Ode to an English Caff

Yesterday returned with the boys to a much loved spot – Coram’s Fields. The first time we’ve been back for at least a year to this city oasis where adults are only allowed to enter if accompanied by a child. A kid’s paradise among the dying plane trees.
When we lived on an estate atop Penton Mound, Coram’s Fields was a valuable bit of open space to escape to – swings, sand-pit, slide, goats, rabbits, geese and a lovely little old fashioned caff tucked away in a corner under a whitewashed colonnade, a surviving remnant of Thomas Coram’s 18th century Foundling Hospital. A bowl of pasta pesto at £2 was a standard order on those long days out in the Bloomsbury air. Simple sandwiches of the ilk I scoffed myself as a boy – cheese and tomato, ham and cheese, tuna and cucumber a mere quid. Little cupcakes 50p, ice-cream in a cone 60p. Public park prices, kids prices, queueing up clutching their fistful of coins in a sweaty palm. Despite it’s centrality and trendy associations, the area that Coram’s Fields services has some of the poorest estates in London, ranking among some of the most economically deprived in the country. This is council run play-schemes for working Mums, and only a smattering of Yummy Mummies.
My horror yesterday then when the caff was gone replaced by some dreadful poncey continental Upper Street colonial outpost of a place. The name was some meaningless combination of consonants, the staff young, beautiful, indifferent and mainland European. Where was that lovely old weather-beaten cockney maid who dished out the cookies and cordial? Delicate pastries had replaced our slabs of sponge cake. The pasta boasted of being served with a homemade sauce and weighed in at a hefty £4.50. Who gives a toss when you’ve had that mangy goat licking your fingers. Get the local kids onto that stuff and it could trigger a crime wave. I stood in the queue and watched as a Dad despondently shelled out £9 for a few juices and biscuits – I think there was some sort of claim of being organic or some such guff.
As I waited for the staff to finish fixing their hair between customers my horror turned to anger – this was a cultural invasion. How had we let the locally specific Caff be replaced by the ersatz Cafe? Where will it end? Would I mind so much if they kept the prices the same? Probably not. I’d let it pass in a minor huff. But the point of the over-margarined sandwich bar, the strong tea stand, the too-sweet biscuits was an idea of democracy, a day out for all, a food we all understood because our Nan’s plated it up for us. I can see the Cappucino Tsar for Camden Council condemning the old caff to a fate befallen by all too many before, and dreaming up the list of Conranista criteria that a cafe should have. And here it is – sending the disappointed kids slouching away with nothing but an over-priced Fredo Frog.

london

Iain Sinclair – Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire on Radio 4


Iain Sinclair’s Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire is this week’s Book of the Week on Radio 4 read by Neil Pearson. Brilliant reader that Pearson is, I would much preferred to have heard the man himself reading. Iain Sinclair’s performances are just that – not mere readings, he has such a rich timbre to his voice and seems to have absorbed enough from the Beats to know that a reading of literature should be an event, a happening, a visceral experience.
I had the great fortune of interviewing Iain for the documentary I’m just finishing about Nick Papadimitriou and our relationship with the edgelands of the city. Iain had included Nick in his anthology, London, City of Disappearances, the two men in many respects kindred spirits, “perambulators of the margins”.
From what Iain had to say that day about Hackney, a place where I’d squatted (in both senses) in the early nineties and had dealings in the murky world of local politics (my yellow metal-doored council flat was the postal address for the Victoria Ward of the Hackney Labour Party for over a year), the book will have a resonance far beyond that brilliantly blighted rotten borough, beyond London. It will say much about the condition of city living, the corporate take-over of not just space but our perception of space, the city as lived versus the virtual city as sold by the vulturish property developers and the Orwellian sounding quangos that rule the urban realm like medieval barons.
I think Iain Sinclair will be doing a few events and readings around London in March, I definitely recommend taking one in, make a night of it, watch his ‘Ah Sunflower’ before going out, listen to the audio book of Downriver on the way there and make a night-time pilgrimage to London Fields afterwards.
The doc should have some screenings in April – I’ll post more about it soon.

london

What’s Cookin at The North Star


The North Star, Browning Road 7.45pm Sunday night (just now) and it’s throbbing, barely space to stand, What’s Cookin has rolled in with a regular blues night. The act, Little George, sits huddled between the speakers peering out of plastic undergrowth. The mostly middle-aged audience stood around in a semi-circle heads nodding like some kind of South Pacific tribal ritual. There’s a liberal spattering of pork-pie hats and at least one yellow Stove Pony Records t-shirt stretched clingfilm-tight across a proud pot-belly. This is the E11 beat generation, greying, with enlarged prostates but still going. The possible closure (then rebirth) of this brilliant boozer because of a bureaucratic licensing difficulty gives the night a millenarian vibe – will they be kicking out the blues here on Monday night or will the stiffs at the town hall have closed it down. Nobody seems to care that much if the dancing is anything to go by.

london

A twit for twitter

I’ve been Twittering like a …. well a Twit since I joined up two weeks ago. You can see my Tweets over on the left hand side of my blog here. Odd really that I should get sucked into this Jonathan ‘Wossy’ Ross and Stephen Fry inspired outbreak of Twittering because I’d first got excited about it in 2007 after reading about it in the Guardian technology supplement. I thought at first glance that it could be a great way of sharing the experience of a derive. But when I thought again this was a step backwards from the days when I could post photos and text straight to my blog via Flickr – that facility seemed to end when Google snaffled up Blogger and Yahoo grabbed Flickr. The ‘blog this’ function on my phone frustratingly doesn’t work.
So at first glance Twitter seemed a bit regressive – like people returning to horseback after the invention of the car (well it’s not the same at all really is it… but you know what I’m unskillfully trying to say). Nonetheless at least twice a day I ‘tweet’ and read the tweets of those I follow. I think it’s the simplicity that is appealing. When I blog I do feel a bit of pressure to come up with something expansive or make some sort of point. Hence I’ve failed to blog anything about the week I spent in Manchester but posted several Tweets on my twitter page included links to photos uploaded via a third party site Twitpic. And from my laptop – from where I could as easily blogged.
But this blog will still remain be my true love and twitter most likely an infatuation.
I’ll post something about Manchester next time.

london

The LGBT in school controversy – homophobic Jedis mobilise

My son brought home a letter yesterday from the headteacher of his school. It was addressed to all parents and carers, ” I am aware that a number of parents are currently engaged in signing a petition in relation to our planned work during LGBT History Month”.
The letter goes on to explain that a number of parents have contacted the school to report that they are being pressurised and in some cases intimidated into signing the petition. The issue of religion naturally looms large in the objections being raised and as a means of exerting pressure on parents to sign the petition.
My own reaction to the idea of homosexuality being taught in Primary School was to pity the poor teacher taking that class. Teaching must be hard enough, sex education in our uptight northern European culture even harder, same-sex education could descend into a snigger-fest of embarrassment – particularly amongst the boys who seem to have developed a macho culture at an alarmingly young age. I reckon they should probably get them to cross-dress for these lessons.
But it does raise a serious question that the school seems to be dealing with admirably. To what extent do we tolerate intolerance?
The school and the community at large encourages respect and tolerance for diverse lifestyles and religions. The school closes for just about every religious holiday known to man and a few that appear to have been made up (Yoda’s birthday??). But some of those religions do not of course preach nor practice such tolerance. As Matt Morgan correctly pointed out, the Jedi’s had a downright racist attitude towards the Sand People .
It is a reminder though of how little progress has been made since the days of Her Thatcher’s Clause 28 (eagerly supported by the closeted Peter Lilly and Michael Portillo who were allegedly found celebrating the Conservative victory in 1992 by guzzling down more than just champagne).
I watched the brilliant Gus Van Sant movie ‘Milk’ last week with its stirring portrayal of gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk’s successful fight against legislation banning homosexuals from working as teachers. In both cases we look back on those dark days of ignorance and congratulate ourselves on how liberal we now are. Well maybe not.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and I imagine once parents have a look at the teaching materials, that would no doubt not appease the ghost of Harvey Milk, their objections will recede – I don’t think a day trip to Ducky is on the curriculum for Year 6.

london