Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Squatting in the Square, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Was she there well before you were?
Piko was started in 1979… (March 4th)Ah. I stand corrected.
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Hard News: Squatting in the Square, in reply to Rich Lock,
Innit. Rockingham was a good place to live – those blocks are solidly built to last No real problems with damp, leaks, mould etc. The style gives them a sort of architectural ‘warmth’. Never any real trouble or ‘vibes’ when wandering around.
They were very solid. The only bad vibes I recall were around one pub where a lot of Northern Irish drank. That was one to avoid. But it seems in more recent years there have been problems with a spate of knife crime.
The later estates, though: Aylesbury, Heygate…..’a neo-brutalist architectural aesthetic’ as wiki puts it.
The ones we regarded as scary at the time were the two Wendover blocks (Big and Little Wendover) further up the road in Peckham. I did not envy the people required to live there. The high concrete walkways were a public safety disaster.
If you haven’t seen it, I recommend the BBC series ‘the secret history of our streets’, and ep1 in particular. A case study in how to destroy communities thanks to an intractable vision of utopian living that bears no relation to reality.
Thanks for the tip. As you say, the Le Corbusier-dictated brutalist blocks were a disaster that blighted generations.
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Hard News: Squatting in the Square, in reply to Ben Austin,
Here is a great link to photos of derelict London housing
Wow. I see that includes Heygate, the huge block opposite Rockingham Estate, where I lived in Elephant & Castle. It’s interesting the way the old estates have lasted longer than some of the modernist edifices – although I gather dear old Rockingham is finally due to be bowled this year.
There’s a Flickr set with photos of both.
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Hard News: Squatting in the Square, in reply to Alistair Oldham,
Russell, I just noticed you wrote that you lived at 70 Bonnington Square …. guess what, I was your neighbour at no 69 Bonnington Square ! I was there from about 1982 to 1987
Ah! Pauline McCoy was kind enough to let me have a room at 70 when one came up in 1987. It was a nice house by then. Before that I was a frequent visitor to no 62, which was another Kiwi household. (Residents there included Brigitte Unwin, who went on to found Piko wholefoods in Christchurch.)
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Hard News: Squatting in the Square, in reply to Alistair Oldham,
But it was interesting as well because a bit of me really hated the depressing grimness of London at that time (including the political correctness of the Square)
I didn't really strike that there, perhaps because i was later on the scene. Although, tbh, we were all a bit more PC back then ...
Thanks for swinging by, Alistair.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to andin,
what signal does it send the people of New Zealand
That is part of the problem people seem to think they can take a lead from sports people. Who never have been and never will be great role models.
I actually think the All Blacks are okay male role models, if we’re to have them. Dumbass acts like Franks’s are rare. They’re about blending commitment and a collective ethic with individual creativity. You take young guys like Stephen Luatua (who I follow on Twitter) – unflinching on the field, but serious and humble off it. Part of it is that many of the PI players are Christians. Some don’t drink.
Go back a generation and, yeah, quite a few All Blacks were drunken bozos – some Super rugby players still are. But the All Blacks now? Not so much.
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Hard News: On Telly, Telly Off, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Now we have the technology to offer an infinite amount of choice cheaply – the only constraint is the content’s creation and availability.
Why will we keep the old system – unless it’s to keep a large number of people thinking the same way as a result of having common social stimuli for a large chunk of the day?
I think it's still the case that broadcast, once the infrastructure is in place (which it is) scales better than IPTV. But the policy around frequency allocation is a bloody mess that allows Sky to hog frequencies and game the whole system. It's insane that Stratos could not get a Freeview terrestrial slot at all, never mind the cost.
I think one solution lies in new IPTV-capable Freeview decoders. Quickflix is preparing an on-demand "channel" to go in the Freeview EPG and there's basically no limit to the number of possible IPTV offerings. Imagine the Herald being able to deliver its live-event streams to TVs. It's a game-changer.
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Hard News: Who Guards the Guardian?, in reply to Phil Wallington,
We are sharing the article and debating the merits and ethics of the journalism. Would that we had another outlet to widen and deepen the discourse. Something like a media analysis TV show to propel the story further afield… Deep sigh!!!
Oh, Phil. I'm hearing you. There have been so many times I've thought our show would have added value to the conversation ...
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Hard News: Squatting in the Square, in reply to Steve Curtis,
Heres a 4 bedr terrace house for sale in Fentiman Rd SW8- a few streets from Bonnington Squre
Fentiman Road was (and still is) an odd phenomenon. Even though it was bounded by council estates (and 400 metres from one really scary one), it was the place for ambitious young Tory ministers to buy. After Bonnington Square, I lived in a really sweet council squat that bordered Fentiman. I'd cheerfully have stayed there, were it possible.
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Hard News: Squatting in the Square, in reply to phil a,
I squatted in 4 different areas of London between from 1991 to 1993. It was a lot easier moving into a squat, than breaking in & setting one up ;-)
Sure was. But I found what really put me off in the end was having possessions. It was one thing having to move when you could carry your stuff in a cab -- quite another when you had more than that.