowie, It's A London Thing by Scott Garcia (still sounding brilliant) and of course the seminal London Is The Place For Me by Lord Kitchener.

But Lily's 'LDN' is my favourite of them all because it is so ultimately positive about the capital in the face of the underlying terrors creeping beneath the shiny Cockney veneer and it brings a smile to my face whenever I hear it.

...One thing I still have trouble with however. At 1min 47secs in the video above (and again repeated in the outro starting at 2mins 25secs, Ms Allen can be heard underneath the main vocal singing (or rather listing) in 4-4 time, a quiet, half-spoken ode to different areas of London. I only actually noticed this when listening to it through headphones recently. On a stereo it's almost inaudible. Even on headphones it's difficult to correctly identify all of the place names. I've got most of them but could do with some help. If you know what she says, please tell me!

Here's what I think she says, correct me if I'm wrong:
Enfield (could be Earlsfield?), Dalston, Stockwell, Clapton, Soho, Ladbroke Grove (could be Lambeth, Bow?). Camden, Brixton, Hackney, Tottenham, Chiswick, Old Kent Road (could be Aldgate, Bow?)

Whatever she says, it's genius. Listen to it and listen to it loud. Then listen to it again, just to be on the safe side. x

London Loves.....Music

2010-01-10T19:13:00.015Z

Music is the most personalised and subjective of all the cultural art forms. (A fact which I hope is demonstrated by my list of favourites at the end of this blog - please comment back with your own lists).

Whether it’s the easy-listening/strangled-cat noises emanating from the ITV studios during episodes of ‘X Factor’ or the majesty of Congolese rumba. The hissing snarl of Siouxsie and The Banshees or the prosaic soundtrack to the film Titanic. Eclectic febrile techno beats or the immortal genius of The Beatles’ 1964-1970 output. Everybody out there finds something to love in music...

In London we have been somewhat spoilt by the quality and breadth of offerings we’ve been given over the years. But what strikes me most about music scenes in London are the elements of cultural crossover characterising them. Nowhere else, barring New York, do we see such divergence of taste and cultural meaning. Most of the crowds you see spilling out of drum’n’bass raves at Fabric on Sunday mornings at 6am are middle class white kids, perhaps studying Politics at LSE. Now drum’n’bass was not originally invented for middle class white Politics undergrads. But try telling them that…

The same could be said of the reggae and ska scenes in London in the 70s.

However, while crossover is frequent and fluent in the capital, it is not a 'given'. There have been scenes, deeper and darker within the London ‘underground’, which the middle classes would love to have penetrated but simply could not. The UK Garage scene of the late 1990s/early 2000s was perhaps the last real musical genre innovation the world has seen. It transformed House music into something all-together more challenging; rhythmically, lyrically and culturally. Blossoming on pirate radio and flourishing in the kind of Stratford, Tottenham or Elephant & Castle rave venues the mainstream media do not publicise; Garage remained a scene entrenched in working class culture. Characterised like all London scenes by the fashion, drugs, language, attitudes and behaviours that grew up around it, Garage quickly moved (regrettably) away from the skunk, champagne, designer labels, party atmosphere and Croydon facelifts it began with, down a path of So Solid influenced crack cocaine, guns, bling, cars and gang violence. Yet some of the white-label records cut in that era are unquestionable classics and will live on strong in the memory until one day the Garage revival returns or the template is used to create another groundbreaking movement.

The era in time we currently occupy has diversified the range of music we can identify with and claim. On New Year’s Eve, at a considerably artistic party, alongside 60’s R’n’B and contemporary electro, DJ sets also included cheesy 80s pop classics like Erasure’s ‘A Little Respect', Tiffany’s ‘I Think We're Alone Now' and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’. Now, back in the mid-90s when we were all obsessed with our cool reputations and kicking against what had gone before, playing such songs at a trendy party, as opposed to say Suede, Nirvana or Happy Mondays would have cleared a room in seconds and led to permanent social ostracism. Nowadays, you can go to the trendiest bar in Shoreditch at 1am on a Friday night and dance to Hall & Oates’ 'Maneater'. This is a wonderful thing and we are lucky to be blessed with the luxury of hindsight and retrospect.

You’ll have noticed most of this blog concentrates on music of the past. I do not apologise for this and won’t even begin to talk about the current scene. I’ll leave that to the contemporary music publications.

I began this piece by saying music is purely personal. In order to demonstrate this, I will keep my heartfelt pronouncements to a minimum and instead resort to a fun little game we all love to play which illustrates the individuality of musical taste. I’d like you to all join in at home and play along. Below is a list which I have filled in. Simply copy and paste it into the comments box filling in your own answers. I’m handing it over to you. If you play along it makes this blog a whole lot more interesting. If you don’t, well, you only have yourselves to blame! Ciao for now….

First song you ever heard as a child
'Our House’ by Madness

First single you ever bought
‘Love Changes Everything’ by Climie Fisher (on 7” vinyl from Woolworths on Junction Road, Archway. I don’t know how this came about, and to this day I still don’t know who Climie Fisher are. I am neither proud nor ashamed of this purchase but I do see this in some ways as a confession).

First album you ever bought
(Some internal debate here). It was either ‘Whitney’ by Whitney Houston or ‘Faith’ by George Michael. As ‘Whitney’ was released a few months earlier I’m going to go with that. On tape cassette, obviously. But not from Woolworths this time, from Our Price (remember that?!)

Your top 3 albums of all time
The Beatles – Revolver
The Smiths – The Smiths LP
The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed

Your top 3 songs of all time
(Subject to frequent change. But currently...)
The Smiths – Ask
Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights
Prince Buster – Ten Commandments

Worst song ever recorded
‘What’s Up’ – Four Non Blondes

Worst song lyrics ever
"We came in spastic. Like tameless horses" (Billy Joel – ‘Saigon Nights’ - yes, he said the word 'spastic' on a pop record)

Your ‘nostalgia’ tune
This is always difficult. Can I have two? It’s my blog....I’ll have three!
Direstraits – Brothers In Arms (title track)
Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby
R.E.M – Radio Song

And there you have it. So, what are yours…?

London Loves.....Berlin

2010-01-02T08:58:00.028Z

Happy New Year. Happy new decade. Happy new life. Happy holidays. Happy new blog.

Apologies for my extended absence. It’s been a month since the last London Loves. I haven’t been idle. In that time I turned 30, was made redundant from my job and then re-hired (within the space of a week), had laser eye surgery (watch this space) and, it being the Yuletide (whatever that actually means), ate/drank/consumed/laughed/cried much more than one does for the entire rest of one’s annus. (I said annus not anus. It’s Latin. The Queen said it once, remember? Everyone thought she was cool and hilarious.)

Also in the past month I visited the most amazing city. Which I shall now eulogise about.

To celebrate my coming of age. Well, at least my coming of age thirty, I took five of my friends to Berlin for a weekend of revelry. It’s safe to say we had an incredible time. It’s difficult not to have a good time in Berlin. While Londoners are never shy about praising other parts of the world, this city deserves particular mention as it reminds us Londoners that London is not entirely the focal point of the universe we often assume it is and, while London is still the greatest city on earth, we can still learn a thing or two from our neighbours.

The overriding fact that sticks in my mind is the liberalism of Berlin. In no other capital city have I felt such a lack of inhibition. No ridiculous ‘no alcohol’ rule on tube trains, the vast majority of bars and clubs we visited did not enforce the smoking ban, we saw very few police officers, at a football match we attended home and away fans mingled sitting next to each other and celebrating goals openly without any fear of reprisals, nobody objects to you starting off your day with Glühwein mit Schuß (Mulled wine with a shot of rum, whisky or Amaretto), in fact alcohol generally is very cheap and the culture of drinking is far more happy and relaxed than it can be in London. People just being their natural selves. Like Parisians, but less vain and arrogant. (Sorry, Parisians. You know I love you. x)

The general sense is of a fine blend of party town and tradition. And what fine traditions. Sausages to die for. Beer to die for. Massive Pretzel bread type things to die for. But enough about food (one probably shouldn’t write a blog when hungry or it may turn into a culinary review).

The historic buildings are stunning. One wonders how any of it survived the end of the war. At times you feel ‘this is what Rome should look like’. Classical, monumentalist, epic in grandeur, composition and size. The Olympicstadion, for example, is unrivalled by any football stadium I have been to, including the San Siro, the new Wembley or the so-called Theatre of Dreams. Approaching the stadium, still very much as Hitler planned it to look in 1936, one is essentially approaching a coliseum. The two columns 100 metres high supporting the Olympic rings. Lights shining through them to add to the majesty. The grounds contain the old swimming pool and other Olympic buildings kept intact yet seemingly unused. Unlike Rome, one is not disappointed by this coliseum when one enters its vast cavity. One is instead awed and daunted by the sheer size (75,000 capacity), the genius of design, the vastness.

The history of Berlin is staggering. During the course of a five hour walking tour (which was only meant to last 3 hours. In the snow) we paused to stand on the spot, now a non-descript car park, where Hitler, Eva Braun and the Goebbels family killed themselves in 1945 as the Soviets approached. We saw the remaining sections of the oppressive wall and heard the horrific stories of separation, desperation and death it brought about. We saw the stunning Brandenburg Gate (quite a good place to hold a night rally apparently). We saw where the Nazis burnt the books. We saw the controversial, beautiful, beguiling, undulating and deceptively capacious Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, built in 2005. Across the road, within site of the memorial we noticed a glittery, shiny sign with the word ‘PLAYBOY’, embossed in pink writing. Wandering over to investigate we realised the famous pornography company was setting up for a party that evening. Sadly we weren’t invited. It was however a neat summation of Berlin’s modernism directly adjacent to memorialism.

We also saw the balcony where Michael Jackson dangled his little baby out of the window (was it called ‘Blanket’ or did I dream that up?!), but we don’t have time to go into that now…

As well as the sheer beauty of classicism, the East of Berlin has its own kind of beauty. Clearly former Soviet Bloc in its uncomplicated layout and basic architectural design; industrialism, graffiti and railway tracks rule supreme here. Yet, I noticed that while London revels in erecting horrible, already dated modern buildings for apartments, shops and office blocks, creating a hideous juxtaposition with the Victorian splendour, Berlin had far better taste. Any new, flashy buildings there were did not hid behind the timid pretence of timelessness which has characterised British urban town planning since the 1980s, but rather embraced their kitsch plasticity, their fundamental use as platforms for sponsors, adverts and logos, their unashamed nod to capitalism.

Kitsch and colossal are themes running through the heart of Berlin. Summed up in the contrast between say the CCCP Bar in Mitte near Prenzlauberg and the Tresor nightclub. The former set up like somebody’s living room, very arty, playing on Soviet chic, a wonderful local DJ spinning a mix of turbo-folk, Cuban house beats and what could only be described as Arabic techno. The toilet almost a pastiche of the Beggar’s Banquet LP cover. A Chechen war criminal holding court, chatting up young students and rolling joints on the table. The latter, Tresor, a magnificent club, situated, as most Berlin night clubs are, in a huge disused factory or power station or warehouse, standing alone in a fairly industrial/urban decay/wasteland looking part of town one feels like one is entering the very concept of what a club should be. The tech-house was out of this world. If that’s what Tresor was like, with its relaxed door policy, I can only imagine the delights of Berghain. We were warned off Berghain several times because of its erratic, random entrance/denial ratio. Widely regarded as one of the best clubs in the world, the door staff refuse or permit entry to punters on a whim (or depending on whether you speak German or not). We heard a story from a guy who once witnessed at firsthand two German supermodels in front of him in the queue being turned away. The sound system is apparently unrivalled. Next time I visit I have promised myself a visit. Maybe not with a group of 6 lads.

All in all a quite amazing city. Friendly, witty people speaking perfect English (but do at least make the effort to spreche auf Deutsch bitte). Beautiful people. Long legged women. Stylish, tasteful fashions. Great cars (a mix of state of the art BMWs and 1960s Eastern European manufactured unidentifiable cool little vehicles). A beautiful river (always the hallmark of a great city).

One thing though, if you do visit Berlin in mid December. Wrap up warm. It’s fucking freezing.

London loves.....Monopoly

2009-11-29T23:03:00.025Z

My brother owns three properties. In real life, I mean, not in monopoly. In monopoly he’s probably never owned more than two. Although I can’t say this for sure. In my family, when we play Monopoly, nobody is ever entirely sure a) when the game has finished or b) who has won.

It’s fair to say our games end in a degree of acrimony and recrimination. Often we revert to stealing (both from the bank and each other). Often properties get vandalised. I say vandalised, I mean fed to the dog. Community Chest cards get chucked across the room, defaced. Amidst the accusations and denials my mother is often heard to say “right, that’s it, I’m never playing with you lot again.”

In our family, the only game that ends worse than Monopoly is Scrabble. We have literally never finished a game of Scrabble. As for Cluedo, a three year relationship with an ex-girlfriend once unravelled and was effectively terminated during the course of what began as a light-hearted game. (She won the game. I was a tad ungracious in defeat. The solution, I believe, was Miss Scarlet with the lead piping in the Billiards Room, but don’t quote me on that. It was late, we were drunk and there were tears involved).

Monopoly is fun because it allows even the most hardened socialists among us (by this I mean Rach and Euclides) to be greedy and capitalist for an hour or so. (I say an hour; a game has never lasted longer than 45 minutes in our house. To put this into context, the instructions on the box say an average game should last 2-3 hours). Some people say Monopoly is like a metaphor for London life. Some people are idiots. Monopoly is about as far removed from real life as you can get. Unless you’re Michael Winner.

Who, for example would ever buy a hotel on Whitehall? Is that even legal? You’d have a job getting planning permission. Who even knows where Northumberland Avenue is? Or Bow Street, Coventry Street, Vine Street? Ok, maybe Vine Street (30 years in London has never improved my knowledge of the West End I admit). But the point is, there are far more relevant streets in today’s London that would make the game feel more real. Commercial Road for example. Or Holloway Road.

Who has ever been sent directly to jail for no apparent reason? Nobody. Oh ok, maybe anybody who was black in the 1970s or Muslim er….now. Who has ever won £50 for a beauty contest? Who ever heard of free parking in London? Who randomly pays school fees on demand, surely there should be a regulated system in place? A monthly direct debit perhaps? Even the stations are odd. Kings Cross and Liverpool Street, fine. But Fenchurch St. and Marylebone? Two quaint and beautifully designed little stations granted, but surely Waterloo and Paddington, the two biggest stations in London deserve more prominence. About the only realistic thing is that the two ends of the social spectrum are accurately identified: Old Kent Road for a mere sixty quid, Mayfair setting you back to the tune of four hundred nicker. (Tip: try to buy both. a) you’ll look diverse and cool b) you’ll monopolise that corner of the board near ‘Go’ and c) they are nice colours.)

But hey, we don’t play Monopoly for a reality check do we? We play it as a throwback to an age of innocence. I say innocence, I mean a time of colonialist Empire building, the Wall Street crash and war in Europe.

But just look at the pieces we play with: the dog, the boot, the ship, the iron (hold on, the iron?!), the top hat and the car. Pure innocence and eccentricity. The beauty of Monopoly lies in its simplicity. The colours, the near symmetry, the collecting £200 just for passing go. It’s very much the Kate Moss of board games.

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to actually finish a game. What does that look like? Does ticker tape explode from the ceiling covering the players and scaring the dog? I don’t think I’ve even got as far as buying a hotel, let alone monopolising the whole board. I have been made bankrupt. That’s it. This Christmas, just for once, maybe my family will play a game to its conclusion. I have dreams of a string of houses on Bond Street. It’s never going to happen.

London loves.....crime scenes

2009-11-23T22:35:00.024Z

My boss has a habit of giving directions to London locations by referring to the infamous crimes that have taken place there. Instead of simply saying “take a left on to Commercial Road” he will add "you know…where that bloke got shot in the head six times outside the bingo hall”.

Wherever you are in London he could tell you what murders have happened there. Slightly morbid? Perhaps, but when you think about it, many places are forever linked to and even defined by the murders that have taken place. The Dakota building NYC, the town of Omagh in Northern Ireland, The British Medical Association HQ in Tavistock Square stained red with blood.

This week’s London Love is not really a love of ours. Rather, a morbid fascination, driven by media bloodlust and the folkloric nature of tales of local murders. A recent personal example illustrates this. A few weeks ago a body was dragged out of the Regent's canal and laid on the towpath within site of our office windows. Rather than respectfully bowing our heads and continuing our work, the primary concern of 100 or so co-workers was to gleefully pontificate as to the nature of the poor man’s demise. “Was he pushed in by local kids? Was he pissed out of his face and fell in? Was it a heart attack? Was he decapitated?” And amongst the hubbub, the most frequently heard cry was: “can you see it? Can you see it? CAN YOU SEE IT??”

I have never seen a dead body. But I know people who have: police officers, morticians, scene-of-crime forensic experts. They tell me it is a surreal yet perfunctory activity when bodies are dealt with by the authorities. At a distance it seems such an unreal thing to encounter. And yet, that is how we will all end up one day. (Dead that is. Hopefully not murdered).

Back to my boss. The most poignant example he refers to (on an almost weekly basis) is the scene he walks past daily on his way to work. At the height of the summer of teenage killings in 2008, 16 year old Ben Kinsella was killed at the corner of York Way and North Road. Now a London landmark, this corner was adorned with flowers, football shirts, scarves, mementoes and heartfelt letters for months afterwards. While Kinsella’s murder marked the key turning point in London’s fight against knife crime, the scene of crime itself became a focal point for locals to vent anger, to collapse in sorrow but also to celebrate a young life, all too soon expired.

London has many notorious murder spots. The one which holds most gruesome fascination for me is in Muswell Hill a couple of miles away from where I live. Close to the top of an oppressively suburban, long, steep hill of semi detached houses sits the house at 23 Cranley Gardens. Driving past it today one wonders whether it is occupied and if so, by whom? And are they aware that 30 years ago Dennis Nilsen murdered men there? Keeping their dead bodies hidden around the house, practising necrophilia on them, butchering them, burning them in the back garden, depositing pieces of the bodies down drain pipes, cooking them and indeed eating them.

Equally creepy is the thought of 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill where John Christie murdered at least 6 women in the 1940s and 50s. You can find out more about this particularly bleak sequence of murders in the film 10 Rillington Place starring Richard Attenborough. Be warned, it is one of the most depressingly sad films you will ever see.

Ok, so we’ve covered a gay murderer and a misogynist woman killer, what about one for the girls? Perhaps the quintessential feminist killing in modern times happened in an inconspicuous corner of Hampstead. The Magdala pub still carries the evidence of the final bullet, fired from Ruth Ellis's gun. Intended for Ellis’s former lover, David Blakely, whom she had already pumped five rounds into, the sixth bullet ricocheted off the wall plunging the pub into eternal infamy and Ellis into history. For the murder of this man, the final in a string of hopeless, abusive, womanising drunks who had plagued her life, Ellis became the last woman ever to be hanged in Britain in April 1955.

Although London is more peaceful than most major metropolitan centres in the world, there are still way too many killings. Stephen Lawrence (1993), Damilola Taylor (2000) or the French students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez (2009) stabbed 244 times in Deptford, are just three examples of events that Londoners really do not love.

It is strange, however, that the further away in time and history one moves from a crime the more lightly it is viewed…

…Our final death spot is not necessarily a scene of crime per se. Unless of course you consider bad driving a crime. Which I do.

Driving home through Barnes, well-fed, quite probably pissed and tonked up on qaaludes on 16^th Sept 1977, pop star Marc Bolan was killed when his girlfriend declined to follow the one of the lesser known laws of the Road Traffic Act: don’t drive off the road into a Sycamore tree.

London loves.....football

2009-11-14T20:49:00.016Z

Before you read this week’s love-in, watch this short 2 min video. (It does not contain any actual football)

http://tinyurl.com/yhollh7

What you just saw happened in East London on 25th August this year. Why? Well, because those ridiculous, almost hard-to-comprehend scenes are what tends to happen when grown men love football a bit too much.

I can’t be overly critical of them, I love football myself. In fact if football was suddenly banned or outlawed I think I’d probably kill myself.

…Or maybe just watch figure skating.

In 1981 in a televised interview, Bill Shankly the Liverpool FC manager, made the famous quote “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. It’s not. It’s more serious than that”. The men you just watched attacking each other and fighting with police would undoubtedly concur. It’s not merely the sport as a stand-alone entity (22 men kicking a pig’s bladder across a pitch into two metal constructions known as ‘goal posts’) that provokes such intensity. It is the history, the embodiment of identity, the localisation of innate pride and engrained partisan loyalty for your club that manifests itself not just in love but in equal parts joy, sadness, frustration, anxiety, boredom and anger.

The two sets of fans you saw fighting were West Ham and Millwall supporters. Hated rivals from East and South East London. This is by no means the biggest rivalry in London. There are 13 professional football clubs in London. More than any other city in the world. Just to put this in context, take America as an example; most US cities have just one professional team per sport. Sometimes entire states just have one professional team! In rare instances you will get two per city (Chicago Cubs/Chicago White Sox for example), London has 13. They range from massive clubs whose supporters number millions globally (Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea) to clubs with very small localised fan bases (e.g. Barnet or Brentford).

As well as professional clubs there are countless part-time or amateur London clubs, all of which feasibly have the opportunity to turn pro if they ever get good enough. English football’s tiering system, unlike most other sports around the world is ultra-democratic, allowing for virtually unlimited ascent or descent through the leagues.

But never mind long established clubs, one only need look at the number of football pitches and 5-a-side Astroturf pitches you find when travelling through the city to be convinced we are singularly football mad. Hackney Marshes in itself has the highest concentration of pitches in Europe. On a Sunday morning, more than 100 games take place. That’s 2,200 men waking up hungover or otherwise bleary-eyed and dragging themselves to a desolate expanse of land to have the shit kicked out of them by their opposing marker (an overweight builder wearing tight shorts and intermittently puking up last night’s Stella and doner by the corner flag). This is a level of devotion bordering on mental illness.

Football violence is equally insane. And yet in a way I respect both of these versions of a shared passion. Surely the willingness to put your body and mind in mortal danger on a Saturday afternoon denotes love in its most extreme form?

For those that do not understand, it’s difficult to teach. Normally one falls hopelessly in love with football around the age of 7 or 8 years old in the school playground. Unfortunately once smitten (or scarred depending on your view) you can never walk away. Personally I’ve never completely trusted any man who doesn’t like football (note: lesson one in how to alienate a clearly specified section of your readership). And I find it hard to contemplate how anybody can live without it. However, I will now attempt to illustrate the point with a poignant London footy tale about some poor unfortunate souls who were forced to live without it.

Until 2004 London had 14 professional football clubs. In that year, Wimbledon FC, located in South West London since 1889 and FA Cup winners in 1988 were forced to relocate 56 miles north of London to the concrete suicide bunker known as Milton Keynes. After a decade or more of Taylor report-induced ground refurbishment, ground-sharing with Palace, wrangling over land ownership and the inability of Merton borough council to find them a suitable home locally, the owners of Wimbledon FC sold the Plough Lane ground to the supermarket chain Tesco for £8m and moved the club away from its London home and its loving supporters.

Imagine you had followed a club (or for that matter invested time, love and money in anything of personal importance: a lover, a horse, a theatre, a Datsun Sunny) for 20 years or more. Then suddenly that club/horse/theatre/Datsun Sunny is whisked away from you (60 miles away) renamed MK Dons, rebranded and irreversibly altered forever. The impact of this for local supporters must have been devastating. Out of this sad set of circumstances, however, emerged a Phoenix from the flames representing enduring Londonish love. In 2002, when the Milton Keynes deal was finalised, AFC Wimbledon was founded by a set of supporters in the local area and began life (again) in the lowly amateur leagues. Former supporters of Wimbledon FC immediately flocked to follow this ‘new’ team within the community, considering the club a continuation of the original Wimbledon and deriding MK Dons as ‘Franchise FC’. Seven years on, promoted four times in seven seasons, AFC Wimbledon currently sit 10th in the Blue Square Conference Premier, just one tier below the professional football league.

That’s devotion, that’s true love.

Right that’s enough love for one day, let’s go and kick someone’s head in...

London loves.....postcodes

2009-11-08T14:19:00.041Z

Do not underestimate the power of a London postcode.

They are the definitive alphanumeric signifiers of status and location. It isn’t the boarded up council estates or luxurious mansion houses that decide whether your area is grit or glamour, it’s the postcode. SW1 and SE17 are very close to each other geographically. In postcode terminology they’re in different universes.

Paris has its arrondisements, New York its boroughs, London has its precious postcodes.

Trying to sell a house? Your postcode could literally halve or double your selling price. Been on a hot date? Getting the night bus home to N17 rather than say NW3 might wreck your chances of a second date. Postcodes can even influence the way your CV or job application is viewed. There is a class thing going on. Some postcodes signify wealth and charm, others signify poverty and dereliction.

I have a personal bugbear. I don’t like my postcode. And I’ve lived with it for 18 years. N22. I often feel embarrassed saying it. I don’t know why. It somehow just seems so bleeeurgh. Prosaic. Silly. Boring. Suburban. It’s the highest of the N numbers making it sound really far out. It’s not. Look at the map; it’s just above N8 and next door to N10. I can’t help it, sometimes I just long for my beloved old N4. Everything seems ok in N4, surrounded by part-time hippies, eco warriors, middle class Arsenal fans and alternative therapists. N22, on the other hand, sounds like you’re at the top of a massive hill like some kind of freakish Gulliver accidentally stomping over the N1’s and E2’s.

Ok, rein it in Josh; you’re firing off postcodes like an anti-tank gun. Some people may be a little confused. If you are confused, i.e. if you are not from London, I don’t have time to go into great detail. Sorry. There isn’t any great logic to the system to be honest. For a start the numbering goes in no logical sequence (almost the complete opposite to the Parisian system which runs from one to twenty and is arranged in a near-perfect clockwork spiral beginning on the banks of the Seine and ending in Belleville. In London, W13 is squashed in between W5 and W7! Crazy.

The suffixes themselves are not even logical; there is no ‘S’ prefix (simply South) in London (only SW’s and SE’s) and there is no ‘NE’ (North East) only N’s and NW’s. Crazy. There is of course an explanation for this; in 1866 ‘S’ and ‘NE’ were scrapped and re-assigned to Sheffield and Newcastle-Upon Tyne. But that kind of logic cuts no ice with me. It makes London seem messy and disorganised!

Just to make things even more confusing, some central areas, the EC1’s and WC1’s have random extra letters attached (e.g. EC1V or WC1H). I find this little quirk an endearing feature I must say...

But please don’t ever attempt to work out which London borough you’re in by using the postcode system because, as Wikipedia rather eloquently puts it “the boundaries of each [postcode] sub-district rarely correspond to any units of civil administration such as parishes or boroughs. Despite this they have developed over time into a primary reference frame”…... Primary reference frame?! Yeah, thanks Postmaster General. Thanks for making things so easy to understand back in the 1800s.

Ach, what am I moaning about? There’s no geographic consistency in London anyway so why should the post coding be well ordered? London is an insane hybrid mish-mash of bending, maze-like roads built totally at random at different points in its two thousand year history. Starting with the Romans and hybridising all the way up to us. There’s even a possibility the construction of the 2012 Olympic Games site could create a new postcode where once barren wasteland was simply incorporated into surrounding codes. It’s happened before. Thamesmead in the 1970s was assigned SE28, after extensive development work was done to create the area.

But of course postcodes do not exist in isolation. When we think of them we think of the areas and what they signify. So, for example, E1 we think Whitechapel (Kray Twins, murdered Victorian prostitutes, skinny jeaned Scenesters). SW1, Sloane Square (‘could one please pick me up from Harrods in the Bentley?’) while N16 Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill is an odd blend of quintessential liberal Socialist Worker middle class North London and orthodox Jewish families.

I’m so obsessed with postcodes I once wrote to the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian requesting an explanation for the randomness of their assignment. I’m still waiting to hear back...

I’ll leave you with a few of my personal favourites…

1. N5 - majestic, crisp, beautiful. Highbury

2. EC1-to-EC4 - the City sends Dickensian shivers down my spine

3. E8 - Dalston and London Fields. Horribly trendy and yet a fantastic blend; the epitome of gentrified, shabby chic, arty, industrial-turned-Bohemian, beautiful Victorian semi detached, railway arched, fabulous pubbed, retro, multicultural, down to earth, working class liberal East London

Go on readers. Show yourself some love. Move to the postcode you’ve always dreamed of. (But remember kids, SW3 might be a little bit out of your league...)

London loves.....cycling

2009-11-02T23:51:00.031Z

Some love affairs are actually love/hate affairs. So it is with London and cycling.

As a recent convert to cycling I cannot claim to speak for the longstanding cycling community. I can, however, speak for myself and the army of rubbish cyclists who cycle back and forth from work everyday in the London streets foregoing the luxury of more ordinary and dignified modes of transport. Like the Piccadilly Line. As I am totally non-expert, there will be no mention of 160 psi tyres, or tubular frames. There will simply be tales of things that occur on bikes in London.

Recently, cycling home from work I spotted a faster cyclist in front of me and conducted an impromptu experiment by catching up with him and then remaining close behind him in his ‘slipstream’. My rationale being that the aerodynamic effect would make it easier for me to cycle. Something to do with less wind resistance? I don’t know. I got a D for GCSE Physics*. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time as I glided through Manor House.

In actuality it was a fairly poor idea. While I was unable to discern any noticeable easing on my cardiovascular exertion, I definitely got wetter, as the spray from his back wheel flew up into my face coating my glasses and rendering me temporarily blind. I didn’t stop to pull over and wipe my glasses. Oh no, that’s just not London cycling. Instead I made it to the next traffic light, half blind…. and then wiped my glasses. Therein lies a metaphor for the madness of the London cyclist; the oscillating emotions of green or red: possibility or halt, to see or to be blind. It’s always about the next traffic light. And nothing else matters**.

Suffice to say, I have not attempted the ‘slipstream’ trick again. But I have done and indeed observed other things that encapsulate the city’s cycling obsession.

In London, the nature of the gruelling slog of our thoroughfares, means no matter how much poise, confidence and Tour De France spirit we begin with as we leave our front doors, within 20 minutes we’re all reduced to a strange horde of sweaty, slightly confused-looking, suspicious, competitive people. Hard-breathing and lolling our heads like Paula Radcliffe. We London cyclists are not a pretty sight. Amusingly, the sweaty horde status quo is disturbed along the way into town as we, the moist ones with raised heart rates and in slight disarray, come into contact with new, fresh, un-crumpled cyclists who have clearly just left their front doors and are still half-smiling, before the anarchy besets them.

Putting sweaty unity to one side for a moment, there are also more divisive forces at work causing meltdown amongst even the most placid London cyclist. For starters there’s the hideous competitiveness. Racing bike riders are, generally-speaking, outrageously macho. (Even female racers are outrageously macho). This can be intimidating. You never quite know where they are, who they are or how they may attack. They are very much like the faceless Russian fighter pilots in Top Gun, only less egalitarian. The tell-tale signs of the racer (the alpha male or queen bee of the cycling dominion) are the calf muscles. Exposed, hairy and obscenely muscular. A warning sign equivalent to glimpsing the rapidly disappearing back view of Aryton Senna’s yellow helmet roaring past you (you, of course, being Gerhard Berger, less technically gifted and therefore provisioned with a slightly less impressive machine)***.

Other cyclists are not the only competitors out there. London’s traffic-laden roads between the hours of 7-10am take on many of the qualities of the Battle of The River Plate. Rush hour is very much ‘move out of my way, or I’m taking you down, and I’ll deal with your insurance claims and/or paralytic brain injuries problems at a later date’. Cyclists clash with anyone and everything: cars, motorcycles, pedestrians, buses, dogs, squirrels, weather, hills, darkness, drunkards, trick or treaters, road markings, speed bumps, pot holes, traffic lights and professional wrestlers. …I made the last one up. But you get the point.

I realise this blog is becoming fairly ragged and irreverent. I fear I may be set upon in the coming days by lycra louts wielding bicycle chains****. While initially I had intended to inject a modicum of intellectualism into this piece, in the form of a philosophical conundrum concerning the metaphysical position of the lonely solo cyclist vis-à-vis the empowered social cyclist as member of a community, sadly I have chosen instead to leave you with a few giggle-happy anecdotes about cycling in London. Sue me.

I recount a friend of a friend who managed, against all the odds, to cycle his bike uphill into the back of a bus. Quite a tricky feat at the best of times, the person in question managed to achieve the feat not only after many months of experience as a professional cycle courier but whilst the bus was stationary, offloading passengers at a bus stop. I often wonder whether he laughed or cried….

Finally, I re-tell the tale of a somewhat Machiavellian, enthusiastic cyclist, new to the game, who, upon exposure to the ‘us vs. them’ world of London cycling found himself battling with anything in his path. Including fowl. One summer evening, whilst cruising down a slight incline on Grays Inn Road he spotted a fat, lazy, unmoving pigeon on the road ahead. Taking it upon himself to engage in a spot of cheap sport, the cyclist headed straight for the fat pigeon, clearly expecting it to move and take flight. The pigeon did not move. The pigeon remained precisely where it was as the cyclist careered on, squishing the bird unceremoniously into the tarmac. Upon returning to the injured creature, the cyclist was able to ascertain from its unmoving remains that it had indeed not been faking indolence but was in actual fact very old, very decrepit, very fat and very lame. And now, as a direct result of his Shimano-gear driven homicide, very, very dead.

Such things are the way of life for the London cyclist. And we must take them in our lycra-clad stride.

Squawk.

*there were complex mitigating circumstances concerning this poor academic result which I don’t have the time to go into here but may return to at some later date. Suffice to say that the circumstances preceding the failure were nobody’s fault but my own.

** I threw this sentence in merely as a reference for Metallica fans to enjoy. I probably shouldn’t have. (I should make clear here that I am not a Metallica fan).

*** I recognise that this is the second reference to Formula One in as many blogs, for which I apologise. (I should also make clear here that I am not, particularly, a Formula One fan)

**** this is a reference to the Morrissey song ‘Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference’, the b-side to the 1989 top 10 single ‘Interesting Drug’ (I should make clear here that I am a massive Morrissey fan).

London loves.....break ups

2009-10-27T14:09:00.008Z

Some might say this opening topic of London Loves is not entirely Londo-centric. I would have to agree. But I've never been one to be swayed by what some people might say. It is true that the whole world, not just London, loves break ups (other people’s I hasten to add, not their own). There is, however, something peculiarly Londonite about the zeal with which relationship malfunctions grip and excite Londoners. It’s almost perverse.

For beginning this blog with a topic many might see as dour I lay the blame bi-directionally. Firstly, the eponymous Blur song after which this blog is named offers two important hints at the romantic sadism of Londoners in it’s lyricism. ‘London loves the way people just fall apart’ and ‘London loves the misery of a speeding heart’. Secondly, somebody, let’s say for argument’s sake…me, has just undergone a break-up. So, it's topical.....for me.....sue me.

To take the Blur lyrics as my starting point. While the song itself may be seen as glib, trite or throwaway, there is actually an important take-home message. If we’re being honest for just one second; everybody upon hearing that somebody they know has broken up with their erstwhile lover, feels a certain sense of pleasure. This may seem controversial. It’s not. It’s true. I don’t mean in 100% of these cases, occasionally we hear of a break-up and are genuinely sorry, empathetic and disappointed. But 9 out of 10 times we take satisfaction in it. It’s human nature. There are many things about somebody else’s break-up that we love:

1. The fact that it’s not our break-up it’s somebody else’s (aka: smugness).

2. The fact that the news of a break-up allows us to indulge in a certain sense of self-satisfaction. This may manifest itself in ‘well I always knew they weren’t right for each other’ (trans. 'I'm a genius at predicting human folly') or in the fact that you now have a sense of one-upmanship over your acquaintance (your relationship is stable and fine, theirs is fucked…you must be a better person then they are) or worse still, your acquaintance has now been de-throned from their prestigious position and is now down wallowing amongst the love detritus with you and all the rest of the singles (the classic fall from grace anticipation finally coming to fruition).

3. It suddenly and immediately allows us to vent the true feelings we’d been masking all along. Usually feelings about the person your acquaintance has broken up with. This takes two forms, both of which are virtually identical. a) If it is your friend who has dumped their former lover; that’s your cue to slag off the former lover (who you never really liked anyway) in a litany of unedifying personal abuse. b) If on the other hand it’s your friend who has been dumped by their former lover…..that’s your cue to slag off the former lover (who you never really liked anyway) in a litany of unedifying personal abuse.

4. It’s our chance (seldom experienced so make the most of it) to play the agony aunt role you always knew you were cut out for. This is particularly unsavoury because of the fact that we, as a general population, are rubbish agony aunts. No, seriously. In my entire life I have only ever experienced one good agony aunt. The person I refer to being almost psychic in her ability to read, analyse and advise upon a situation. She could have made some serious cash off of her talents by now. She chooses not to. But I for one am indebted to her wisdom and salience... The rest of us are shit and shouldn’t even bother. ‘You’re better off without her’, ‘this is probably the best thing that could have happened’ or ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ are not lines that people will take to their graves revelling in awe at the eternal consoling wisdom of your heart-felt though impotent utterances. We all do it though. At least we're trying to display sympathy. That's better than nothing.

5. It’s an excuse to take your recently-heartbroken mate out and get very, very pissed.

It’s the fifth point, above all, that makes this particular London Love so quintessentially Londonish. It’s difficult to imagine a city that likes getting pissed more than London. We rarely need an excuse. So when there actually is a genuine excuse, like a break-up, to bemoan/celebrate, we do not hold back.

All of the above may tend to paint Londoners in a schadenfreude-esque bad light. I should probably take the time to point out that we Londoners are not entirely heartless. We are just quite heartless. To quote the song again, we actually do love the way people fall apart. It gives us something to laugh about.

Worse still, occasionally, it’s not even deliberate, angst-induced, superiority-driven guilty pleasure-taking that motivates our reactions. Sometimes, we just don’t give a fuck. (Another Londonite trait is the fact that we simply do not have time to give a fuck, we‘re soooo busy). I’ll leave you with a hilarious example. When I recently texted my older brother (he was in Ireland on holiday at the time) to tell him of the demise of my latest relationship, which had lasted almost 2 years. His response, by text, was this: “Why did you break? Your choice or hers? Whens the Brazilian grand prix on today (sic) Button is losing the plot due 2 pressure. He has been for the past 6 to 8 races.” Ah, the compassion. Oh, the humanity. I was deeply, deeply touched. In all seriousness though, it was a London response. To be perfectly honest, it was the best response I could have heard at that time. Deeply nonchalant. Deeply cynical. Deeply I-care-more-about-the-fate-of-the-formula-one-championship-than-your meaningless-difficult-and-quite-frankly-tedious-relationship. More to the point, it made me wet myself laughing. Thanks brother, I appreciate it.