onionbagblog

*sigh*

I really will miss the great Giovani, Luigi and the lovely, lovely Di Lieto olive bread.

There’s been some strange goings on with the good @cllrstevereed’s twitter stream of late - and I’m not talking about just the content, either. I personally haven’t been blocked from reading the micro thoughts of our local council Leader, but a level of screening does appear to be in place.

If I’m logged in under my own @Jason_Cobb account, then I get an empty page of thoughts radiating from the mind of @cllrstevereed. Sign out however, and I get the Full Monty.

Blimey.

But what of the content, Comrade?

The early bird catches the early worm, and it seems that @cllrstevereed had an awful lot on his mind during the early hours of Tuesday morning. Posting shortly after 3:30 am, the following question was posed:

It’s rather decent of @cllrstevereed to engage in some debate with the fine @kevindcraig - they are both members of the same political party, after all. Perhaps taking this conversation behind the closed doors of the local constituency meetings might have been a better idea though.

You may remember how @kevindcraig is the Secretary of the Vauxhall Constituency Labour Party. A Stop Kev campaign was put in place by a squeaky clean (and recently newly elected) Lambeth councillor, to try and remove @kevindcraig from his post earlier in the year.

The thinking was unsettle Kev, unsettle Kate Hoey, the sitting MP for Vauxhall. That leaves a huge gap to fill in local politics, with the added glamour of the national stage in which to strut your stuff as well.

Keep your eye on the prize at all times, Comrade.

The campaign from the right of @LambethLabour failed of course. Lambeth Town Hall may be nothing but a heard of Nu Labour sheep, but the local activists around the wards are actually quite, um, active.

And so with @kevindcraig democratically elected alongside Kate Hoey, it seems strange that further unsettling seems to be taking place online - and at 3:30 in the morning as well.

Oh Lordy.

Dare we mention the D word? @cllrstevereed certainly did to the Secretary of the Vauxhall CLP.

Unity seems to be the buzzword for the Comrades up in Manchester this week. Time to settle old scores and to come together to fight the nasty ConDem cuts collectively.

Meanwhile, back to @cllrstevereed’s early morning online ramblings, and we find:

Calling a fellow party member in the same borough a “Tory sympathiser” isn’t going to do much to heal those huge wounds within @LambethLabour. Come the cold light of day, and @cllrstevereed was asking:

Hoey’s record on voting for gay rights in the House is indeed open to interpretation. But once again, it seems a strange question for the Leader of a local authority to be posing on a (semi) pubic online social media site.

And so the Stop Kev campaign is about to be, um, started once again.

Now there’s… co-operation for you, Comrades.

I was left in a peculiar position at the London Neighbourhoods Online Unconference, held at the offices of Ofcom on Saturday. On the very same day that the Stockwell Festival was being staged, plus the Lambeth Archives Open Day, here I was, flying the online flag for Sunny Stockwell, just as I enter single digit days ahead of the Great Escape.

The Unconference itself wasn’t so much Talk About Local, but looking ahead to how #hyperlocals can help one other. I have new personal and professional challenges ahead of me. Meeting up with skilled #hyperlocal enthusiasts, and only good could come out of the collaboration and conversation.

The day itself was positioned perfectly as a move away from debate towards dialogue. I still have some reservations about the merits of an Unconference; essentially there is no agenda - you set it yourself.

Around one hundred or so #hyperlocals assembled early on Saturday morning with a stunning view looking upstream along the Thames from Southwark Bridge. The panoramic proved to be the inspiration, and fifteen minutes later, a shared agenda for workshops was put in place.

I chipped in with the slightly mischievous: Local authorities, local media and #hyperlocals: conflict or collaboration?

This viewpoint obviously depends on precisely where your own #hyperlocal is positioned. Sitting here in Sunny Stockwell right now, and sadly the outlook is one of conflict.

A local authority back peddling to try and gain control of the local agenda, and a local newspaper that seemingly turns a blind eye to the sock puppeting style of the lead attack dog journo towards local blogs. This was a dialogue that I wanted to share with other London bloggers, to find out if Lambeth is unique in putting in place such high levels of suspicion.

The session itself became slightly confused. It appeared to crossover with a pre-planned Q & A with the very good @foodiesarah, who is responsible for the #hyperlocal network of sites at The Guardian.

The local authority element got mislaid, but instead we shared ideas about the relationship between bloggers and BIG (ish) media. It would have been decent if representation was here from BIG (ish) media, but with @SthLondonPress taking seven days to publish print copy online, and even a year to update a blog, (blimey) then I’m sure our family newspaper friends had better things to be doing.

The question was posed: are #hyperlocals the enemy? A spontaneous YES! resonated around the room. This *isn’t* by choice, but with the complete failure of BIG (ish) media around these parts to collaborate with the passionate informal network of local news junkies on the ground, this is often how it feels.

An excellent point was made in that media and life overlap. This is a proposition that BIG (ish) media can’t handle. The old linear model of reporting is still a one-way conversation, and the very pace of #hyperlocal life simply can’t translate to the painful process of publishing news content either offline, or even online by the BIG boys.

The collaboration element to the session proved to be the most contentious. @foodiesarah urged all #hyperlcoals to invoice, whenever BIG (ish) media lift our stories. It’s a fine principle to uphold, but the reality is that most of us can’t be arsed to file an invoice to a faceless organisation, and then wait around for a month for a poxy payment. You simply get on, do your thing and find new stories.

This theme then developed into a debate about what alternative form of payment could be accepted, if this collaboration could ever work. Most in the room favoured online links as a form of currency.

#hyperlocals do whatever it is that they do, not for the dosh, but for the sharing and collaboration, plus the passion for their own #hyperlocal news patch. We have stories to tell that BIG (ish) media are too lazy to look out for. Ultimately it is about getting these stories heard.

The value of a link is priceless in terms of gaining momentum. If BIG (ish) media is going to persist and keep on lifting our copy, the very least they could do is to link back to the original. This raises your ranking within Google, and ultimately allows those #hyperlocal news stories to find a voice that BIG (ish) media ignore.

The second session that I attended was all about Finding an Editorial Voice and How to Run a Campaign. This developed more into a debate about moderation - which was nice. It was very useful though for a possible project in the pipeline post the Great Escape.

My contribution was that I don’t believe that anyone deliberately decides to find an editorial voice, or even put in place a campaign. Put crudely - you just do it. #hyperlocals react to what they see around them. Any campaign, formal or otherwise, is simply what follows next.

I shared my experience regarding the bonkers 5am licence for Kelly’s just off the Clap’ham Road. I didn’t realise that I was caught up in the middle of a campaign until I started to become the central point for emails between local residents, councillors and the local police.

I made the point that the most valued contribution that #hyperlocals can make towards a campaign is simply getting the story out there. This was always my sole intention with the bonkers 5am licence. What followed is that m’blog somehow became the online space in which offline action was co-ordinated.

Making Connections and Linking London was a session led by mattfromlondon and @Londonist. Having demoed Londonist during the lunch break, Matt was interested in hearing how the Londonist network can engage the many London #hyperlocals.

I personally veer away from any collective form of blogging. I feel uncomfortable with the “we think…” editorial style. *I* think, which is all part of the process for me in offering one opinion on a #hyperlocal news patch.

I suggested to Matt that Ken Vs Boris will be key for @Londonist. I came up with the idea of actively recruiting a Ken flag waver and a Boris flag waver. This isn’t going to be an objective contest in which to report from the #hyperlcal hustings. Opinions matter out there. The collective “we” will be weakened compared to the singular “I.”

The final session I attended sounded intriguing: How Does #bigsociety Fit into #hyperlocal?

My observation was that #bigsociety, its #lambethcoop little brother and #hyperlocal, all share the common theme of having no dosh. The point was made that politicians don’t seem to recognise that #hyperlocals get things fixed, *without* any initial co-operation from politicians. In my micro patch and blogging about Palfrey Place, or the bonkers 5am licence has led to real action on the ground.

I offered up the point that you should see the story through to the conclusion. It may be a pain to keep on going back over old ground, but online context (and links) are everything. It has led me to understand the complete process that is still rumbling around the botched @LambethLabour email hack, not to mention the continued Streatham Hub strife. Sadly I won’t be around for the next decade to see the Streatham saga through to an end game.

Safer Neighbourhood Panels were mentioned as an example of how #bigsociety and #lambethcoop are doomed to fail. At best, a dozen people turn up at a SNP each month. This is a meeting that truly empowers the local community - you get to set the targets for your local police for each quarter.

If such apathy takes place at such a key decision making process, then you can see how I fail to get excited about #lambethcoop and the empty rhetoric of Power to the People. We elect (and pay) politicians to make these decisions for us.

And that was just about yer lot. An incredibly demanding day, but an excess of ideas and enthusiasm for me to take away for the next challenge. The Many Voices model worked rather well, and led to some genuine collaboration.

But in a day of shared conversations, co-operation and planning, it was perhaps apt that a singular tweet, tagged with the #lno10 hashtag, probably summed up best the London Neighbourhoods Online Unconference:

“If you want to get something done set up network, slow it down, set up an organisation.”

Many thanks to Networked Neighbourhoods for organising such a worthwhile event. Let’s build upon this optimism.

Not content with making libellous allegations towards, um, me, that a “whites-only Olde English village is more up to your standards,” [sic] @LambethLabour’s latest complete tool, Councillor Ed Davie of Thornton ward, is now going about his business by trying to brush under the carpet some of the fallout from the continued unexplained suspension of Councillor Abrams of Vassall ward.

The chest beating @LambethLabour website “welcomed back” Councillor Abrams with a news story that sought to steal back the agenda from the botched email sting allegations made against @LambethLabour Leader @cllrstevereed..

No mention was made in the blog post of the charge made against Councillor Abrams that he leaked sensitive information to @SthLondonPress. That’s probably because he didn’t - the popular local figure managed to see straight through the email sting, and laughed it off as just another dirty tricks campaign from the right of the party.

But with the four month period of sitting on the @LambethLabour naughty step now complete, how to solve the problem of Readmitting Kingsley? It is a problem all of the making of the Nu Labour twonks within @LambethLabour, and no surprises that they have managed to botch up this political act up as well.

Many activists within the party were unhappy about the authoritarian wording of the original blog post. Calls were made for it to either reflect more accurately the exact details of the events leading up to the suspension, or if that proved to be too uncomfortable, then just delete the blog entry altogether.

An edit has now taken place, but not after much prolonged debate and further fallout behind the scenes. The new posting declares with no sense or irony, or even embarrassment that:

“Chair of the Labour group Ed Davie, secretary Jennifer Brathewaite and chief whip Jack Hopkins officially welcomed Councillor Abrams back to the group at a meeting on September 20 at the town hall.

Councillor Davie said: I am very happy to welcome Kingsley back to the group and we fully endorse London Region’s view that he should play a full and constructive part in the Labour group and council.”

Cripes, Comrade.

That’s some welcome back handshake - behind the scenes and many leading figures within the @LambethLabour group are being emailed by Councillor Davie, briefing against Councillor Abrams and trying to offer *ahem* a ‘different interpretation‘ of the events as understood by many activists locally within the party.

This really should be the end of the very messy little spot of local bother that @LambethLabour has forced upon itself. But the continued wriggling by the Nu Labour twonks in the party is making a conclusion difficult to reach.

It is a classic case of put up, or shut up - where is the actual evidence that Councillor Abrams leaked information to the South London Press? You need to look towards the allegation that @lambeth_council Leader Steve Reed ordered the hacking of Councillor Abrams’ email account, to understand properly the reasons as to why the suspension has never properly been explained to the electorate.

Seek and you will find…

Overlooking the slight kafuffle in the comments below regarding the “whites-only” [sic 'n *sigh* 'n complaint lodged to the Standards Committee] move to the ‘Hoe, but, yeah, the boxes are packed and all we need now is somewhere to park the removal van, come the grand day of the Great Escape.

Job’s a good ‘un - especially so if you are @lambeth_council (“we’re on your side…“) and can trouser almost £200 for allowing a resident to park a van directly outside the property in which they own.

Cripes.

Yep, I accept that we are moving out of what is a busy, built up urban environment, but blimey - just short of two hundred notes so that nice Mr Pickfords can pull up for a couple of hours one morning?

A look around the multi-layers of the @lambeth_council website, and I found that I needed to apply for the suspension of a parking bay. A visitor’s permit may be cheap at half the price at around a tenner a time, but the last thing I want on D-Day is for that nice Mr Pickfords to turn up and find that there is no space for him to park.

The deal then involves giving seven working days notice to the Parking department, a £60 admin charge (isn’t there always….) and £40 per parking bay suspension. Turns out we need three bays.

Like I said - job’s a good ‘un, but I still fail to see exactly how the Parking department at @lambeth_council is running at a loss in these days of austerity and cuts.

As for the return leg? A quick call to Colchester Borough Council (um, helloooo, btw…), and I gave an explanation of my where and how to park dilemma.

“I’m sorry?” came the reply from the wilds of deepest Essex. “You’re phoning to find out if you need permission to park a van outside a property that you own? Aww - no need for that, love.”

Park ‘n ride.

Park ‘n ride, all the way, baby.

Early Sunday morning and @BrockwellLido was bloody closed - again. After the run of five closures during the balmy days of June, I thought Fusion had finally understood how to manage an outdoor swimming pool.

Only yesterday and I was commenting to the lovely Lido Peter how the clear, blue waters of Lake Brockwell have returned, just in time for the season close at the end of September. Sunday morning however had the familiar “chemical imbalance” given as the reason for the lack of aquatic action.

Bugger.

To be fair to Fusion, all members have been offered a 10% discount on the joining fee for the 2011 season. Cynics might say that this serves only as an incentive to sign up yet again. What’s the point if you’re buggering off @BrockwellLido continues to suffer the same fate next summer?

Having dragged my backside down to Brockwell Park early on Sunday morning, the inconvenience for me was more of a personal and emotional disappointment.

The tally chart counting down my final days of outdoor swimming in SE24 is almost in single digits. A closed pool is about as welcome as a LambethLabour pledge of “free swimming for every resident” right now.

Ah yes - about that pre-election promise of “free swimming for every resident…”

In the absence of any @BrockwellLido action, I returned down Railton Road and found myself staring into the abyss of Brixton Rec.

Blimey.

The queue at reception finally cleared after five minutes - this was 9am on a Sunday morning, after all. Ahead of me to be served was a young mother with three small kids. She asked for an adult swimming ticket, and three passes for the free swimming for her children.

“Sorry,” said the GLL receptionist. “Free swimming is no longer available.” A price was quoted, which didn’t leave much change out of a £20 note. Not surprisingly the young mother had to explain to her three small kids that swimming wasn’t going to happen today.

I paid my £3.50, and then walked past the petition on the wall set up by the Brixton Rec Users Group. It calls for @LambethLabour to reconsider its decision to slash free swimming for under 16′s and over 60′s. The election pledge of “free swimming for every resident” has long since been sacrificed.

I’m told that just over 2,000 signatures have so far been collected by local leisure users - quite an achievement. One thousand more are still required for the Rec Users Group to force the next Full Council meeting to actually take the petition seriously and debate the matter.

That Lambeth Life Power to the People twaddle of a headline is looking more false as the @LambethLabour cuts start to kick in.

With the disappointment of Brockwell behind me, and now ready to experience the delights of Brixton Rec on a Sunday morning, I showered and slipped into the pool. Five minutes later and I was finished.

It was simply impossible to undertake any form of exercise in a public pool that is rammed bumper to bumper with swimmers early on a Sunday morning. That’s what happens when the “success story” of leisure in Lambeth leads to only one pool that is actually open in the entire borough.

I’ll be back at the waters of Lake Brockwell come Monday morning. If the “chemical imbalance” is still lingering, I’ll have to admit defeat and accept that the buggers have won.

“Free swimming for every resident?”

Only in the Rotten Borough…

Claims of yet more cheating by the Pakistani cricket team and then a visit by the Pope - just another normal twenty-four hours in my #hyperlocal patch of South London then.

The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to St Peter’s Residence along Meadow Road wasn’t meant to make the headlines. This was an afternoon tea event, tucked away in an otherwise anonymous corner of South London, and hidden away in the official State visit schedule ahead of the Hyde Park hoo ha later in the evening.

The playing down of Mr Pope in my #hyperlocal patch suggested something of a space filler. With a more high profile visit to Wimbledon earlier in the afternoon, and then the huge Hyde Park ticketed event in the evening, cynics (um, the good @SE11_lurker) was spot on in stating that we were hosting a time killing event.

It was almost as if the Vatican had pulled up Google maps, typed in SW19 and W1, and then pinned the Papal tail on my little #hyperlocal patch to pass the time. The location of St Peter’s, SW8 made perfect geographic sense, albeit with some ideological reservations.

Google maps may be great for physical geography, but not so cool on cultural exploration. A short walk down the Harleyford Road, and Mr Pope would have found himself at Vauxhall Cross, the self-centred Gaybourhood of South London.

Whoops.

I personally was rather passive in the whole Papal affair. I’m agnostic but active locally. To stay at home and hoover whilst one of the world’s most influential leaders was passing through my neighbourhood, would have been a waste of an afternoon.

I wandered down Trigon Road shortly before 5pm, quite unsure of what to expect. The road closure signs had been in place all week, but interest in Benny’s afternoon tea break seemed to be limited.

I passed young mother’s carrying shopping bags, kids playing on scooters and even an estate agent trying to temp some tenants into a shoehorn of a flat.

“What’s the neighbourhood like?”

“Oh, you know - apart from Papal visits, nothing special.”

It wasn’t until I reached the Meadow Road junction that I first saw the crowds. Nothing major, but then this was a hyped down #hyperlocal appearance. A rough head count suggested 1,000 max, with a lively crowd of twenty or so protestors, representing the Gaybourhood.

It is rather apt that this hush hush #hyperlocal visit should take place at St Peter’s. Little is known about the Nursing home locally. My only contact with St Peter’s is to pass it on the way to the cricket. The good Sisters within aren’t exactly resting on Test match days, trousering twenty notes a time in pimping out the Good Lord’s car park.

Cripes.

I took up a place in the throng of the two deep crowd, directly opposite the gates to St Peter’s. This was clearly an entry point that I wouldn’t pass the test for. The #hyperlocal online and blogging community was out in force.It seems that I wasn’t alone in putting that Saturday afternoon hoovering on hold.

A sudden rush, and the police convoy speeded past, followed by some very un-Pope-mobile style transport. It was as though Mr Pope was being transported around South London in the back of a rather large hire car.

And that, I thought, was probably that. A quick scroll through my twitter feed, and the good @kennington reported that Kate Hoey was within the sacred walls, being received by the Pope. Keeping in line with the song, the response from Mr Pope of course had to be:

“Who the f***ing hell is Kate Hoey…”

It must have been a laugh-along-a-minute during the short meeting. We were led to believe that Benny was giving a sidesplitting speech to the Sisters all about… death. It’s the way he tells ‘em.

I did consider buggering off back to base and resuming my own private worship of housework. But I stuck it out, and was rewarded with what was a truly unique, magical and simply jaw dropping moment, right on my #hyperlocal doorstep.

A robed up dude emerged from the gates at St Peter’s to deliver a cheeky thumbs up to the crowd. I passed this off as perhaps a sign of the party atmosphere within. Perhaps the water had been turned to wine, and wall-to-wall vomiting had broken out.

But nope - Mr Thumbs Aloft was indicating that one of the most powerful and influential men in the world wanted to have a walkabout, right on my bloody doorstep.

Blimey.

The crowd went crazy, both God Fearers and the guys ‘n girls from the Gaybourhood alike. I was sitting on the fence, quite literally, and simply wanted to take it all in.

Even for an agnostic, it was simply magical. There was a huge surge of emotion in witnessing the power of an old man to inspire my local community. As far as schedule time killers go, this had to be the most remarkable way of filling in a spare half hour in the South London afternoon.

I tried to make sense of this short burst of spirituality, but where to look? Mr Pope’s shoes caught my eye. I may not believe in his right wing nonsense of a message, but he is certainly a snappy dresser.

Sticking with the shoe theme, and it seemed that an Iraqi style shoe throwing protest was about to break out. A singular shoe dropped right in front of me. Turns out it belonged to a poor kid who was simply caught up in all the excitement and emotion.

This is about as rock ‘n roll as my little #hyperlocal patch of South London gets. The appearance of an iconic figure in the late evening SW8 sunshine was inspiring, if not in a religious capacity, then certainly spiritualy.

I have seen the light, I have seen Mr Pope, and yes - I have seen a community celebrating a unique event. The Gaybourhood guys ‘n girls rightly had their grievances, but I simply couldn’t ignore the power that this man has. What a waste for it be channelled into the nonsense of organised religion.

So yeah - for one afternoon only, my #hyperlocal patch of South London became the centre of the universe. I may not believe in creationism, but I am now a confirmed supporter of community cohesion.

Amen to that.