Santa sighting

A blog is rather like a baby. ‘Feed me!’ it demands. Sometimes one doesn’t feel like it. Still… unlike a baby it won’t die of starvation. Or perhaps it will. To make amends and, quite against my usual principle of ignoring Christmas until it is imminent, I present a shot taken this weekend of Santa on his sleigh launching skyward from a garage roof in Nunhead. Look closely and you’ll see that Santa is wearing ill-fitting glasses. 

Evergreen

Derelict yet dignified, this old phone box is a reminder of a time when making a phone call was a bit of an occasion. But who needs public telephones nowadays when everyone has a mobile into which they intone: ‘I’m on the train’ or ‘They’ve only got the low-fat one’ or ‘Love you’? It’s good to talk, I guess, but we appear to have become insanely fond of disembodied chatter, much of it inane. 

A mad, mad, mad world

SIX BILLION dollars was spent on the US election campaign… to achieve political status quo. There’s got to be a better use for the money. But, hooray, Obama is back. A man who can dance has to be a better bet than a man who can’t.

street furniture

Here’s the view from the back of Scootercaffé in Lower Marsh in Waterloo. The wall art depicts a film-maker poised above the guttering. Just visible, a strand of ivy. To the right a bridge. And a road sign for three destinations: Kennington, the Elephant and Brixton. Each has played a part in my life. Kennington is home to Oval Theatre where I performed in plays from my late teens to early 20s. Elephant and Castle is where, as a child, I watched Saturday morning pictures... so many cliff-hangers. Brixton is where I lived for 10 years. And Scootercaffé  is where, just the other day, I enjoyed an excellent cappuccino; something that would have been impossible in my youth. Unless I went to Italy. Which I didn’t. Not then, anyway. 

Oh, and here’s one of the lamps in the café: a converted hair dryer. See below.

mirror man

This hair-drying contraption is in the window of a hairdressers in Wales. Don’t worry.  They don’t use these head-frying things any more. It’s a retro window to make you smile… and be grateful that things have moved on since then.

What would Julia Gillard’s hairdresser partner make of it, I wonder?  I know what I made of her speech taking on Mr Misogyny in the Australian parliament. Wonderful. And to Tony Abbott, go take a hike (don’t forget your mirror).

New apprenticeship scheme?

You can never start ‘em too young! This headline conforms to the image Peckham holds in the imagination. They’re all out nicking, aren’t they?

Well, no. On Peckham Rye at the weekend, there were A-4 home-made posters tacked to trees and railings appealing for help in finding a ‘loved ferret’. There was the couple walking at the right pace for their three-legged Yorkshire terrier. And, a game of five-a-side football; three of the players were women. A land of contrasts.

rather too much spirit

Looking at photos taken in mid-70s London during the Winter of Discontent (the photo of men warming themselves on the street with a meagre fire fed with cardboard boxes, stood out) I overheard one of the Hairy Bikers say: ‘God, it looks Victorian!’ We were at Tate Britain’s photography exhibition: ANOTHER LONDON, International Photographers Capture City Life 1930-1980. The images ranged from foggy romanticism or destitution to funny and touching; the usual class consciousness and displays of British spirit. One photo showed a young married woman, on her knees, scrubbing her doorstep. Who does that now and who thinks their neighbourhood status is connected to their doorstep?

In the spirit of Victorian-looking poverty pictures, I offer this, taken a few years ago from a bus as it made its way through Peckham.