La Lanterna, the Brockley Road restaurant whose renovation stalled over a year ago, cutting a sorry dash on the high street ever since, is not on the market, despite its owners Biagio putting four of their other restaurants up for sale.
Property agents Restaurant Property confirm that it is not currently for sale. Expect it to sit there brooding for a good deal longer.
I say what's cooler than bein' cool?
- Andre 3000
Brockley Central's Twitter collective reached 3,000 today. If you haven't discovered Twitter, you are a luddite fool. If you have and you aren't following us, then you are missing a large chunk of the BC experience. We use it to plug each new story and key reader posts, plus good stuff from the South East London forum and the most interesting things tweeted elsewhere about Brockley.
Please follow us on Twitter, or on Facebook, where we're nearing 1,000. This is the land of a million drums.
Following the departure of art curators Tank from the Ladywell gallery that bears their name, Misty Moon Exhibitions and Events will be taking it over from December 1st. Misty Moon has previously hosted events at the gallery and it's good to have confirmation that the show will go on.
As part of the (still taking shape) Brockley Design Festival, Hilly Fields tennis courts will be turned in to an ice rink (using synthetic ice) next month.
More details soon, but put the dates in your diary:
Saturday 19 November 12-7pm and Sunday 20 November 12-4pm
Tuesday 8 November, 8pm
Brockley Social Club, 240 Brockley Road, SE4 2SU
The AGM + elections to the committee will follow. Lots of opportunities to get involved in BrocSoc's many activities.
BrocSoc is also compiling a list of the artists, musicians and writers of Brockley – please come and add your suggestions to the collection.
Everyone is welcome in the BrocSoc big tent.
On Twitter, Shona reports that part of the road has been sealed off by police and the staff of the Co-Op have been evacuated. It follows the shooting on the same road in the Honor Oak estate, earlier this week.
More details as they come in.
Some localised Quantitative Easing is taking place. Ladywell now has a free cash machine. On Twitter, Lara confirms that the cash machine at the Post Office on Algernon Road lets you take out cash without charging you for the privilege. For a while it looked like paper money would be phased out altogether before this area got a free cash machine, but over the last few years, our financial system has entered the 20th century.
Calling artists who live, work or study in SE14, SE15 or SE5. Peckham Space is pleased to announce its second OPEN exhibition and calls for artworks.
The Allotment - the New Cross deli and grocer - enjoyed its first day's trading yesterday. What did you think? Please post your comments and reviews here.
Telegraph Hill Cllr Paul Bell says on Twitter:
Shocked: there has been a shooting this afternoon in Turnham Road on the Honor Oak Estate; 4 arrests. 1 victim in hospital - not fatal.
We will bring you more details when we can.
Lucy from Jam Circus has been in touch with an assortment of updates:
I wanted most of all to let you know about our big Halloween party this coming Saturday, which is themed to a travelling circus - think Victorian freakshow - we have a late license until 3am, D.J. and a troupe of sideshow entertainers. The staff will be in fancy dress, as will plenty of customers.
Mike reports that the platform extension work at Brockley Station is due for completion on December 5th, 2011, paving the way for longer, more evenly-spaced trains to London Bridge when the new timetable launches later that month. The new timetable means a net loss of one train as two poorly-used trains are cut while one is introduced to fill a gap. The Southern email states:
The Forest Hill Society is organising a free event today from 11am to 3pm.
See the variety of plants and wildlife in this small reserve as the autumn sets in. Refreshments and local history talks in the field centre building.
“Oh, come now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?”
The brush continued to move.
“Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”
That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth - stepped back to note the effect - added a touch here and there - criticized the effect again - Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:
“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”
- Tom Sawyer and the fence
Tamsin doesn't want you to miss your chance to mend a fence, no charge:
Dawn from Gardens for Learning will be leading a group to re-weave the fence in the African garden around the Equiano Plinth in Telegraph Hill lower park from 11am to 1pm on Saturday - all welcome to come and join in and learn more about the African planting.
Homer: Yeah, that's right, Barney. This year, I invested in pumpkins. They've been going up the whole month of October and I got a feeling they're going to peak right around January. Then, bang! That's when I'll cash in.
- The Simpsons, Homer vs Patty and Selma
The Tea Partiers write:
Tea Dance for Little People plans to light up Brockley shop windows with Halloween pumpkin lights at 4pm on Monday 31st October when a precession of little Tea Dance Ghouls will meet outside the Brockley Barge before going back to TDLP for their Halloween party.
We are fundraising for our future family events by selling its community-carved pumpkins to local businesses.
Local firms will be asked to donate £5 or more to receive their spooky orange friends.
TDLP will be hosting a four day Halloween party for under 8s, from the 28th–31st October.
The party will be a spellbinding version of its daily activity with dedicated artists, dancers, storytellers and musicians entertaining the children every day.
TDLP is working in partnership with Brockley Cross Action Group to raise awareness of family and community activity in the local area amongst businesses.
The news is timely as we had been wondering whether to try to organise a Halloween get together for local parents and children who wanted to do some trick or treating locally.
Earlier this year, we bumped in to Rebecca Molina, the Deptford entrepreneur who helped create the Deptford Art Map, which itself morphed in to the South London Art Map. She said that the logical next step would be to create a resource which covered a much wider range of businesses in Deptford.
Tank - the gallery space next door to the Ladywell Tavern - is hosting its farewell show in November. After more than two prolific years of eclectic and exciting shows, the gallery will be closing and Tank will metamorphose in to a virtual organisation, staging shows at a range of other venues. Curator Aoife has brought great joy to Ladywell and we hope her next events will be close to home.
Edward Chell Exhibition 11th-26th November 2011
Tank is excited to announce Viewing Stations, a solo exhibition of new works by Edward Chell, as our ultimate show at The Ladywell Tavern premises. After an industrious and successful two and a half years, Tank will be leaving the space and continuing as an independent curatorial organisation. Tank will now work closely with artists to create exhibitions in range locations. The private view will not only celebrate the opening of a great show by Edward Chell, but also the wonderful history of Tank within the space over the past few years.
In this solo exhibition, Edward Chell investigates the landscape and flora of the motorway verge, exploring ideas about place, time and travel through oil paintings, customised road signage, digital prints and painted works on gesso panels.
Anyway -- because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next -- and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis -- at any time of night or day.
- Kurt Vonnegut
The Guardian covers library closures today and mentions Crofton Park as a possible model for other communities whose libraries are threatened with closure. It says:
Disheartened observers... could find fresh encouragement by turning their attention to Lewisham, where the council has withdrawn funding from five of its 12 libraries. But all are still running. Earlier this year, the management of three of these libraries was handed to Eco Computer Systems (ECS), a local social enterprise that recycles computers. The libraries were rechristened "community hubs".
Founder Darren Taylor describes them as the natural expansion to his business, which donates 30% of the computers it recycles to needy individuals and community groups and ploughs its profits into IT training and other social projects.
The three libraries, for which Taylor's organisation has been given leases of up to 25 years, are combining traditional book borrowing with a patchwork of income-generating activities including IT and employment training, cafes, secondhand book sales and the rental of community meeting space. They are overseen by community hub managers employed by his organisation, helped by a pool of 120 volunteers. In the first weeks of the transfer to ECS, library staff showed the new managers the ropes but none of the council's librarians work there now. Fifteen staff have lost their jobs as a result of the council's withdrawal of funding from the five libraries.
So this is a good time to ask the question - how successful do you think the transition from Council to social enterprise has been? Have you used Crofton Park Library since the handover - and how does it compare?
With thanks to Mike.
DIY DJ at the Ravensbourne Arms:
Everyone can be a DJ at a new South London vinyl night.
The organisers of unique music night DIY DJ are asking everyone to scour
their record collections and playlists for tunes with a ghostly connection
and bring them along to The Ravensbourne Arms in SE13 on Thurs Oct 27th from
8pm onwards (entry free).
Two new cafes have recently opened in Deptford: Blooming Together and Deli-X.
St Andrew's Centre, Brockley Road, SE4 2SA
25th - 26th October
9.30am - 12.30pm
Two day fun filled spooktastic adventures- jam packed with drama, music, dance and arts and crafts. Lots of half term fun!
Nothing too spooky- suitable for 3.5-8 year olds.
Visit the Brockley forum for full details.
Lewisham Council has launched a naming competition for the new leisure centre and swimming pool being built at Loampit Vale. They say:
Goldsmiths, University of London is pleased to announce its annual Big Draw event will take place this year on Saturday 22 October.
As part of the national Big Draw campaign, Goldsmiths is inviting families from the local area and further afield to take part in the event from 11am-4pm in its Great Hall.
This year’s event ‘Explore The Big Draw’ will encourage children aged from 3 to 14-years-old to take part in drawing and storytelling activities led by PGCE Art & Design and PGCE English students.
The children will get to explore a treasure island where they can help 'shipwrecked' PGCE students make rafts and build shelters. Then they can travel across a 'linking bridge' - mapping their journey along the way with poetry and stories - to an exciting city where they will get the chance to help build a new civilisation.
As well as the typical drawing tools of chalk, pens and pencils, the student teachers are planning to make the day as inspiring as possible by using helium balloons, audio/visual equipment and much more.
The 2010 Big Draw event 'Blurring The Big Draw' attracted more than 600 visitors and received the Highly Commended Award 2010 from the Campaign for Drawing in its Drawing Inspiration Awards.
To get more information, please visit www.gold.ac.uk/bigdraw
Slater & King's Ladywell emporium is now open. Glen sent us this photo and describes the shop as 'fantastic':
It's not often that Brockley Central gets to apologise for our undue pessimism, but it looks like the huge masterplan for Surrey Canal, including a new station on the East London Line, is to get the go ahead, despite our fears that the developers would struggle after public funding was denied for the station. The News Shopper reports that Lewisham Council granted planning permission this week and the developers have agreed to underwrite a new station:
A MASSIVE £850m development around Millwall’s football ground has been approved - with the developer agreeing to fund a new station.
Lewisham Council’s strategic planning committee resolved to grant developer Renewal's applcation at a meeting on October 13.
Residents of Church Grove in Ladywell have launched a petition against the Council's plans to develop a camp site at the end of their road. They say:
This is absolutely not about prejudice towards travellers. It is about access, safety and common sense. The proposal is simply absurd. Travellers' caravans are typically 2.55 m wide. Access on our road is 2.5 m. The site is on a flood plain, in a conservation area and can only accommodate five pitches. It does not meet the needs of travellers.
http://www.savechurchgrove.com/
The Tesco cash machine on Lewisham Way is leading a resurgence in cash machines dispensing £5 notes, as a response to these austere times. The ATM gets a name check in a report on Thisismoney on the trend:
Following the discussion about bin bags being torn open in Brockley Cross on a regular basis, the Council has investigated and Nigel Tyrell, Head of Environment reports:
Members of our enforcement team have now made several visits to the area looking at the refuse disposal, including the trade waste arrangements. They have also spoken to the business’ about their customers dropping litter.
Officers were really pleased to find that a large majority of business’ have trade waste arrangements They have found a few business’ which don’t and they have been warned. So far we are pleased to confirm that one of the business’ has subsequently arranged for a trade waste contract.
Further visits will be ongoing to make sure all the traders get rid of their waste in the proper way. If the traders continue to trade without any contract then enforcement action is the next step.
Our Cleansing Team have jet-washed the pavements around the litter bins. The Cleansing Team will also continue to monitor over the weekend and see if an initial improvement has been made following the visits.
Great to receive such a quick response from the council - we hope that the businesses failing to deal with their rubbish properly respond equally quickly.
Emma, Creative Director of Tá Na, writes:
"We are Tá Na Deptford - the South East performance-based group in Deptford. We have started our new term of activities and between now and Christmas we will be running free performance workshops at the Amersham Arms in New Cross every other Monday (next one Monday 24th), and hosting portrait and life drawing classes from our studio at The Old Police Station (every Thursday starting from today).
You're watching Futurama: the show that does not advocate the cool crime of robbery.
- Futurama
Siobahn writes:
I live on Breakspears Road in Brockley and I just want to raise awareness to anyone who lives in the area and walks home late at night. Over the last 3 months myself and my friends have experienced 3 very similar incidents of two men walking Breakspears road and exposing themselves to us. We have reported each incident to the police but I was shocked when my Landlady mentioned that it had happened to someone she knew 2 years ago.
The Jack Studio has launched Write Now 3, the theatre’s annual New Writing Festival. The festival is designed to discover new writing talent and give emerging playwrights the opportunity to see their work performed.
The DCMS has confirmed that West Ham's plan to buy the Olympic Stadium has collapsed. Instead, a statement released today says:
Blogger Brendan Nelson has written the definitive guide to getting a seat on the London Overground at rush hour. Lots of people had pointed us to it on Twitter, but we hadn't got around to doing anything about it before it appeared in tonight's Evening Standard.
If you want to understand "the occupants' deceit" or master "360 degree combat", click here. Our only advice is avoid the 8.28am northbound and steer clear of the disabled access doors (unless you're disabled) because the layout of the carriage at this point doesn't allow commuters to fan out so easily.
