It's snowing in Clapton...

September 30, 2011 - that's today... - could go down as the hottest September day since the 1800s. It's nudging at 30 degrees "out there"...

So here's something to cool you down.

Industrial chic comes to Clapton

The new pedestrian footbridge by the river Lea is officially... open! And a thing of beauty it is, too - and wider, more accommodating than the last one. No more forcing pedestrians to the wall as you cycle past. No more dicing with lorries as you dash across the Lea Bridge Road. Smart.

Makes me sick

File this under "Well, duh..." if you like, but, boy, there are some fucktards out there.

This homemade sign appeared recently on the Lea Navigation towpath – by the bridge between the Princess of Wales pub and the footpath onto South Millfields – and reading it turned my stomach. Who, in the name of fun, would pelt to death a nest of just-hatched chicks and its mother? A few telltale stones were found next to their broken bodies.

Sickened as I was, I was also cheered - that somebody cared enough to put up the sign in the first place. Without it, the birds' murder would have passed me by. Without the intervention of a concerned Claptonista, I doubt our local paper, the 'Hackney Gazette' - ensconced in its offices in not-very-local Ilford - would have spotted it either. For what it's worth, you can read its report here.

But that notice is a testament to Clapton, a reminder that, for all the scumbags in the area, there's an active right-minded majority.

It might just be worth troubling to 'Gazette' with a letter, to remind the police that the thug/s who did this need to be caught.

UPDATE: there's a more detailed news report by Hackney Citizen here.

A sunny day in Clapton town

An amazing autumn day in Hackney. The sun was out, the sky cloudless, with highs of around 20ºC. And then there was a glorious pinkish sunset finished it off, which bodes well for tomorrow. Sometimes - sometimes... - I think it's alright living in Clapton.

Millfields looked pretty and presentable in the sunlight (see top picture), the reconstruction of the Lea towpath is coming along nicely, and the Taylor Wimpey builders look in danger of finishing off the final block in the riverside Altius development. In between coffee breaks, the men in the hi-viz gilets spent the day taking down the protective fences and rolling out turf into lawns.

In yet more whimsical news, I went for an 8km run with my trainer - my farthest distance in quite some time - along the Lea Navigation, around the marshes, down into Lower Clapton and back.

I celebreated by baking carrot cake, obviously. I'm about to tuck into the first warm slice before cracking open the new Jonathan Franzen while Afrocubism plays in the background before Spooks at 9pm.

As I say, an amazing day in Clapton. More please.

D'oh...

Coo. The graffiti on the hoardings along the River Lea Navigation towpath on the edge of Millfields Park is coming along nicely. (Or should that be 'are'?)

Nicely menacing, non - a modern-day, monochrome Blue Meanie. Someone should give Thom Yorke a ring. It's just the kind of moody amorphous sprite that he might like for the sleeve of the forthcoming Radiohead album.

Who's the doodler behind the daubs? I ask only because he can't spell. "Under constrution"?

Fetch the Tipp-Ex, mother.

Hot daubs

The might of Hackney’s anti-graffiti team (well, two blokes in a van) was out in force in my neck of the woods this morning.

A fortnight ago, some protective wooden boards went up along the Lea Navigation next to Millfields Park, as the waterway is being dredged. Naturally, within days, the bare wood panels had attracted a few graffiti tags - but nothing to get too het up about.

Then, this morning, as I was put through my paces on the park's parallel bars by my personal trainer, Murat, I was surprised that a couple of council workers were busy painting over the graffiti with black splodges. Well, one was grafting with the paintbrush, while the other sat in the van, fiddling with the radio. Either way, pretty quick going for Hackiney. It's taken them months to get to grips with my noisy neighbours, but that's not for here.

Once the daubings were blotted out by uneven but not entirely artless blocks of black Dulux, thus…






…the council lads retired to the van, put their feet on the dash, and had a well-earned half hour’s rest. That's good use of Hackney Council's money.

However, in just a few hours, the rather eycatching black blobs seem to have attracted more attention than the graffiti tags ever did.

After lunch, while I pedalled back from a quick pootle on the bike along Chatsworth Road, I noticed a cheeky young fellow (top off, but way too young and skinny for me) not spray-painting graffiti on the hoardings, but doing proper sketching. In charcoal. (You get a classier kind of urban artist in E5.)

He was adding leaves to a lovely tree he'd scamped out, next to the legend “Love is the answer”. A quote, presumably, from the late John Lennon’s ‘Mind Games’. As far as I know the only connection the late Beatle had with Clapton was the guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, but that's what you get if you do research for your A-Level art project on Wikipedia.





I’ll pop along later to see what else the saucy little scamp has done. Could I have witnessed The New Banksy at work?