Londoner’s Life 22 – By Phil Ryan
Good grief you go away for a week (a quick jaunt to sunny Tenerife) and they flood Oxford Street, paint lots of new double lines around Westminster courtesy of the greed and misery commissars that run the place and ratchet up the Mayoral campaign nonsense with a he said no he said between Boris and Ken voraciously covered by the TV news and papers leaving all the other candidates to waste their time on futile media campaigns that no one pays a blind bit of attention to. But that said leaving London for a week let me take stock of the general state of our new found recessionary status. Most London Councils are now slashing meals on wheels for the elderly whilst at the same time raking in more cash from those living (trapped) in council accommodation by shoving up the rents by 8% and shoving up parking costs by 10% in some places. I could be missing something but is it me or is London slowly returning to the time of Dickens? It is his centenary celebratory year after all. It seems to be a new strategy of lets attack the poor who are clearly the cause all this economic misery after all. It’s the feckless poor who ran the banking system into the ground as any fule kno. What next work houses? My own Council the completely terrible Camden are happy to announce grand schemes to commission art works and big glass media hubs for the new windswept areas around the ghastly acreage of Kings Cross. And then they close most of the libraries! A bit of a cultural faux pas surely? Hm. But enough of such grim tidings I hear you say what about something positive in all the gloom and doom in London. Well there’s the Olympic bandwagon trundling on with boom times predicted for the hotels and restaurants, so that’s something eh? But what about right now?
Tricky to be honest. It’s a bit gloomy generally in our fair capital. I wandered around the fabulous Spitalfields Market on Sunday to see stallholders staring at each other. Xmas spending fatigue one told me whilst another chap pointed out the now constant sales running on every high street. So shopping in some areas is nose diving especially the cuter arty markets – however Westfield in Shepherds Bush resembles a mad scramble to buy everything that’s not nailed down. It’s like a scene out of Planet of the Apes most weekends now. Only most apes are better dressed and seem to have more manners. So I think with Brent Cross set to expand we have arrived at the true dawn of the year of the shopping centre. The poor old London high street really is at the last gasp saloon. Even the efforts of the wonderful Wedge Card people trying to save our local shops with their brilliant supportive of local traders discount scheme is fighting an uphill struggle and quite rightly deserves our support. Conversely the parasites at Groupon appear to be draining the life out of many a small London trader – their mealy mouthed PR angle being we’re sending lots of new customers their way. And in a way they are right except the amount they take on the deals they offer makes it impossible for some of the small traders to enjoy their new customers before they’ve been driven out of business. Hm. I’m sorry to report I appear to have hit a bleak streak. It must be the weather.
Three new businesses lasted 3 months in my own area recently before biting the dust. Doh! There I go again. But positive London stuff I hear you cry – where’s the positive? Well the many museums are gearing up for lots of late night events which are fantastic and generally free – er there’s the latest dining craze to hit the capital and yes it is the flood of Sushi restaurants opening everywhere. Not my cup of tea but Londoners seemingly can’t get enough of that raw fish. I’ve always loved the food fads that ripple across London. Of course of late another fad is the shisha cafes springing up everywhere. You see trendy young things enveloped in a blue fug of sweet smelling tobacco whilst guzzling a latte and pomegranate juice! It’s like being in the middle eat without the bombs and oppression. And finally the wave after wave of tiny apartments on sale fill the Evening Standard most Wednesdays now. They’re all called The Point – The Hub – The Quarter – The tiny overpriced box where you can hear downstairs evacuating their bowels (okay I made that one up) But London’s property struggle is now forcing more and more poor sods into these ghastly blocks with a view over a petrol station or a railway bridge. The pictures make them look great. Just go and stand next to one to get the true picture. Hemmed in with a council estate that’s twinned with Kabul, they are attempts at gentrification that really miss the point. Oops I went all negative again! But I suppose they are homes after a fashion and many seem okay in price although most are in charming places like Kidbrooke (deemed too unsafe for gangs to live in) or Catford (deemed too unsafe for Mammals to live in) But do people still buy these rubbishy little boxes. Yes they do. And do they seem to mind? No. It’s a London thing.