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| Sexy Sparrow eggs |
"This is Harry Allen, hip-hop activist and media assassin, with Flavor Flav. What's the flavor, Flavor?"
- More News at 11, Public Enemy
Brockley's mockney performance poet Kate Tempest has triggered a Daily Mail hit job thanks to her performance of "Tunnel Vision" on BBC Newsnight last night. The headline rants:
'What an embarrassment!': BBC Newsnight is slammed by viewers for airing performance poet's ranting 'left wing victimhood politics'.
Complaining about a performance poet's left wing politics is a little like complaining about the noise at a Sepultura gig, but it gives them something to do.
Thanks to Patrick for trawling the Sidebar of Shame.
George Osborne's Evening Standard has put Brockley on its list of Zone 2 bargains (admittedly it's a pretty small field to choose from). This week's Homes & Property section says:
"The leafy Victorian charms of this south east London outpost have sent prices shooting up. It is particularly popular with Docklands workers, since it is only three stops from Canada Water and easy for Canary Wharf...
"Brockley is very much the territory of the young couple thinking about kids, or young families who already have one or two; they hang out at the excellent Brockley Market on Saturday mornings, shopping for craft beers and charcuterie, and spend sunny afternoons at Hilly Fields Park. For nights out there are plenty of restaurants and smart gastropubs like The Orchard or The Gantry.
"Despite its changing demographics Brockley has a strong community spirit. Locals organise an annual music and arts festival, including family days and live music...
"The only downsides are the slight aura of middle-class smugness [guilty] creeping in the absence of a good high street. For shopping your closest options are Lewisham Shopping Centre (better than it sounds) or Canary Wharf."
Deptford, rightly, also gets a shout out, although the couple profiled as new buyers in the area are the sum of all fears for people who resent the march of gentrification. The Standard adds:
“'We couldn’t afford to live somewhere we really wanted so we got somewhere we could get there really easily,'” said Will. So far the couple haven’t had much of a chance to explore Deptford – they’ve only been in situ a couple of months – but are looking forward to finding out more about the area and to the new bars and restaurants which are starting to open around them.
"They hope that as the area develops so their flat will increase in value. “We are expecting to live here about three years and then, hopefully, get somewhere a bit bigger,” said Will."
Congrats to Local guy Kevin who has been issued his badge to sell @thebigissue— Nabeela & Saima (@masalawalacafe) February 15, 2017
Catch him by #brockley station to get a copy! pic.twitter.com/SWmGnJw3G1
Once upon a time, I saw it as my job to rebalance Brockley's media profile. If the area attracted any coverage at all, it would usually be for a stabbing. Today, real journalists dish out the kind of hyperbole that even Brockley Nick-circa-2009 would have blanched at.
Time Out has given us 14 reasons to visit Brockley Road and begins:
"Brockley Road is south-east London’s answer to LA’s Sunset Boulevard."
Brockley Road's snaking, gap-toothed nature means that it's easy to forget that the Brockley Jack and Gently Elephant share the same address, so this a nice celebration of SE4 eclecticism.
To see their list, click here Thanks to Joe for the spot.
The Guardian, which has been admirably dogged in its coverage of Millwall's battle with Lewisham Council over the future of the land around the club's stadium, reports:
The plan to seize Millwall’s land around The Den has been left hanging by a thread on Tuesday after it emerged that Lewisham Labour councillors are in open revolt against the compulsory purchase order (CPO) scheme.
Overnight it was revealed that 45 of the borough’s 54 elected representatives had backed scrutiny councillor Alan Hall’s call for the seizure of Millwall’s land to be submitted to an independent inquiry. The vote has been followed on Tuesday morning by the news that councillor Damien Egan, the member of the Lewisham Labour cabinet responsible for housing, has announced publicly that he can no longer support the scheme due to serious doubts over the council’s chosen developer partner, Renewal.
For the full article, click here.
More4 show Building the Dream kicks off its new series with the story of Eryka and Sam, a Brockley couple who transformed a dilapidated Ashby Mews workshop into their dream home (or at least, I assume they did - the show is still unfolding).
The building is a live-work hybrid, which includes studio space for glass sculptor Eryka. They also have a DJ terrace. Why am I not friends with these people?
The show is available here.
Owen Hatherley, a young writer who never saw a failed brutalist post-war estate he didn't live in but couldn’t nonetheless get nostalgic about, has been to Lewisham and written an assessment for The Architectural Review of the new developments taking shape. He is not impressed.
Lots of people have sent me his article, which has been passed around on social media by self-flagellating locals.
So let's take a look at whether the criticisms are fair. He writes:
"In promotional images, it combines the rectitude of the ‘New London Vernacular’ with the soaring, ‘aspirational’ world of roof terraces and floor-to-ceiling views of the City skyline. Yet in Robert Clayton’s photographs, taken on the street, it looks a townscape disaster of aggressive fences and stark architecture."
To be sure, Clayton has rooted around the back of some of the buildings and found a couple of shots of unlovely walls and fences - two of which protect the fully-functioning railway track just behind them. He has also pointed his camera at some bin bags strewn around one of the local streets. That the offending street is Victorian and clearly some distance from the development being discussed, does not stop it being used as a ponderous metaphor. He goes on:
"It makes an interesting contrast to, say, King’s Cross Central – there, a long-running project was finished by serious architects working for developers held under pressure from local authorities and campaigners to unusually high standards, befitting the entry into London on the Eurostar. The entry into Lewisham is another matter."
Kings Cross, one of the biggest, best and most ambitious regeneration projects in Europe, is a high bar to set for a relatively modest development next to a zone 2 commuter station. The entire Lewisham Gateway site could be comfortably swallowed up by St Pancras station alone. He turns first to the Renaissance development by Barratt (full disclosure, a client of my employer's):
"What is clear on the ground is how pitiful the public space is. A wedge of asphalt with a sad little kids’ playground, fiercely gated in; a door inset into a blue-grey barcode facade with the sign ‘Danger: 11,000 Volts’; the ubiquitous granite setts; metal gates enclosing giant pot plants; three layers of fences between some flats and the street, planted with creepers in the hope we won’t notice."
He's referring of course to the pocket playground, set between two of the buildings. It's certainly not a place grown-ups want to linger, but it has entertained my kids plenty of times. More importantly, on the other side of the building is a large green space (complete with another, much bigger, playground) that serves as the centrepiece for this area. Facing on to this square are a newly-expanded school, a tranquil stretch of riverside, new social housing and Renaissance itself. As ever, it's what the writer doesn't tell you that's most important.
"Just behind Renaissance SE13, past a still extant retail park with Poundland, Matalan and Sports Direct, is another cluster, this time divided between two clients – housing association Family Mosaic, and American student housing developer Chapter... the [Mosaic] development is darkened by the canyon-like effect of tall blocks looming over a narrow service road, something avoided by postwar council estates, what with their green space and carefully arranged orientation to the sun."
The Loampit Vale approach and the buildings themselves are undeniably dark and the plastic-silver finish is not to my tastes, but post-war council estates (sometimes) avoided the canyon effect by building over huge, bombed-out sites, bulldozing any communities that got in their way. This development was a bit of opportunism, whose only victim was some trading estate.
"The last part is so far unfinished – the towers of Lewisham Gateway, by PRP Architects in the tripartite Vernacular style, with penthouses on the top. And that’s it – that there is the new centre of Lewisham, and that is what we’re meant to want a lot more of."
No, that isn't it. The 'new centre' hasn't even begun to emerge from the location of the roundabout, which carved the area in two. None of the new buildings being erected are intended to serve as the new centre, they are meant to act as a bridge between the station and the traditional centre, which has been in long-term decline.
The towers springing up by the station are, in my view, particularly handsome and they will sit on top of what we must hope will be some decent public space. When Lewisham Gateway is finished there is more to come. We won't be able fairly to judge the new Lewisham for years.
"Some of it – the park, at least – is passable, and it’s easy to say it’s ‘better’ than the sheds that were there before. But it makes very clear three things. First, is that the result of a numbers game is always going to be grim, with any sort of attempt at character and liveliness being fairly irrelevant."
But it is a numbers game and we have to admit that. We have huge targets to hit, simply to keep up with London's booming population. The article acknowledges and downplays this brutal fact at the same time. The Council evidently is trying to build character and liveliness into Lewisham, but to get liveliness you need people - and that's what the housing will bring. The most lively parts of Lewisham are those that owe least to the planners - the street market and Model Market. They work because they have customers. They are the product of a numbers game.
"Second, expecting that ‘more’ will mean any help for anyone other than the already affluent, is optimistic. Here, council housing was actively erased from the site, and for all the involvement of the housing associations, this place will not even make the tiniest dent in Lewisham’s council waiting list."
Lewisham is an area of high deprivation. The new schemes are a well-balanced mix.
"Third, the new vernacular, so long as it coexists with a developer-driven urbanism which sees spaciousness as so much wasted, unrentable space, means little more than politesse curtain-walled over plutocracy. If the New Lewisham is anything to go by, New London will consist of high-security, high-rise dormitories, built right into the inner city."
It is clear Hatherley wishes he'd managed to find something that he could call a poor door, but in the absence of that he will settle for loosely implying social segregation. The charge is unfounded. As for the "dormitory" label, where should we put housing if not within easy reach by public transport of two of the biggest jobs markets in the world - the City and Canary Wharf?
You've never had it so good. It's boom time in Lewisham, according to a new study, which says this borough is experiencing the fastest rise in disposable income per capita in the UK. City AM reports:
Lewisham and Southwark experienced a 5.3 per cent rise in cash in people's pockets that's free to spend, growing faster than anywhere else in the country and compared to the UK average of 0.5 per cent.
The rising incomes are a sign of redevelopment in the areas attracting more and more young professionals, said UHY Hacker Young which collected the figures.
Despite the influx of new venues to the area over the last few years, these figures show what we all know: There is still an imbalance between demand and supply. A beautifully revamped Wickham would make a killing. A hipster pizza joint would be rammed. A decent Thai restaurant would clean up.
Thank you to Fraser for the link.
We haven't had a property porn story for a while, but here's The Evening Standard with a piece of research by estate agents Hamptons, who reckon that Ladywell is both the best value area in Zone 3 and had the fastest-rising property values in the last 12 months. They report:
George Quinn, sales manager at Mark Beaumont estate agents, says Ladywell has started attracting buyers from more expensive neighbours such as Brockley, which in turn is benefiting from the ripple of buyers out of Peckham.
“In the past we have been the poor relation, but we are only a stone’s throw from Brockley Village, we have got Hilly Fields Park — a lovely open space — and Ladywell is developing into quite a nice village with some good bars, a patisserie and a traditional butchers.”
Property in Ladywell is predominantly Victorian. You can expect to pay £400,000-£425,000 for a two-bedroom flat, and £675,000-£750,000 for a four-bedroom house.
With thanks to BC's poor relation, Ladywell Paul, who spotted it.
New Cross, you've changed. Police were called to local cafe Birdie Num Nums by a customer upset that he had been served lemon and ginger tea instead of the lemongrass and ginger tea that he ordered. The Standard reports:
Sevjan Melissa, 30, who owns Birdie Num Nums in Lewisham Way, New Cross, said staff gave the customer a lemon and ginger tea instead of the lemongrass and ginger tea that he ordered.
She claims that when the man complained staff apologised and offered him a full refund but he was unsatisfied and started writing a TripAdvisor review while still in the café.
Ms Melissa claims that when she asked him to leave, the man then called the police.
However, the customer, Roberto Lattarulo, a 33-year-old recruitment manager for a healthcare regulator, has defended his actions, and claims he was not given a proper reason for being asked to leave.
Mr Lattarulo, who lives in Lewisham and was visiting the café with his girlfriend, told the Standard: "I wanted a lemongrass and ginger tea, it's not something you find commonly in cafés, so I was quite surprised, but instead I got a lemon and ginger teabag.
"If you haven't got something, you tell the customer you haven't got what they ordered and then offer them an alternative, but they just brought the wrong thing."
It unclear at this time where the Ghetto Boys and Peckham Boys stand on herbal tea, but this is a fault line with the potential to tear communities apart.
Thank you to Monkeyboy and Brockley Nicola for alerting me.
The Nostalgia-Telly industry of 2030 will have trouble putting together "I Love 2016".
This summer's diet of football humiliation, Islamic terrorism, the Zika virus, Brexit and left-wing political implosion will be hard to make banal jokes about.
But Pokemon Go promises to be the year's hula hoop and it's no surprise that in a year when reality has been so awful that the opportunity to augment it has produced the biggest craze.
The mobile game overlays Pokemon onto the streets around you and designates certain spots as 'gymnasia' where players can battle the creatures they capture.
Among the local battlegrounds are Breakspears Mews and Luxmore Gardens, while Brockley's street art features prominently in the game, including the Brockley Cross tiger and the Shardeloes Road poem. The game has earned some notoriety for sending players into dubious locations, so if you spot any quirks in the mapping, please share here.@brockstreetart Pokemon Go is big on street art! (Yes I'm in my 20s) @BrockleyCentral pic.twitter.com/bRb44rwwE6— Prints Harry (@realprintsharry) July 14, 2016
When I wrote about parties
Someone always died
- Ice T, OG Original Gangster
Being called an OG of anything is the greatest accolade I could have dreamed of. So let me share with you this bit of puffery that appeared in today's Evening Standard, suggesting that hyperlocal blogs are the harbinger of house price rises and picking on this area among a handful of fast-risers:
Nick Barron, the OG of local bloggers, has been posting since February 2007 and what Brockley Central lacks in swishy web design [fair], it makes up for with comprehensive coverage of all things south-east [sometimes too comprehensive for some tastes].
It helps that there’s so much going on here to write about [it doesn't always feel like that]. Brockley’s charms in no particular order include: abundant parks, good rail links, the Grade II-listed Rivoli Ballroom and the tagliolini al ragú at neighbourhood Italian Le Querce.
The paper notes that house price rises have risen by 8.44% in the last 12 months. I'm not sure if they are trying to pin that on BC.
For the full piece, click here.
"The people have spoken, the bastards."
- Dick Tuck (as told to me by Rhymer)
A new online forum for Forest Hill / Honor Oak has been launched. This one's called se23.life and serves as an alternative to SE23.com
The founders believe the clean look and superior functionality of their forum will attract a new community and it has got off to a decent start in terms of the number of posts generated (albeit, a high proportion come from the mods themselves).
New entrants in the hyperlocal space are always welcome, but when so much debate has gravitated to local Facebook groups, it's tough to build a foothold. Paul Milnes, the moderator of the Telegraph Hill Forum, recently announced a plan to close it, writing:
"I've been looking at activity on the forums, and it's becoming increasingly rare. Telegraph Hill now has its own Facebook page and noticeboard, and the Centre, the church, the cafe and the Festival all have their own web sites. In the light of this, I think it's a good idea to discontinue the forums and make the Telegraph Hill web site a simple portal to all the other sites, including the FB page."
Established communities that have built critical mass, like the East Dulwich Forum, should continue to prosper, but can a new entrant survive when Facebook is wiping out huge chunks of the open web?
