onionbagblog

Late August has long since been my favourite time in the lido season. The cold rush May mornings are a South London head splitter; the balmy mid-summer period is brilliant, but bumper-to-bumper both in the pool and on dry land in the Brockwell Park suntrap. The fag end of the South London summer is simply perfect when it comes to swimming, and then finding some space to procrastinate what is left of the lovely lido season.

Saturday morning was an ideal example of this. The lido queues stretching all the way around to the Cafe were but a mirage of the mid-July heat wave. The football season has started whilst cricket balls are still being bowled. The human calendar is out of synch with Mother Nature’s counting down of the days. If new school uniforms are being bought then it must mean that it is time for Match of the Day and the end of the Golden Days of the Lido.

But not for the lido hardcore who will stretch out the summer season in the same way that a slightly too tight pair of trunks continue to be worn, a refusal to accept that your best days are now behind you.

The first falling leaves of the Brockwell autumn are starting to appear around the poolside edge. Back in the Paddy and Casey Glory Years and the lido lifeguards would double up their Transpontine Baywatch duties with that of gardening. The leaves would have been swept aside and the weeding around the decking was a constant chore for any young chap privileged to wear the proud yellow livery of Brockwell Lido.

Or maybe that was just the hazy memories of sun drenched South London summers lost? The wisteria leaves now starting to turn golden brown at least added a reminder on Saturday as to how lucky you are to be swimming in such a grand art deco outdoor surround. You won’t find any back to nature musings down at Brixton Rec, Comrades.

Saturday morning saw a return to the crisp blue waters of Lake Brockwell that you are accustomed to at the start of the season. You could see clearly from one end of the 55-yard pool to the other, all ten rods, poles or perches long for the pedantic amongst you.

A similar sight greets you during the month of May. The testicular testing water temperature however remains slightly raised. 22.8 degrees was the official reading for Saturday morning. I prefer the unscientific measurment of it taking half a length before I managed to feel my head once again.

Just as there is no such thing as a bad swim - indoor or out - there is no such thing as a grumpy old sod at Brockwell Lido. The smiles might be slightly less stretched during the towel-to-towel jostling days of July, but the fag end August period is positively GRINNING.

I was greeted with a GRIN at the Reception; I GRINNED back knowing what lay waiting within. An old fella GRINNED at me for hopefully all the right reasons when I was stripped down to my birthday suit in the changing rooms. I GRINNED at the athletic Wetsuit Boy caught up in a bit of a flap as he tried to encase himself in black rubber. I GRINNED for all 32 lengths, and then didn’t stop GRINNING until my jaw packed in sometime after luncheon.

You know that the endurance of the outdoor swimming season is coming to an end and you are due a reward.

Ahhh - but is it?

The lido is a place for the cold water committed. Come mid-October and we’ll be remembering fondly those balmy mornings back in the fag end days of August.

Golden Days I tell you. Golden Days.

Regeneration / Gentrification

“Regeneration in London has become little more than the private sector building expensive properties. More and more housing is being built on and around council estates led by the government under the guise of the mixed communities policy.

The ‘regeneration’ of the Heygate and the Aylesbury estates in Elephant and Castle is displacing low and even middle income tenants in their thousands. The total cost of renovating the 1,200 homes on the Heygate estate would therefore be less than Southwark Council have already spent on emptying it.”

Loretta Lees, Professor at the Department of Geography at King’s College London, on the social cleansing taking place in SE1 and SE17.

Meanwhile…

Eyesore Erected on the Heygate

“Lend Lease has yet to receive advertising consent from the council to permit the installation of the banner.”

via @se1.

Showtime!

Sheep shearing, camel racing, Boris veg lookalikes, jerk chicken and old school roots - memories of an ACE Lambeth Country Show back in a balmy July.

Digital Schoolgates

“What is really needed is a school run parents community network site. Schools need the ability to communicate more effectively with the parent base and parents need to be able to communicate with the parents of the class their child is in. What’s really needed is a secure social network for schools.”

@futuregov open up the schoolgates project and describe the building process as part of #fghack.

All the school sites that I manage experience record traffic levels each winter whenever there is a Snow Day. I’ve got it down to a fine routine with the various Heads - a text at 5:30am, a brief Snow Day blurb five minutes later, back to bed and then watch the traffic rocket throughout the morning.

The more savvy schools have even had muted conversations about selling themed advertising around Snow Days…

What I love about the futuregov approach is the harnessing of the offline schoolgate gossip. From experience, this is where the real insider knowledge for any physical community takes place.

The layered texture and depth of content for schoolgates is also ace. You want to be able to filter out some data, and make sure that other content relevant to you and your family is flagged. Futuregov has all of this covered.

Privacy concerns and online child protection are an obvious issue, but if bolted down with the correct protocol, schoolgates could help contribute to the identity and ethos within a school.

All built within the #fghack 48 hour time frame as well.

Meanwhile, back in the offline world: seven more sleeps until teaching starts for the new term. I know what my first project will be to pitch Somewhere in SE17…

Lido Love

“A complete suntrap in the summertime, Brockwell Lido is one of the best examples of art deco-style lidos, and a model for lido campaigning groups.”

ACE to see the lovely lido tops The Graun list of outdoor swimming pools.

Oval and Out

“Surrey cricket is in crisis. Again.”

Ouch.

via @InsideCroydon.

Tavistock Traffic

Observing interactions between bicyclists, pedestrians and motor vehicles along the Tavistock Place Cycle Track. This stretch from Camden to Westminster is a victim of the success of the London cycling story. Capacity has doubled since 2002, leaving an infrastructure that is creaking. Solutions are offered in this ACE video.

via @Sarah_Hayward.

Bonnington Bogs

“We need someone to make sure that there is always a toilet roll in the portable toilet.”

As job specs go, it’s not the most glamerous. But good work in getting the Bonnington Festival back on.

Cat Shit

Boris the Cat lived here.

Blimey.

via @ShitLondon

Image: @stbotolphs_

I’ve waited a while before visiting the old Waiting Room in Colchester. Work commitments elsewhere kept me away. But all good things come to those who… wait.

Which is precisely what has happened for the Creative Coop, a grass roots organisation that has secured a meanwhile lease from Colchester Borough Council. Working in partnership with the Colchester School of Art and Common Futures, a library / hack / maker space is being established.

It is difficult to describe precisely what is taking place at the Waiting Room. Where once bus passengers waited dormant in the now displaced bus station, the council owned infrastructure is soon to become alive.

The run down space has been restored, along with the rickety associated shacks and toilets that run along the side of the building. The Waiting Room is now a destination in which to learn, make, create, share, collaborate and chat.

Which all sounds a little waffly and idealistic, but it’s got to be better than being an empty building - or even a bulldozed space left waiting for the *possible* return of Western Capitalism.

And good luck with that one, Comrades.

Tremendous progress and partnerships have already been established. Essex Libraries are on board, recognising the crossover and shared learning potential. Don’t go expecting a two-week loan of the latest crappy celeb biog. Instead a give-get library proposition will be in place. This allows users to offer tools in support of receiving.

The hands on approach to creating is very much the ethos of the space. Anyone in the community can hire out workbenches, tools, a letterpress, a silkscreen printer or a more contemporary massive inkjet for just £1 a day.

The old kiosks next door will once again be able to offer local start ups a space in which to learn their trade. An online oral history project documenting the area is also being established.

Tuesday evening was a taster of what is to come, as well as a taster for what was left over from the local CAMRA offerings at the Free Festival at the weekend. The cafe and bar supplied food and drink from the local area.

And so positive progress in a short space of time. This is no coincidence; there is no time to hang around in the old Waiting Room. The meanwhile lease is just that - the Creative Coop is making the most of an empty building whilst the Council scratches its hairy arse and ponders what the chuffers to do next with the Waiting Room.

It is a fascinating area down at St Botolph’s for any bored blogger with a topological bent. The Waiting Room straddles the optimistic / pessimistic cultural regeneration of Colchester.

Go West and the Golden Goose of firstsite glistens in the fag end of late August evening sunshine, a reminder of what was once possible under the last great hurrah of National Lottery funding.

Some folk would rather not be reminded…

Eyes east however and the Waiting Room and the derelict space backing on to Queen Street isn’t quite the Covent Garden Comes to Colchester experience that was once the misguided vision.

It is however being used for creativity - just not the corporate, packaged up tie in that those who associate culture with cash would have perhaps hoped for.

You can see how this model is so attractive for any cash-strapped local authority that wants to support the hyperlocal economy / pass the buck. An empty building gets new life breathed into it, all with the clever management of a meanwhile lease that means that the tenants can move on, should Western Capitalism ever wake up from the bad dream.

The slightly out of town location in the St Botolph’s Badlands won’t upset the traditionalists that continually decry the decline of the High Street. Hidden away from the mainstream means that the Waiting Room has a little physical and creative space in which to experiment.

I experimented myself on Tuesday evening with what was left of the Colchester Free Festival. It was pleasing to see that the heritage of the Waiting Room is still in place. The old urinals are now plant pots proudly hanging from the front door. The working toilets are a shared *ahem* asset with the bus drivers, themselves straddled between the old and the new.

Taking the piss?

Nah, just a little creative collaboration, Comrades.

You can sign up to the rather lovely non-spamming Waiting Room mailing list over here.

Calm Down Dear

“The Department for Communities and Local Government has urged councils to avoid using planning rules to tax drivers or justify unsuitable traffic calming measures.”

Just when you thought it was acceptable to *shhh* like that nice @ericpickles.

Ask a Silly Question

“Are there any regulations on keeping a crocodile in my back garden?

Am I allowed to bury my horse in my back garden?

Can you remove all porn from the internet?”

Top ten #localgov twaddle.

Mind the Gap

“Ride the Tube is not a race. With stations worth different numbers of points and bonuses awarded for different combinations it’s designed to reward strategy not speed.”

Bicycling around the Underground. Betcha my Brixton to Bal’ham backstreet route can’t be beaten, Comrades.

Chapeau!

Trolls and Accountability

“Much of the pathological behaviour that we’ve observed online corresponds pretty closely to what psychologists and historians have learned over the centuries about human behaviour offline. Put simply: if people believe that they will not be held accountable for their behaviour, then they tend to behave badly.”

More huffing and puffing over the Huffington Post fall out. To create a utopian online space for sharing and collaboration is naive. The aim should be to help the trolls realise what they are missing out on with their destructive approach to online conversation. A lack of social skills translates both online and offline. You can’t cure a troll in isolation on the modern interweb.

Cupcake-on-Sea

“Those same streets are now also attracting exiled Hackney hipsters seeking space away from overpriced studio flats to breathe deep, breed fast and scoop up some bargain retro furniture.

Many long-standing locals may share more in common with these fixed-wheel-bike-riding, latte-drinking, vintage-shirt-buying incomers than they realise.”

@iainaitch on the Seaside Cupcake Conundrum at Margate, South-London-on-Sea.

Up the Elephant and Round the Castle

Mute the speakers to lose the plinky plonky piano twaddle - ACE E & C timelapse images, via @SE1.