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Heard the one about the greedy landlord, who thought that his growing mini-empire of South London properties meant that he was exempt from applying for planning position? I had to pinch myself when this story first reached me. The arrogance of some people is truly amazing.

I remember the quick turn around of the building work carried out on the property on the corner of the Clap’ham Road and Crwedson Road. At the time I was impressed at the efficiency of the army of builders working on the conversion. On time and on budget, etc, but I did wonder what the rush was all about.

A new level was built upon the block of flats in just under a month. Bish, bash, bosh, a fancy new external plaster job, and then bodget and scarper faster than you can say “Lambeth Council planning permission.”

Now I can see the wider picture, if not the South London skyline, with the fourth floor being a bit out of character with the rest of the properties along the Clap’ham Road.

It seems that Mr Mukesh Andani is something of a serial planning permission refusenik. Three Brixton properties have had the same roof raising, regulation ignoring treatment, plus another flat in Stockwell Green.

It’s slightly comical, but also blatant rule breaking, with the fool thinking that he can simply construct a whole new tier across half of South London without any respect for the remainder of the environment.

A £10,000 fine is in place, with a possible six-month jail term hanging over Andani. He has already had three months to remove the fourth floor. No surprises that the original army of builders working on the conversion have yet to return for a restoration retreat.

A stormy Friday night, and not exactly the ideal conditions for cycling what could be my final Critical Mass ride in London. I was a regular on the Mass for over a decade. Work commitments have sidelined me in recent years; I’ve also grown slightly weary of the Bicyclist as Street Warrior mentality.

I cycle because I can - nothing more, nothing less. The physical act of bicycling stimulates my mind and my body, in a form that no other recreational activity has yet to reach. Well, not quite every activity.

I firmly believe that bicycling is both an individual and communal experience. You work out how it best functions for you, and then take it from there. I like the best of both worlds - solitary rides to collect my thoughts, and then collective cycling to experience the company of like-minded individuals.

To try and summarise Critical Mass as a single entity is not possible. For my final ride, I took on the task of finding out the motives of some of the other Mass-ers gathered underneath the arches of Waterloo.

The simple question asked was:

“Why do you cycle Critical Mass?”

The following is only a small snapshot of the answers given. Perhaps the best way of finding out the truth is to attend one of the monthly Mass rides yourself, and then reflect - Why did you cycle Critical Mass?

Now then - who’s up for starting off the Wivenhoe branch of Critical Mass?

The London Mass meets on the last Friday of every month, at 6pm underneath the arches of Waterloo Bridge. Many thanks to all the lovely interviewees, who kindly agreed to be filmed.

In true rock ‘n roll tradition, it was twenty years ago today… I went to my first music festival. Blimey. Reading ’89 was where I found free love in a field in the middle of Berkshire. Actually it was a car park just outside of Reading town centre, and there wasn’t a great deal of free love going around either to be honest. But still…

Reading ’89 was a tipping point in the history of UK rock festivals. Donnington was still the domain of good old-fashioned British metal - Live to Ride, Ride to Live; Glasto catered for the tree huggers, long before it became part of the Establishment’s Summer Season. Reading meanwhile was the home of the Quo, Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler.

Something had to give.

Ever keen to cash in on the chaos, the Mean Fiddler organisation took control of Reading in ‘89 and decided to re-brand it as a festival for the indie kid. With a Stone Roses T-shirt (first batch, natch!) a Crazyhead baseball cap and a pale indie kid complexion, Reading ’89 was on my radar.

I wasn’t alone, with the bill featuring The Wonderstuff, PWEI and Crazyhead being something of a call to arms for the kids I use to hang around with in South Nottinghamshire every weekend. Tickets were bought, bags were packed, and time WASN’T booked off work. Whoops.

There was a slight oversight in that the Rock Trip fun bus (oh yes!) was scheduled to depart the Fair City right outside my place of work early on the Friday morning. Never underestimate the camouflage capabilities of a Crazyhead baseball cap.

And so there we were, Reading bound and all ready to ROCK. I wasn’t really sure what to expect to be honest. This was my summer holiday for the year, and my first time away from home for the weekend without any proper adult supervision. I had noted that Forest were away at QPR on the Saturday afternoon, and this would be my escape route, should the indie kids of Reading prove not to be to my liking.

I needn’t have worried. We arrived in a festival come car park shortly after lunch, just in time to be greeted by an hour long feedback set from Spacemen 3. It was truly like entering into anther dimension. I thought crossing over into the Leicestershire border was living life in the fast lane at the time. The space cadets were already out of it, long before I even had the chance to find out what skinning up actually meant.

Stone Roses T-shirts were everywhere, less than six months since the debut release. A heavy cloud hung over the festival site, an aroma of which I hadn’t experienced before. My world was about to change, but not before I had to suffer a self-indulgent, and totally inappropriate scheduling, of a set by Swans.

I can’t remember much about that first Friday. Like I said, my world was about to change. The House of Love jangled their way through the early evening, and I think I had something of a strategic lie down when Bjork and The Sugarcubes came on stage.

New Order were poised perfectly for the Reading rock of old meets the leaner, meaner indie kid. Their set was a mixture of electronic bleeps, forged together with chunky bass riffs. I started to dance in a highly excitable way, something of a pale skin indie kid faux pas.

On site camping was what you would expect for five hormonal male teenagers. Sexual fantasies, pot noodles and farts - for three days, solid. Forest away at QPR came very close to becoming an option early Saturday morning.

I soon realised that Reading isn’t exactly a festival. There was no community spirit and little artistic endeavor to be experienced, except for bottles of p*** being catapulted towards the front of the crowd for the entire weekend.

Away from the Melody Maker Main Stage and the only other option was the Mean Fiddler tent towards the back of the arena. An alternative bill of The Cropdusters, Clive Gregson & Christine Collister and Francis Sidebottom offered a break from the tedium of The Mightly Lemon drops and Voice of the Beehive (another mistake booking?)

The afternoon lull passed away when The Scottish Friend became rather drunk, and managed to put his size 10 DM’s right into the resting head of an anarcho hippy type who had collapsed from cider, and was trying to sleep it off by an ice cream van. A chase of sorts followed, but it’s remarkable how even a Crazyhead baseball cap can keep you hidden away within the Reading crowd.

Billy Bragg was a highlight for me on the Saturday evening. I remember an early outing for Sexuality and a blown up condom floating around the front of the stage. These small details maketh a festival for a young man.

New Model Army somehow found themselves in the lofty position of second only to The Pogues on the Saturday night. I remember a very angry Slade the Leveller coming on stage, fully clogged up and kicking over an amp. Phew, rock ‘n roll.

And then it was time for The Pogues comedy road show. This was the balmy days when yer man Shane was still tolerated as a ‘lively’ stage presence, rather than a bloated pub bore. It was fine for the first half hour; the second half hour seemed slightly tedious. By the third, fourth and fifth half-hour, I was back at base and tucked up nicely in the tent. Memories are slightly hazy, but I’m still convinced that I awoke in the early hours with the sound of Shane still mumbling out some nonsense from the Main Stage.

A brief trip to the town centre on Sunday morning (booze and bog) and we were all set for Super Grebo Sunday – that’s something you don’t see on Sky Sports HD. Crazyhead, PWEI and the Wonderstuff - this was the soundtrack that has carried us around the rolling wolds of South Nottinghamshire all summer, and to have the Midlands grebos transported to Berkshire felt like a homecoming of sorts.

Crazyhead were crap, the Poppies were more interested in drum loops and the Stuffies introduced the dreaded fiddle into their set for the first time. The scene was over, and so was our weekend. No one wants to hang around for a Sunday evening headline set from The Mission, especially so with work on Monday morning crashing in and a sickie to try and explain away.

We didn’t return to Reading again. I’m not sure why as a bill the following year of The Cramps, Pixies and, um, Inspiral Carpets seems rather appealing. I was done with the pale indie kid thing and had Glasto and a sun-tan was within my sights for the next decade.

I made a return of sorts to Reading in 2002 for work purposes. I was dispatched back to Berkshire with a B ‘n B booking, a laptop and instructions to file copy on the hour, every hour. I was like a school leaver returning to his old playground. Too cool for school and far too old for the exploding NY chic indie scene (yeah, right) of the time. I took up residence in a local boozer and filed copy wire for three days whilst drinking myself stupid offsite.

And so Reading remains unique amongst UK festivals as a sixth form rites of passage. It is pitched perfectly in the calendar as one last jolly with the old crowd before University beckons.

Twenty years later and you can’t walk around King’s X on a Friday morning without some sixth form oiks trekking off to a random field outside of the Home Counties to watch some sub-standard indie landfill band. Festivals are the new shopping malls, something that you do as a lifestyle choice, and not as part of a tribal musical experience.

I’m still watching Billy Bragg and the Wonderstuff. Crazyhead - come on home. We need you now more than ever.

Another midweek comedy slot at The Cavendish Arms, and another stand up performance from my laugh-a-minute mate @comedybeard. Mr Beard is becoming something of a residency at the Sunny Stockwell boozer, although technically I don’t think he still qualifies for the Comedy Virgin tag (or even virgin, for that matter.)

It takes a lot to get me away from the wine cellar on a midweek evening. Tuesday night isn’t the most kicking of nights around SW8, depending what constitutes a good kicking of course. But blimey - the Cav Arms along Hartington Road pulled in a crowd that must have competed in size with the queues at the nearby Costcutter (local heads up: that’s a rather large queue.)

The booking policy of an open mic - as long as you bring along a friend - fits the splendid ballroom style venue (seriously) perfectly. As previous, a lottery running order delivers each virgin to the stage for his or her five minutes of fun.

No one is going to die on stage (omits obvious Stockwell joke) with the crowd on the right side of polite for any unforgiving acts. I wasn’t alone in wanting to shout down the homophobe with his side-splitting tales of campness in the army (think Bruno without the irony.) But with only five minutes of the moronic lines to suffer, I sat on my hands and gave a slow handclap, once the fool had finished.

@comedybeard was drawn on to the stage at an early hour. He built his performance up with another powerful showing, feeling his way around the audience and deciding which direction to take the act. I’m no observer of observational comedians, but it seems to be a balancing act between material and confidence. Mr Beard has come a long way in a short space of time, and he left the stage with his head held high.

Some of the other acts were of an extremely high standard. Word perfect, and paced perfectly for the five-minute time slot. The monologue about drying wet washing whilst out sleep walking with tennis playing prostitutes and owls certainly got my hands out from under my arse.

Next stop for @comedybeard is Edinburgh and the Fringe (um, round about now as I type.) I hope his Stockwell residency has served Mr Beard well for the seriously funny action up at the festival with the big boys.

Comedy Virgins could do a lot worse than a de-flowering at The Cavendish Arms every Tuesday night in Sunny Stockwell. Bring your own friends, but please forget the homophobe humour.

I’m finding it an increasingly familiar occurrence to stumble upon areas of London that present a fresh historical angle to me. It’s not just the huge gaps in local history that fifteen years of London living has failed to provide me with; my general lack of knowledge of our capital city has come about through average education, crappy BIG media and general aloofness upon my part.

Up until the start of the summer, Norton Folgate meant nothing to me. If you had asked me back in April what legacy Norton Folgate has left upon London, I would have guessed that he was a notorious Evening Standard seller in the West End from some romantic 50′s London period piece.

And then along came the Madness concept album of the same name. I have often doubted the London lineage of the Nutty Boys, happy to cash in on their cheeky chappy cockney heritage, but not really contributing anything of significance to London after a career of capital exploitation.

How wrong I was. I have learnt more about a particular patch of London through listening o the Liberty album than I have after fifteen years of taking an active interest in London centric mainstream media output.

I’m assuming that any readers are as London illiterate as I am. Shameful, but here comes the history lesson, as brought to you by our ever-reliable friends at Wikipedia:

The Liberty of Norton Folgate was a distinct administrative unit between the Bishopsgate ward of the City to the south and the parish of St Leonard, Shoreditch to the north. Its origin was as the area of land occupied by the inner precinct of the Priory and Hospital of St Mary Spital. This was dissolved during the Reformation, but the land, reverting to the Crown, retained its status as an extra-parochial liberty.

The liberty was abolished in 1900 and was divided between the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney and the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch. A civil parish of Norton Folgate in the County of London existed between 1889 until it was absorbed by the parish of Whitechapel in 1921.

In 2008, in opposition to a plan to demolish the trendy Light Bar (built as a power station for the Great Eastern Railway) in order to build an office block, local activists claimed that documents in the council archives showed that the abolition of the Liberty of Norton Folgate in 1900 was technically invalid and that it still existed.

One thing that I have learnt about London after my time passing though here is to believe in the power of coincidence. This isn’t a random city with individual events being played out in isolation. There is a very strong spiritual feel to the city, drawing in seemingly unconnected events, and then presenting you with some form of narrative in which to make sense of your confused world.

And so in the week when I learnt more about Norton Folgate, I found myself landing a freelance project around the area. But coincidences don’t come in pairs - you need a third encounter to confirm the pattern.

Step forward Mr. WWSI and his weekly dispatch of photographic instructions to follow around the city. It just had to be Norton Folgate, didn’t it?

And so I cycled off to the forgotten part of town, hidden away behind Bishopsgate, full of enthusiasm for an area that I feel I know through music and online mythology, seeking out the truth. The persona of Norton Folgate has almost become a character in itself, thanks to the human face that Madness portray in their concept album classic.

Did I find the streets of the East End paved with more myths to perpetuate the legend of Norton Folgate?

Find out in the photo dialogue piece below…

Full flickr set over here.

West Ham Vs Millwall and the boys up for a ruck: C’mon - even Stevie Wonder could have seen this one coming. But in the land of the media blind, the one eyed knobber is King. Which is why we have on Wednesday morning, much hand wringing from BIG media as it tries to get to grips with the return of the English Disease.

Hey fellas, listen carefully: Football working class hooliganism *shhh* - it never went away.

What has changed in the past two decades is the embourgeoisement of football (yeah, I’ve got a degree in sociology, and I’m going to bloody use it.) Sanitise the beautiful / ugly game with TV matches re-branded as events, players as pop stars and supporters as the… supporting cast, and football loses its appeal. It did for me, anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh woe and a return for the good old-fashioned days of running from The Millwall after Neil Warnock’s Notts County had an unlikely 5-0 away win down at the old Lane. But it was, y’know, rather exciting at the time.

I was also rather young at the time, and being caught up in a ruck with other lads from a different part of the country, trying to pull one over the police, is exactly the kind of thing that gets a young man about town rather excited. Nowadays and an evening in with a bottle of bolly and a flick through of the New Statesman seems to help me sleep at night.

I can plot the downward trajectory and isolate exactly where I lost all interest in football - August 1992 and the first live Sky match as Liverpool came down to the City Ground. This is the exact moment when football went from being a passion to becoming part of the showbiz catwalk.

Across the river in the Fair City and the peak appears to have been reached this week with The Pies agreeing to pay the thirty four year-old Sol Campbell £10m over the next five years. Dear old Jimmy Sirrel wouldn’t have even given the big man a free bus pass, so that he could travel along to the game with his gaffer.

A return to city centre run-ins every Saturday afternoon isn’t the answer. But boys will be boys, and a bit of a Mexican stand off instead of a crappy Mexican wave might actually liven up some of the s**** Sky serve up on a Sunday afternoon.

The Nu Football Hooliganism (ha!) just might end up saving the game. Carling can’t be too happy being associated with the Hoolie Cup; I can’t see the Sky execs enjoying the gritty side of the game either. The only downside is that it can’t be too long before some knobber Tory politician fancies making a name for himself with a call for ID cards.

I’m personally hoping for a re-match, with West Ham drawn away at the New Den in the FA Cup come the start of the New Year. Now that’s a fixture I would happily pay to watch on TV.

Tone Deaf

A really, really clever online tool for facilitating tone and pitch. Oh, go on then - it’s the Simon for the modern interweb generation. I came across all Brian Eno, so to speak, for half an hour, programming at random a sequence of pitch changes, all played out with a rhythm last heard on a, um, Bentley Rhythm Ace remix. Can’t wait to play with it with the kids back at school next month.

txt: none of the above

Good work @lambeth_council (blimey) for taking the annual pain out of confirming that I haven’t prematurely popped my clogs and yep, I’m still available to spoil my ballot paper at the next round of local elections. Registration is now not only online, but also via txt, Bruv. It worked a treat as well, with a confirmation ping back once I had submitted.

We Will Remember

Speaking of effective use of technology around these parts, the lovely (and very resourceful) @StockwellNews has published a new blog, documenting the names found on the Stockwell War Memorial. For anyone interested in local history (rallying call for the first meeting of the Stockwell Oral History project later on this week…) then this is a wonderful data resource to share.