I believe art is transnational yet there are cultural nuisances and accents that makes its locality recognisable.
Therefore a collection of street memoirs, should be telling a story of mental anguish and litter, as it is left behind on streets of neighbourhoods prevailing their past.
The following collection is of street art, grafitti, musings that whispered something about yesterday, current and anticipatory constant.
If you’re looking for a mini escape in London, Nunhead offers the scenery and views for quiet reflection and gentle exercise.
Pitched on the hill between New Cross Gate, Dulwich and Peckham Rye, I’d recommend starting off at Telegraph Hill for breathtaking views of the City of London.
A short walk away, Nunhead cemetery offers grand Victoria architecture, in a lush green mini forest, open to all.
The oldest structures, weathered from the years, are classified as ruins and off bounds. They offer scenes from gothic eras, alike those filmed in Highgate cemetery for Dracula.
There’s a steep incline for a cardio friendly circular walk, offering many photogenic moments.
The thick foliage create an ideal temperature in autumn and summer.
The easiest way to get there from central London, is to get to New Cross Gate and walk up the hill
Some say London is paved in gold. That is not quite true. There are ways one can experience it and they are, in truth, golden. They are the walks, in a safe city, at all times of the day or night, revealing architectural marvels, historical corners, oral histories retold, under the bridge communities, housing estates, street art and corporate communes wrapped around a few blocks from each other. They may not always live in harmony with each other, but they certainly demand each others existence to enrich their own. This is not gentrification, or poetics of urban spaces but a slow crawl of inverted commas on concepts undefined, yet golden for their moment in time.
2021 first and now
2022
New year new start. Can’t help but look back a little, and yet remain grateful for today.
Today I’ve gone back to Bethnal Green where I lived at for thirteen years.
Bethnal Green is a strange yet warming place. If you were to look it up online, it looks quite grim. 2 up 2 down level terraced rows of workhouse housing, surrounded by loads of high rise social housing estates built in 1800s to the 80s dotted on every corner, with a through road high street.
I must admit, I had some of the funniest and most learning times growing up here in my 20s and that’s purely down to a local and transient mix of people and pre war and post war architecture.
Imagine in one day hanging out in a 1900s pub, a high rise tower block built in the 1970s, trekking on cobbled streets and through grafitti glad Victorian alleys. It’s pointless going into any detail on this as this is my story.
But perhaps sharing these pics from today, will give the platform from which to imagine a constant of stories intertwined.
From the housing flats, to the terraced houses, the odd patches of greenery, the mix of bengali, cockney, underground arty, and now poshy touristy and transient peeps, this is the Bethnal Green in 2022. Many will pass through and many more still remain. Yet, new year’s memories to come may remain similar to past.
A wise Professor asked me why I thought there were so few criminal cases of corruption in the UK. My first thought was that, “It’s because there is no Corruption Squad”. I looked into it some more and discovered that it was not quite as simple as that. I had to rope in some experts […]
Corruption in the UK; the police are not looking into it
Cowboys and effigies 