It’s that time of the year again: the magic of the holidays temporarily tarnished with finals.  But this time, “that time of the year” includes something else: leaving London.

Tragically, my camera has broken and can’t be fixed until I’m back in the States and in possession of my warranty.  Honestly, though, there isn’t much else to be taking pictures of, or at least nothing vitally important.  This realization is one of many I’ve been having lately along the same thematic lines of “wow, I’ve really lived London” and “this experience really is drawing to a close.”  This explains why my posts have been tapering off lately; what I’ve been up to is just living life and enjoying doing it in London.  However, a milestone has been reached: the final countdown.  So, I shall document them, if for my own posterity alone.

ten [Thurs, 3-Dec]

After a productive morning of finishing my paper for The Network Metaphor, I headed to Holborn to grab tea/coffee with Megan Hess, a girl I met this summer through NYWICI who is studying in London with Syracuse University, at the Fleet River Bakery.  Chatting with Megan was great, as was the venue: free wifi and an array of real-life Brits gossiping about the grandkids over tea or busy business bees high on caffeine.  I stuck around after our meet-up and got some more work done on my British Cultural Studies paper before meeting Mike at the Holborn Underground at 5:30pm…

We headed east to Bethnal Green and the Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood for their adult late night.  As we stared at artifacts from childhoods past drinking our complimentary glass of wine, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the crossroads I’ve come to in my life — straddling the line somewhere between adulthood and childhood, the same one as home and here.  In 10 short days I’ll be back to being underage and under the [more direct] care of madre and Vassar.  It’s definitely going to be a strange time of adjustment, but the strangest part thus far has been me negotiating with myself how I feel about it all.  This experience has dually reminded me of how I am growing up and how I still very much love being young.  I guess each phase in life has its own pros and cons…the problem is I just don’t know which phase I’m exactly in at the moment, and it’s interesting to have two of them coordinate with two different countries I have lived in.

Afterward, we emerged at Holborn again instead of directly transferring from the Central to Piccadilly Line to stop for some pub grub at The Prince of Wales (one of the many!).  We showed our London Pride by ordering two pints of it to accompany my order of chips and Mike’s Big Ben Burger.  The equally festive Christmas décor and music made one of my favorite London experiences even more magical.  And again, I was reminded — no more pubs or pints in 10 days!  Oiy…I am going to miss it…

We headed home and topped off the night with a screening of Romeo + Juliet and our holiday night cap indulgence.  Nothing like some Leonardo DiCaprio and Bailey’s with Harrod’s Christmas Blend Coffee to call it a night with…

This evening, at a packed AGM of Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats at Oxford House in Bethnal Green, I was adopted as the LibDem PPC for my home constituency of Poplar and Limehouse (new boundaries, having lost all the bits in Newham). It’s an extraodinary seat, illustrating both the huge diversity of London and also the yawning gap between rich and poor. It also looks like being a right royal battleground at the forthcoming general election, not only because the sitting Labour MP, Farming and Food Minister Jim Fitzpatrick, annoyed the large local Muslim community a while back by walking out of a Muslim wedding because he couldn’t sit next to his wife, but also because ‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway (Respect) is trying to move over from his current perch in neighbouring Bethnal Green and Bow. So we can expect some vigorous campaigning and lots of media attention. Having first moved into the area in 1985, I have seen huge changes — some good, some bad – and whatever the result at the end of it, I am determined to enjoy the next six months or so and to be part of a LibDem renaissance in Tower Hamlets.

Link: http://tower-hamlets-libdems.org.uk

If you are in London next Sunday, head over to Bethnal Green and check out this little sale my good friend Lynne has put together. Her love for the older generations means that you have to pay 1 squid to get in, but proceeds go to Age Concern, so make like Jarvis Cocker and Help the Aged. Entertainment in the shape of DJs and a raffle are on the agenda, and I also hear rumours that there will be mince pies! So, like the flyer says:

Originally uploaded by joesmalley

Anna let me lie on her bed for most of the day, distilling the flood disaster as a tragedy that couldn’t have happened to anyone else. She was attentive and gentle, stroking my hair as I tried to resist falling asleep. She asked questions at the right time, in the right places. I then lay down on her pillow and looked around the room, imagining what it must be like to wake up everyday to face those walls and windows. Cream paints, bright colours peaking out of the cupboards; the sun pressing through the glass panes and the day always irresistibly perfect.

‘Just as I was walking home, this memory from school came back to me.’

‘Which one honey?’ Anna asked even though her mobile phone was ringing on the bedside table. She mouthed “ignore that” and looked at me with the curiosity of a mother.

‘Being in high school and the principal interrupting our class, asking for our attention. There was a tragedy he wanted to tell us about.’

‘What was it?’ Anna asked.

‘Jason Voorhees is dead,’ and I laughed like I hadn’t laughed in a while when telling that story. ‘Nobody was impressed with my reaction.’

‘Why was it funny? I don’t understand.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Not if you have never watched a horror film in your life. Jason Voorhees was the killer’s name in Friday the 13th. Just one of the best films ever made, Anna – how come you don’t know this?’

She looked at me as if I were to blame for one of the world’s worst attrocities.

‘Jason Voorhees was also the name of the twin who committed suicide. Jason and Jeremy Voorhees, Olympic champions.’

‘The poor boy,’ Anna lamented. It was meant for Jason as well as myself. That I was a boy back then that couldn’t respect death when he found it, that couldn’t leave the world of film fantasies separate from reality.

‘In a way, it was a succes de scandale. The whole school heard about it and everyone hated me for a few weeks. They couldn’t stop talking about my disgraceful behaviour. They couldn’t stop spitting at me when I walked down the hallway. Like I was the dirtiest thing that had ever existed. How dare I laugh at Jason’s death?’

‘Did you try to move schools?’

‘Why should I? It was such a subtle thing. Some laughter after an announcement – utterly forgettable to most people. Except that they didn’t forget. They carried it silently in them because I had been so offensive. I became unforgettable.’

‘Kids can be so cruel,’ Anna concluded, patting my head in a way that signified the hair stroking session was over. But I refused to move from the bed. Moving meant dealing with my flooded possessions, with my landlady, with getting my life back on track.

In the morning, Anna called her shop and told the staff she wasn’t feeling too well and that she would be working from home. We then took to the streets for one of our usual psycho-geographed walks. Into the depths of Bethnal Green we walked, following strangers until they disappeared into corner shops, barbers, mosques or residences. We let trees hang over us and pigeons cross our path. We let the distant sound of factory motors be our soundtrack. We let ourselves follow the conversation as it took its own path and became circular.

It was only when we were tired of spending shoe soles and had decided to return to her flat that I spotted the mormon missionaries from the day before in Victoria Park.

They were wearing the same shirts and trousers from the previous day, carrying the same suitcases, but their ties were of a different colour; dark red for the taller one and spotty blue for his companion. They looked fresher, like they’d taken a long soak in the bathtub or enjoyed really good sex that morning.

I had told Anna a little bit about them – had even tried to convince her (unsuccessfully) to help me visit them at night during our sleep – but she wasn’t too interested in any of that. But when we got closer and she realized how good looking they were, her spirits picked up and she smiled impishly at me.

‘You’d think they’d do a different neighbourhood today since they were here yesterday,’ Anna commented.

‘You’d think. There’s work still to be done here. Someone has caused a commotion and stirred up their emotions. Let’s follow and find out who!’

The boys turned into an alley running parallel to Bethnal Green Road; we followed. The boys walked past frightening corrugated gates; we followed. The boys entered a Victorian house with a plaque above the entrance that effectively cast a spell against my presence there; we stood and stared at it.

… well, if you live in London, anyway.

Cup of Sea will be selling our wares at two shows during December:

Saturday 05 December – Tea & Make {a great British Christmas fete}
12noon-6pm. Free entry. Free workshops.
The Honor Oak, 1 St German’s Road, Forest Hill, London SE23 1RH

Saturday 12 December – Bust London Craftacular
12noon-7pm. £2 entry. LOADS of awesome designers.
York Hall, 5-15 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PJ

Look forward to seeing lots of new faces there! I hope to be launching some new etched metal jewellery at Tea and Make, so come on down to be one of the first to get your mitts on some exclusive new designs. Woo!

It’s damn near impossible to make it to the end of Bethnal Green Road without stopping for a snack. Even the fried chicken shops sell curries and shish kebabs, and the smell is so delicious I usually succumb just before Brick Lane. Having said that, I am yet to try Gourmet San, the Szechuan restaurant that turned down an Observer review saying, ‘No thanks. We don’t need any extra custom. Almost all our clientele are Chinese, and they don’t read the Observer.’ Here’s the review anyway….. it’s definitely high on my to-eat list, although the stuff they ordered – pigs’ trotters, sliced beef tongue and tripe – sounded slightly intimidating to my tame Western palate. 

So this time I almost made it to Brick Lane before being halted in my tracks by a five-quid thali deal at Maida (also reviewed by the Observer). The service was friendly – they brought me tap water without being asked, and the food was good for a quick lunch – two small silver pots of vegetarian curry, some yogurt, dhal, pita, rice and chutney. Apparently it’s got lamb chops to rival Tayyabs, but we’ve been hearing this for a while now, haven’t we?

Anyway, what really intrigued me was the view from my table, of four windows hung with greying lace curtains, a few red-geraniums on the ledge and no view of what or who was within. It didn’t look abandoned, but it did look strangely out of time, and I’m still wondering about it.

Well it’s a spooky, gloomy time of year, so I thought I’d mention the bandstand at Arnold Circus. It always strikes me as such an eerie place. It was built in the 1890s on top of a mound of rubble left from the demolition of the Friars Mount slum, which was replaced with the elegant red-brick Boundary Housing estate that still surrounds it, one of the earliest social housing estates.

 The bandstand also appeared in the teen prostitute movie Stella Does Tricks - which, I just found out, was written by the brilliant Scottish writer and comedian AL Kennedy, author of the skullf*** novel Paradise. I saw that film long before I saw the bandstand, and have always found it a strangely isolated place in the middle of so much life. At the same time, it’s beautiful and atmospheric. And then it struck me – it’s the perfect place, in this crowded corner of the world, to break up with someone.

Think about it. You’re no longer a teenager, and so realise that breaking up over the phone or by just turning up with a new squeeze is unkind, and gutless; you’ve been told that it’s best to do these things in neutral places, but you don’t want to taint a restaurant or park or pub with an unpleasant break-up memory. I personally had this happen with the Barbican, although we were reunited (me and the Barbican, that is; we realised we were too good for him). Plus you want a degree of privacy and a suitably solemn atmosphere. For all these reasons the old bandstand is perfect.

Its long history will perhaps remind the unfortunate dumpee that nothing is forever, and that this too will pass. And the setting will hopefully provide a sense of perspective, too – after all, the slums that the bandstand now sits upon were mostly without running water, crammed with prostitutes and thieves using every square inch of space from the cellars upwards, and so squalid that death rate was apparently four times that of the rest of London. Things could be worse, although it’s probably wise to leave such sage observations unsaid at the time.

Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, let’s leave on a more cheerful note with a picture of London Fields in all her autumn finery. Happy Halloween!

Just as a follow-up to all of the last bits of great above ground work we’ve all did and have continued to do, I thought I’d just note a couple things of my above-ground list that I have done over the last few weeks.

I indeed finally went to the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green as well as explored the general area of Bethnal Green and the Buddhist “village” there. I really enjoyed the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood as it was free and incredibly playful. It was completely full of babies and toddlers running around being thrilled by all the dolls, toys, puppets as well as little (and large!) dollhouses. The Museum of Childhood is a museum dedicated to the history and chronicling of toys made for and by children throughout history. Glad I finally took the trip out there

Kitty puppets from the 1950s

Children's Clothes Through the Ages

The same day, as I just mentioned, I wandered around what many people refer to as the Buddhist “village” in London which is also in Bethnal Green. There were a lot of nice incense shops, thai restaurants, and the London Buddhist Center. Plenty of kind people were happy to show me around, but I must admit I was rather disappointed in the area as it didn’t appear to be much of an enclave or village to me at all, but rather just another distinct area of the city.

Wonderful mural on the side of the London Buddhist Centre

Then from the 15th until the 18th of October I worked at Freize Art Fair for my internship and got to spend a good amount of time getting to know Regent’s Park and therefore I eventually checked off Primrose Hill from my above ground list. Mike actually showed me around Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill 2 or 3 days even before I had to work at Frieze and it has proved to be one if not the most inspiring place I have been since arriving in London. Regent’s Park was much larger, quieter, and more secluded that I ever expected it to be. The area was large and flat and it reminded me a lot of Dallas, Texas actually (where I great up & lived until I was 12) I can honestly say that I felt right in the middle of the city (geographically) but completely mentally and physically outside of the busy city of London. It was very refreshing and relaxing and since that first trip I have already been back another 3 or 4 times.

Fountain in Regent's Park on the way to the Broad Walk

View from atop Primrose Hill

Also walked with Mike from Primrose Hill over to Camden Town, and while Camden town itself did not feel outside of the city, the walk on the way there was really wonderful and felt like a wonderful small lane in some balmy area of Northern California until you looked at any of the architecture and realized you were lost down some lane in England in Autumn. Definitely looked like an area I would be interested in one day living in or spending time around. It was almost surprisingly quiet and calm for being 6pm on a workday.

Beautiful houses on the walk over to Camden Town

St. Mark's Church on the walk over to Camden Town

Last but not least, once I got to Camden Town I did get to do a little preliminary underground exploring as I found a canal that runs through Camden, so I took a path that ran beside it and followed it underneath the city streets for a bit. It was especially nice because I was there at such a nice time of day, so that lighting was particularly good. It was quite nice also to see people using the canal as a place for individual walks or cycling — i don’t think I saw anyone there with anyone unless it was a significant other to whom they were clinging to tightly. This underground area seemed to be particularly filled by pensive or romantic people using the underground space to tune into something personal.

View from above ground onto Camden's Canal

Under the Streets; Alongside the Canal

Anyway, I think that’s enough of an update for now, but I will post again tonight or tomorrow on all my more recent underground exploration of the Cabinet War Rooms and Transport Museums and Subterranean footpaths.

The Musings of a Mexico Fan

I first went to Green & Red about four or five years ago when it had  just opened and was thoroughly impressed with it.  Not only had they managed to convert what was previously an awkward glass unit housing a bizarre and eternally empty sports bar with an actual real motorbike parked in the middle of the floor, into a warm, inviting and pleasantly wood-covered space with the biggest selection of tequila this side of Guadalajara; but they’d also managed to come up with an inspired menu full of modern interpretations of authentic Jaliscan dishes filled with the chilli, salt, and lime flavours of authentic Mexico so lacking in the vast majority of Tex-Mex restaurants you find on most high streets in the western world these days.

I’d not been back since, for no particular reason other than that I just hadn’t, and a couple of months ago when I needed to meet an old friend I remembered that I’d read a number of gushing reviews about the place since I’d last been.  Using their handy online booking system I tried to get a table for the following evening and was disappointed to find that it was fully booked.  Closer inspection revealed that it was in fact fully booked for the next two weeks, and over the course of the next few weeks I discovered that it appeared to be pretty much always fully booked at least two weeks in advance.   This, the numerous glittering reviews, and my previous visit would seem to be fairly good indicators that they were onto a good thing here and although we didn’t go on this occasion, a few weeks later I found myself passing with the inlaws who were visiting and looking for somewhere to eat.  They had a table, and despite my California raised father-in-law’s reservations as to how good a Brit interpretation of Mexican food could be, I assured him that the place was always full, and did really good, ‘proper’ Mexican food which is probably even superior to anything he’s ever had in the US.

Unfortunately he was right, I was very wrong and rather embarassed, particularly as he was paying.

It was quite frankly awful.  The prices had gone up from the £7-10 mark to the £12-15 range for a main and they were bland, entirely lacking in any heat or flavour and it appeared that the ‘chef’ or whoever had put the plate together must have been off sick on the day they did seasoning at catering college.  We were brought tortilla chips and guacamole as an appetizer and this was unfortunately a sign of things to come: the guacamole was clearly factory made and didn’t really taste of either avocado or lime, and the tortillas, the first batch of which were sent back for being stale, seemed remarkably similar to the Tesco economy range which I’d recently bought for a kids party.   The first batch had to be sent back as they were stale.

I went for the pork belly which seemed to promise a lot on the menu but gave absolutely nothing – it was flavourless and even the texture was all wrong.  It came with an unidentifiable sauce which most likely came from a bottle and had that suspicious looking sheen to it that I usually associate with monosodium glutemate.  On a brighter note the Black Angus steak main that the wife had was very good quality meat, but would have been better as a steak rather than cut up into bitesize pieces and served with another alien sauce on the side.  All of us felt the portions were a little on the small side.

So what had happened?  After bit of discussion with the staff of a bar across the street it seems Green & Red may have met the same fate as many other small restaurants that successfully try and do something a bit different: Man meets chef and opens restaurant.  Chef creates great menu.  Restaurant does well and owner makes lots of money.  Chef feels undervalued and wants more money.  Owner and chef fall out.  Chef  leaves taking menu with him.  Owner with limited knowledge of food employs less talented chef to try and recreate menu.  Owner continues to make money on the reputation built by the previous chef and doesn’t care about the food.

Green & Red seems to have lost pretty much everything that diffentiated it from every other Mexican restaurant, which is a shame as it’s about time that someone somewhere does  a country with such fantastic culinary traditions proud, but unfortunately that’s no longer happening here.  Luckily for them it seems they must still be doing a roaring trade in tequila, which as far as I can see must be the only explanation as to why people are still going there.

Green & Red, Mexican Bar and Cantina, 51 Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA

Here at Gay Bum Enterprises, we like to think we have something for just about everybody. If you don’t like the swinging folk songs, you might like the ballads; if you don’t like the singing, you might like the rapping; if you don’t like the electric, you might like the acoustic – you catch my drift. As such, we have managed to play to a large variety of people in our time – most of whom seemed to enjoy what we do. We’ve played to audiences ranging from children to the elderly, from students to teachers, from the BNP at a football club (not our best moment), to a bunch of hippies sitting on cushions in central Leeds (also not our best moment, but less scary). However, although the Leeds hippies seemed to enjoy us (the source of the infamous “You guys made my face hurt” comment, which we attributed to NME Magasine on our first gig poster), we played last night to a new bunch of hippies…who weren’t so keen.

Aye, in our never-ending quest to find the places to play, stay or be flayed alive, we wound up at the Gallery Cafe in Bethnal Green – a vegan restaurant by day and home to an open mic night on Wednesday evenings. Now don’t get me wrong here; the place is lovely. Close to Bethnal Green Tube Station, near to a park and set back from and road, the Cafe couldn’t be much better situated. The coffee was quite nice and cheap (if fairly insubstantial) and there were a variety of board games you could choose to play. We chose chess…and that, friends, was pretty much the heart of the problem…

You see, when it gets to the stage when you are actually playing chess at an open mic night to distract yourself from the acts, there is probably something not-quite-right about the whole situation. It wasn’t that the acts were bad (most were quite good), but they were slow, they were long and, frankly, they were boring. Sure open mic nights are hardly the fountain of variation at the best of times, but by the Gods how many songs about the clouds, the birds and the starving children do you really need to hear in a night?!

Now the irony was that, to handle such a nothingness of musical pussy-footing, the venue (or organiser) had one of the nicest sound-systems I’ve ever had the pleasure of singing through. The mic was responsive, the sound was perfectly clear and, for once, it was LOUD! I could actually hear myself singing! Granted we were also about sixty-five times louder than anybody else that stepped onstage that night, so it may have been cranked up – but it didn’t distort and didn’t sound like we were playing from the other side of the galaxy. Compared to many other open mic nights that feature genuine musicians, rather than hippies with guitars, this setup was fantastic! Why, WHY don’t other places actually invest in a decent system that makes the acts sound the way they deserve to sound? There’s not real excuse.

Anyway, the point is that we played. Mimir only knows why, but we did it. After a particularly HORRIFIC song about a blue balloon (which was so bad I actually cried with laughter), we were invited onto stage as Edde and Puma – that classic duo… Having decided to go in guns blazing, we ripped out Stay Away Bears as an opener and were met by…well, it wasn’t silence…but it was polite hippie-clapping. The kind that makes sure they don’t kill any dust-mites or…whatever. Now, normally I am a fan of rocking as hard as possible and letting the audience put up the the consequences. If they find Sweet 16 insulting, that’s not my problem; they should listen to the actual lyrics, not the lyrics they assume I’m singing. However, this time round I didn’t feel quite right. I mean, it wasn’t like these hippies were attending one of our gigs, or had turned up to a general night of music; this was a hippie night, run at a hippie cafe, by hippies, for hippies, to play to other hippies… Us getting onstage and playing a bunch of songs we knew would upset them and make them cry organic hippie tears simply wasn’t cool. Not in my book (unless of course you are reading Edde Gamester: An A-Z of How Much I Hate Hippies, in which case it comes under S for Surprise Tactics. So, not wanting to cause any undue offense by singing about Ugly women or the love of a child, we played Gay Bum instead – our song about male rape. Great.

Sigh. That went about as well as you’d expect it to (like attempting to leave the front line of World War I because you forgot your hay-fever medication) and, despite the fact that the other acts had gone on FOREVER, we were told we had one more song left. A hint? Possibly. I must admit that a couple of hippies had actually got up and left by this point; blue balloon man was, to all extents and purposes, hiding. He has squeezed himself into a doorway and was peeked around the corner, possibly to see if we were about to disappear into a poof of evil. So, with one song left, it was time to bust out AAll The Ladies ! Oh yes, not even hippies could resist the power and soon all the females were stripping of, oiling themselves up (with vegetable oil, of course) and getting on doooooown with the Bum! They loved the shameless ridiculousness! Oh wait, no they didn’t. Because they are fun-hating hippie women. Damn.

So that was that. We left immediately and skulked home. Our conclusion is as follows:

Gallery Cafe on a Wednesday night is a lovely open mic night. Nice people, nice food, nice coffee, nice sound system, nice everything. However, it you want to rock or be in any way non-lovely, they probably aren’t going to be cool with that. They won’t boo, heckle or in any way let you know they hate you…but you’ll know. Oh you’ll know. Although you can call or e-mail ahead to book a spot to play, you can also turn up any time after 18:30 and ask for a spot – that’s what we did.

We’re thinking of playing there again. First, however, we intend to write a song called M.E.A.T. The words will probably be something along the lines of:

“Meat, meat meat meat, I love to eat the meat.
Cows, chickens, pigs – they make a tasty treat.
Suck out all the blood, ensure the bones go crunch;
A painful, terrible, drawn-out death….makes a lovely lunch”.

Fucking hippies.

(I would like to point out that vegans and hippies are not the same thing. Vegan-ism and vegetarianism are are unfortunately tainted by their popularity amongst hippies; the “peace”-loving, guitar-stroking, let’s-sing-about-how-great-the-planet-is brand of pitifulness incarnate. People are starving, people are dying and so is the world. If these hippies cared they’d actually do something more than writing a crappy song (and they are crappy songs) about how sad it all is. Do I do anything to help? No I don’t, but then I don’t pretend to care either. So we’re equally selfish, but at least I’m honest about it).

I feel that we don’t get nearly enough opportunities these days to go around in Hawaiian shirts. So I was pleased yesterday to be invited to a retro-beach-themed party in Bethnal Green for a friend of mine whom I have known since we were both about that high (you should hold your hand about three feet from the ground at this point). He’s also a journalist, so he’d probably record this thing a lot better than I could. Unfortunately, he’s off to Australia, as seems to be the fashion these days, so this was a send-off.

The venue was the Working Men’s Club in Bethnal Green. We arrived earlyish (about half nine), when things were, it has to be said, pretty dead. You know the score. No queue at the bar, tables easy to find, only one person on the dance floor who can’t be faulted for their enthusiasm. But once things got going, and it became clear that I wasn’t going to be the only person there who’d bothered to dress up, it really started to liven up.

The evening went by the title of “Teen Bop”, with a sort of 50s/60s surf theme – lots of Hawaiian shirts, straw porkpie hats and beehive hairdos. The music was appropriate for the occasion, with the Sundae Kups providing a fine selection of “rock and roll” to get the “joint jumping” as the “teen agers” say these days.

The Sundae Kups doing what they do best, unless this is a sideline and they're all like really superb architects or something and that's their main job.

I have come to realise that my right knee is the partying-est part of my body. At these nights, for some reason, my right knee always wants to dance. It seems to be a subconscious thing. The rest of me usually has to have about three pints before I lost my inhibitions enough to haul myself on to the dance floor and hurl myself around in the style of a man possessed by demons.

Now, I must confess that I don’t really know Bethnal Green. I’ve managed to largely avoid the East End hipster movement, rarely getting out further than Shoreditch in the pursuit of good times. So when I left, I thought, in my bleary half-asleepness, that it would be interesting to try to get back into the City on foot. It’s a process I call “knitting”, whereby I contextualise a new place by walking from it to somewhere I’m familiar with. It’s not very clever to do it at half one in the morning, particularly with 1950s-style shoes that are great for grooving in but not designed for long-distance walking.

Anyway, turns out it’s quite a long walk from Bethnal Green to the City, particularly if you don’t know your way and are drunk. An important lesson for us all there. Still, I think I’d like to explore the area a bit more when I’m less shattered/more sober/have slept a bit. I finished my journey at Aldwych, from which the night buses for Tooting and Colliers Wood depart.

I took the N155, as it arrived first. I don’t know why. I hate the N155. It’s slow and crowded and passes through some of the scuzziest parts of South West London, and there’s always a group of jackasses on the top deck who are incapable of communicating at anything less than a bellow. Plus there’s always someone who tries to pile on via the centre door without paying for a ticket in the mistaken belief that they’re the first person to try this. The N44 is much quicker and less crowded, and the only disadvantage it has is that it doesn’t go all the way to Colliers Wood (oh no! I’ll have to walk a full ten minutes!).

Then I got home and was bitten by a spider that had somehow taken up residence in my pyjamas. I’d been reading an article about the long gestation process of the Spider-Man movie on the bus, so a part of me was hoping the spider would turn out to be radioactive. It seems not.

Further Reading

http://www.workersplaytime.net/ - The Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. More fun than its name makes it sound.

http://www.myspace.com/thesundaekups - The Sundae Kups, for music that is far out.

http://www.myspace.com/teenagebop - This is where we were.

After a shameful day off last week (spent most of the day in my dressing gown, despite the beautiful weather, Open House weekend and Japanese Matsuri festival), I am resolute to fully enjoy all that London Design Week has to offer.

At the heart of the London Design Festival is of course the awe inspiring V&A museum. I’ve always admired the marketing of the V&A museum, but I think they have really surpassed themselves with the recent advertising campaign for Telling Tales. The lead of the image is stunning, irresistibly disturbing.

Courtesy of the V & A Museum and the artist

The mini-site is haunting, truly beautiful and whets your appetite for the exhibition, rather than presenting itself as an snobbish add on (take notes Hayward)

[This is terribly consumerist but I can’t wait to take a peek in the impeccable V&A shop and see what design treats the current exhibitions have produced. Shamefully, I love it when people get notebook/umbrella/tea towel envy.]

Further East, I’m attending the Make Do and Mend workshop at the V&A Museum of Childhood. My dedication to the frugal and the creative is borderline religious devotion, so this really rings my bell. I truly believe the sense of pride produced from making your own pen pot is ageless.

Another old lady passion (or the life force that runs through our very veins) – the humble chai. To add to the rejuvenation powers and reassurance of all the ritual of a properly made tea, is the cutting edge design of Tea Potty at the SDC gallery. Not far is the ever elusive Time for Tea on nearby Shoreditch High Street, where tea is taken seriously by the odd bohemian. Hopefully they’ll let me in…Chasing pure design is tiring – I’m sure I’ll need the sit down.

The London Design Festival finishes on Sunday 27 September – do check out the other events happening all over London.

Then wait in anticipation for next year’s!

ARTISTS Gavin Turk and Deborah Curtis will open the touring ‘Wonderland’ exhibition, by East London Printmakers, this Saturday at the V&A Museum of Childhood.

V&A Museum of Childhood

Wonderland 26 September – 10 January 2010

Wonderland, an exhibition exploring myths, legends and fairytales from around the world by East London Printmakers, opens this Saturday (26 September) at the V&A Museum of Childhood.

The exhibition will include work inspired by well-known European tales, including the much-loved favourites like Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm, and the Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen, as well as folklore from other continents.

East London Printmakers is a not-for-profit studio for artist printmaking in Hackney with around 200 members, which facilitates workshops, artist talks, exhibitions and weekly public open access days.

The varied cultural and geographical backgrounds of the 50 exhibiting artists is evident in the 2D and 3D works which take us to places of good and evil, quests and heroes, love and friendship.

Visitors will be able to create their own interpretations of fairytales and add to a mural of enchanting creatures in accompanying workshops.

The exhibition is coming to the Museum after touring the German Fairy Tale Museum, Bad Oeynhausen and the German Brothers Grimm Museum, Kassel.

MEDITATION classes and tips on how to cope with stress will be on offer at a Total Health Day at the London Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green.

There will be a range of events on offer at the London Buddhist Centre and Bodywise on Roman Road on Saturday September 19 from 11am to 5pm.
They include talks about dealing with stress and learning medication, a film about practising Buddhism in east London and a yoga class.

Visitors who pop into each of the participating venues in the Buddhist village and get their programme stamped will be entered into a prize draw.

Further information is on www.lbc.org.uk

Routes 108, 241, 309

“So, do people think you’re a bit of a nerd?” says Adrian as we wait for the 108 outside Lewisham station.

Rather a loaded question considering we’ve only just met, but I agree. People do think I’m a bit of a nerd, but I put that down to them entirely missing the point. He nods. Adrian represents the first ’stranger’ to accompany me on the buses, having contacted me several weeks ago to express his interest and from our brief communications, it’s obvious he understands the concept and why I am doing it.

So why, within five minutes of leaving Lewisham, I am convinced he is already having an absolutely horrific time and regretting his decision to come with me? My response, as we trundle through Blackheath, is to over-compensate by talking too much when all he probably wants to do is sit back and enjoy the journey. I really need not have worried.

“Someone told me that if you go east from Shooters Hill, you don’t reach higher land until the Urals,” he says. “But I’m really not sure that’s true, so I’m going to do some research on that.”

Adrian, who has a fetish for cafes and restaurants named after places of the world, is a perfect companion. Happy to experience the mundaneness of the journey for what it is whilst making cute observations. “Why is Harry Redknapp talking about the recession in that advert?” I have no answer for him.

Most of the day is to be spent flirting with the A12, the dual carriageway that runs north-south through the heart of the East End and submerges into the Blackwall Tunnel before emerging south of the river as the A102 next to the Dome. After navigating the Dome, which remains the very symbol of Labour’s Millennium folly despite its resurrection as the O2 Arena, we head north into the tunnel.

There is a delay because of an over-sized vehicle. Suddenly, a voice pierces the air from outside, but from exactly where we cannot see. The voice is most polite and he patiently guides us through like four year-olds. “Yes, the white van, if you pull into the right hand lane, there you go, now if the lorry behind could let the four cars behind it past, that’s it. Okay, thank you for your patience. Have a safe onward journey.” Eerily Orwellian, but acceptably so, given that we are now making good progress under the Thames and heading straight towards Stratford, which continues to prepare apace for its grand moment as Centre of the Universe in a little under three years time.

I celebrate my 50th route with a 60p Crunchie, but we don’t hang around in Stratford, preferring instead to hop on the 241, a double-decker which is to take us back south to Canning Town, a rundown area buffeted up against the Thames originally developed in the mid-nineteenth century to house the labourers of the coal wharves and shipbuilding works.

The highlight of the journey is undoubtedly two hardened east end policemen getting on, coming upstairs and discussing the merits of Miss Congeniality 1 against those of Miss Congeniality 2. Either the East End isn’t what it used to be, or they are talking in code.

The 241 drops right down alongside Excel, from where you can look west along the river towards Canary Wharf and beyond. However, far more excitingly, Adrian has revealed himself as something of a plane-spotter and the sight of a couple of planes lumbering overhead on their way into City Airport has him all hot under the collar.

But not nearly as hot as on the 309, which is to carry us north-west through the residential rabbit warrens of Tower Hamlets to Bethnal Green. Despite it being around 19 degrees, the driver has the heaters blasting out on full and its oppressively hot. The route itself is a busy, twisting, grinding trek through some of the most impoverished areas of the city, with shabby housing estates depressingly framed by the shiny unapologetic towers of Canary Wharf, where bankers continue their derivative-based bonus-fuelled wankery having failed to learn a single lesson from the last two years. In their shadow, the people who helped bail them out continue quietly about their lives. The juxtaposition is marked.

One estate displays its own riposte to the current malaise. ‘Capitalism Is The Crisis’ proclaims the huge graffiti.

Progress is interminable, not helped by several traffic works and Adrian is getting decidedly restless. “How much further?” he asks. “Five minutes,” I lie. Bethnal Green, the poorest area of London in Victorian times and once-upon-a-time stamping ground of the Krays, finally arrives. We pass York Hall – home of East End boxing – on our way to the London Chest Hospital, our final destination.

Adrian is clearly relieved and on the walk back to the tube station we pass the Museum of Childhood. Adrian recommends a look.

“Bethnal Green has a certain character and that place is a welcome antidote,” he says. So, we say our goodbyes and I take a look inside. The elegant structure – albeit with a modern extension on the front – was part of the original V&A building in South Kensington and was moved in the 1860s in a bid to bring art to the East End. I snoop for a bit, but make a note to bring TDR when he’s a bit older. Hell, this time next year, he’ll be doing the buses with me, cultivating the next generation of nerd.

This cheerful cafe was bursting full when I entered on a rainy Wednesday. Eggbaconchipsandbeans were ordered within seconds by a very efficient waitress and the cooking crew behind the corner gave their darndest to keep the dozens of punters in this busy cafe happy. The condiments looked smashing and complete, the design on the large coffee mugs was simple and effective, and the table was nice and clean. While waiting for my feast, there were some mutterings behind me by some lads that “muttermutterthis is a workers cafe and that people wearing shirts should stay in their own places muttermutterand have their fancy lattes and ciabattas”. Next time I’ll visit I’ll don a Lenin style hat, a Kim Yung Il jacket and read The Daily Star to counter those accusations. It wasn’t even a particularly nice shirt.

no condiments for shirt wearers ?

Anyway, the ebcb was lovely: crunchy, golden chips that were covering a flock of beans and firm and tasty bacon. The cuppa of coffee was strong and milky and the mutterings of the chaps behind soon stopped after their own food came. Lovely place and obviously very popular, but be sure to wear the right garb before entering on a work day.

Workers Cafe

254 Globe Road, London

E2 0JD

]]> http://rantinnravin.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/hackney-fashion-part-2-the-bicycle/ Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:21:33 +0000 rantinnravin http://rantinnravin.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/hackney-fashion-part-2-the-bicycle/

First up, we have the younger urban folks who absolutely love their fixed gear bicycles. These are seen all over Hackney.  Fixed gear bicycles meet a lot of requirements for the twat acceptance. They can be made from older (i.e. vintage) bicycles, thus allowing the rider to have a unique bike that is unlikely to be ridden by anyone else in town. They are also easily customizable with expensive things, such as coloured wheels and teeny tiny handle bars.  The combination of rare bicycles and expensive parts makes it easy for the idiots to judge other idiots on the quality and originality of their bicycles. This is important in determining if someone is or isn’t cooler than you.

There is a special category of bicycles that appeal far more to the tarts.  The Dutchie.  Birds now days have a lot of fantasies about idealized lives, and one of them is living in another European country and riding around an old city on one of these bikes. They dream about waking up and riding to a little cafe, then visiting bakeries and cheese shops.  To get the full effect of this lifestyle, they do of course have to spend hours matching clothes and even make-up to complement their bicycle before leaving the house.  Should they stock up on bread and cheese they also require a very handy little basket for carrying such produce. 

 Of course, you would assume that the plums ride their bicycles to save the Earth, but apparently not all Hackneyites cycle to be “green”. A well put together bike can be an essential part of a the fashion ensemble, allowing for all-important differentiation from the other graphic designers wearing the exact same clothes as them. Thus allowing them to be picked out of the crowd for dating or mocking purposes.

“I like the guy in the checked shirt with the glasses.”

“Which one? there are eight.”

“The guy with pink rear wheel.” 

“Oh yeah, you’re right. ”

 ”He is cute and he pretends to be sensitive about the environment.  He’s can’t be totally self absorbed.  He’s probably more sensitive in general. You should probably shag him.”

Bikey!

RnR

Roving Chef Stalled at Bethnal Green Market
Londonist, August 15, 2009 10:04 AM

Hayley Edwards, aka the Roving Chef (see our June 2009 review of this one woman cookery operation), now has a regular stall at the Bethnal Green Market.

READ THE COMPLETE POST:
Roving Chef Stalled at Bethnal Green Market