Searching for chips in the Highbury Vale Fog (Arsenal v Steaua Bucharest)

It was a midweek night and I was waiting at a Green Lanes bus stop for a 341 or 141 to take me up to the Salisbury for a few beers. The fog around Clissold Park had been collecting all afternoon and now lay in a  thick band over the little river valley that was the former course of the Hackney Brook. All of a sudden there was no traffic. No cars, buses or cyclists. Had everyone decided to watch Arsenal v Steaua Bucharest on the telly? After what seemed about half an hour but was probably 20 seconds, a white van steamed past seemingly anxious to get into more normal territory.

I'd seen some of the Steaua players earlier in the day, sauntering around Oxford Street in their smart tracksuits and pointing out their favourite Christmas window displays. "Good luck tonight," I said.

     "Ah, you must be a Tottenham fan!" smiled one (he looked like the midfield general).

     "No, I'm not. I said 'good luck' from the perspective of a neutral who wishes you to enjoy the atmosphere of the Greater Blackstock Road area. I hope you have a good experience and possibly go for chips afterwards. I don't care about the result."

But they'd already stopped listening. I have that effect on professional footballers. Like the time I got Bob Wilson's autograph when he came to my home town in the mid 70s and I wanted to know why he didn't play against Leeds in the 1972 Cup Final but he was looking away, off into the mid-distance at Arthur's Tuck Shop at the edge of the market place (though it was actually owned at that stage by Derek Marwood who possibly had kept the 'Arthur' sign up for a bit in the hope of getting some 'goodwill passing trade').

It was about 20 minutes later that a 341 appeared. The driver looked nervous. Clissold Park had almost disappeared. Green Lanes no longer seemed part of a city. The bus sped up the slope towards Manor House - then after the crossroads we slowed down as if the driver knew he was in familiar territory. At the Salisbury the London Pride was off and the gents toilets weren't open. The silent TV on the wall played a tape loop of Vladimir Putin sitting down at a table before at last the football results came in. In the end I hoped that the Steaua players had gone back to their hotel for Bells whisky miniatures, rather than searching for chips in the Highbury Vale fog.

Trying to picture London: the bowling green in Clissold Park

Today I'm trying to picture London. It's now almost 6 months since we left and images are obviously in the process of being moved from short to long-term memory tanks, because I can't see them. To compensate I've been flicking through Wonderful London (Ed. St. John Adcock), a three volume set from 1926. This is the bowling green before it stopped being a bowling green and became an teen alcopops awareness centre. If this picture was taken now there'd be a mad-looking bloke with a bull terrier striding towards the camera shouting obscenities.

The text with the photo says:

"STOKE NEWINGTON IN SUMMER-TIME: THE BOWLING GREEN AT CLISSOLD PARK
A long journey through the dreary Kingsland Road and on through Stoke Newington brings one to Church Street, a curious survival in the surrounding villadom. There are old houses and a small sixteenth-century church, mellow with years, and farther on the fifty-two green acres of Clissold Park, through whose ordered lawns runs the New River. Beyond the bowling green is the spire of the modern parish church, built by Sir Gilbert Scott to replace the old one which was put up when the congregation was that of a country village."

Don't know about the copyright situation with pics like this. The photo was credited to someone called McLeish.

Kestrel Dowsing Overview

This afternoon I spotted a can of Kestrel Super K on the route of the lost Hackney Brook. I've noticed over the last few months that Super K has been making inroads into the Clissold Park scene (formerly a Tennants Super hotspot). I would have done some compass readings from where the can lay, but I was in character - I was King of the Dragon Pirates and we were escaping to Narnia via the track on the north side of Clissold Park, being chased by Giant Pirates. Giant Pirates are bad and Dragon Pirates are, generally, thought to be good - at least in the world of 6 and 3 year olds.)

You had to be there.

Hackney Brook and Bayern Munich

Coinciding with a massive hangover, the Hackney Brook appears to have resurfaced on Blackstock Road, just south of the Arsenal Tavern. Not caused by heavy rains this time but a large yellow JCB, which has dug a huge hole in the side of the road. Water shoots out of a pipe and into what's becoming a quite decent sized pond. My little boy Seánie is well impressed. "Digger!" "River!" He dances up and down on the pavement. We go to the Gunners Fish Bar for lunch, where we meet a group of Bayern Munich fans in town for tonight's Champions League game. They have come for some hot Pukka Pies. Blackstock Road is certainly at its most beautfiul for these visitors - shit weather, grey skies, soggy chips. and huge puddles in the road.

I suspect an Arsenal plot, some kind of pitch waterlogging thing must be going on here. I notice that one of the Germans looks like Nigel Winterburn and mention it to Seánie. He is not impressed.

Which reminds me of that poem, 'Arsenal fullbacks try to change the world in a night':

Lee Dixon came to our local pub
And tried to convert us all
To the cause of International socialism
"You're too late mate," said the landlord
"We had that Nigel Winterburn in here last night.
We're all Buddhists now."

Return of the New River

The New River has returned. I feel a bit confused. Part of me wants to leap up and down with unrestrained joy, splashing about in the clear waters shouting "Look kids, let's catch fish!". My more sensible side is eager to phone Thames Water to come and sort out the problem.

Our street as two burst water pipes, a little spring at each side of the road sending the water cascading down the hill. Actually, that would make it the New River for about 30 yards then a tributary of the Hackney Brook the rest of the way.

God, I need to get out more.

The Stone

As I was flicking through the Stoke Newington OS map from 1868 (it's a gripping read) I noticed that, north of the avenue and embankment that was once the New River, was a stone. No other explanation. Just "stone". Was it a milestone, like the one on the bend of the New River near St Mary's church? Maybe this is the same stone and it was moved into an enclosed area for safe keeping. Or was the "stone" something else, something older still? Like a neolithic marker which, though long gone, still gives off a strange magnetic pull that attracts summertime frisbee throwers and the Turkish football team (it's near the spot where they do their windsprints).

There must be a historian around who knows these things, some Professor of Invisible Ancient Stones of North London at University College.

Blackberry Way

A Hackney Brook walk around to the new Arsenal stadium to gawp at some concrete and cranes then a quick sketching session (still can't draw blackberries) in Gillespie Park with my dad. Actually, I didn't know blackberries lasted so long into the Autumn.

The wetlands are dry, due to a leak caused no doubt by scuba diving vandals with harpoon guns, and part of the parkland is closed up for renovations. If only London could have more strange wild areas like this. Perhaps the mayor could pull down a couple of glass and concrete monsters in the city and create a new London International Centre for Blackberry Studies.

"Algernon, coming to the champers bar for lunch?"
"No ta, chum, I'm off blackberry picking so auntie can make some jam for tea!"

Clissold Park Chainsaw Massacre

Another of the ancient horse chestnuts in the south western sector of Clissold Park, probable remnants of the old Newington Common, has been cut down. I asked one of the rangers why so many of the trees in this area were dying - was it something to do with the fair, which visits two or three times a year and always in the same spot. Perhaps some of the chemicals used in the candy floss making process have been leeching into the soil? Or is it connected to the groundwater problems in this bit of the park? The ranger said that he had wondered about the fair (though not the candy floss connection).

Old St. Mary's Kestrel Connection

The little Hawthorne bush that nestles into an eastern corner of Old St Mary's Church is covered in bright red berries. Beneath it is a sign of local druid activity - a can of Kestrel Superbrew.

A New Underground River?

Amazing news. I've recently learned about an underground river that flows from Highbury down into the Hackney Brook Valley. Usually I spot these streams when I see cans of extra strong lager scattered about on the surface, but in this case there was a whole off-licence.

I was buying a few bottles of beer at Highbury Vintners and commented on the strange slope of the floor in the shop, which seemed to counter the slope of Highbury Hill.

"That's because there's a river that flows under the shop," said the owner. "It goes through here and underneath the church."

I expressed an interest in starting to go to mass, then fiddled about with the real ales before announcing to the whole shop: "I've written a book about underground rivers."

The shopkeeper was not phased. "Bloody Highbury. Everytime I bring up some topic of conversation, one of our customers will go 'I've written a book about that'."

Lost Rivers Project

Today was the last day of the Lost Rivers project with Christopher Hatton School. The session took place at the Guardian Newsroom and the kids made a final artwork of the River Fleet using collage, photographs and sketches as well as making their own personalised booklets. It was a great morning.

http://www.f-l-u-i-d.co.uk/rivers/

Parr's Ditch, Hammersmith (Part 1)

In the process of researching the history of London’s formeost manmade stream, the New River, it came to my attention that said watercourse came to function as a boundary line between parishes. This holds true for smaller streams in the capital, such as Parr’s (or Black Bull) Ditch in W6, which was, it appears, custom built as a border between the Parishes of Hammersmith and Fulham around 1000 years ago. There’s nothing there now and the only evidence is the appearance of the stream on old maps, its mention in the odd book and the name of a present day street. Parfrey Street. Although most maps I have suggest otherwise, I believe it ran along where Parfrey Street now lies, and as it appears in my 1851 Tallis map of London, which is looking a bit dogeared at the corners.

I loved living in Hammersmith. It sounds like a character from the Marvel Thor comics. Due to the proximity of the river, Hammersmith enjoys some of the most beautful skies in the world. Really. The sky in Hammersmith daily goes from blue to grey to grey-orange to purple-grey to blue-grey-orange to brown-grey to milkywhite-pink. Then, as if I magic, it goes to blue-black with liitle white dots. All this is reflected in the silver river. Looking out from my study in the Parfrey Street flat, I used to look across what was Parr’s Ditch and observe the life and actions of the chubby bloke with specs who lived at no. 40. He was forever out and about on his bike, going 'fast'. I used to have a bit of a rivalry thing going with the bloke from no. 40. We were like a mirror image of each other. Maybe he would watch me. I had an email newsletter called The Smoke which was based around my observations of the Speccy Bloke at no. 40. Speccy Bloke gets on his bike. Speccy bloke comes back from the shops. Speccy bloke talks to the neighbour.

Then it occured to me that it was entirely possible that Speccy bloke had been watching me for ages and had put together his own online magazine called In the City, or something, about my crap non-escapades. Chunky Blond Bloke staggers home from the pub. Chunky Blond Bloke staggers buys mils. Like a parallel universe Rear Window. And if my theory is correct, we were looking out at each other over an ancient border post.

Why were the inhabitants of these two London villages so keen to show where the borders lay that they had to build a stream? After all, there were parishes all over London which didn’t need water borders. Was there some kind of dispute? Or were one set of people threatening to over-run the other? The histories of Fulham and Hammsmith are pretty much like all the small settlements of London, except being near the Thames gives them more chance of an ancient history. Archaelogical work in the 1970s around where Parr’s Ditch hits the Thames found Neolithic flint tools and pottery (circa 3,000BC), late Iron Age pottery and an isolated Roman coin of the 4th century AD. There is a dry sandbank here along the edge of the Thames and there may have been a ford across the Thames in earlier times that connected with what is now Crabtree Lane and Lillie Road. Until the area was built up in the 19th Century there was evidence of man-made earthworks, possibly Celtic, along the riverside. Perhaps new arrivals to the area had uspet the locals, hence the border line. Perhaps there had been a battle and the borders ahd been redrawn (like the First World War). At Hammersmith library I pored through some old books and maps but there was no record of any dispute.

There’s no doubt in the minds of historians that Fulham (‘river bend land of a saxon man called Fulla) is the older of the two settlements. Unlike Hammersmith it’s mentioned in the Domesday Book (as Fuleham) of 1086, but goes back even further. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle in AD900 called in Fullanhamme and there is an even older reference from an Anglo-Saxon charter of which refers to Fulanham. Hammermsith (‘place with a hammer smith or forge’ - unsurprisingly) is not mentioned until 1294 as Hamersmyth. It was actually part of the Bishop of London’s Manor of Fulham until 1834.

Fading leaves

Yet another of the old horse chestnut trees in Clissold Park is starting to peg out. On the south side, near the route of the buried New River, this tree always dominated that section of the park. Now, though, while the sides of the tree are still verdant and healthy, the whole middle part appears to be dying - the leaves are thin or non-extistent. It looks like it's had a monk's haircut. It's a Ralph Coates tree - actually, a Terry Mancini tree would be a more accurate description. Other old trees in that part of the park - I think the former Newington Common - seem to be on their last legs as well. Is this anything to do with the work to reduce the groundwater in the area? Maybe the trees liked it when it was boggy round there.

Bigfoot

Last night I put my foot through the bath. I simply stood up to get a towel and my foot just went straight through, sending water cascading through the bathrrom and down into the kitchen. There's now a big hole and two bits of bath - some kind of twin skin acrylic resin stuff. I still can't explain it - I'm not that heavy (about 12 stone). Maybe it's like a karate type thing where you focus all your power into one part of your body. Don't think I'll tell the insurance people about my copy of The Power of the Internal Martial Arts by Bruce Kumar Frantzis. In fact, I think I'll store it in the loft for a couple of weeks, until this Foot Through Bath incident is forgotten.

Pleasure Gardens of the Imagination

A pub crawl around the sites of old wells and springs in Clerkenwell, accompanied by an illustrator, two architects, a mythological writer, a spiritualist, a geologist and a small town country solicitor. Outside the Coach and Horses one of the architects gets out some blue tape and we stick it to a grill in the road, under which we can hear the rushing River Fleet. The illustrator has blue nail varnish on her toes.

The Curious Life of Charles Foster Talgutt

"London is a metropolis of open pustules, running sores that blight the fair city's visage. A foul stench permates the surrounding areas, a disgusting wetness. How grand it would be to walk down the course of the evil Fleet river and not be waylayed by the rotten fluid ." (letter to the Royal Geographical Society- reproduced in In Perambulations along the watercourses of Our Great Metropolis, by CF Talgutt )

The rivers of London were mostly covered over in the space of 17 years by one man, Charles Foster ('CF') Talgutt, who hated running water ever since a rabies scare he experienced in India. Talgutt was a Victorian rennaisance man - A muscular Christian who liked the ladies, martial arts and visionary writings, who wrote bad potery and did mediocre watercolours. writer, poet, fighter and musician. He sailed a boat through Clissold Park, boxed Jem Mace, the Swaffham Gypsy, was a friend of Dickens, had affairs with actresses. One of his most strongly held views was that a man should not ejaculate during intercourse. Connected to his phobia about running water, perhaps. He did have a theory - that the semen went to a large storage container in the afterlife, which would come in handy when you eventually pegged it as all the other old duffers would be pretty much spermless by then. All those of afterlife ladies.

Talgutt died in 1926, aged 101, shortly before publication of his childrens story entitled The Adventures of Snuggly the Blanket Bear.

The pipes of poo?

The big ploughed trackways are still there in the park, makeshift wooden fencing on each side. It appears they are connecting two major poo pipelines in the N16 area. This morning two blokes had a suction tube down a large manhole, presumably sucking up liquid shit then transporting to a part of the country that's suffering from a runny faeces deficit.

Is this Spring?

Yesterday - 7th January - I saw the first ladybird of Spring. It landed on the screen of my Imac while I was checking the latest Premiership table. Then the phone rang. It was a woman from the Alliance and Leicester asking if I'd like a loan. They're pissed off with me because I recently paid off the balance on my credit card and are trying strong-arm tactics to get me back on the high interest bandwagon. After I'd told her to get lost I went back to play with my new insect friend. But the ladybird had gone.

It rained all day today. Various little streams have appeared in the roads, all pouring down the Hackney Brook valley at different points. The two biggest run down Green Lanes and diagonally North-East through Clissold Park towards Grazebrook Road. I was splashing about in one of them when a car horn hooted and a woman leaned out of the window, fag in mouth, looking at me. I walked over to the car.
- Are you lost?
- What?
- What?
Then she stared past me, up at the block of flats accross the road, and blew smoke on my waterproof.

Sportsjackets in the Strand

Seeing as I was barred from using Stoke Newington library due to by inability to let go of their copy of 'Water Nymphs and Fairies', I decide to venture into town and browse around for stuff in the huge new Waterstones in Picadilly that used to be Simpsons department store. We went along for their closing down sale. Every tweedy sports jacket in the country had been rounded up here before being taken off to the countryside to be shot and burned on huge pyres. My Dad, who likes sportsjackets and has been wearing them since 1957, caressed them longingly but decided not to buy. I asked a sales assistant if they had anything about the masons and underground rivers. Sorry sir, this is a clothes shop. Come back in a few months time when Waterstones will ve here,