A couple of quotes coming my way via the Wivenhoe Forum:

“I have today written to the Environment Agency to formally object to the destructive work taking place along the sea wall from Wivenhoe Sailing Club to Alresford Creek. I suppose it’s probably too late to do anything about it but feel I must object to the lack of local consultation and publicity about the scale and extent of these works.”

As a bit of a busy body Wivenhoe local, I wasn’t even aware that the work being carried out by the Environment Agency was taking place out towards Alresford Creek. My daily commute takes me in the opposite direction, heading for the Hythe.

It’s a shame that it has taken such a heartbreaking issue as the vandalism of the sea wall, but yeah – hopefully the Wivenhoe Forum is now finding a use and a shared purpose.

Some more quotes on the same subject:

“I have spoken to Wivenhoe Town Council who received a letter from the Environment Agency in August 2010. I’ve seen nothing locally about these works.”

This is exactly what I had in mind when setting up the Wivenhoe Forum towards the tail end of last year. Having an engaged local community, sharing in dialogue and hopefully co-operation, can only benefit the town as a place to live and work. All information is good.

“An explanation of why this work is being done by the Environment Agency has been posted on the Wivenhoe website.”

This came from user gene, who is also responsible for running the most excellent Wivenhoe Encyclopedia (many thanks for the link, btw.) I have found this online volume of local knowledge invaluable since planning the Great Escape. It is formally linked with Wivenhoe Town Council. I prefer my independence…

Plus as comprehensive as the Encyclopedia may be (and it truly is a source of great knowledge) there isn’t the functionality for locals to talk together online. Once again – this is precisely what I had in mind when putting together the Wivenhoe Forum.

“Personally I am very disappointed that Wivenhoe Town Council was made aware of these works in August 2010 by the EA but that this information has not filtered through to the population of the Town.”

To which the response was:

“I have passed your comment to the Town Council.”

Ace.

Proper hyperlocal online communication that is being channeled in the right direction. Many thanks to the users involved for helping this process to work.

I then received a very kind comment to m’blog, from a non-Wivenhoe resident, stating:

“After a long drawn out decision – initially inspired by a Guardian Let’s Move article in 2007 – the time has come to house-hunt and school-hunt in Wivenhoe. It is very exciting but with two primary age children and a Liverpool street commuter the over subscribed schools and the crazy train fares are a little scary.

It was good to find this forum.”

Ahhh – lovely. It was good to see that the reach of the Wivenhoe Forum is also starting to spread outside of the town. This was another reason behind the initial idea – helping to promote Wivenhoe from within to the outside.

The Wivenhoe Forum is still only under two months old. My problem is that I’m far too impatient. I actually have higher daily traffic to m’blog than to the forum right now. Ironically this is actually up on the Lambeth levels from back in the day. Must be something about the content, Comrades.

In terms of membership, the Wivenhoe Forum is now up to seventy registered users. Not all are active of course, plus we have about half that number of lurkers each day. Online dialogue and co-operation is only ever any good if you can get a greater number of conversations started.

I’m still loath to go out there and start pimping out the forum around the town. But I’ve been encouraged as to how an issue such as the Colne clearance has acted as a springboard to realise the possibilities that this form of online contact can create.

Oh – and I personally managed to pass on an unwanted chair via the forum.

Cripes.

Onwards.

Oh Lordy.

An incredibly clumsy blog comment back in September by @LambethLabour’s Councillor Ed Davie of Thornton ward [top right] couldn’t be left unchallenged.

The Nu Labour twonk suggested that I was a racist for choosing to live in a:

“whites-only Olde English village. [sic]“

Such a sickening comment saddened me, and I felt that Councillor Davie should be made to answer this damaging allegation on my character. And so I filed an official complaint to @lambeth_council, stating that I believed that the Thornton representative was in breach of the Council’s Code of Conduct.

I wasn’t alone in my observation – I heard confirmation on Tuesday evening that the Standards (Assessment) Sub-Committee has met, and has decided to:

“Refer your allegation to the Council’s Monitoring Officer for further action.”

Furthermore, the Sub-Committee has ruled:

“It is necessary to identify one or more specific provisions of the Code of Conduct itself which are potentially engaged by this complaint. The following provisions of the Code have been identified for this purpose:

Part 1

General Provisions

2. Scope

(1) Subject to sub-paragraphs (2) to (5), you must comply with this Code whenever you:

(a) conduct the business of your authority (which in this Code, includes the business of the office to which you are elected or appointed); or

(b) act, claim to act or give the impression you are acting as a representative of your authority;

3. (1) You must treat others with respect.

(2) You must not

(b) bully any person;

5. You must not conduct yourself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or authority into disrepute.”

The Initial Assessment Decision include:

“Referral of the complaint to the Monitoring Officer to take “other action” (e.g. a written apology, training or conciliation).”

The Final Decision from the Sub-Committee states:

“To refer the allegation to the Monitoring Officer to take “other action” as follows:

1. To write to all councillors with the Standards Board for England blogging guidance and a covering note urging councillors who use social media to do so with caution.

2. To hold a private meeting with Councillor Ed Davie (who may be accompanied by either Chief Whip or Leader of the Council) to explain the concerns and advice of the Sub-Committee.

3. To refer the issue to the Member Development Group for consideration as to whether any further training for councillors should be given in addition to the SBE guidance.”

And so it seems that Councillor Davie is being hauled in for a bit of an ear bender on how to behave when engaging with social media. I greatly appreciate the time put in by the Standards (Assessment) Sub-Committee in investigating this complaint.

But it needn’t have had to reach this stage.

The Chief Legal Officer @lambeth_council liaised with the Chief Whip of the Labour group, as well as with Councillor Davie himself, with my suggestion of intervention, before eventually having to refer the matter to the Standards Sub-Committee in the absence of any response from Councillor Davie.

Over a month later, and for whatever reason, it became clear that Councillor Davie wasn’t going to offer an explanation for his actions. I am deeply offended by being publicly labeled a racist by Councillor Davie. This is a damning slur on my character that I couldn’t allow to go unchallenged.

Having previously been told by Councillor Davie that I have “no mandate to criticise elected Councillors,” I feel that I ought to point out that he has no mandate to make libellous allegations.

I don’t think calling someone a Nu Labour twonk is libellous, although the Nu Labour tag certainly is a harmful character slur.

The Nu Labour apologist flag wavers were quick to step in to defend Cllr Davie. @KieranCasey wins the prize for putting forward the most naive political argument in the history of political discourse, stating:

Following this line of thought, then someone (who is not me) is of the opinion that Councillor Davie is not best suited to civic service.

The cutting edge social commentary from other Lambeth Nu Labour apologists didn’t exactly add further contributions to the debate either. @DaMcEvoy, the self-styled “unbiased” mouthpiece of the Nu Labour love in Weir Residents Association, makes Cllr Davie look like a blushing bride about to be jilted at the altar. His language is almost as colourful as his lively Weir Residents Association website:

For a borough that is rather well engaged with its residents online, there is of course the danger that the odd loudmouth will destroy any positive social engagement put in place, and revert to type as an internet troll. For every @wellbelove and his brilliant embrace of social media, there is sadly a Councillor Davie who still believes that he is back in the school playground.

It’s all about *shhh* co-operation, Comrades.

Yeah, right…

The @BrockwellLido close of season coincides this summer with the arrival of the Great Escape. With the lido shutters now pulled firmly shut, the bag packing can start in earnest as I seek to find a new outdoor swimming experience somewhere deep within the wilds of North Essex.

When @AnnaJCowen and I sat down some eighteen months ago to compile a list of Reasons to Stay in London, my plus column consisted of a solitary entry: Brockwell Lido. Cricket almost got a look in, as did track cycling at Herne Hill. Replacing cricket is relative; I’m too crocked now to compete seriously at le velo.

It was the absolute love of @BrockwellLido that *almost* kept me in South London. You can’t survive on the last of the summer wine forever, and a lido lifestyle can be a miserable ball and chain to be shackled with during those dark winter months.

But how to say goodbye to an activity that has been at the centre of my South London #hyperlocal universe for the past fifteen summers?

My love affair with the lido started almost as soon as we first moved into South London during the summer of ’95. I kept on hearing about this mythical outdoor pool during my first few weeks in Brixton. A weekend run around Brockwell Park led me to the formal introduction. We’ve had an intimate relationship ever since.

The start of May until the end of September have been put aside for the past fifteen years as Lido Days. It is an addiction that means my working day is not complete unless I have indulged. Breaking the Brockwell habit is going to come at a high cost.

The attraction is mainly physical, partly emotional. I embrace the freshness of the water washing over me each morning in an almost ritualistic manner, providing clarity and perspective for the working day ahead.

The lido has become my thinking place in South London. Most of my major life decisions have been made here in an environment where I am truly clear of any outside distraction or influence. Ironically, the decision to leave South London was made whilst under the cool waters of Lake Brockwell.

Starting your morning with a gentile introduction, albeit a rather physically brutal and mentally bruising experience, leaves you with positive thoughts that remain throughout the day. Colleagues have long since stopped asking me why I am grinning insanely at 9am.

Catching the dancing rays of the sun as they reflect down on to the pool basin is better than any sterile, soulless Brixton Rec indoor swimming experience. Seeing a flock of geese provide you with a personal flyover is an added bonus.

The lido is MY lido. This is a claim that every other lido swimmer would also no doubt make. It can also be yours if you choose it to be. The experience and routine of the daily dip becomes a highly personalised one. You are in complete control of your own immediate environment. No one can touch you [um, not quite true] and anything is achievable.

I feel that I know every physical feature of the pool, from where the uneven white edges around the perimeter start to crack, down to the gradual tethering of the shallow end and the exact spot where you need to raise your knees to prevent grazing on the pool basin.

I can judge with my eyes closed (and usually they are) the precise point where my feet need to make contact as I push off from the deep end as I turn around to do it all again. I swim blind – not in the literal sense, although the pool is home to a number of sight-impaired swimmers.

I have seen many weird and wonderful sights down by the waters of Lake Brockwell over the years. The bonkers underwater hoover, the official Hold Yer Breath Underwater National Championships, and even having to share my lido experience with some model submarines that tried to dive bomb me in the deep end. That’s not something you see every day down at Brixton Rec.

But perhaps the weirdest experience is that of my fellow lido swimmers. All lovely, all totally bonkers. It is the defining feature of someone who chooses to swim outdoors in a water temperature that your body wants to resist, but your mind wants you to indulge in.

My favourite lido moments are the extremes – falling asleep in the suntrap terrace on a South London scorcher of an afternoon, or swimming in the rain mid-September and being the single custodian of the waters of Lake Brockwell. The mid-winter Brockwell Icicles experience takes this crazed approach to aquatic hedonism a stage further.

The building itself may change, but the ambience remains. I was alarmed over the architectural vandalism that the winter 2006 re-build by Fusion proposed. The demolition of an art deco wall, and then replacing it with a full on body pump style gym, could have killed off Brockwell Lido for me.

Somehow the smoke and mirrors trick has managed to hide away the dirty business of the gym bunnies. What goes on behind that wall we don’t talk about, but at least it brings in the money for Fusion, and guarantees a future for the lido.

Remarkably the unique lido ambience is still more or less in place after the most significant building works in the pool’s seventy-year history. This is a place of community, a place to meet people and a place to escape the nearby madness of the city.

It is this companionship that I treasure the most. Seeing fellow swimmers for the first time in the season is always a diary date to look forward to. Saying farewell at the end of September only reminds you of the winter misery months to come. I confess to slipping out quietly on Sunday, not wanting to cause a scene, not wanting to blubber on my final Brockwell Lido day.

And so where to now? Nearby Colchester has the new Garrison pool (fitness swimming) and Leisure World (wave machine hell.) I’m hoping to continue the outdoor aquatic lifestyle, by finding my own personal space downstream in the Colne estuary.

Perhaps this will be the biggest personal legacy that @BrockwellLido leaves upon me. Outdoor swimming is the purest form in which to participate. But to participate effectively, you need companionship. The unique collision of an art deco building in South London with a collective of crazed outdoor aquatic types, is going to be simply irreplaceable.

I regret that I am not going to be around for the BLU AGM next month. It is a social highlight of the lido season, and provides me with my annual opportunity to ask why I should have to pay twice to swim in pools owned by @lambeth_council. Fifteen years of swimming, and I still haven’t heard a satisfactory answer.

But anyway: come on in – the water’s… Brrrrr.

There is something unique about my #hyperlocal patch of South London in that it is fortunate to throw up a higher number of local blogs than probably anywhere else in London. It is no coincidence that a large amount of local online dialogue is spent discussing the failures of @lambeth_council.

Collective contempt breeds community *shhh* co-operation, which is perhaps why this area is so rich in local blogs. But it’s not all about incompetent local authority bureaucracy. Sometimes there is a booze call to arms, and the online becomes the offline.

Which is exactly what happened on Thursday evening at the Wheatsheaf, when the wonderful @AndrewOrange of the Tradescant patch pitched in with the perfect idea of organising an SW8 (ish) Battle of the Blogs in the form of a pub quiz.

Contrary to continued claims from the snipers, this informal network of bloggers has been operating independently over the past few years. Offline acquaintances have been rare. We all tend to cover the same stories coming out of the Rotten Borough, but that is more due to duty than conspiracy.

The Battle of the Blogs served as a brilliant opportunity to put a name to that dodgy twitter profile picture, hit the booze and then laugh at some of the antics of @lambeth_council that we have all been following of late.

I arrived at The Wheatsheaf not really knowing what to expect, but was totally blown away by many of the online names that had come out to compete, and to wish a farewell to @AnnaJCowen and I ahead of the Great Escape.

The scene in the main bar ahead of the quiz was like a Who’s Who of Lambeth activism. There was no representation from @LambethLabour, although to be fair, @imogenwalker had civic Licensing duties. @labourstockwell sent a very kind apology.

It was great to catch up with John Hare once again, whom I spent a charming afternoon with back in May, learning all about the dirty tricks campaign put in place by @LambethLabour over in Herne Hill. With May 6th now behind us, John tried his very best on the night to out me as a Lambeth Green. Close, but no cigar, my friend. Not yet, anyway,

To my great surprise, my fave local Lambeth activist also turned up. I was given the complete rundown of the Battle of Vassall Ward, and only wish now that I was around longer to see this particular #hyperlocal problem be played out in full.

And then just when you think that you have heard it all in the Rotten Borough, I was tipped off about a truly outrageous local story that looks like it will blow up big time. Following, but not participating, in the Lambeth online dialogue via my RSS feeds is going to pass away those long, rural winter evenings.

As for the quiz itself? Well, the #hyperlocal news round compiled by the good @AndrewOrange was testing, and it is with some shame that my non SW8 team ringer, @Darryl1974 did the business for Team Lambeth Shite (although I did pitch in with the answer of “he voted @LambethLabour” to the question: what crime did the last person to be executed at Kennington Gallows commit?)

Overall and Team Lambeth Shite faired slightly better than the inspiration behind the name; the Luscious Lurkers were diligent and asked some probing questions (but didn’t get many answers.) Hold the front page – @StockwellNews ran away with the Battle of the SW8 Blogs winner’s award.

And so a huge thanks to both @AndrewOrange and The Wheatsheaf for accommodating us. @mazlaws, @markvauxhall, @garethwyn and, um, @AnnaJCowen all did Team Lambeth Shite proud as well.

It was fitting that as I left a #hyperlocal pub quiz, I still managed to get lost in walking the short distance back to my SW8 base. Whoops. Even more fitting that the Wheatsheaf hung a picture painted nearby to the Hoe.

There will always be a small part of South London that will be forever Wivenhoe, and in return, I’m sure that there will always be a small part of Wivenhoe that will keep on flying the flag for South London.

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

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.

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…

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.

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…

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.