"I'm sorry to announce that the 8.08..."

It's ok. It will all be better in the end. The evening and weekend closures on the line are, ultimately, worthwhile – for we will have a brand new world class metro style Thameslink running through Streatham. Fantastic.

Except it won't be worthwhile. In an incredible stroke of luck, Streatham gets shafted again. The bit of Thameslink that serves us is broadly comparable to a rotting limb and it seems that Network Rail and the ever popular First Capital Connect can't wait to sever it and throw it away into the ashtray of broken transport promises. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the Wimbledon Loop.

Not much is certain about the Wimbledon Loop. There has to be a public consultation before they cut it off Thameslink. But you must wonder what the point in consultation is when Network Rail have announced that it would be operationally impossible to run Wimbledon Loop trains past Blackfriars after 2015. That is because our little old Wimbledon Loop trains might get in the way of the shiny new 12 carriage trains that will be running 24 times an hour from sunny old Kent through London. I should mention, although I'm sure you've already guessed, that we won't be getting 12 carraige trains either.

Sounds like a like it or lump it kind of consultation really. To summarise – we get no trains in the weekend or evenings for 6 years, after which time they just cut the service off anyway. Um, cheers. The brighter side of the coin is that we could have another connection to London Bridge instead. Brilliant. I have many sleepless nights wondering how I would get to London Bridge if the current three Streatham rail services and the bus that also serves London Bridge were to be simultaniously suspended. (This has happened actually. It was the weathers fault. The wrong kind of snow. And when First Capital Connect washed the train doors before they froze shut and wouldn't open again for three weeks. That was a laugh).

I would say it is now a wholly appropriate time to get really bloody angry about this. The people over at Herne Hill forum are. Have a read of this thread. 

I'm not even sure why I care so much. I don't even use the train. I cycle, and to be honest there is a lot more to get wound up about when trundling along the potholes in the gutter through the evergreen roadworks of Streatham High Road and Streatham Hill. But that is for another time. I care about the trains because I honestly believe that transport connections, particularly in London, are directly proportional to the perception of an area's fortune. The holy grail of course, is inclusion in 'the tube map' (*gets goosebumps*). And as unbelievably remote a possibility as that seems (Chuka has gone awfully quiet about his tube campaign), there is a simple way. Tfl should take over the Thameslink and incorporate it into London Overground. Or just the Wimbledon Loop. Then we truly would be laughing all the way to the journey planner. For true transport and Streatham geeks, you can get excited over this map of 'what might have happened' had Ken stayed as major and we were all stinking rich and laughing into our derivatives. Streatham is on the map. Enjoy it. We could have got to Croydon SO easily. On a tram! Except we don't want to go to Croydon do we people. We just want to get past Blackfriars. On a weekend. Goodnight.

Gentrification?

I went to the launch of the Manor Arms. Me and everyone else in Streatham (or, I  secretly suspect, certain people in hunting jackets who may or may not have been imported from Hampstead for the evening.) The lovely assistant manager gave us a friendly greeting at the door. She was enthusiastic about the possibilities for the area. “They say it’s the next Balham or Clapham”. Oh do ‘they’. Well, ‘they’ have been saying that for the last 10 years.  ‘They’ also say we’re next for a tube expansion. ‘They’ are invariably estate agents or new arrivals to the ‘hood. I didn’t want to piss on her bonfire, but one has to correct people sometimes. She wasn’t from round here, you see.

Anyway, this isn’t a review of the Manor Arms. There are many of them and there will be many more to come, I’m sure. Nothing gets Time Out to SW16 like a £21 steak. For the record, the place looks great. Lets see how they get on. My job is simply to rant about gentrification.

Gentrification. It’s a loaded word. There was a time not so long ago when I was well up for it, but now I’m not so sure. I even thought the arrival of Foxtons was a good thing for the area. Before I panicked about house prices. I don’t own a house you see. But I do have frightfully middle class ambitions for life. What does gentrification mean? If it means that places like the White Lion can’t exist, or that independent restaurants and bars can’t start up because Strada and All Bar One are willing to pay higher rents, then we need to resist it with gusto.

What would really be a good thing for Streatham would not be so much gentrification, but bohemisation. Which is a fairly crap word, I admit.  What I mean is that small independent business serving local needs need to be able to thrive. We’ve avoided Starbucks, but for how long? I find it incredibly depressing that Café Nero is often so busy that people can’t get a seat. Coffee shops were one thing we already had. Loads of them. Good ones too, independent ones. Where every pound spent was spent supporting local businesses. And we have some truly lovely independent business. Earl Grey and Rose. Fish Tale. The Hamlet, and many more.

There are several reasons why Streatham will never be the next Clapham or Balham. 1. Streatham already had its hey day. Lightening doesn’t hit the same place twice (maybe). 2. The tube (or lack of it). 3. The shape. Long and thin and choked with traffic. If anyone’s got some bright ideas for sorting that out then speak up and speak loud. And finally, the biggest reason: 4. I don’t think people want it to be. This is quite simply the least pretentious place in London, and it’s all the better for it.

Anyway, I’m in the Manor Arms now, I admit. I’m a complete and utter phoney. I think driving is bad. I drive. I think gentrification is bad. I go to gastropubs. But I don’t think I need to worry about gentrification just yet. I just looked out of the window. Streatham has some way to go yet.

[insert generic St. Reatham joke]

It's a public sector party round Tesco's house

It's been well documented. In a planning meeting earlier this month, Lambeth Council did what it does best, held a consultation and then brought through exactly the measures it wanted to in the first place. After everyone objected. Tiny bit of background: Streatham has ice rink and swimming pool, Tesco buys ice rink and swimming pool promising brand new replacements, Tesco lets swimming pool collapse, Tesco decides Streatham doesn’t need ice rink for 3 years, Lambeth and Tesco pat themselves on back for a job jolly well done.

Have a listen to this excellent podcast of the meeting by Mark Oxley on Streatham Pulse. Yes, it’s 53 minutes. But at least it aint seven hours.

Sounds like a lot of anger and emotion in that room. It really brings home what a complete sham this whole sorry situation is. Lambeth and Tesco should be ashamed of themselves. But Lambeth should be ashamed more, because they exist to serve the residents of the borough, and Tesco - well they are a supermarket who exist to provide good returns to their shareholders.

Although I have only lived in Streatham for a relatively short while, I felt the anger of the people at the meeting while listening to this podcast. Because whichever way you look at it, it is a complete joke that people can be made such a mockery of, those same people who fought so hard to get the Section 106 in the first place. That same Section 106 that has been amended, seemingly against the will of pretty much everybody.

If you can amend a Section 106 so easily, then may I ask, what is the bloody point. Personally, I'm in the 'get on and build it' camp. I would have taken a temporary ice rink on the common. Because you don't need to be the wildest conspiracy theorist in the west to realise that there is a teeny weeny little chance that Tesco might just not build the hub after the rink in Brixton has been built. But not before they've raised our rink to the ground. After all, whatever reassurances and guarantees are in place, we've seen how easy it is to amend these 'guarantees'. Which are, to be completely honest, total bollocks.

I'm holding some hope that this will happen. But Lambeth have no spine, and you may have noticed, no cash. Tesco have no spine, but they have got loads of cash. Guess who will win this battle. For a clue, go check out Streatham swimming pool some time.

To finish off, I would like to voice a little bit of resent at the 'it's not good for Brixton’ crowd, who can be heard heckling Sally Prentice after her somewhat controversial ‘bring on more Starbucks’ speech. There are lots of reasons why these amendments should be opposed. There are lots of reasons why Sally Prentice is a twat. But please don’t play the ‘It’s not good for Brixton’ card. Brixton, you have done rather well out of Lambeth over the past few years. Streatham hasn’t. I feel bad for your car park. But quite honestly, we need more than a car park. We need some love.

Khat and all that chat

A few weeks ago I took the train from Streatham to London Bridge. Not a particularly exciting event in its own right, rather a predictable and tedious chronicle of delays, cancellations and general discomfort.

What made this journey a little more notable was the accompaniment of a man acting, well, seriously strangely. As I sat under the aluminium canopy on Platform 2 (why oh why did they build the ‘waiting room’ on the platform to Sutton?!) idling away the minutes, a gentlemen with a weird walk and a bag of some sort of vegetable came and sat unnervingly close to me. There was no one else under the canopy at this time, so I was naturally repulsed at having such close human company without prior consultation.

He looked at me quite intensely while I pretended, badly, that I didn’t even realise he was there. He then started to find me extremely amusing, in a horror story sort of way. I really don’t look that funny, I promise. He reached into his bag, picked out a stringy green vegetable thing and started chewing on it. He looked at me again, laughed again, and repeated until the train finally turned up. It truly seemed to take an eternity.

I naturally boarded a different carriage and looked forward to a journey of solitude. At Tulse Hill the, our first stop, we were treated to a five minute wait. The train had performed too well and we all needed to be punished for it. After a couple of minutes I noticed my new friend writhing around on a bench in a fit of uncontrollable giggles. He had a stringy vegetable in his hand, half chewed. I know how to get into that state. I’ve done it. And it required drugs.

Although I never trained as a detective, I knew enough to know that he had been chewing khat, a vegetable that is chewed and a drug used commonly in the Somalian community (my new friend was of north African origin). I thought nothing of it, except that it looked like rather good fun.

By a somewhat remarkable coincidence, later that day I saw a tweet from my local MP, Chuka Umunna:

“Do you think the substance khat (which some people smoke) should be banned?”

Turns out Chuka had brought the subject up in parliament. I don’t know much about khat, but I do know about the harms of banning substances.

It is astonishing, that in 2010, we are still banning substances. Is government really so stupid as to think that banning substances does anything at all to address the social harm they bring? Is there any evidence what so ever that suggests that the prohibition of drugs in this country (not to mention America…) has dealt with the associated problems. Quite the opposite. The drugs trade in this country is riddled with gangs, and kids are killing kids on our streets as a result. And, god forbid, the middle classes are having their houses burgled by drug addicts trapped in an underworld. It really does make me quite angry.

Its not like there isn’t a precedent for thinking differently about drugs. Holland has been doing it for years (although worryingly the swing to the right in Dutch politics is looking as regressive as a ConDem budget). Less publicised are the decisions by both the Swiss and the Portugese governments to decriminalise drugs, soft and hard, in their respective countries. They are thinking differently. My controlling the distribution of drugs you stand a far better chance of dealing with the issues. It’s a free market in the drug trade. The government should be the Tesco of this market and kill off the shady late night convenience stores. I’m serious. Banning drugs doesn’t work. Period. If you are in any doubt have a walk round Brixton.

Lets not go down the road of banning Khat. Instead the government should try and understand its users, and the harms that the drug brings. But don’t for a second think that making a substance illegal deals with the issue. It simply criminalises a whole section of society who are already on the periphery in so many respects. They will carry on chewing khat. Like so many carry on with cannabis, cocaine, ecstacy, crack etc. Its time to think differently.

The mysterious tale of Streatham Green and the London Spade

“In 2005 Streatham Green won the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association 'London Spade' award for best public open space scheme in the capital” (source – Wikipedia)

Anyone who knows Streatham Green, and has also happened to have seen ANY of London’s other green spaces must surely be choking on their dinner right now.

Based on this evidence, the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association are clearly heavy LSD users. There is a reasonable chance they pick up their supplies in Streatham Green. In this context, their ludicrous decision to award the London Spade now seems to at least make a little sense.

For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure to wander the lawns of this fabulous park, I will attempt to describe it. Words, however, can not do this place justice.

It is sandwiched (crammed) between one of the most deprived (but nonetheless ‘interesting’) parts of Streatham High Road, a ‘Chariots Roman Spa’, and two extremely busy bus stops trafficking people to the relative oasis of Croydon. A collection of desperate drunks hang around the concrete slabs (could these be seats?) recently installed as part of Streatham’s somewhat halted re-generation efforts by Lambeth council. Drugs are regularly peddled (it’s Brixton with none of the cool factor). Not so long ago one of the many Chinese takeaways facing the green was busted for selling Ketamine with its special chow mein. Traffic fumes fill the air. Oh, and it is about 10m x 10m large. This is not a place you come for a picnic. Or a walk. It is, in fact, a place you would walk a considerable distance, through dog shit, to avoid. It is a great place for people watching, however. If you like watching people urinating in public places.

I don’t want to sound too harsh – I love Streatham, and one of the most wonderful things about this place is its greenery. We do have some genuinely fantastic green space in Streatham. Streatham Common and Tooting Common are both special places. This makes it all the more insulting that Streatham Green is laughing in their faces.

No doubt someone has stolen the ‘prestigious’ London Spade. It is possibly committing horrendous sex acts on paying customers in Chariots Roman Spa.

I am not alone in my damning opinion. A google search for Streatham Green delivers to the lazy researcher the following astute assertions: ‘Streatham Green is criminal. In the best and worst sense of the term….Each time I come to kick it here someone tries to sell me hash…One time I saw a person get punched directly, point blank in the face.’

One day all of our parks will be awarded the London Spade. Just need to get those pesky trees cut down first. Pleasant places need not apply.

Welcome to Streatham

I’ve been living in the lovely Streatham for a year now. For those of you who don’t know, Streatham is a sizeable town in South London, forever described by loyalists as ‘near’ its rather cooler brethren – Brixton, Balham, Clapham, even Tooting on a good day. Streatham is famed for a number of notable associations – an infamous brothel, a hideous nightclub, and the queen of etiquette herself, Naomi Campbell, just to mention a few. Van Gogh even came here. Some say he chopped his ear off with a Streatham blade. Others say he was off his tits on Absinthe.

The word Streatham means ‘Hamlet on the Street’. Cute huh? Before arriving a year ago, upon telling an old friend in trendy Shoreditch I was moving to South London (the humanity!!) he replied “Gone for the big house in the burbs have you?” Yeah, how very Darling Buds of May it is around here. More like the Darling Buds of Kwik Fit.

For some reason, I do actually like it here. Streatham is the embarrassing friend you are afraid to introduce to your other, cooler friends. When you find yourself living in Streatham, you defend Streatham. Streatham needs you, and that sort of desperate dependency has its charm. We might not have the tube. We might not have a Waitrose. But we DO have two Lidls, twenty nail bars, a 99p stores and even a cheeky little 98p store. Entrepreneurship is not dead here (The Apprentice, eat your heart out.)

Us Streatamites (and yes, I know – a year in Rome does not, a Roman, make) pretend we don’t want the tube anyway. It’s crowded, expensive, there is no view, and it is simply too clichéd to live somewhere in London that features on the tube map. You can have your tube you ponces. I like my trains being cancelled due to ‘no member of train crew available. I like ‘Sunday services’.

Britain’s Worst Street!! (Streatham High Road picked up this rather dubious honour in 2002. Yes, maybe, but ‘The Longest High Street in Europe’ too, we proudly reply. And let’s face it, that’s what you want if you happen to have the worst street in Britain running through your neighbourhood like a fat filled smokers artery. For it to be really, really bloody long.

‘We had a John Lewis once!!!’ they cry (the real Streathamites, that is.) Yes, yes, I know. I am repeatedly reminded. My barber tells me, every single time I go for a hair cut. It gets a little tedious, this looking backwards to former glory. Before living in Streatham I was in Manchester. Manchester’s version of the Streatham John Lewis yarn is called the Hacienda. Get over it. Yeah we’ve got faded glory. And bugger all else. John Lewis was a wuss, it didn’t want to hang around. Wimpy did, and I love it for it. Square burgers are simply better than round ones. Period.

So that’s it. My virgin rant about Streatham. The first of many. South London, I love you. Now I’m just off to John Lewis to pick up some civic pride. Its on special offer there.