Category Archives: London

London Politics

Some hard facts

July 15, 2008 – 8:52 pm

Presented in a very comprehensive briefing by Camden council staff at the St Pancras and Somers Town “area forum” last week.

The London borough of Camden has just under 16,000 people on its housing waiting list, and 1,420 statutory homeless households living in temporary accommodation. Thirty per cent of Camden households are overcrowded (national figure 7%). A total of 2,691 households on the housing register are overcrowded.

About 9,000 properties in Camden have been sold under right to buy.

The population is predicted to grow by 20% (10% by 2016), mostly in the 15-59 age group.

Seventy-four per cent of inquiries to councillors were about housing.

A total of 195 “affordable” homes were built last year. (The prediction for 2007-8 is 180. About 250 starts of affordable housing are predicted in the King’s Cross development – I asked if it was thought this would be affecting by the credit crunch and the claim was that it wouldn’t be.)

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History London

Wandering the Renaissance and more at the V&A

May 17, 2008 – 11:56 pm

Today I threw up all of the things I should have been doing for a chance to enjoy London – choosing the V&A for the Blood on Paper: The Art of the Book exhibition, which I’ve reviewed over on My London Your London.

But it is hard always to stick at one thing, and with the medieval and Renaissance galleries now closed for refurbishment (reopening scheduled for November 2009), I kept falling across them everywhere. Up on the fourth floor is a small display on Makers and markets, looking at the development of one period into the other. There are spectacular Giambologna bronzes and Limoges enamels, but as so often I find the more humble pieces much more interesting, including the German stoneware from the Rhineland, which was exported all over northwest Europe.

There’s this pitcher c 1573 by Jan Emens Mennicken (who is also represented at the British Museum, including this spectacular wine vessel for a wealthy household

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London

The London community

October 9, 2007 – 11:49 pm

I’ve never really been sold on the “there’s no community in London” tale – if you’ve moved here from Bangkok the place looks like a positive model of civility and goodwill.

And I proved it again on Sunday night, carrying a not so much heavy as awkwardly shaped 1930s oak library table on the train from somewhere in the depths of south London to home.

So thank you very much to the young man of Asian extraction who helped me with it off London Bridge train station, and to the Polish lady who helped me on to the Tube. Two great examples of community spirit in a great city.

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London Media

Somers Town fine dining

October 4, 2007 – 2:40 pm

On the Chalton Road market, under the filter shade of a healthily plump tree, watching the world go by, mushroom and tomato omelette, with rather good chips, and a cuppa, £3.80. That’s value. (And I even noticed that next door a Japanese restaurant is being fitted out – so possibilities of variety as well.)

And a Daily Telegraph that someone had left provided curiously schizophrenic reading – on one page “shock” that David Cameron yesterday used to “swear” word pissed (drunk), on national television. More “shocking”: “The word caused not even a murmur among delegates, and the BBC received no complaints.”

Several pages later, associated with this story although apparently not on the web, an outline of the legal status of the sexual practice of “dogging”, in considerable detail.

You wonder if the same editor did both pages.

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History London

Mapping London

January 4, 2007 – 4:45 pm

Over on My London Your London I’ve an account of London: A Life In Maps, an exhibition continuing at the British Library until March 4. Really – see it if you can.

In that piece I cover the general history, but of course I couldn’t resist checking out all records of the area of Regent’s Park in which I now live (south-west of the park itself). In the 18th-century it was still open farmland, much of it owned by the Duke of Grafton. By 1794 there is a some settlement around the top of what is already called Tottenham Court Road, which extends north of its current end before turning into “Turnpike Lane” (now Hampstead Road) at the Hampstead Turnpike.

What is now the cluster of Indian restaurants in Drummond Street is roughly where there was a big dam, the “New River Reservoir”. What is now Stanhope St was called Brook St. The area now called Haymarket already had that title, probably for that practical purpose, I’d hazard a guess. And Munster Square and Clarence Gardens are arranged in their current form, probably I’d imagine with houses for the middle class with pretensions.

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London

Finding a London pub

June 18, 2006 – 12:13 pm

I’m thinking about taking a couple of hours away from the computer this evening to watch the Australia-Brazil World Cup game. (I spent many years in Australia playing soccer and listening to people talk about the great unobtainable goal of the Finals, so it is rather nice that the team has finally made it again.)

So I thought I’d try to find a local non-smoking pub. No such luck, but I did find a decent guide to pubs, Fancyapint? that is worth noting for future reference.

Not that I’m a frequenter of such – cigarette smoke makes me far more likely to look for a cafe, but when the smoking ban finally comes in I might be seen in such settings a little more often. (The site also has a useful guide to non-footballing pubs, for those looking for a peaceful drink.)

A short cultural history of Australian soccer from the Observer, which seems pretty accurate from my perspective.

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