Column: September 2017

Things that go bump...

‘Bumping’ sounds like a nightclub dance craze from the 1970s. In fact, it is a theory of social cohesion. The citizens of small, tightly-packed communities get on far better if they bump into one another regularly. And the places they do this are held by social scientists and community-engagement experts to be sacred, fertile grounds for a better society.

Golden Laners have their chosen spots. Fusion gym, Waitrose and Fortune Street Park are all well established 'bumping’ places. Lesser known ones are the undercover pavement on Golden Lane alongside Stanley Cohen House and, my favourite, the short tunnel of trees behind the Cripplegate Council noticeboard at the back of the Shakespeare pub.

But bumping also happens outside the confines of our bright and colourful concrete paradise. Often I will see neighbours at the open meetings organised by Healthwatch City of London. These are round-table talking shops at which City residents, workers and service users chew the fat with healthcare professionals in an effort to shape future policy. Issues such as medication passports, community pharmacy, dementia and social care come under intense scrutiny. These talks are important because the City of London shares some health and social services provision with neighbouring boroughs, notably Hackney, so policy needs to embrace a wide range of needs.

The Healthwatch gatherings take place in various locations, but often at the Dutch Centre in Austin Friars, EC2. They are always a great success, and I think I know why: the free buffet lunches they serve to fuel the conversation are mouthwateringly good, so good that I have even spotted some of my Golden Lane neighbours stuffing their faces with free food at lunchtime then disappearing quietly before the serious topical talking starts. This is obviously unethical and I never hesitate to remind them of their poor conduct. And in my experience, all the best ideas come with a full stomach, so ‘Let’s do lunch with Healthwatch’ could be the start of a new trend. It’s good to talk...and eat.

‘Recovery After Heart Surgery’, an examination of patient experiences and priorities, is at St Bartholomew’s Hospital on 5 October.

Healthwatch City of London’s fourth Annual Conference is at the Dutch Centre, 7 Austin Friars on 20 October.

A crystal-ball moment

I predicted in last month’s Golden Lane Gazette that objections to the development proposed for the former Richard Cloudesley site would start rolling in. I wasn’t wrong, and even more piled in on deadline day last week. I also mentioned that a “clever resident from Bayer House” had circulated his own alternative to the existing Hawkins\Brown blueprint. This is the ‘Fred Plan’, a scheme more compatible with the estate’s existing architecture, and its author, Fred Scott, is so clever that to advance his rival idea he has created an artistic photo-composition of what looks like an awayday of 1950s British intellectuals loitering ghostlike over a model of Fred’s insurgent 21st-century Golden Lane redesign. They look to be contemplating, with deadly seriousness, a time in the future when our prize-winning estate will be enlarged in a way sympathetic to the original post-war vision of its architects, Chamberlin, Powell & Bon. In the light of how the Richard Cloudesley project has been managed so far, in which residents’ views have been barely registered, let alone considered, it is tempting to remark “pigs might fly”, but stranger things have happened.

Culture vultures

The reinvention of the City as a cauldron of creativity under the title Culture Mile might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Getting the heritage architecture of Golden Lane and the Barbican to be included in this hot new idea might be a fantasy too far, but at a recent party to mark the closure of our community centre for refurbishment, I learned about Joe Mitchell. Back in the 1960s, Joe was the “Cameron Mackintosh of Cripplegate”, rallying residents of all ages to perform on the Golden Lane Community Centre stage in his famous 'Follies’. Some of Joe's protégés even went on to attend the Italia Conti Academy of Theatrical Arts. Italia Conti has been an incubator of top talent for many years, so don’t be surprised if the next Doctor Who hailed first from the Golden Lane Estate.

Behind the scenes

And if your life is not already dramatic enough, take time to check out the absorbing ‘Life on the London Stage’ exhibition at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) around the corner in Clerkenwell.

An edited version of this column appeared in the City Matters newspaper, edition number 048 in September 2017

Column: August 2017

Picture: Muhammad Ali word wall

Picture: Sonja RIP

Picture: Making Faces

Me with Yoki and Tirza at the opening of the Making Faces exhibition at London's Southbank Centre

Picture: Yuri Gagarin word wall

Diary: July 2017

21.7.17

Just spoke to young woman on number 14 bus practising card tricks. Amazing dexterity and fluency. She told me she learned by copying from YouTube and then read books.

21.7.17

Jane on my outfit: “Not sure about the frayed microcloth in your top pocket.”

21.7.17

Wayne Bridge knows where the dishwasher tablets are kept. And he prefers red sauce on his sausage sandwich.

14.7.17

At the bus stop on Old Street, a begging woman approached, having already been spurned by another waiting passenger. The begging woman looked at me pleadingly and told me she was hungry. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a £1 coin and handed it to her. She thanked me then added: “A sandwich costs £2.50.”

1.7.17
'I think Jeremy Corbyn is perfectly right to sack members of his shadow cabinet for not toeing his line on Brexit. This is British party politics: voters are forever being asked to compromise, but the politicians don’t have to. At some point the kinder, gentler politics was always going to take a leaf out of Alex Ferguson’s book and start throwing boots at people who disagreed with it...'
Marina Hyde, the Guardian

‘Grenfell’s residents were not viewed as people with a right to be heard but as pathetic supplicants, ungrateful for what had been bestowed upon them.’

Deborah Orr, the Guardian

 

Picture: Piano Hand

Hand-painted t-shirt, a gift for Izzy, who tried to teach me to play the piano at Headway East London. I was rubbish but loved to watch her beautiful, long-fingered hands dancing over the keyboard.

Picture: Beatles word wall

Diary: June 2017

June in Simplified Chinese

 

30.6.17

‘The UK is a parliamentary democracy, so the amplification of MP power is welcome – especially after a period of executive arrogance arising from the aggressive over-interpretation of a referendum result.’

Guardian editorial

 

24.6.17

22.6.17

It has been a soup of happy and sad these past days. Last night we got an email from Eric in Tenerife giving more details about Glen’s death. We never really wanted much information, but the big thing for me was that Eric valued our friendship enough that he felt he COULD tell us. I think they were more a couple (not sure I will ever be able to de-couple them) of the Fifties than the Sixties, but I have nevertheless/nonetheless put Sixties music on while writing this. If nothing else, they kept that spirit alive. But of course they kept a lot more alive.

I noticed a Stephen Staunton painting in the studio during the Headway Members Forum yesterday and set my heart on buying it. It is a self portrait in which Stephen has two mouths. I will leave you to look at his work, know that his brain injury left him profoundly deaf,  that he is an arsey bugger, and decide for yourself.

The price negotiation was delicate, but Michelle took control, and we sealed the deal at  £70. Stephen, shook my hand, blew me a kiss and promptly went around the entire building showing members the money he had earned. He was a star. I was saddened by this for selfish reasons. My ego seemed to be a part of the transaction and that was not comfortable. But if anyone who wants to argue, I will tell them it is a fucking great picture, tell them why, and then tell them to go fuck themselves, because it is on my wall.

19.6.17

A young mother moves to get off the 390 bus on York Way, London. She starts to reverse the buggy out of the central door but the final step down is difficult and another passenger helps to lift the front of the buggy to assist. But the young mother is a dwarf and her kind helper nearly topples her over by lifting the buggy too high. The look on her face suggests this might have happened before. The helper cringes and apologises.

19.6.17

I understand from an internal email at the Guardian that the cricket match between India and Pakistan will always being in colossal ratings from Google. This pleases me because one of the post-internet-revolution ways the Guardian has been very successful is in live blogging, a new way of reporting and a charming way to be told a story.

15.6.17

12.6.17

I was just about to pen a diary about how the centrists could make Labour a properly progressive government in waiting. They hold the chance of Britain finally becoming a modern social democracy.

A message to the rebels: work with Jeremy Corbyn and Labour can win. Then this appeared in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/11/message-to-rebels-work-with-corbyn-labour-can-win

See 3 June entry

Portugal tour

11.6.17

Trying to imagine what the future would have held if the Theresa May Conservative Party had been elected with a stonking majority. Slavery is the thing that springs to mind, a uniquely neo-capitalist type of slavery where pittance wages are the norm and zero-hours contracts standard. Would any of these new slaves revolt and slit the throats of their 'masters’?

10.6.17

I am just remembering a young man named Derek, who used to install himself on any available sitting surface in Moss Menswear on Breck Road, a clothes shop run by Joe Hollywood (Evertonian from Bootle) and assisted by me, on occasions. Derek would spout the dogma of 80s Liverpool Militant and Derek 'Degsy' Hatton, but once you dragged him into a serious analysis of his politics, it emerged that this was young Derek’s chosen method of meeting good-looking girls.

8.6.17

Is Portugal the place that has most successfully fine-tuned mass enterprise to its own national advantage? Probably not, but they turned ordinary wine into a flourishing port industry. And they profit from the shoe business by aiming for quality rather than quantity - at least that is what I am told - knowing that in terms of low-cost production they cannot match Asia. In future I shall be watching for other ways Portugal is managing to niche the mass market. Add to this cork, sardines, fado, soap.

8.6.17

Here I am, awake and typing at 6.30am, excited not by today’s General Election in Britain. We are in Porto, Portugal and I have just finished listening to two radio pieces that make me proud of my country’s national broadcaster, the BBC.

The first was The Queen’s Speech, by John Finnemore, a play in which the inventor (a woman) of an early sound recording device, cons Queen Victoria (Stephanie Cole) into ‘buying in’ to her voice-recording contraption that uses cylinders and wax. The second was a 1966 version of Romeo and Juliet by Ewan McColl in which ‘Ron’ cops off with ‘that little dark piece’ Julie and they board a ‘jazz boat’ to begin their fateful life of love together. McColl sings narrative interludes into the play about the star-crossed lovers from the ‘Montagu’ and the ‘Capli’ families.

Both plays had class as a running theme. The inventor from the Finnemore play was an Eliza Doolittle type who was not afraid to speak to the Queen bluntly and argue with her in her own voice. In the McColl play, the class motif runs deeper. Not only is one family posh and the other common, but in the sung interludes, McColl adapted flavours of jazz, gospel and country to spice the narrative.

The plays ran in succession on BBC Radio4 Extra, the digital station of ‘comedy, drama and entertainment’.

5.6.27

Area around Casa do Alentejo is mobbed by heavy metal zombies. J said it was like walking through Kerrang, and she should know.

5.6.17

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has asked citizens not to be alarmed about the increased police presence on the streets.

4.6.17

Out walking in the streets off Avenida Liberdade, Lisbon, J spotted a nice place for a glass of wine. We sat outside. J started reading the DK Top Ten Lisbon guide book, and where we were sitting, the small street-front bar of Casa do Alentejo, was a guide-book recommendation. We went inside up pink marble steps to explore an ultra-decorative Moorish palace type space and had a lovely tapas meal in the buzzing Taverna. J said, “this is us”. There is a swisher Restaurant too, so we must go back and try that.

4.6.17

The Lisbon taxi colours are light green/turquoise with black. Nice combo.

4.6.17

Spotted a man on the plane using his phone to take a picture of the back of his head. I presumed it was to check encroaching hair loss.

4.6.17

‘Natural’ death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly and painful.

George Orwell

J’s Mum once told the story of a local woman who died during a bus journey, adding, “At least she wasn't alone.”

4.6.27

Heathrow airport

Reading news of the “terrorist” attack on London Bridge and Borough Market last night. Six civilians killed, reported on BBC. Three perps shot dead. Arrive at Heathrow around 8.15am. Armed police at drop-off point. Facebook is loaded with people offering to donate blood. If there actions result in more and more armed police deployed in the streets, the very foundations of 'policing by consent’ have been destroyed. So the big question is, Who Care's? And among those who do, Who Care's enough?

I don’t think I will ever slip naturally into speaking Portuguese. The temptation to adopt the Sean Connery James Bond sound is never far away, and just mouthing the words “dosh shervayshas” (two beers) brings on a fit of the giggles.

4.6.17

Heathrow is for the few, not the many. No Accessorise here. Many of the staff are Southall people of Asian origin.

4.6.17

Travelling to Heathrow, we passed the Shepherds Bush Empire and Jane recalled that Neville Brothers concert some time in the noughties when concert-goers turned up with their shopping bags.

3.6.17

Have just read an LSE blog posting to the gender gap in voting intentions. Plan by the current government on social care provision made older and middle aged women fearful. Older women because they don’t know what care they will get, and middle aged women because they are most likely to be burdened with caring for the elderly members of their families. These two groups were considered safe votes for the Conservative Party, while younger women preferred Labour. Now a rump of core Conservatives are having second thoughts.

3.6.17

Some weeks ago I shared a long article on Facebook about Jeremy Corbyn. It more or less fingered him as the head of a crypto-Stalinist axis of evil. One person replied to the posting, the son of a friend I secretly refer to as Herr Miles (the son, not the friend, and he is not German, he just seems to spend most of his working life on an aeroplane). Miles replied to the posting saying (I paraphrase) that when the Blair/Brown project got elected as New Labour, lots of leftwing ultras “bit their lip”, so now the boot is on the other foot, the Blairite wing of the party should do likewise.

In the past weeks, I have come to agree. But what swayed it for me was the notion being aired that a Corbyn Labour government would be shambolic and inept. Prime Minister May is using the term “coalition of chaos” repeatedly.

But imagine this: Corbyn’s Labour does win. The question is, can they govern? There is the question of their numeracy skills. It is not an unfair one. Experience of running countries is not at the top of their CV. This is where Corbyn’s centrist doubters can make a difference. Ed Miliband, John Prescott, Gordon Brown, Alan Johnson, Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls, plus many more: they all have vast experience of running this country, so now is their chance to make a difference, get behind their leader and devise a new programme that works for the many, not the few.

Diary: My philosophy

Turn up

Be me

Go home

For a cup of tea.

Picture: Open Garden Squares Weekend

Community Cafe at the Golden Baggers allotment project.

Picture: Shankly Word Wall

Diary: May 2017

29.5.17
A friend who has recently debuted as a councillor has been told off for behaving too much like a citizen, which is not befitting for a councillor, apparently.

26.5.17
I saw the crescent, Connie saw the whole of the moon. Or at least that is how it seemed to me. I wanted to know what colour eyes Marilyn Monroe had. Connie did a web search but ignored any written testimony in favour of checking the images and trusting what she saw. Blue-grey was the answer. I am too skeptical about photography to trust it to deliver facts.

Memory: 1981
Bruce Springsteen, Manchester ApolloWe had been told to stay seated, but as soon as the full blast of air from the speakers signalled the opening chords of Prove It All Night took off the front of our faces, we were up, on our feet, and on a charge.

25.5.17
Witnessed firsthand the conflict between parents and disabled people on the buses. Riding to the Guardian, a wheelchair user at one stop signalled to the driver to open the ramp at the middle door so that she might board the bus. The space on the bus allocated for wheelchair users was already taken by two mothers with buggies, who shouted to the driver that the space was full. Both women looked at each other and at the wheelchair user (also a woman, though I am not sure gender is important here, other than women generally being the parent who has to struggle with buggies on buses) and shook their heads in dismay. What this really meant I am not sure. Were they indignant that a wheelchair user might want to use a bus? Or were they annoyed that buses and bus drivers do little to accommodate parents and the disabled? I’m not sure the last is actually true, but the first has certainly made headlines recently and is likely to remain a sore point for some time to come. The wheelchair user decided to wait for the next bus.   24.5.17Yesterday came in three parts. First I settled into getting what to say about Chippy’s pictures straight in my head. I lay in bed in the early hours and it all seemed straightforward. I would start with his eyes and I would end with him having an attack of the giggles with Tony Allen. But when it came to recording the audio, it didn’t happen in the way I’d planned. I was stuck for words. Somehow I managed to utter something about his eyes, but then it all fell apart. I clawed my way back to talk (badly) about how he and Michelle work together. Then I went off on a ramble about Connie As A Goth, which was on the wall in front of me, and the portrait of me he did in which I look like George Michael with an oversized right ear.
News of the suicide bomb attack in Manchester was all over the news and I began to wonder whether this was a ‘gender crime’. It seemed targeted at girls and young women. Killing children indiscriminately was another thought, an act not exclusively practised by terrorist groups.
Later I attended a drinks-cake-speeches reception at the Guardian’s Education Centre, where I have been doing volunteer teaching assistance for over three years. Nice to see some familiar faces, and I managed to get a chat with the Chair of the Scott Trust Alex Graham, a Scottish giant, who sounded genuinely proud of the Education Centre’s work and how it reflected the core liberal values of the Guardian that began nearly 200 years ago in … Manchester. This is all the work of the Guardian Foundation, a charity wing of the Guardian covering the Education Centre, the Archive and Exhibitions.The speeches were short but packed with passion and commitment.
One of the familiar faces I bumped into was Joseph, now a senior editor. Many years ago he worked on the Education desk with Sheila, who was instrumental in setting up the Education Centre and was herself a senior executive until she left last year for pastures new. I asked Joseph if he thought the Manchester attack was a ‘gender crime’. He thought not, adding that terrorists simply seek the greatest number of dead bodies. They don’t do demographics. I still wasn’t sure about that, but began to wonder that maybe I had grown a little too attached to the ‘gender crime’ label.

21.5.17 London
Meeting with poet called St John to see how he might goose up our allotment’s contribution to Open Square Gardens next month. Unfortunately, he cannot do his 'Spring’ poem because it is June, which is Summer. Pity, that. The lines about sniffing fertile bushes would have been a real treat for our visitors.

20.5.17 London
Spotted people photographing chewing-gum blots on Millennium Bridge. Not sure what they were doing at first, but I noticed three different sets of people doing it, so watched more closely. Is there a social media-style photo collection somewhere on the web. I dare not look.
20.5.17 London
Boat trip on the Thames Clipper to Greenwich from Bankside for Séan’s birthday. He was deeply absorbed in the encyclopaedia of Lego Superheroes we bought him, but later managed a killer impersonation of me walking round with my stick uttering weakly, “I’m a very old man I am.” And Paula keeps her credit card in her bra.

6.5.17, Paris
Kate tells us that Ade is “walking out hand in hand” again. What lovely news.

5.5.17, Paris, Montmartre Citadines
The reception fella told us that Dalida was buried/entombed in the nearby cemetery. We thought he said Derrida and got quite excited.

1.5.17
In the Arona Gran hotel in Los Cristianos, Tenerife, they put a small vase-like bin in your breakfast table. I think you are meant to put your tea bags and butter paper in there.

“I don’t mind dying, I just don't want to be I'll.”
Eric

Picture: Monroe Word Wall

Picture: 'Millennium Marilyn'

A photograph of Millennium Bridge by our friend Paul Cahill from the south side of the Thames in the area around Tate Modern was the hook for this image from my studio scrapbook. I put an outline of the classic Marilyn Monroe upblown dress shot in there for fun.

Picture: 'Dead Man's Hand'

This story was inspired by two fellas, G and A, from the Men's Shed at St Luke's Community Centre, Central Street, London EC1. The are longtime south-Islington/Finsbury residents who've known each other from childhood. They are from a typical white working-class background and I imagined in this story an old criminal connection that is renewed when they become active in a local community allotment project in Islington that uses redundant small caravans as garden sheds.

Picture: Tony Blair Word Wall

This was one of my first word walls. Not much is personal here, so I don't feel very special about it.

Local: Community theatre

Golden Lane Estate Community Centre

Picture: Death

Studio scrapbook. Eric said this during a liquid lunch on holiday in Tenerife, with a deadpan delivery. He was always phlegmatic about death. This quote refers to a friend who met his end quickly and with little fuss.