Clapton Pond Blog

Olympic View

Hackney Council is among the small throng of public bodies pinning great hopes on the long term futures of the Olympic Park press and broadcast centres. The two buildings presently stand emptily adjacent awaiting their finishing touches before swarms of sports journalists colonise them for a few weeks next summer before disappearing as rapidly as they arrived once the orgy of athleticism has been and gone.Then what? Like the rest of the park, the press and broadcast centres will become the responsibility of the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), whose job it is to re-fill them with bustling, cutting-edge media-type businesses and entrepreneurs.

A Hallowe'en Encounter

I never cease to be surprised by the secret lives of people who live round here. By day the children attend their primary schools in a decent, orderly manner, remembering their homework and accumulating smiley face certifictes, while the grown-ups attend to the routine business of being responsible members of the community. By night, whatever their age, these same citizens wander the streets brandishing severed heads and importuning on door steps, seeking free confectionery. All part of the variegated character of the neighbourhood, I suppose.     

Bride And Groom

I hope these stylish newlyweds and their charming army of bridesmaids don't object to my stealing a moment of their romantic bliss (my little daughter made me do it). The Pond is a popular spot for wedding photos although, as you'd expect, not used as regularly as the Town Hall steps where earlier on the same day - Saturday, 24th September - another knot-tying shoot had taken place, creating a pleasing counterpoint those proud men and women assembling for the East London LGBT march.           

Two Cans Of Lager & A Pole

It was dark and I was heading home from the gym: past the Salvation Army church, past the housing advice office, past the bus stop and Tesco Express, past William Hill, past the dead phone kiosks and the seemingly eternal builders' fencing hiving off where Don's Cafe used to be. And then this man sprinted past me, crop-haired, small, bearing a little rucksack. I didn't see his face. I recognised his run, though. It was the frantic, panicky sprint of man fleeing trouble and my first thought, of course, was "knife crime." Someone was going to catch him and stab him, and the question was how soon and how close to right under my nose.

After The Riot: How Did The Mare Street Trouble Start?

I included a short account of what I saw in Mare Street on the day the trouble reached Hackney in one of my many Guardian articles about the London riots. I arrived on the scene in the mid-afternoon after most of the shop keepers had boarded-up in anticipation of trouble but, I think, before any significant trouble began. Here's a portion of what I wrote: 

Some men were boarding up a section of the JD shopfront. Had looters been and gone? It all seemed very quiet. People were shopping normally, though here too [as in the Narrow Way] many stores were closed. Some cop cars came and went. I leaned against a wall to tweet and was suddenly almost knocked over by three youths riding the pavement on their bikes, their faces concealed by scarves. They too melted away. It turned out that the boarding-up of JD was pre-emptive. Was something brewing or was it not?

After The Riot

This was the scene in Clarence Road yesterday morning, one of simultaneous despair and hope: despair, because the shop in this photo was utterly trashed by looters during last Monday's rioting; hope, because the shopkeeper - Siva, on the left - was standing outside selling newspapers, smiling through his dismay. He's been greatly heartened by the support of his customers and a fantastic fund-raising effort on his behalf. The energetic Save Siva's Shop campaign has already collected over £16,000. I noticed this morning that it had extended its reach to collection tins at Chatsworth Market. You can add your contribution here.

Clapton, Class & Classic FM

Breathe out, everyone. It looks as though Palm 2 has not only survived the arrival of Tesco Express, but thrived on it. Ultra-Darwinists (I'm not one) and ultra-believers in market forces as the answer to everything (ditto) will hail this as a triumph of adaptation and competition. I'll go along with that to the extent that Abdullah and his team have undoubtedly risen to the challenge the arrival of the supermarket monolith represented. But I'm more interested in the way they've done it. This seems to throw into relief the existence of certain trends that have long been predicted for this corner of the great metropolis, but never been conspciuously present.

Post Office Tension

This happened months ago, but I've been saving it up. You know the post office I mean. It's the main one for the district - these days, the only one. It's located at the back end of a long, narrow shop (gifts, cards, stationery) and brings to my mind the term "corridor of misery". When queueing there - there's always a queue - a kind of speculative bleakness envelops me. Seeing the staff at work behind those thick glass screens gets me wondering if the glass would stop a bullet. A brightly-sprightly robo-voice that calls people forward  - "Cashier number 3!" -  serves only to throw into sharper relief the tiredness of the rest of the scene.

The Clapton Festival: A Musical Highlight

My Clapton Festival experience was mostly concentrated in the area around the pond on the (sunny) Saturday afternoon. I enjoyed these strolling minstrels very much.

 

The Killer Crossing: How Is Your Fear Of Death?

Slowly, inchingly, incrementally, the transformation of the Killer Crossing is (surely) approaching completion. It's been three-and-a-half years since I reported cautious optimism that the deadly junction was to be improved, and five months since I discovered that the work was scheduled to be finished by the end of March. So, here we are in June and I'm wondering how happy to be about the new layout. I like the big, new island at the Palm 2 end, though the smaller one opposite New Era and the chip shop doesn't seem much more of a haven for pedestrians than what was there before. A definite improvement, then. But how much of one?