The short story

I am diverging from writing about London to comment on something more personal - the art of story telling, to be precise the art of short story writing. I am doing this because my blog entries are indeed a form of short story telling which in every sense is an internal construct  of the mind - my mind to be precise.

This isn’t a story but a stream of consciousness muse about short story writing and all that there is to it. I find writing stories a bit difficult at times cos of the need to be creative around them, which can be intense, particularly for a restless soul like me, who loves to do a thousand and one things at a time.

With the short story you are obviously creating something from nothing and that in itself takes inspiration to do. I find short stories most difficult to write, largely because you have to pack a punch into a few pages and drive it through to a definite end. For that reason, I’m not exactly an avid fan of reading short stories as I find them limited in scope and sometimes exasperating. Nevertheless, they can be very rewarding, and can be used to express a view about any given situation.

A short story to a writer is a like portrait painting to an artist (I paint by the way). You are painting life and the paper or word processor is your canvas. Your pen or keyboard is the brush and your finished work whether in book form or published article is your work of art. In that sense, short stories have served as a great vehicle for painting portraits of life, for vignettes of the mind and of the heart and of getting particular views across. I can always reveal my concerns about issues by penning a fable that loosely demonstrates the situation at hand, without directly getting involved – but allowing the characters to act it out independently off my direct control (I like to think that it is). This can usually lead to revealing results, for example, things you’d never expect to be the outcome of an interplay of characters and situations may crop up midway or at the end of the story.

In the end,  your view point about a situation might change as you might just see things from a different perspective or from multiple perspectives depending on the number of characters involved. This is what is satisfying about writing short stories. The unsatisfying bit can be the limited scope offered by one’s canvas. For the short story writer does not have the luxury of bright and bold brush strokes that enables the novelist paint life in as many layers of colour as they can afford.

As a writer I try to be as objectives as possible, but I understand that objectivity is relative and after all it is your story, conjured up from the relative depths and subjectivity of your mind or subconscious into reality. It is the sum total of our thoughts on a given theme/subject matter and at the end of the day, it is an expression of your mind.

The Illusion of Gentrification

The train arrives at last and I get to leave this godawful platform. The train is packed with people with a strong sense of purpose. With a strong sense of going somewhere fast. The Victoria line heads ultimately to Brixton if you’re heading south and to Walthamstow if you’re heading north.

I am headed for Brixton too, not for a good time but because I live there, in a more practical and sensible way and for more practical, sensible reasons. Not in the way that Chloe, Bert, Pippa and Ollie do. I say I live in Brixton or at least I used to till it all changed for the better of for worse depending on whose opinion you are seeking.

Brixton, that veritable hotbed of ethnic dissent and crime, once loathed by everyone except its natives and now neutered and loved-up by the seeds of gentrification and trendification planted in the last five years. Everyone 16-30 heads down there these days, drawn by a tsunami of fickle trendiness, that has sucked up the shores of Clapham, Balham and Battersea – once hotbeds of the same fickle-minded folk – and spat its debris of youth on the shores of Brixton. The place is crawling with them. They have a reason for being here.

Chloe and Bert and the married couple Pippa and Ollie are typical examples of people who come to London from the shires, who can’t afford to live in London but desperately want to live in London but can’t afford to live in Zone One and so, desperately want to live in Zone Two and so came to Brixton, which they sort of can afford as they cannot afford anywhere else in the area outside of Streatham and Camberwell.

Chloe (ex Chichester) and Bert (ex Aylesbury) live in a trendy flat off Effra Lane, in a house that was once a half way house for drug addicts, only thing is Chloe and Bert do not know that the house was once a half way house. It has been tarted up to cater for them because all Chloe and Bert and their next door neighbours Pippa (ex Lincoln) and Ollie (ex Hastings) and their two kids (both born in Edgeware), care about is that its is a stone throw away from their beloved Hootenany pub and a bus ride away from Mama Lan and Moo Burgers at their beloved Brixton Market and their heaving high street, which to most people including Brixton natives, is there for more practical purposes i.e. as a walk-through to get to where you’re going on the quick march. It is also irrelevant to Chloe and Bert and Pippa and Ollie that this is a scene repeated almost everywhere in Zones 1 and 2 in different variations.

One of the last of the SW postcodes save Streatham and parts of Tooting to be gentrified, Brixton, was once a no-go area for most of the middle classes save for the hard-of-mind and free of spirit. However, its cheap but solid terraces and council estates, have become a late hot spot in the game of hot spotting. The game which involves Estate Agents with the collusion of the media turning a once vilified crime and grit neighbourhood into a desirable one. This usually happens for two reasons – sky-high property prices and housing shortages occurring elsewhere, particularly in more desirable areas and the need for estate agents to make profits and the media to shape opinion.

The media and the Estate Agent who convinced the Chloes and Berts and Pippas and Ollies of this world to move to Brixton, convinced them on the basis that the once no-go ethnocentric Brixton market and the perilous Coldharbour Lane had gentrified to the point that it had now become a ‘so, so cool’ hotspot that everyone wants to live there, as if no one had ever lived there or thought of moving there before. Chloe and Bert were hooked on the idea and so were Pippa and Ollie. For one thing, they have no choice. They cannot afford renting or buying elsewhere in this part of Zone 2. An equivalent one-up, one-down property in Clapham or Balham next door is completely unaffordable unless you have in excess of a million to blow, neither are the big houses of Herne Hill and Dulwich or the expensive Kensingston-like squares and terraces behind the council estates of Stockwell which sell for millions of pounds. There are million pound homes at the end of Brixton and Streatham Hill but to be honest those homes are marketed as being part of Tooting Bec, despite having what is essentially a Brixton SW2 postcode. The reason being that in spite of the hype, you do not part with a million pounds to live in a bog standard London neighbourhood unless you are mad.

Streatham which is cheaper, is still being snubbed for being Streatham but if you scratch beneath the surface you will find exactly the same processes at work there as in Brixton. The once vilified Streatham High Street and Streatham Hill are now the darlings of gentri-pushers such as Foxtons who have recently opened shop in Brixton and Streatham after years of ignoring both areas.

Equally, yummy mummies unable to afford Clapham or Balham but who still find Brixton a tad distasteful for their postcode palates convince themselves that they are getting more for their money in Streatham which has grander homes in remote cut-off areas. Truth is that they could have got more for their money anyway without trying to convince themselves.

Now as the steady stream of property inflation refugees arrive to colonize Brixton’s terraces, others have caught on as the smell of young new money wafts through the streets accompanied by buggies and scooters in tow. So they have plunked several Sainsbury’s Locals and Tesco Metros up the hill for the newly arrived as if hitherto, only cattle lived up the hill and not humans who deserve proper shops. They are opening a big Sainsbury’s at the Water Lane junction, again for the newly arrived as if hitherto, the native animals who lived up there deserved nothing better than to trek to the shabby Tesco on Acre Lane or Sainsbury’s in Clapham, a mile away.

Even the shabby Tesco on Acre Lane has notched up a gear to welcome the new arrivals – the humans who matter, and so has the once-shabby M&S on Brixton High Road and the newly plunked TK Maxx and H&M – both of which once sold cheap tat.

Lets take it frankly – central Brixton is traffic choked, smog filled and teeming with petty crime, the market is passable but is gradually being taken over by over-hyped micro start up restaurants and quickly assembled glossy bars. Soon the over-hyped start-ups will either moprh into expensive places for the incomers or eventually close down because the attractive cheap rents and rates will soon be a thing of the past and the chains will move in.

Already, the native long-term residents are beginning to pay the price as stall rates are hiked to get them out, house rents are hiked to get them out, house prices (already expensive) are hiked so that no one can move locally and have to leave the area so that more economically desirable elements can move in.

The local council has also been actively selling off its huge swath of social housing, particularly the many terraces and semi detached homes, it once doled out to South London’s disadvantaged. Roads are hastily tarred and tarted up and police patrols increased. Even the once notorious Coldharbour Lane has been cleared of its drugged and drunken debris to make way for incomers. Old mansion blocks and hastily constructed luxury apartments are quickly replacing long-boarded up shells as gentrification intensifies apace. The difference between all of this and what has happened in area such as Clapham, Balham and Battersea is pace. These areas became gentrified sporadically over a long period of time, in Brixton this has all happened within a few years – the last three years to be precise.

What no one dares to admit and especially the new arrivals, is that they are in Brixton for one reason, not out of choice but out of lack of choice in one crucial and all determining respect – house price inflation. This means that you have to go where your money takes you even if it means following an illusion.

It is important to note that none of the crap being sold or rented to incomers in Brixton and elsewhere is really worth the price in real terms and that inflation is the oil in the wheel that drives the market, therefore Brixton, like Peckham and Hackney and everywhere else in gritland can suddenly be made to appear more attractive to the cash-strapped middle class buyer through the illusion of gentrification.

London's villages - Separating fact from fiction.

Does where you live really matter that much? In London, this seems to be a big deal. More so because of spiralling property prices, estate agent's lies and the media making it out to be the case. An area is either in or out and buying or renting a home in London is akin to playing real-life Monopoly. Politics also plays a role. Some papers such as London's Evening Standard (ES) will usually judge an area according to its property value and primary political affiliation, i.e. whether it is Tory or Labour run. In the right wing ES, the Tory neighbourhood always wins, and is up-played in all stakes as opposed to the downplaying of other well-heeled but non-conservative-voting London neighbourhoods such as Islington, Blackheath, Dulwich, Clapham or Camden. For example, the ES often describes the working class industrial relic 'Battersea' as a genteel middle class London village, oh so full of people escaping the oligarch-choked environs of Chelsea, but of course, never forget that the owner of the ES is a Chelsea-based Russian Oligarch or son of one - whose interest it is to defend the rights of the wealthy.

The ES' language is often paternalistic towards Battersea and is meant to highlight the superiority and non-affordability of  traditionally wealthy areas such as Kensington and Chelsea and other neighbouring Tory-voting areas in Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham as much as it is aimed at trumpeting the non-existent values of upstarts such as Battersea as an evolving Tory experiment. In all cases, these areas often win in the ES' good neighbourhood stakes.

Anyway to separate fact from fiction, you have to visit SW11 for yourself to decide whether this corner of Wandsworth is actually the genteel London village that it is trumpeted to be and whether it is really worth paying top notch pounds to live there.  First thing they never mention in the ES is that the Battersea skyline is dominated by council estates, small working-men's terraces and derelict brownfield sites as a testament to its working class industrial past, which no amount of social-engineering by Wandsworth Council can erase completely. Secondly the Battersea waterfront is littered with brutal plastic and concrete prefabricated condos that for the love of God costs an arm and leg to rent or buy despite their ugliness. They are waterfront Ghettos for the rich who can't afford to live in K&C on the other side of the river but who would nevertheless be happy to stare across.

For the record, there are many parts of Battersea that appear to be genteel because of the local population strata induced to live there by Wandsworth Council's low council tax and neighbouring Chelsea's expensiveness, rather than the aesthetics of the area. Dulwich in Labour-run Southwark and Clapham and Brixton in Labour-run Lambeth are actually aesthetically more pleasing on the eye and have better housing stock than Battersea i.e. outside of the small Battersea park area, however you wouldn't guess that from the accolades heaped on this once communist-voting neighbourhood by the ES and occasionally by the Telegraph.

The rest of London suffers from a similar dichotomy at the hands of the media and estate agents. London isn't the most aesthetically pleasing of cities. Paris and Prague and Edinburgh are better looking, but London maintains a vibrancy and a capacity to re-invent itself (at lightening speed) which none of those cities can match and therein lies its secret to success.

Living in London should be about living in a vibrant but secure, clean and affordable neighbourhood with access to good transport links, schools and a healthy housing stock, however nowhere in London London can truly meet all of those criteria in a nutshell, therefore you as an individual, will have to make a few compromises in choosing those characteristics that are most important to you when planning to settle into a London neighbourhood.

Forget the media hype and get real!

Happy Theftmas

I was about to cancel my home contents insurance in October when what must have been in hindsight, my subconscious intuition, I decided at the last minute not to cancel, little did I know that two months down the line my flat would be burgled for the first and only time I've lived there in 8 years. I came home that fateful friday afternoon to find my door ajar. I had had nightmare scenarios of this happening before but it never came to past until last Friday 20 December 2013. The police were very helpful, but forensics could not find any evidence of whodunnit as they must have worn gloves. Anyway my room was overturned and my main laptop, Ipad which in hindsight I should have taken out with me was stolen along with my Belkin Ipad keyboard case and all the Christmas presents I had bought for friends and family. Luckily I had my Nexus 7 and Chromebook on me.  After discovering the crime I called the police. I have since been philosophical about it, after all this is London and these things do happen, particularly around Christmas time. Desperate people take desperate measures.

You can't legislate for where theft and burglary can take place, in theory some areas of London are safer than others, however in practice this is just an assumption as most burglars apart from drug addicts, do not target their home turfs but would usually go to wealthier patches to operate.  Places like Notting Hill, Clapham, Battersea, Balham, Dulwich, parts of Hampstead, Ladbroke Grove, Islington, Camden and all of Hackney Borough are primary examples of affluent but naked neighbourhoods surrounded by less affluent or deprived neighbourhoods. I'm not saying people living in less affluent areas are more likely to produce burglars and thieves, however neighbourhoods with a higher than average level of social and economic deprivation often have higher crime levels than more affluent areas with high employment levels. With London's population of affluent, less affluent and poor living cheek by jowl, the chances of burglaries occurring locally can be higher than imagined.

The human art of labeling

I thought I should say something about the art of labeling as it applies to our society today and how Londoners and in particular the London media have taken this art form to heart for better or for worse.

Firstly this essay is in two halves, the first half is heavy and considers the evil outcomes of labeling or stereotyping in recent history. Second half,  on a more light hearted note, considers London's post-modern labeling trend. Trend not culture, as there is often nothing that is permanent about London. This city functions like its famous pop-ups - here today, gone tomorrow!

I don't believe in labeling or stereotyping things and I hate the idea, but yes, there are instances when you should label stuff for practical reasons e.g. labeling cans of food or pharmaceuticals for  identification purposes, but not when we start to apply this principle to humans as if it is the most natural thing to do, but who says it isn't? We've had to label things since the dawn of man, in order to survive, therefore this art form is inherent within us, we're even labeled at birth with a name and a surname, which we carry through life as if our very existence depended on it.

I know I am stating the obvious and contradicting myself afterwards, but yes do these labels really mean that much to us humans? Do we really need to label everything? I think the answer lies within our post-Garden of Eden psyche. After eating the forbidden fruit - the fruit of knowledge (and shall I say 'of sin') - we became so knowledgeable to the point of losing our animal instincts for survival. Thus being the most knowledgeable but physically among the weakest of animal species, man had to label things in order to discriminate between what was or wasn't essential or right or wrong for its survival, this included other human beings and every other living and non living thing under the sun (and now, beyond it), for it is through active labeling that we live our lives, even our speech is made up of a string of labels and we question everything on the basis of which label is right or wrong or good or bad for us and for those around us. Thus before and during the second world  war, for example, the German National Socialists branded themselves as NAZIs, labeled every non-Jewish white European as Aryan, labeled the Jews 'Inferior' and proceeded to exterminate them from the face of the earth.

Closer to our times the Hutus of Rwanda labeled the Tutsis as 'Cockroaches' and proceeded to murder almost a million people in the space of two months. Our obsession with finding polarity in everything, from the standpoint of good or evil, right or wrong has affected everything we touch or encounter, in fact our rational for existence stems from the art of labeling to survive. Our religions are essentially belief labels, used to distinguish ourselves from each other, as are the languages we speak and the foods we eat. Essentially a label is a method for distinguishing things into good or bad by the human psyche or better put by the egoic-self - that part of us that is in constant conflict with itself and with everyone else.

Now coming to London, (and on a light hearted note) - here the art of labeling is at its most advanced albeit without the aim of physical annihilation. We live in a media controlled society, largely thanks to the ubiquitous presence of digital media - the smartphone, tablet, laptop and PC, which all enhance the labeling experience, along with the ever present social networking sites Facebook, Google Plus, Youtube Yahoo, Buzzfeed, Twitter, Bing, Instagram and Flickr plus numerous magazines, newspapers, TV and Radio. We are wired in 24-7 except when asleep. Views are shaped primarily by and through these media. Crowd surfing is a game apparently!

In London, labeling has become a sophisticated artform because apart from being an ever present reminder of where we slot in under the English class system, it is often used to tie us to locations and lifestyles. Living in a big, vibrant and fast moving metropolis, Londoners have taken their addiction for labeling things even further from splitting the city into boroughs and postcodes to tagging individual localities with good or bad labels, usually by the media (Evening Standard, Metro) and depending on a range of parameters such as modern tribal affiliations, ethnicity, religion, wealth and poverty.

The most recent and most interesting is  that of artificial tribal labels. Usually people do not consciously select the individuals they live with in an area, however, the art of tribal-zoning is usually consciously done by the popular media. For example the word hipster was cached from New York (Brooklyn) to represent arty, sophisticated and edgy young people with an edge for promoting the untried and untested. This tribe initially congregated around gritty Hoxton Square and Shoreditch in the London Borough of Hackney before fanning out to colonise the rest of the Borough - Dalston, Clapton, Hackney and parts of Tower Hamlets such as Bethnal Green and Bow. Likewise in the mid nineties the Clapham- Wandsworth Nappy Valley became the spiritual home of the Yummy Mummy (glamorous professional mothers with strollers) tribe and Clapham Common the home of the young and trendy professional tribe.  It wasn't long before Label hungry Londoners began to affiliate themselves  with both tribes and fanned out to found identical colonies elsewhere.

Nowadays gullible young people and the not-so-young slaves of social media will gravitate towards and congregate with their label flocks in specified London locations even at a premium, just to belong. Here's what the London location labeling system has achieved:

Ultra-hip Hipsters flock to Hackney, Dalston and Shoreditch,
Arty-types to New Cross, Bethnal Green, Woolwich and Peckham,
Left-wing politicians to Kennington
Young professionals to Balham and Clapham,
Designers to Clerkenwell and Fitzrovia
Breeding Professionals  to Wandsworth and Chiswick,
Techno-geek's to Old Street (now labeled silicon junction by the media)
Chattering classes to Islington and Clapham
Alternatives to Camden
Oligarchs and foreign money to Kensington and Chelsea
Old money to Richmond, Holland Park, Hampstead, St Johns Wood
New money to Notting Hill and Battersea
Bankers to Notting Hill, St Johns Wood, Docklands and Clapham
Affluent and not-so-affluent pot-heads now want to live in Brixton purportedly to be close to Brixton Market but in reality to buy or rent Brixton's no longer affordable housing in order to be permanently near their dealers!

Aha! One can only laugh!

The Fame Game - Part 1

I have been following the X-Factor for years now. It's considered naff TV by many people but it's a guilty pleasure for me, however I've only ever watched the post boot-camp finals, so maybe that's an explanation aimed at softening my naff credentials. Anyway suffice it to say that I feel for the fame hungry kids who try their best on the show but end up in tears every weekend, many are far better singers than the guest stars who appear every Sunday night, many of whom are not a by-product of reality shows like X-factor but who nonetheless, struggle to belt out a decent tune even when compared to the X-Factor contestants.

Take Cheryl Cole for instance a classical case of looks over substance. Sweet Cheryl can do no wrong. Sweet Cheryl our national treasure whose ice thin singing voice requires substantial auto-tuning to be half heard. Her stint on the X-factor was awash in what you might call fake Cancerian tears, the type that Cancerians such as the late Princess Diana resort to in order to emotionally blackmail a partner (or nation) into giving them the adulation they so crave and it worked for Cheryl, cos year after year her emotionally railroaded nation voted her contestants into winning the show.

It beggars the question as to the value of shows like the X Factor and whether they are really talent hunting competitions or just a sadistic game show - a modern day Gladiatorial show where young talents are sacrificed by the nation after mauling each other at the O2 Coliseum. We all sit there in our arm chairs like ancient Romans in the coliseum cheering on our Gladiators in their quest for fame. The only difference is that they maul each other with their voices and we the audience get the privilege of killing each one off every weekend with our mobile phones as we sit back in our weekend armchairs as decision making extras.

The public's obsession with the grotesque reality TV genre began with the Big Brother series in 2000 and has grown from strength to strength, since the discovery that you can became famous by showing off on TV became de rigeur. While talent hunt competitions such as Britain's Got Talent and the X-Factor provide some cultural and entertainment value however banal shows like Big Brother, I'm a Celebrity and Come Dine With me to mind numbing moronic reality shows such as MTV's the Valleys, Geordie Shore and Jersey Shore offer nothing but mediocrity. Yet one wonders why the public continues to lap them up or perhaps their producers assume they have the watch factor. One theory is that those shows are aimed at mind control through onscreen display of the most mind numbing idiotic behaviour.
To be continued...

 

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London's property porn

Londoner's have more reasons to be obsessed by property prices than those living elsewhere on the sceptered and emerald isles. House prices are astronomically high and many accidental millionaires have been created out of being fortunate to own homes in particular areas.

London is now a giant board of monopoly with literally every postcode having a shot. And so have the estate agents who have fuelled the bubble over the years - you know who I mean- the Foxtons,  Hamptons, Chesterton Humberts and Savills of this world. The good and bad thing is that everyone pretends not to be interested in the matter but are indeed interested and take pride and joy in knowing that the house values in their areas no matter how grotty are sky rocketing beyond the reach of mere mortals. This is more so in inner London which has become untouchable by the standards of most people living in the UK, it has long become a market for foreign investors.

The estate agents and their property magazines and internet sites such as Right Move and Zoopla are at the cutting edge of fuelling London's appetite for property porn. That obsession with keeping up with the values of your home, street, postcode and patch of London through the internet, Evening Standard and the many area-focused property magazines such as the Move to, Absolute and Resident brands.  The property market in London can thus be categorised along the following biblical pecking order:

1.  The Inner Sanctuary  (super prime London - nearly all Zone 1s) - Chelsea, Kensington, Holland Park, Belgravia, Knightsbridge, Notting Hill, St Johnswood, Hampstead, Primrose Hill, Regents Park, Marylebone, Mayfair

2.  The Inner Temple (Prime London - Mostly Zone 2s long gentrified areas) - Richmond, Barnes, High Gate, Pimlico, Victoria, Wimbledon/Wimbledon Village, Putney, Clapham, Islington, North Dulwich & Dulwich Village, Fulham, Chiswick, Parsons Green, Battersea, Wandsworth, Docklands, Clerkenwell, Bayswater, Paddington, Earls Court, East and West Finchley, Golders Green, Belsize Park, Covent Garden, Muswell Hill, Harrow-on-the Hill

3.  The Outer Temple (mix of zone 2s & 3s with some prime outer London areas - usually trendy and hip inner London quarters or expensive outer London) - Bermondsey Riverside, Kings Cross, Euston, West Hampstead, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, Highbury, Canonbury, Queens Park, Camden town,  Crouch end, Shoreditch and Hoxton, London Bridge, Borough, Balham, Herne Hill, East Dulwich, Blackheath, Kentish Town, Hammersmith, Shepherds Bush, Ealing,  Greenwich, Twickenham, Barnet, Dalston, Stoke Newington, Victoria Park, Kensal Rise, Ladbroke Grove/North Kensington Barons Court, Hendon, Chalk Farm

4.  The Forecourt (mix of zone 2s and 3s - newly gentrified or fast gentrifying) -  Brixton & Brixton Hill, Clapham North, Camberwell, Stockwell, Hackney, Clapton, Forest Hill, Crystal Palace, Kennington, Vauxhall, Acton, Tooting Bec, Wilsden Green, Kilburn, Bethnal Green, Bow, Whitechapel, Peckham, Southfields, Earlsfileds, South Wimbledon, Bermondsey, New Cross,  ,

5.  The Yard (zones 3-5 - slow but gradually gentrifying) - Harrow, Stratford, Ilford, Wanstead, Streatham, Wilesden etc,  Isleworth, Hounslow, Gypsy Hill, West Norwood, Tulse Hill, South Twickenham, Pinner, Tooting,  Nunhead, Sydenham, Brockley

6. The Backyard (zones 4-6 mainly but includes ungentrified inner london patches) - Barking, Dagenham, East Ham, Plaistow, Leyton, Walthamstow, Tottenham, Morden, Mitcham, Harlesden, Neasden, Stepney,  Lewisham, Hithergreen, Charlton, Catford, Forestgate, Plaistow, Romford, Feltham, Penge, Anerley, Leytonstone, Norbury, Bromley-by Bow

7.  The Provinces (zone 4-6 and beyond and usually does not have a London Postcode) -   Bromley, Beckenham, Teddington, Sutton, the Croydons, Enfield, Hampton, Bexley, Chislehurst, Havering,  Hampton, UXbridge, Hillingdon, Kingston, Surbiton, Norbiton, High Barnet