The redevelopment of Elephant & Castle is a miserable story of greed, exploitation and corruption, extensively documented by Southwark Notes over the years. The Heygate estate is now the miserable Elephant Park, and now the shopping centre itself is coming to its end. It is to be demolished and replaced by a shiny new development.Continue reading “Goodbye to the Elephant”
Category Archives: Places
Socially Distanced Soho
Remember when lockdown ended and everyone was horrified by the images of crowds drinking in Old Compton Street? The government and client journalist communities have moved on to blaming foreigners and specifically Muslims for the ongoing pandemic. Meanwhile Soho’s independent and less independent businesses have been grappling with how to continue to exist. The deathContinue reading “Socially Distanced Soho”
Finchley Herons and Municipal Dreams
Back up the northern line towards High Barnet, for a meeting with a friend who had high hopes for a long walk, but wasn’t able to sleep last night. And so we changed the plan according to our collective capabilities; we had a long sit in her garden, with the noise of kids at summerContinue reading “Finchley Herons and Municipal Dreams”
Foxes of Walthamstow
The tabloids told us foxes kill babies. Or possibly kidnap them? I forget, as that particular panic was a few years ago and has been replaced by other, more urgent ones. I was feeling quite panicky myself, today; but not because of the foxes. I find all urban creatures reassuring, for the same reason asContinue reading “Foxes of Walthamstow”
The Mystery of Mill Hill East
I’ve been visiting Woodside Park, in north Finchley, for over twenty years. It sits up near the top of the tube network, a couple of stops below High Barnet, Chipping Barnet, and the encircling M25 motorway. The station feels like a countryside halt, but walk up to the high road and it’s your usual traffic-chokedContinue reading “The Mystery of Mill Hill East”
Millwall
There’s an excellent docklands museum, an offshoot of the museum of London. In it you learn the locals fought against Thatcher’s privatisation and “redevelopment” of their home as much as they could. They lost, and now Canary Wharf is a shiny tribute to public money paying for private gain, a place of multinational banks, chainContinue reading “Millwall”
Wandering the Tate
On a January afternoon not quite as cold as the weather augurs predicted, I stepped outside my house and ended up at Tate Modern. There wasn’t a huge amount of conscious thought behind this process; just a desperation to get out culminating in my feet taking me somewhere I hadn’t been to recently. Because, atContinue reading “Wandering the Tate”
Mulling over Mill Hill
Today’s main lesson is that Mill Hill is a real place, not just a trap disguised as an unlikely branch of the northern line. Mill Hill Broadway station is one of the least beautiful in London. Its entrance is beneath the M1 motorway, whereas the similarly grim Hendon station sits alongside it. I was inContinue reading “Mulling over Mill Hill”
Docklands museum of how awful docklands is
My feet and the robot train from the future took me to the museum of London docklands today. The museum is housed in one of the few remaining 18th century warehouses, which would once have been filled with rum and sugar from the West Indies, as this is West India Quay and it was buildContinue reading “Docklands museum of how awful docklands is”
Skegness confidential
I was in Skegness alone for half an hour. It was early evening; the wind was up and the shops were closing. No-one was checking in at the Quorn hotel, and the last lady in Wilko’s had nearly finished her stock check. The chip shops of chip shop alley were closed for the season. PoolContinue reading “Skegness confidential”
