Space race
Real England: the battle against the bland
Paul Kingsnorth
Portobello Books, 2008
“In the countryside, rural pubs are disappearing with unprecedented speed, leaving over half the villages of England ‘dry’ – publess – for the first time since the Norman Conquest. In towns, six urban locals close every week, often replaced by giant town centre binge-drinking sheds.”
For those who have always enjoyed the conviviality of the local, this makes grim reading, but the most recent Beer & Pub Association report reckons that five pubs are closing every day. Why is this happening? The sorry story is explained in the second chapter of Kingsnorth’s survey of the struggles and defeats in everyday culture.
He meets fruit-growers, lock-keepers, café-owners and residents of Chinatown. We learn of the alarming privatisation of public space in the heart of Liverpool.
Of particular interest to people at the Elephant, though, is a chapter concerning Queen’s Market in Newham: “one of the most ethnically diverse markets in London: 140 shops, stalls, barrows and kiosks serve a mind-boggling array of ethnic and cultural groups, from traditional East Enders to recently arrived Somalis”.
Newham Council has farmed it out to a self-styled “prestigious, city-oriented regeneration specialist”, that plans to demolish it and regenerate. But all is not well. This redevelopment, says Kingsnorth, is opposed by a campaign supported by nearly every trader, opposition party, ethnic minority organization and local church. The Council’s only friend seems to be the developer.
The name of this benefactor does seem to ring a bell: St Modwen.
Kingsnorth ends the book by urging us to “nourish our landscapes, cultures and relationships” instead of thoughtlessly pursuing economic growth. We cannot, he argues, do both.
For the record
HOME
The Elephant and Castle
The London College of Communication, 2008
HOME features the work of students from the MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography (2006) at LCC. This is the first step in a 10-year documentation project by course students.
Nicola Dracoulis captures Latino cool on the streets of the Elephant. Lihee Avidan spends time with a young mum. Dana Popa looks at the landmarks of a blind man. Lydia Polzer dwells on the Kagyu Samye Dzong meditators at Manor Place Baths. Douglas Abuelo shows where the homeless sleep. Ben Speck provides a panorama of the Ashenden block on the Heygate estate. Shehani Fernando meets the first and last residents of the Aylesbury. Mauro Bottaro finds Heygate mainliners. Thomas Brandi documents the doomed flats of Harper Road.
Now you see it
Derelict London
Paul Talling
Random House Books, 2008
Reading this book is a kind of melancholy pleasure. It is an invaluable record of forgotten and neglected buildings across London, each photograph accompanied by background information that helps solve the mysteries of dereliction.
Three buildings at the Elephant are included in the collection. There is the lonely water tower that is all that remains of Lambeth Hospital on Brook Drive; the London Park Hotel, that was demolished while the book was being published; and the Driscoll House Hotel in New Kent Road.
The website – derelictlondon.com – is nowhere near as lovely as the book but is certainly worth visiting. A book to treasure.
Perec’s Paris
AA Files 45/46
In the same year that NEON was founded, the Architectural Association launched its latest journal issue at an event drawing parallels with Paris and London, during which the proposed regeneration of the Elephant & Castle was one of the key agenda items.
AA Files 45/46 was a handsome double issue focusing on the work of Georges Perec, a member of the illustrious Oulipo, the workshop of potential literature. For an avid aficionado of Oulipo, this was a valuable document, and a review copy was obtained for the forthcoming Neon Review. Admittedly, this review is now rather overdue, like the Elephantine regeneration. The issue is even out of print, but a commitment must be honoured.
Several members of Oulipo contribute to the Files. Jacques Jouet explains the Metro Poem, his invention, and gives a few examples. In London terms, this entails a poetical tube trip, where the first line of a poem is conceived between the station of origin and the next stop on the line, and is written down when the train stops. Resuming the journey, the second line is developed, again without writing until the train stops. At the last stop, the poet alights and writes down the final line. Neonate, on this site, is an example.
Four texts by Georges Perec concerning his Parisian projects are the centrepiece of the collection, and Perec is recalled by Paul Virilio, the dubious darling of postmodernist whimsy. Paul Auster discusses Perec’s Life A User’s Manual.
Marcel Bénabou shows us The Lumber-Room, Harry Mathews offers Tear Sheet, and Jacques Roubaud rounds off with a few poems. Bénabou makes this very apt observation:
“For those who know how to appreciate them, Georges Perec’s writings not only provide a rare pleasure, they can also sometimes offer an even rarer gift: a sort of light, yet tenacious fever from which the only means of recovery – almost with regret – is to take up a pen.”
This fever will animate more writing on these pages in the months to come.
Neonate
we decided to jangle the place
with chains of ideas and events
our eyes dancing over maps
with spiralling schemes
and skyscraper aspirations
planning and plumbing networks of outlooks
envisioning squares and blocks
annotating streets and signs
with an inner sense of belonging
background artists no more
spinning poems from this hub
waking and making a fractal chorus
with the whispering fingerprints of desire.
© Paul Taylor 2003
Metro poem 11 June, 2003
Elephant & Castle to Highgate
