... everybody is sitting at their computers tapping away about 'stuff'. In 100 years time when people look back at jobs in the year 2005 they'll presume that a blogger was some kind of lumberjack cum farm hand who cadged drinks at parties. See the London Bloggers - .
The Robinson Crusoe
Estate pub located at the south west corner of Clissold Park, in the infamous Stoke Newington/Highbury border country. Comfy decor - wallpaper is William Morris on LSD, carpet a distracting jumble of unrelated motifs and patterns. Guinness is good and not too expensive. Local dads sit glancing at the fotoball on the big screen and keeping an eye on their kids, who are allowed to dance and sing and chat up the barmaids. Old photos of the Arsenal on the walls, including what looks like a detailed monochrome study of Cliff Bastin's false teeth.
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 Tree's Time Has Come
More old trees in Clissold Park are being cut down. Some of the gnarled horse chestnut trees in the south west corner have seemingy died in the last year and spent the summer without leaves. Now they wear an X and wait for the chainsaw. Two came down last week and another three will soon follow. One of them has purple rangs tied around various branches in some kind of North London tribute the the 70s song 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree'. But everyone fears that the oldest and most beautiful tree, on a little mound in the middle of the park, will soon be firewood.
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.
The Salisbury, Green Lanes, Harringay
A big beautiful late 19th Century hotel that endured a slow decline into draughty old man's pub, The Salisbury has been done up in the last couple of years and this has been carried out sensitively and stylishly, unlike a lot of the crude pub makeovers of the last half decade. Many of the old features remain - lovely glasswork, big centrepiece bar, high ornate ceiling and balding 40-something blokes lounging around and talking about football. Not the greatest Guinness in the world but there are usually some nice, though expensive, ales like ESB and Honeydew.
Harringay comes from the Old English 'Hoering's woodland enclosure'. A nice article about the difference betwen Harringay and Haringey here.
Edit - It's been pointed out to me that there is further info for 'Harringay origins' enthusiasts at Harringay Online.
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'."
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Watched this film for the first time in over 20 years. It takes a while to get used to the high 40s RP accents of the main actos, but it's a gem. Loved the bit where the slightly pissed Canon d'Ascoyne, played by Alec Guinness, says to Mazzini, "the port is with you." George Lucas must have been an Ealing Comedy fan.
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/
'Never Let Her Slip Away'
This morning I was sitting on the top deck of a no. 19 bus. Around Highbury Corner the conductor started to whistle the tune to Andrew Gold's 'Never Let Her Slip Away'. He whistled it from there all the way to where I got off near to the old Penny Black pub on Exmouth Market/Rosebery Avenue (can't remember what it's called now - something like Le Cafe Pretentious). I said to him "I haven't heard Andrew Gold's 'Never Let Her Slip Away' for about 20 years. Cheers for that."
"Was it by Andrew Gold?" he said. "I just know the tune. I had no idea who it was by."
"You should listen to it and learn to whistle the intro. It's got these lovely off the beat organ chrods."
"Thanks, I will," he said.
The Wonderful Korg MS-10
There's really only one way of making the sound of wind and that's with a Korg MS-10. In fact, if you recorded the sound of real wind and played it after listening to the wind sound of the Korg MS-10, you would think the Korg was the real thing. But this fantastic old synthesizer is not just for making wind type effects (even though, as I've already stated, it is FANTASTIC at that) - it's also great for doing a handclap sound if you can't get hold of enough people in the studio to make good syncopated 'real' handclaps. What's that? You need to duplicate the sound of a jet engine taking off but you're miles from the nearest airport? No worries, the Korg MS-10 can do that too.
And if someone knocks on your door and says "Shite - I need to get a bass synth sound just like Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft used. Any ideas?" you simply smile and hand them your Korg MS-10. Just for a lend, of course.
Saluting magpies on a sunny morning
"Hello Mr Magpie!" I whispered, as I reached the north eastern sector of Clissold Park. Why do I do this? I used to think it was kind of commercial TV brainwashing from the 1970s kids show (Magpie was presented by ex-hippies). But apparently it goes back even further than the 70s, to our fear of the devil or some celtic deity.
Some interpretations of the myth
here.
However, I'm convinced that it's something to do with leprechauns.
Postman Patter
Bright sunshine and cold breezes this morning, as befits the first official day of Autumn. The postman says there are no letters for us today but that we can have some rubber bands.
"What for?" I ask.
"For the kids. So they can make, er, space rockets and stuff."
He roots around in his postman wheelie trolley and fishes out a large handful of big thick brown rubber bands.
"Do you have any used toilet rolls as well, then?"
"What for?"
"Well, to make the rockets."
He smiles and sticks up a thumb. "Arsenal!" he says, and starts to walk up the hill.
London Calling
Seemingly out of the blue, my friend Lee asked me yesterday if I knew that The Clash had recorded the London Calling album in Highbury. It's the kind of anal-retentive conversational nugget I usually love to hoard away for a rainy day but on this occasion I was out analretentived. Apparently it was at Wessex Studios, at the old church on Highbury New Park. Maybe it's St. Augustines. When quizzed Lee admitted he'd seen an article about it in the Independent a few weeks ago. But I feel a trick was missed in The Groundwater Diaries in terms of local history and the punk influence on hidden London.
What Lee didn't tell me, and which I had to find out myself at the University of The Clash's history archive, was the mention of Blackstock Road's bus in the song 'Rudie Can't Fail':
"Sing, Michael, sing-on the route of the 19 Bus
Hear them sayin'
How you get a rude and a reckless?
Don't you be so crude and a feckless
You been drinking brew for breakfast
Rudie can't fail"
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.
Football
Two teams of eleven players* each try to kick a ball into their opponents' goal over two forty five minute periods.
* Hard drinking slapheads who love drinking, gambling and snooker.
The Coronet, Holloway Road
Former grand cinema now yet another rambling Wetherspoons pub, good ale, no music, parties of OAPs getting hammered on the cheap beer. Good place for daytime drinking, if that's your thing (and it can be beautiful) escaping from the fumes and nutters of Holloway Road. Close your eyes and let the Spitfire take hold of your brain then imagine Margaret Lockwood in The Wicked Lady, showing for the fifth time that day, people smoking Woodbines in the row behind you - "Blimey, Guv'nor, India's gorn and won independence."
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.