Archipelago of Truth

Here is a nice little piece which has been put on youtube, filmed at the bottom end of Coppermill Lane. The bridge carries the railway from Clapton to Tottenham Hale. The road leads onto Walthamstow Marshes and over to Springfield Marina, the River Lea and Springfield Park, but don't bother trying to take a car - its a dead end to four wheeled traffic. Surprisingly, I have never bumped my head on the bridge, even when on my way back from the Anchor and Hope in the dark.

The wandering Teddy, missing for four weeks, has been found alive and slightly worn out by untold adventures by a very kind young man called James, who lives with his father in Hervey Park Road.

We got in touch with each other in an interesting manner, which goes to show that the word 'community' still means something round here. After my morning treck on the off-chance of finding my missing cat and to see what Colinson & Co weren't up to in Forest Road I took a detour to look at the clubhouse of the London Anglers' Association. This led my eyes to alight on a poster on a lamppost detailing how an intrepid little fellow had been seen in the area scrounging dinners and telling everyone what a waif and stray he was.

Not quite the 'wanted' poster he'd always dreamt of, Teddy was described as a bit of a desperado, "a pale ginger tom cat with a damaged tail... he has been seen visiting our gardens in Hervey Park Road for several days and looks lost and in distress and is very vocal". Very greedy more like, but when I finally picked him up he was a bit ribby and he certainly smelled like a furry little beast. He'd also had some sort of an abcess on one of his cheeks but this was showing signs of recovery.

Having spoken on the phone to the kindly Helen who had so thoughtfully put the notice up and returned to Hervey Park Road in the afternoon, I met the keen-eyed James, who had been looking after Teddy on and off for some days and providing him with free tucker and some t.l.c. Teddy was out on one of his rambles when I first called round, but I returned after a fish and chip supper from Bonner's with my posse to stake out the surrounding streets. Some local builders who had seen Teddy that evening confirmed that it was almost certainly Teddy we were after.

As the beautiful evening was drawing to its close and a huge moon was appearing in the western sky, James phoned me up on my mobile with the news that Teddy was moving in for some chow in their back garden and that I should get round to his place right away. By the time I got there, Dad had a few claw marks in his forearms, but the situation was well under control. A very humble and shaken looking wanderer was firmly in hand, and I was able to take him home, cradled in my arms, to yet another dinner. A good team effort, and one which would not have been possible without the very kind and public spirited people in Hervey Park Road.

To the left of Colinson & Co is a newsagents called RA News, which on a national stage probably wouldn't stand out to much in its red livery and Coca Cola advertising. Locally, for reasons no-one has yet explained to me, the most favoured soft drink on newsagents hoardings seems to be IRN BRU. RA News does therefore stand out when compared with Hitesh and Collins Stores.

Nevertheless, this is a simple newsagent, selling the same stuff as many others; porn mags, newspapers, ciggies, icecreams, phone cards, bus passes, greeting cards, as well as, albeit on a small scale, the ambient goods which shops of the Costcutter model go for, like tinned soup, cereals and kitchen towels. RA News does not, however, have dodgy adverts in the window.

Between Ahmed & Co and RA News at 152 Forest Road is the firm of Colinson & Co. This could well be a firm of accountants established in 1975. I say, 'could well', because when I popped along this morning all bushy tailed and business-like, the shutters on the place were as firmly closed as a tanning shop in a heatwave. Maybe they are late starters.

Tel 0208 521 7774 to find out. Or wait over the road at the Spring Cafe till someone turns up.

Hector Muaimba's sentence was reviewed today, but his sentence was not increased. Two other men in the group of gang rapists who threw caustic soda over their victim had theirs raised.

Its been a very hot and steamy few days. My friendly postman is wandering the streets in a floppy hat someone has sent him out in with the Royal Mail logo on it and the tanning shop in the High Street has given up entirely on getting any custom and stopped opening altogether.

Into this sweaty world, comes news that Technomist's June readership amounted to a whopping 4965 visitors to the Archipelago. That's probably not many compared to a lot of people's blogs, but I am writing about Walthamstow. Those numbers seem to me to be pretty weird, and may well have involved more than one person at the same time looking at what I had written.

I am particularly humbled when I think that the highlights of the month include way too much politics, a review of the waiting arrangements in the local vet's office and a discussion of the fondness of second hand white goods businesses for filling up the pavements in front of their shops.

Thanks everyone who dropped by, whatever the reason. This is a local blog about some pretty petty stuff, so I do appreciate your interest. That's the most visitors I've ever had in a month and is especially pleasing as the dead tree media is sometimes claiming blogging is in its last gasp. It isn't.

Having decided not to discuss their silly plan for a drug treatment centre, the council have now decided, with no public consultation and like the dogs in mangers that they are, that if they can't impose a drug treatment centre onto the residents who want their library back, that they will sell the building. This will ensure it is taken out of the community's hands and can't ever be the focus of a popular campaign for it to remain a public library.

Choosing to dispose of the public asset when the property market is at its nadir for purely party-political purposes, seems to me to be a gross dereliction of the council's duty to the tax-payers and the community as a whole to protect the public interest.

Will anyone be at all surprised if it ever eventually emerges that the buyers will turn out to be connected to the corrupt clique that runs our borough, 'circuitous and co-incidental' as that connection would turn out to be?

The residents of this part of the borough are not stupid. The rumoured "training" organisation which has had its beady eyes on the library is in no way going to compensate for the loss of this community facility, nor will the new roof on the scout-hut. Residents know that Mr Robbins has already calculated that the High Street Ward has been lost to New labour at the next election. He has given up on their potential support.

But I wonder if he is ready for local residents from this part of the borough taking their campaigning skills into the neighbouring wards and helping to drive the imploding Labour Party from power there as well?

The LibDem leader John Macklin has condemned the threatened sale of the building, which is seen by some as an act of spite by Mr Robbins, more evidence if any were needed that he is a man not fit to lead the borough. Why the LibDems remain in their joint administration with Robbins in charge is a bit of a mystery to many people.

[Updated 2 July 2009]

The Waltham Forest Guardian has it that discussion of the controversial plans for a drug treatment centre in the former St James Street Library has been shelved.

The council's overview and scrutiny committee were to discuss the plans at a meeting tonight in advance of next week's cabinet.

The Guardian reports that as the item has been removed from the agenda (on the feeble excuse that the relevant report was not prepared in time) there will be no discussion. Nothing could be further from the truth. There will be a fair bit to discuss in the tiny clique and their pals which runs the slightly bigger clique which makes up the Labour 6 tenths of the cabinet of 10 which allegedly runs our fair borough.

What they won't be doing though is actually considering the merits of their cockamamy plan to put yet another drug treatment centre into the wrong place in one part of the borough while ignoring their duty to meet the needs of drug abusers elsewhere. Nor will they be discussing the impact on the four primary schools in the immediate vicinity or on the elderly and vulnerable people who live nearby in what is basically a residential area.

Instead, there will be some fine calculations being made as to whether Councillor Ali can be made to insult the intelligence of every voter in this part of the borough and back a project he says he does not in the least believe in. Only raw political thuggery can achieve this, but that is not to say it will not be applied to him.

Is Robbins' ruling clique's inability to face hard facts and change a bad decision, in any way news? Anyone who has walked past the EMD cinema over the years or the arcade site, will recognise the pattern of indecision, spinning of false hopes and then neglect caused by people in his party who simply can't ever admit that they got it wrong. So they are putting a hard decision off yet again while hoping it will go away. It won't.

It is sad to have to say this of a once great political party, which in many ways had some of its foundations in Walthamstow, but it seems one of the few things the local Labour party are good at organising these days is the sticking of knives in each others backs.

In a frankly baffling reflection of the lack of confidence the local Labour Party has in its own judgement of only a year ago, the party today is reported to have deselected the current serving Mayor. A person who was put forward last year as a role model and ambassador for the borough is apparently no longer seen fit to hold the public office of councillor. Here she is being celebrated abroad for her exalted status:

Cllr Anna Mbachu is rumoured to have been de-selected by her own party members, along with fellow councillors Shameem Highfield, Tarsem Bhogal, Elisabeth Davies and Milton Martin, while Cllrs Midge Broadley, Adam Gladstone, and Eric Sizer, (the Labour chief whip), have confirmed they will stand down "for personal reasons".

The shake up is, as yet, unexplained by a Labour Party which is not normally so shy to spin itself large to the local public. How many people will mourn the loss of the culled councillors is an interesting question. I suspect at least one of them would be welcomed if a discrete word were to be had with the LibDems. (This is something I already know key but potentially defecting Labour activists have had, late at night over kebabs, prior to the recent European elections in which the mainstream local parties successfully saw off the BNP). Some, however, will not be missed by many outside of their immediate circle of friends.

There are questions being raised as to whether there is a racial element in all these deselections, as it has been noted that the deselected ones are all 'black' or sikh. While the anonymous Labour Party 'spokesman' fails to explain the moves, speculation is bound to be rife. It probably will be anyway, once the Party line guff gushes forth.

There is plenty to speculate about, though I do note that Liaquat Ali survived his reselection. However, that might be because he might not survive the verdict of voters in a ward Labour probably no longer expect to hold at the next election. Hence no rush by the ambitious to unseat him.

Did the deselected councillors do something wrong? Maybe some did. Had they been lulled into a false sense of security by all the lip service Labour has paid to equal opportunities over the years round here? I think maybe so. Is it because they are from minorities which have been gradually turning their back on Labour? Or did they all forget a basic rule of politics, that you watch your back at all times?

Whatever the reason, and there may be a number of factors in play here, (we have a new regime in power trying very hard to stamp its mark) this seems to be another sign of the local Labour Party's impending total implosion.

Here are Tom Ellis (the editor), Jack Burnett and Reeces Knowles & Bartlet head over heels with the enjoyment of life.