Davblog

In which someone you've never heard of writes about things you have no interest in

Archive for the ‘london’ Category

Parking in Balham

You’ll often hear people saying that Mail writers live in a different world to the rest of us. Actually, I think that they live in the same world as us, they just like to think that they live in a different one. The fun and games start when they discover they are wrong and that the real world doesn’t appreciate their over-developed sense of entitlement.

Here’s a good case in point. Melissa Kite lives somewhere near me in Balham. Melissa is a serial parking offender. Of course, Melissa doesn’t see it quite like that. Melissa describes herself as being a victim of “bear traps” laid by councils to trick motorists who dare to park on their patch. When she parked up at Balham tube station “at 8pm for ten seconds in order to pick up a friend who was coming to stay with me and who was weighed down with luggage” she was appalled to be given an £80 fine.

And there’s that sense of entitlement. This is what really annoys me about people like Melissa. There are parking restrictions around Balham station. They have been there for as long as I can remember and they are clearly marked. But because they are inconvenient for her, she feels she is perfectly justified in ignoring them. Balham station is at junction where two busy roads cross. The parking restrictions are there for a good reason (and, no, not to make money for the council – to prevent congestion). They aren’t there to trick people like Melissa.

But we can find out more about Melissa’s parking problems with Wandsworth council. She wrote about a very similar incident in the Evening Standard a year ago. This gives more details of the offence. She was parking in a taxi rank. The taxi rank is a relatively new innovation. It’s been there three or four years. But, once again, it’s clearly marked. And, once again, Melissa chose to ignore that because it was inconvenient for her. She also mentions four other offences where she was picking someone up or dropping them off at the station and chose to park in a restricted area.

Amusingly, she even describes a telephone conversation she had with someone from Wandsworth council.

I rang Wandsworth council to tell them this but their spokesman sounded distinctly unimpressed. “Well, I don’t know what you were doing there,” he said.

“But I’ve just told you,” I said. “I was picking up a friend.”

He sighed: “People come up with all sorts of stories.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re asking me to assume that everything you’re saying is the truth.”

At which point I confess I raised my voice a little: “Yes I am!”

“Right,” he harrumphed, “you’re shouting, I’m ending the call.” And he slammed the phone down.

So I rang the parking department, where someone called Angelo explained that when running errands I should always stop on single yellow lines

There’s that sense of entitlement again. She honestly seems to believe that “I was picking up a friend” is a reasonable excuse for ignoring the parking restrictions. Balham Station Road would be in chaos for most of the day if everyone chose to ignore the rules because they were “just picking up a friend”.

Then there’s this lovely paragraph from the end of her article.

Very soon, Westminster council will abolish free parking on a single yellow line in the evenings. And when they do so, I will stop going up West on a Tuesday night as I have done for the past six years to meet a group of friends with whom I have dinner in a Lebanese restaurant.That restaurant will lose us as regular customers forever, and goodness knows how many others.

If only she lived in a city where there was a quick and efficient public transport system. Perhaps something that whisked passengers to their destination through underground tubes. I know travelling on the tube can be a bit of a nightmare in rush hour. But on a Tuesday night, it should be fine. Or perhaps people like Melissa are too self-important to mix with the rest of us in a confined space like that.

There may, of course, be a serious point to her objections. Perhaps the parking restrictions are too draconian. Never let it be said that I object to a nice bit of civil disobedience to protest against bad laws. But you need to be prepared to take the punishment. You can’t expect to have the fine waived just because it’s inconvenient to you.

Actually, this is all academic to me. Like the vast majority of sane Londoners we don’t have a car. Most weekends I walk to the supermarket and carry the shopping home. If it’s going to be a huge shop then we’ll order on the internet and get it delivered. And if friends arrive at Balham station overburdened with luggage then we’ll offer to meet them there and help them carry it home. If we’re feeling particularly lazy we might offer to pay for them to get a taxi. From the rank right outside the station. Assuming it’s not full of idiots with 4x4s and an over-developed sense of entitlement.

Livery Halls

Long time readers (and followers of my Flickr stream) might remember that a couple of years ago I developed an obsession with taking photos of the City of London Livery Halls. The obsession waned when I stop working in the City but over the last couple of weeks I’ve been wandering around the city a bit and have noticed some maps pointing to halls that aren’t in my collection yet. So at some point soon I’ll start trying to get photos of those (I think I’m missing half dozen or so).

But then I started thinking about maybe organising a walk round the City one weekend to see as many of the halls as possible. And, of course, in order to do that you need a map showing where they all are. And the easiest way to plot random points on a map is to use the “My Maps” feature in Google Maps.

So, after a couple of hours work – here is a map showing the London Livery Halls. Actually, currently it only shows the ones I’ve photographed. I’ll add the missing ones soon. I’ll also add more information to each pin – the address, a link to their web site and perhaps a photo. But I think it’s interesting and useful as it stands, so I thought it was working mentioning it even though it’s still a work in progress.

Ripper Victim #2

It’s only the second victim, but already I’m running late.

On September 8th, 1888, at about 5:50am, the body of Annie Chapman was found in Hanbury St, Spitalfields, London. This was just over a week after the murder of Polly Nichols. The next murder in the series wasn’t for another three weeks.

Death Anniversaries

The British press is, of course, busy getting all overexcited about one particular death that happened on this date. But there’s another, to my mind far more interesting, death anniversary today.

It was 119 years today that the body of Mary Ann Nichols (usually know as Polly Nichols) was found in Buck’s Row, London. Nichols is generally accepted as the first victim of Jack the Ripper. The deaths of the other four victims followed over the next ten weeks. I’ll note the anniversaries as they arrive.

Years ago I was planning to organise a walking tour of all of the sites associated with the Ripper murders. Currently I’m working within walking distance of most of them. I’ve really got no excuse for not getting on with that.

Maybe I’ll have something ready in time for the 120th anniversary next year.

BKB Closes Down

The Balham Kitchen and Bar has closed down. It has been sold to Sam Harrison (who owns a place called Sam’s Brasserie & Bar in Chiswick). It will reopen in September under the new name Harrison’s.

The BKB won’t be missed. I’ve only been there a couple of times in the four years that it’s been open, but that’s because every time I’ve gone the food has been average and the staff have been very unhelpful. Not what you expect from what is probably the most expensive restaurant in Balham.

I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again, but if you want a top-notch restaurant in Balham then you should really try Lamberts.

We’ll be trying Harrison’s when it opens though. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Flash Flood

I monitor an RSS feed of all photos uploaded to Flickr with the tag “balham”. Which is how I came across this set of photos of a flash flood in Balham today.

I’m trying to work out how close to my house this was. And vaguely dreading what I’ll find when I get home this evening.

Finding Myself

I’ve just worked out where I am. By which I mean I’ve just had one of those moments when I join up two previously unrelated parts of my mental map of London.

I’m working in Appold St, which is just to the north of Broadgate. I get here in the morning by taking the tube to Moorgate and walking from there. For the past week, when I’ve been going out at lunchtime I’ve been going back south to Broadgate and Liverpool St. Today I decided I’d go the other way – and head north.

Just north of my office, Appold St becomes Curtain Road. And that’s when I realised where I was – I’m in Shoreditch. Or Hoxton if you want to be trendy (and play a bit fast and loose with geography).

When I first moved to London, I lived in university halls of residence at the western end of Old St. Here I’m near the eastern end. The whole area was all a bit dodgy in those days (the early 80s). I remember friends of mine who were in bands using cheap nasty rehearsal studios on Gt Eastern St, but all in all it was an area best avoided unless you wanted to visit a pub where ladies danced around whilst taking their clothes off.

I moved away from the area in my second year at university and then didn’t have much need to visit it until I started working for a bank in Broadgate about ten years ago. By that time the first web boom was getting underway and the area was becoming known as a popular place for web start-up companies to have their cheap shared offices. This influx of money brought with it lots of bars and restaurants and I remember spending a few evenings in bars with strange names like Cantaloupe. When we started london.pm in 1998 a lot of members were working for the start-ups that congregated in the area so I got quite used to socialising around here.

I suppose the area must have gone out of fashion when the web bubble burst. Or maybe it get going on the money of the bankers who were working just to the south. I don’t think I’ve been in this area for five years or so. But the arrival of Web Bubble 2.0 has meant that a lot of the new start-ups are again heading for this area. My short walk at lunchtime showed me that there are still many of the same bars and restaurants going.

It was an interesting walk. I remembered many of the names of the roads I was walking along, but I never really got the hang of local geography so it was still a bit of an adventure. Still plenty more exploring to do though, so I don’t think I’ll get bored over the next ffew months.

Anyone else in the area? Fancy meeting for lunch?

The Day The World Turned Day-Glo

2012 Logo

2012 Logo

The new London 2012 Olympics logo looks like a car-crash. Which is, I suppose, somewhat appropriate. I can only assume that this was done deliberately to make the 2012 Olympics a laughing stock.

Hopefully someone from the IOC will see the logo, realise that we’re not taking this at all seriously and let some other city host the games instead of London.

Update: The BBC have published some alternative logos that have been sent in by readers. Can I just say that Sean Stayte (logo number 5) is a very naughty man. And that the editor who published that picture is either very naive or else has a keen grasp of internet memes.

Update: The dubious logo has been removed from that page. But the direct link still works.

Local News

The internet is a fabulous source of news. And it’s now becoming so ubiquitous that you can find out local things that you might never find out otherwise. Here’s a slightly sad example.

Harry is a local celebrity. He’s never far from the bar of our local pub. He lives on our road and you only ever see him either in the pub or walking between the pub and his house. He’s very old though. And very ill. Whenever you don’t see him around for a few days you always wonder if he’s died. But he always pops up again.

Except, now he won’t. Harry died yesterday. I saw an ambulance going down the road, but I didn’t think of Harry (who I vaguely assumed to be indestructible) until I read this LiveJournal entry. And I found that through Planet Balham, which aggregates various new sources about Balham, including a Technorati search.

Without these, it would have been weeks before we realised what had happened. I can’t imagine Harry’s death being mentioned in any mainstream news medium.

The internet means you get your news quicker. Even if it’s bad news.

Balham Restaurants

Over the last year, Balham has gone into a frenzy of restaurant opening. I thought that some of you might be interested in hearing my opinions of some of these restaurants.

Hop & Spice
New Sri Lankan restaurant on Bedford Hill. We accidently went there on their opening night. In fact I think we were their first paying customers. On that night the food was pretty good although the staff were a bit over-attentive (due to first night nerves). We went back a few weeks later and the food wasn’t anywhere near as nice. It’ll be a while before we go back again.

Sadya
This isn’t that new, but it’s currently the restaurant that we normally pop into when we want a quick meal and can’t be bothered to cook. It’s southern Indian food and we love it. We eat there most weeks. Try their roasted cashew nuts and treat yourself to a passion fruit lassi.

The Indian Room
The only downside of this place is that it has taken over the premises of our favourite pizza delivery restaurant and we haven’t yet found a decent replacement. It’s a worthwhile sacrifice though as the Indian Room is a fabulous little Indian. It’s only been open a couple of months but we’re going there almost as often as we go to Sadya. They do home deliveries too.

LY Bar
We tried this for the first time last night. It was a slightly weird experience to be honest. The food was great – well cooked and very well presented. It was a little more expensive than most other restaurants in Balham but well worth it. However the experience was rather spoilt by the staff and the decor. There were a lot of staff, but they weren’t very well trained and they seemed to spend most of their time standing around trying to avoid work. I’m sure they’ll get better with practice. But the decor needs some serious work. The walls are all black and the lighting is rather dim. Together will the music, which was slightly too loud, it was all a bit like having a nice meal in the middle of a nightclub. Oh, and they don’t have a licence yet, so you have to bring your own drinks.

Paddyfield
The Paddyfield certainly isn’t new, but for some reason we didn’t discover it until a few months ago. It’s a great cheap Thai restaurant tucked away at the unfashionable end of Bedford Hill. In fact, thinking about it, forget that I mentioned it. It’s far too small and always busy. It doesn’t need any more customers taking up tables when I’m trying to get in.