London realness

what is the realest part of london?

i was thinking that maybe erith was the realest place in greater london, its realness augmented in my mind by my never having been to erith

Bexley is pretty grim in general, as far as I can tell, but it has a kind of Gravesend / Medway feel to it that stops me thinking of it as London proper.

Croydon maybe

a lot of bexley is moderately prosperous safe conservative suburbs

http://i.imgur.com/TGLtxrz.jpg

erith yacht club

http://i.imgur.com/NGDzhwl.jpg

mallards road, creekmouth

London's purest realness is surely best characterised by its unusual dispersion, defined by the moments when you turn the wrong way off of a road filled with smiling cupcake artists and find yourself immediately in an abject housing estate, twitching drooling man telling you how you cunts cunt you cunts cunts cunts die cunts.

Difficult to know if the question is genuinely meaningful...but you could argue Hampstead embodies a kind of culture and style of life that's been going on for a quite a while.

bexley town centre is positively gushing with ye olde bucolick pryde. realness only in the tweeest sense (kinda working-class versh of Hampstead mebbe). tweeest not a word but three es in a row

anyway, is this the south-east london tourism board propaganda thread? ready when y'all are

although i'd argue there are parts of east london immediately north of the river (such as beckton and north woolwich) that give the south-east's realest parts a run for their unpretentiousness

the tidal thames littoral is its own thing, it isnt meaningful to pretend north and south are different realms

maybe, what is the realest part of london that doesnt have an e in the postcode district

least pretentious part near where i live is probably thamesmead (proximity to the thames and therefore abandoned docking facilities an extremely important factor in this), but then i've never been to its wilder estuarine cousin erith. am guessing that by the time you're in sheerness the realness is overwhelming to the point of parody

swear i wrote that thames thing before seeing yr littoral xpost

there was a block of flats in thamesmead so real i photographed it, may upload

yesss

edmonton is pretty real, even though i think of canada before i think of london

http://i.imgur.com/nv1cP3T.jpg

emerging immanent from behind a row of birches

whats real

http://i.imgur.com/GXNu0vv.jpg

unpretentious was my translation. but really you shd just know realness, it is its own epithet

thamesmead autonomous oblast

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/26/37444318_18b0e0d3ef_z.jpg?zz=1

that day I also photographed a ceremonial cannon pointing directly at a heron*. it was a good, real day

*in thamesmead's outdoor civic mall, a place that one could describe fairly fairly as really real

p.s. crackle box you show me a london estate and i'll show you that picture. we want realness on a perversely grand scale here

that's edmonton job centre. the desolate end of the world, with carriage lamps.

is the thamesmead estate able to be real? does its iconic status/film use disqualify?

glamourised real is real nonetheless - what else is this thread? besides, Kubrick chose a block of flats that had the decency to be next to a lake - that one was just pure concrete-walkway-linked realness

seriously?

Lower Belvedere is better known for a Methodist chapel, a Sikh Temple and a high technology sludge incinerator and a large waste incinerator.

http://i.imgur.com/TUA2jvq.jpg

danson park, welling

I think once you reach Welling you're becoming too Kentish for Londonish realness. There's quite a notable difference in the short drive from really real Plumstead High Street to Welling or Bexleyheath.

nowhere is real

profound

Welling is also often confused with Welwyn Garden City. More proof of its unrealness right there.

otoh there is a Polish place in the former, so..

wonder what the most *unreal* place in SE LDN is...probably the 'estate' a certain site moderator lives on, which had, last time I saw, an unmade road to discourage traffic of anything other than the SUV variety

jokes, bruv

never eard of most of these manors guv

malick's ballardlands

erith is pronounced EErith (or eeriff) apparently

Harlesden and other swathes of Brent are still pretty far from gentrification, unless I've missed something.

The realest part of London would be the muck on the bed of the Thames.

Realest ate

i was thinking abouts then sdens the other day, maybe nea >>> harle >>>>>>>>>>>> wille in terms of realness

For bonus points, Erith is at the end of several night bus routes. I've woken up there several times.

There are probably some bits around NW London that count as well, what's that bit around Hanger Lane called? Maybe Edmonton Green or somewhere as well. Would've suggested Woolwich until the other week.

hillingdon?

that edward platt book leadville, on the a40, probably counts. cricklewood too?

this thread might be about secondary or heterodox realnesses as well -- not just yr canning town realness but more suburban or peripheral types

What did I know of Cricklewood to be so uppity? I went to a school in Hampstead of which one wall formed the border with a Cricklewood council estate from which rude boys emerged to mock us for our straw boaters, and access to the school was primarily from the bus and trolleybus routes that intersected at Cricklewood Broadway. Thus it was in the 1940s that Cricklewood was on my map.

It was then a nesting-place for European Jews and Issy Bonn, a Yiddish humorist on the BBC's Home Service, dubbed it Cricklevitch and adopted the persona of kosher shopkeeper.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/cricklewood-and-coren-a-beautiful-friendship-6620223.html

a st george's day medieval fair w/ knights' tourney & falconers & today

This sound preposterously fake btw.

that does sound a little bit real in a garry bushell sort of way but the rest of it does not seem appreciably real

trust that you took the knight's share of thine feudal bounty and chivalrously relieved thy gf of the need to carry 20 bottles of water back to thy castellated abode

lol obviously a medieval fayre in vauxhall pleasure gardens with fat men in armour hitting each other in front of bored children is the fakest thing ever

'real england/london' (w/e) is a self-appointing realness, absolutely garry bushell, am-dram england flag and harris hawk juxtapositions over pimm's - it is performative realness, an alchemical or accidental realness whose engine is the effort to be real. maybe i'll post some photos

what's not real about twenty people running into your local park at the same time to piss

carried 24 to her 16 m8 #shiningarmour

Celebrating St George's Day at all is an odd one in there's a realness to the sort of people who will absolutely insist on the existence of this complete non-tradition against all evidence to the contrary.

http://news.met.police.uk/news/man-sentenced-for-killing-deer-128247

suppose one should get terribly upset about this but it also seems quite impressive that he managed to find a wild deer in greater london, corner it and kill it with a knife

> also seems quite impressive that he managed to find a wild deer in greater london

richmond park is full of the things. and they are tame enough that you can walkt right up to them.

this would appear to be just a deer found in a field by a roadside, not a tame population in a confined area

On the same day, Shahid posted an update on a Facebook group called 'Deer Stalkers International'.

He boasted how he had killed a deer and "made a good meal for ten". Users of the group forwarded Shahid's post to police.

QED

in terms of harmful and idiotic behaviour it's easier to sympathize when it attracts full spectrum internet opprobrium from the brigitte bardot school of paranoid, vicious xenophobia crossed with dopy animal fetishism

idk if this is the right thread but about 10 SWAT cars just went thru marble arch rammed with special ops types heading for marylebone

http://thump.vice.com/en_uk/article/why-we-have-to-save-peckham-according-to-the-djs-who-play-there?utm_source=thumptwitteruk

The absolute state of this 'campaign'.

First wave gentrifiers outraged by the conclusion of the process they started in the first place.

"What's mad for me is the rate of change. East London had fifteen years of chaos and fun before it got to the way it is today. Peckham hasn't even had a chance to go through any of that"

Complete cultural wasteland beforehand obviously.

It feels so un-London - it's friendly, simple, uncomplicated.

Yeah, fuck London, amirite?

He's on to something with the rate of change bit. It's been amazing to watch how much Peckham has changed and how quickly.

But, yeah, all of that change has been at *someone's* expense. It's been rotten watching the people and businesses who were here when I got here getting pushed out, so feels bullshit of these guys to say "oh no, *that* amount of gentrification was fine, but no further, like!"

It's worth examining why the rate of change is so high in Peckham - you'd think places like Leyton or Stratford would see something similar there's not a single hipster coffee shop within miles of me (sadly; I like hipster coffee shops)

It had been trickling for a while, but I think the real starting gun was the Overground opening with trains direct from Shoreditch to Peckham Rye.

Interesting conversation at the weekend with guy who says the way, almost without exception, to solve poverty black spots is to run another bus line from there to somewhere good. Transport has such a huge effect and is often overlooked area of social policy.

All that said, Stratford is rammed with links now so uh

One thing that irritates me about this latest 'campaign' is that every source I've seen report it has apparently completely failed to review a single planning document associated with the proposed development. They've just heard 'luxury flats next to Bussey' and gone into panic mode.

A look through the design and access statement and acoustics report indicates the architectual/design team has given pretty decent consideration to the noise issues people are complaining about. Bedrooms are located away from areas of highest noise, there's extra glazing, units have 'mechanical ventilation', and proposed 'winter gardens' would give another layer of noise protection. Even ignoring Bussey, this building is located on a busy high street next to train tracks. It's going to be noisy no matter what, and surely anyone concerned about noise wouldn't move here to begin with. Perhaps the developers could look to do a 'deed of easement' whereby residents aren't allowed to complain about Bussey noise - that was one solution implemented when Ministry of Sound went through a similar thing with the Eileen House development a few years ago.

I get that other venues have been and are being lost because of this sort of thing, but it's frustrating that hardly anyone is even trying to look at this critically by engaging with the actual proposals.

I do wonder if the developers and council maybe failed to engage Bussey owners and other affected businesses in the early stages, though. If they'd consulted more thoroughly would any of this be an issue?

And regarding the "independent shops, churches and community spaces that would all be affected by these plans" as noted in the article... the proposal includes community space and provides more commercial/retail units than the current setup. I think the community space is at the basement level though, which may not be ideal.

Tracer I think there is a hipster coffee shop now on Leytonstone High Rd? - or at least a hippy coffee shop. It's called All you R3ad is L0ve.

I saw one on my way to/from the Red Lion recently.

They closed the Streatham Greggs and turned it into a hipster coffee bar.

London realness in a nutshell.

http://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_large/public/thumbnails/image/2015/11/26/14/house1.jpg

Barnes yesterday...It's tough in the basement wars...http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/38million-house-duffy-lived-rules-6906251

Also Notting Hill earlier in the year

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2934601/Basement-rage-did-impresario-started-building-mega-den-5m-home-irate-duchess-countess-leading-socialite-feelings-run-deep.html

There's a definite (South) West London realness to that first one. Somewhere out there in Kensington and Chelsea there's a West London Clive Martin who has narrowed his entire output to harrumphing about giant basement extensions.

Interesting conversation at the weekend with guy who says the way, almost without exception, to solve poverty black spots is to run another bus line from there to somewhere good. Transport has such a huge effect and is often overlooked area of social policy.

All that said, Stratford is rammed with links now so uh

i guess peckham or hackney or clapton actually have a lot of nice houses, dunno if this is true for stratford, right?

That's definitely a key factor, it's the main reason Brockley went through the roof after the Overground opened. It had been a bit rough round the edges throughout most of my childhood but a lot of the houses were fantastic.

Stratford had/has a few but it's changed dramatically in 10 years (when I lived there) for obvious reasons - several more high-rises make it feel increasingly like a mini-city. It always felt further out than it really is but everything above and below it would be cheaper and just as close to things.

BFFs grandmother owned freeholds for a lot of places in Hackney, Dalston, Peckham, Camberwell and possibly Brockley - all built up around the same time and intended as middle-class areas, but by the time they were hers, those areas were declining because people were moving further out of London.

I think that standing on Camberwell Green and turning around would probably give you the starkest picture of gentrification anywhere in the capital, face south and it's full on organic bakery territory, look up towards Walworth Road and it's much the same as it's been for 20 years, except with a load more payday loan places. The density of WW2 bombing was a lot higher on the north side and that's still having an effect on the city today.

Camberwell Green has also got the Future Cities Catapult (technology centre) right next to the church, helping to 'transform cities on a global scale'.

As a place, Camberwell Green certainly feels like the centre of the global city zeitgeist.

Hang on - I'm posting crap, as ever - it's in Clerkenwell Green.

Camberwick Green iirc

wat if trumptonshire modarn day? fire brigade get closed down by boris and lord belborough opan cerial cafe

It has a large green space which is the centre of a gyratory. Very close to the combined railway station and Tramlink terminus bearing its name is the old sewage farm. The remains of this industrial site can still be seen. The sewage works is thought to be contaminated with heavy metals and is therefore unfit for building houses. The sewage farm has been converted into a country park (South Norwood Country Park), but many of the locals still know it as the sewage farm. The park falls within the boundaries of the London Borough of Croydon.

The former industrial estate on the south side of the railway track has closed down: it used to house the Muirhead and Twinlock factories, and can be seen from the air here. The companies vacated the sites and it remained derelict until the mid 1990s when Tesco built a new superstore. The former Bolloms paint factory site, on the opposite side of the road has been redeveloped into an industrial estate.

Elmers End station is a terminus for Tramlink services to Croydon as well as being on National Rail between London, Charing Cross and Hayes, Bromley.

The main Beckenham crematorium is situated between South Norwood Country Park and Birkbeck. Also known as Elmers End Cemetery, it contains the final resting places of such notable people as W.G. Grace, Frank Bourne, Thomas Crapper, Jerzy Wołkowicki, William Stanley and George Evans (VC) who won a Victoria Cross in 1916.[1]

^^^ Elmers End

also my grandma, RIP. Didn't know WG was there as well.

While the park is within the borough of Croydon, Da End itself is part of Bromley I think.

Real as opposed to what - virtual?
Or authentic and if so to what? Doesn't that imply an imposed standard which itself may be a little manufactured/fictional?
& if you can't put your hand through it is it therefore real?

Just had my watch ripped off my wrist this evening in Notting Hill, in what may be London's most gentrified street Is this UK's most gentrified street?

Reported it to the police station feeling a little like Mark from PeepShow.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/11/world/europe/uk-london-brexit.html realness talk

xpost to self:

Bacame a crime stat...

Robbery:
Includes offences where a person uses force or threat of force to steal

Current status:
Investigation complete; no suspect identified

https://d26dzxoao6i3hh.cloudfront.net/items/201i062G1U2f081R0E1v/Image.jpg

https://dzwonsemrish7.cloudfront.net/items/3I2J0P1K2Z0O16253x0k/knives.png

People I’d like to let loose without security in the middle of a London endz battle, because it would ~unite the mandem~ and we’d be well rid: il Douché.

has someone told him that The UK Knife Lobby and in general Knife Politics are not a strong voice over here!

Guns don't kill people, knives do.

you what mate

https://www.msglondonconsultation.com/

That is batshit even without considering the stadium round the corner and the O2 not far away.