This evening I met up with a pleasant fellow, Keith, who edits the Hackney Citizen (and seems to like printing my guff). I had two halves of Leffe and, because I’d omitted supper, decided on my way home to drop into the chipper on Stoke Newington Church Street. Nothing like the combination of beer and chips to summon up the ghosts of my Belgian ancestors, whether Chaudoir or Ghiesbrecht.

As I turned into Church Street, just by the place opposite the Defoe that used to be a Franco-Welsh restaurant (honest), I was listening to Shane and the Popes.

Kahaya! You fuck!
Come Hell or high water
I might have fucked your Missus
But I never fucked your daughter

I was also eyeballing a group of three teenagers on the pavement outside the Auld Shillelagh. The diffidence to slouch ratio fixed them as belonging to the ‘93 or ‘94 vintage. As I walked past, two clustered round me, if such a thing is possible, and one spoke.

Not that I could hear him.

Fol-diddle-dee-ahhh
Fol-diddle-dee-ahhh
Fol-diddle-dee-ahhh
Fol-diddle-dee-ahhh

So I unplugged one earphone.

“What?”

Teenager, huskily: “Is there a shop round here?”

“What?”

“A shop. Is there a shop round here?”

Fucking idiots, you’re standing next to one. I point: “Yes. It’s just there”.

“Thanks mate.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Earphone back in.

As sure as I’m Father Emmett
I’ve a King Dong down me Semmett
As any girl will tell you
From Cavan down to Clare
Back in sweet Virginia
In the toilet with Lavinia
I nearly fucked her brains out
And tore her party dress…

Then, standing in the queue to the chip shop, a moment of realisation and a self-reproach.

“Oh, a shop. If they wanted to buy drugs, why didn’t they just say so.”

I’m an old c*nt sometimes.

I’ll be back more regularly when things quieten down a bit.

A splendid bit of satire from a Lancing man, now resident in the US of A. Here’s his blog if you haven’t seen it before.

Wouldn’t it be nice to spend the cash on Hackney’s kids for a change?

Fat chance.

And what a sublime one, plucked from the riches available at bonjourmoncoussin.com.

Talking of foreign cushions puts me in mind of this gag from Three Men on the Bummel.

“They are somewhat peculiar in some things, these Germans.”

I said: “What has happened?”

“Well,” he answered, “there was that cushion I wanted.”

“For your aunt,” I remarked.

“Why not?” he returned.  He was huffy in a moment; I never knew a man so touchy about an aunt.  “Why shouldn’t I send a cushion to my aunt?”

“Don’t get excited,” I replied.  “I am not objecting; I respect you for it.”

He recovered his temper, and went on:

“There were four in the window, if you remember, all very much alike, and each one labelled in plain figures twenty marks.  I don’t pretend to speak German fluently, but I can generally make myself understood with a little effort, and gather the sense of what is said to me, provided they don’t gabble.  I went into the shop.  A young girl came up to me; she was a pretty, quiet little soul, one might almost say, demure; not at all the sort of girl from whom you would have expected such a thing.  I was never more surprised in all my life.”

“Surprised about what?” I said.

George always assumes you know the end of the story while he is telling you the beginning; it is an annoying method.

“At what happened,” replied George; “at what I am telling you.  She smiled and asked me what I wanted.  I understood that all right; there could have been no mistake about that.  I put down a twenty mark piece on the counter and said:

“Please give me a cushion.”

“She stared at me as if I had asked for a feather bed.  I thought, maybe, she had not heard, so I repeated it louder.  If I had chucked her under the chin she could not have looked more surprised or indignant.

“She said she thought I must be making a mistake.

“I did not want to begin a long conversation and find myself stranded.  I said there was no mistake.  I pointed to my twenty mark piece, and repeated for the third time that I wanted a cushion, ‘a twenty mark cushion.’

“Another girl came up, an elder girl; and the first girl repeated to her what I had just said: she seemed quite excited about it.  The second girl did not believe her—did not think I looked the sort of man who would want a cushion.  To make sure, she put the question to me herself.

“‘Did you say you wanted a cushion?’ she asked.

“‘I have said it three times,’ I answered.  ‘I will say it again—I want a cushion.’

“She said: ‘Then you can’t have one.’

“I was getting angry by this time.  If I hadn’t really wanted the thing I should have walked out of the shop; but there the cushions were in the window, evidently for sale.  I didn’t see why I couldn’t have one.

“I said: ‘I will have one!’  It is a simple sentence.  I said it with determination.

“A third girl came up at this point, the three representing, I fancy, the whole force of the shop.  She was a bright-eyed, saucy-looking little wench, this last one.  On any other occasion I might have been pleased to see her; now, her coming only irritated me.  I didn’t see the need of three girls for this business.

“The first two girls started explaining the thing to the third girl, and before they were half-way through the third girl began to giggle—she was the sort of girl who would giggle at anything.  That done, they fell to chattering like Jenny Wrens, all three together; and between every half-dozen words they looked across at me; and the more they looked at me the more the third girl giggled; and before they had finished they were all three giggling, the little idiots; you might have thought I was a clown, giving a private performance.

“When she was steady enough to move, the third girl came up to me; she was still giggling.  She said:

“‘If you get it, will you go?’

“I did not quite understand her at first, and she repeated it.

“‘This cushion.  When you’ve got it, will you go—away—at once?’

“I was only too anxious to go.  I told her so.  But, I added I was not going without it.  I had made up my mind to have that cushion now if I stopped in the shop all night for it.

“She rejoined the other two girls.  I thought they were going to get me the cushion and have done with the business.  Instead of that, the strangest thing possible happened.  The two other girls got behind the first girl, all three still giggling, Heaven knows what about, and pushed her towards me.  They pushed her close up to me, and then, before I knew what was happening, she put her hands on my shoulders, stood up on tiptoe, and kissed me.  After which, burying her face in her apron, she ran off, followed by the second girl.  The third girl opened the door for me, and so evidently expected me to go, that in my confusion I went, leaving my twenty marks behind me.  I don’t say I minded the kiss, though I did not particularly want it, while I did want the cushion.  I don’t like to go back to the shop.  I cannot understand the thing at all.”

I said: “What did you ask for?”

He said: “A cushion”

I said: “That is what you wanted, I know.  What I mean is, what was the actual German word you said.”

He replied: “A kuss.”

I said: “You have nothing to complain of.  It is somewhat confusing.  A ‘kuss’ sounds as if it ought to be a cushion, but it is not; it is a kiss, while a ‘kissen’ is a cushion.  You muddled up the two words—people have done it before.  I don’t know much about this sort of thing myself; but you asked for a twenty mark kiss, and from your description of the girl some people might consider the price reasonable.  Anyhow, I should not tell Harris.  If I remember rightly, he also has an aunt.”

George agreed with me it would be better not.

Most droll, and more than a little accurate. Found with a Masonic Boom.

Spotted here. I suppose the 1990s version would be a knit your own Tupac bodybag, but I’m so phenomenally out of date I couldn’t guess what the pattern for the 2000s would be.

BLAME THE CLOTH

A Captain of Industry declaring that the desire of the manual workers to be paid exorbitant wages for doing the least possible amount of work is a sure sign they have lost their faith in a future life.

(Max Beerbohm, 1920: published in A Survey)

Anyone familiar with property development in Hackney will know that ‘progress’ generally means sweeping existing residents out of an area, and replacing them with richer ones. Perhaps the most depressing instance of ‘get what you’re given’ officialdom is focused on the centre of Dalston - OPEN Dalston has the whole story.

Anyway, the latest rash of unimaginative flats is likely to be built on top of the old Tram Depot on Upper Clapton Road. The Depot is home to lots of small and successful businesses, including an accident repair centre (above), and a thriving bunch of artists.

Upper Clapton is the area of London I first lived in, when I stayed at my cousin’s old flat back in 1998. It has its problems, and much of it could do with sprucing up. But I really don’t think destroying one of the most beneficial amenities in the immediate community is the way to do it.

If you agree, I’d recommend signing the petition here. Quickly.

If you don’t, ask yourself whether you’d really like to see yet another development that looks like this:

And push businesses like these out:

I know what I’d prefer. If you agree, visit this page to sign the petition and find out how you can help.

This landed in my inbox last night. It made me smile.

I was just Googling Nando’s to see if they do take-aways (they do) and came across your piece on the smug campaign to stop them opening. Great stuff, you echo my thoughts precisely. Stoke Newington was already pretty self-righteous when I came here 18 years ago, and bringing up a child here I have witnessed some appalling behaviour and mind blowing hypocrisy among the middle class. Over the years I have found myself being on the periphery, there through having a child with a bit of a funny name, being white and working in the media, of various mean spirited little groups. The trickle of children from state into private schools, and the reasoning given, as parents desperately tried to cling onto shreds of  credibility to bolster their self images as socialists and  unconventional, ranged from downright lies to pathetically transparent, to the offensive ‘a boy like Tarquin can’t stay at that school’ (sub-text… my son is brighter, more sensitive than yours, and we’ve got the money).  I hope I can look forward to another such fine piece of writing about the annoying aspects of this place some time soon.