There have been quite a few changes at Springfield Park this year. Strips of grass have been left unmown to attract butterflies. A nature conservation area has been specially fenced off. And there are little green signs everywhere, like the one on the left. Click on it if you’d like to see a bigger version, but I might as well tell you that it reads:
The Knoll
Part of Springfield Park Local Nature Reserve and Regionally Important Geological Site.
The ‘Knoll’ is a gravel area with a thin dry ‘acid’ soil that would once have been heath land. It has locally rare plants like Sheeps Sorrell and is home to hundreds of solitary bees that live in the soil.
It’s a nice idea, but these signs are so clearly part of some “educate the ignorant townies” initiative. Not that I mind: I’ve learnt a lot, and I was brought up next to and within the countryside.
I did wonder, though, what we would get if the tables were turned. If the council were to put information signs in Hackney’s streets, with the aim of educating ignorant yokels from the provinces, what would be written on them.
Would it be something like this?
Dalston
Part of the North London Local Pickpockets Reserve and Regionally Important Drive-by Shooting Site.
‘Dalston’ is a concrete area with a roaring ‘acid’, ‘crack’ and ‘heroin’ trade that once would have been dominated by opium. It has locally rare plants like ‘Purple Haze’ skunk weed and is home to hundreds of people who have been forced to live in third-rate local authority housing.
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What signs would you erect to help educate a country visitor to your area?
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Comments
I suppose it was the Norfolk nuns that taught you all about inner-city botany?
I have been exposed to the spiritual guidance of Johnnie Walker and I dare say many a religious epiphany could be credited to Purple Haze or White Widow.
Well tempting as it is to warn the yokels that they will encounter ethnic minorities and they should not regard this as a cause for alarm, I think only a haiku really does justice to the Kilburn/Cricklewood/West Hampstead triangle.
Polish beer in offies
Affected bourgeois ponces
Old school Irish pubs.
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Please note the ‘Royal’ in the name.
We are not all, contrary to popular belief, corduroy-tourser-wearing upper class twits or yummy mummys with a penchant for decrying the state of the nation.
Now please don’t loiter there; my Range Rover can’t get through and if I don’t hurry, Waitrose will be out of Telegraphs.
Puss
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