Priceless Paintings from W7

Health and safety was all I could wish for this lonely construction worker.

The high-visibility coat that he wore must have magic protective powers.

Click the image for a larger version. Unless you suffer from vertigo, or common sense fear for others taking stupid risks.

I went back later and checked that the guy was still alive. 

Thoughts Ealing, Health

People of Ealing (and those further afield): I am pretty sure I said this before, but this week’s events prompt me to publish another plea for common sense, consideration, and a myriad of similar qualities:

It begins with the fact that many people thoughtlessly and inconsiderately dump their collected recyclables, often mixed with household waste, non-recyclables or a good old mess, leaving things to the dustmen to sort out.

Of course, there’s a big moaning if the dustmen leave ill-prepared rubbish behind, if they take too long, if rubbish ends in the street, or if the council tax rises to afford more dustmen.

Worst of all, however, is the fact that a significant portion of those unfortunate people ending up behind a rubbish collection van in a narrow street end up shouting abuse and honking their horn. Of course, these idiots can’t spare a precious minute or to, especially when the dustmen clearly can’t dissolve themselves into thin air and have a job to do on top of it.

You wouldn’t believe the racket outside my house every Tuesday morning, probably by the same people who are first to call the council if their own collection of refuse and recyclables is late or in any other way less than perfect.

Yeah, I remember it now. I mentioned this once or twice before, but so far, my commenting hasn’t helped, so allow me to try this again.

Thoughts Ealing, human, recycling, society

Jen’s Cakery finally has its own web site up (or it might have been there for a while, but I didn’t notice earlier). So anyway, it’s time you go and take a look at those wondrous cakes.

Jen’s Cakery beautifully made site is here, with some wonderful pictures under Folio: http://www.jenscakery.co.uk/

Lots more images are on the Flickr! Gallery, right here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jens_cakery/

My favourites include the Jungle Safari Cake, the Sunflower Cupcake Bouquet, the Pirate Cupcakes, the Sinking Titanic Cake, and the Puffin Cake, but it’s soooo hard to choose! The only thing easy about this is the ease with which I forget work or any other matters when browsing those photos.

Just brilliant, so go and take a look, spread the word, buy the cakes.

Great stuff!

Which is your favourite?

(Photo with kind permission of Jen’s Cakery)

Food and Drink, Thoughts baking, Ealing, food

It appears that every local area improvement committee, at least in our area, is ruled by conservative people. I recall that we couldn’t prevent the vote for heritage design in a Hanwell Steering Commitee meeting that we attended some while ago, but the outcome is now visible to everyone, and makes me cringe every time.

Does it make sense to mount brand new street lights that follow a 130 year old design?

Yes, it might, wherever there is similar heritage to protect.

Hanwell, however, is no such place. If anything, Hanwell should display an air of Modernism and a forward-looking attitude.

A clean, elegant, modern design could have done a much better job at improving the looks of Hanwell Broadway. Note that I didn’t even discuss the fact that the chosen light use outdated luminaries technology, and are ill-fitted for modern street lighting control, supervision, and energy management systems. Surely, thinking beyond heritage design would just be asking too much.

Thoughts Ealing, hanwell, london, society

A convincing argument is something different than the comment my friend Nigel Bakhai, head of the local Liberal Democrats, produced in their February 2010 pamphlet.

The article comments on the planned closure of public toilets, and conversion of a couple of benches (typically only used by people holding beer cans from breakfast time onwards). Both are owned by the Lidl supermarket chain, who wants to replace the benches with trees, and probably assumes that the Hanwell Public Toilet Scheme (another Ealing Council brainfart) compensates for the removal of their own public toilets.

The Lib Dems’ article is entitled Inconvenient Truth. I was looking forward to find a good old rant over the fact that Ealing’s current conservative council is asset-striping the borough, failing to provide basic public services (such as road surface maintenance or, indeed, the provision of public toilets, trees, benches, or aid for those in need), yet find it fit to refund £50 “overpaid” council tax to almost every household in the borough.

A great opportunity to make a point in case. Sadly, Nigel knew nothing better to say than “It is a shame to lose the toilets and seats, but especially as this area is not being put to better use apart from a few extra trees.”

Trees are important, Nigel. So are public services, and so is the care for this unfortunate ones beginning their day with a can of extra-strong lager.

It is early in the 2010 election campaign. Let’s hope Nigel picks up sense, strength, speed and arguments on the way.

Current Affairs Ealing, liberal democrats, Politics

We have great sympathy for the Questors Theatre, a very large amateur theatre near by, that often provides acting and staging to very high standards. We’ve been members for over a decade (active at times), and always been actively promoting the theatre.

How embarrassing, however, to take a friend to this years’ Christmas production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

A traditional staging without any attempt to re-tell the tale in a way fit for children of the 21st century. We should have been warned by the poster, but even within the confines of the traditional interpretation, Questor’s A Christmas Carol failed to impress:

The tragedy begins with Ebenezer Scrooge, who is a far cry from being a bitter, angry, grumpy old man. He was in fact outright friendly and smiling from the beginning, and the occasional Bah, Humbug! didn’t change that.

The ghosts were laughably unimaginative, appearing in white (but ghostly illuminated) bed sheets, as Santa Claus, and all covered in black veil with the occasional ghostly waves of arms. I didn’t take the time to match their appearance with the book, and they might well match Dickens’ description, but I am sure one could have done a better job staging them, ghostly dress-code aside.

Rare exceptions aside, acting was below the usual standards, and only a few actors stood out with clear enunciation. Directions were unimaginative to say the least, and ill-advised when it came to balancing the sound levels of speech versus background atmosphere brought in from the tape. The best moment was certainly a morning scene when couples from the houses look out of their windows commenting, because the house on the left must have been the YMCA and the one on the right a house for fallen women (or maybe the suffragettes HQ).

Even the snowball fight failed to bring fun into the theatre: the stage children weren’t given real snow balls or any stage equivalent thereof, but had to mime it empty handed. This clearly took the fun out of it for them and failed to bring any fun into the auditorium.

The fun came back at the end, when the staging of snowfall brought in more than just a chuckle, as 1 1/2 small handfuls on white confetti rained down on a 3 square feet area in centre stage.

Too bad the best jokes of the show were all unintended.

For Questors and their ongoing quest to find and increase public recognition, one can only hope they’ll do better next year.

My applause goes to the many children in the audience, who sat very bravely and well-behaved through a 2 hour production that failed to bring either scare or fun into their lives,  sparkle into their eyes or Christmas Cheer into their hearts.

Thoughts Christmas, Ealing, theatre

Ealing Council, it its endless wisdom and in neglect to their duties, decided to pay back part of the local tax. The argument is that they have “too much money,” the neglect is that they fail to spend it on any of the necessary things. Apparently, they consider it a job done, and think of the elections ahead.

Any half-wit can create a sheer endless list of things in need of the council’s attention and money. Schools, places for the young and places for the elderly. Road surfaces and pavement, playgrounds, public libraries, parks. Support for the arts. Public toilets. Fly tipping and littering, drug use and crime. Public transport, alternative transport, alternative energy. Support for the elderly, the sick, the poor. Wherever you look or point, there’s is need for work being done and moneys being committed.

People of Ealing. Please take the £50 cash back payment, which is due to arrive in your bank account in December, and turn it into some local goodness.

I round mine up to the next £100 and make a donation to Groundwork West London, supporting them to continue doing what the council should do in the first place. Whether you round up the £50 cash back is your decision, and so is the choice of the charity or cause you chose to support, but please use the money for the purpose it was intended for in the first place: for the best of the borough.

Please, pretty please?

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, Politics

Following a campaign started by a local resident, the town elders have decided that the western part of Ealing needs a skate park, and have made plans to build it not far from us. Apparently, £200,000 are now set aside and consultation is open for a new skate park in Elthorne Park (http://www.westealingskatepark.net/).

You won’t be surprised to hear that those who are against everything (the “Hanwell Community Forum” in this case) also oppose this plan, with a series of the usual arguments. It’s too loud. It’s too remote. It’s too close.

Basically means to say “Yeah, skate park, right, well, if it cannot be avoided… but not in my front garden.”

On the upside, their leaflet doesn’t issue a blanket accusation of expected antisocial or criminal behaviour. Better than similar previous campaigns (by different groups).

I am not sure if a steel and concrete structure is the best possible way to provide young people with a means to bond, relax, grow-up, find purpose in life, but it sure is better than hanging out at the bus stop and smashing a phone booth for fun.

I suggest opponents of this plan should immediately remind themselves they were once young and might have children themselves, or grand-children soon. It’s hard enough growing up in the big city, nobody needs to be repeatedly told that he or she is unwanted on top of it.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, hanwell, london

In the 2008/09 financial year, Ealing Council has spent less than what they have rightfully earned (through direct and indirect taxes), so they came up with the clever plan:

All eligible households will automatically receive a £50 cash refund in December.

This was announced in the council’s monthly pamphlet for August 2009 [pdf – see page 5]

A popular move for sure, especially in light of future elections. When the time comes, I am sure we’ll hear all about it over and over again.

I call it proof of failure. Failure by neglect:

First, there is a minor failure in that they fail to explain which households are eligible for a payback, which ones aren’t, and why. A good example of transparent government and accounting.

Second, they decide to spend the cost of the administrative overhead for the populist payback scheme, rather than opting for holding back the surplus riches, and asking for smaller council tax contributions next year. Surely this would have been a more cost-efficient way to deal with a surplus?

Third, and most worrying: They must think they have done a perfect job all around the borough, and nothing else needs doing, so that they simply don’t know what to do with the money. There’s a gazillion small and big jobs around the borough, and all they can come up with is a refund? That’s like throwing hands in the air. Jesus. Lord. Almighty.

Although I didn’t vote for the current council (as you probably guessed), they are charged by everyone to spend the tax money wisely and for the better common good of everyone in the borough.

Apparently, they can’t be bothered to do what they were elected to do. I hope most people will see through this expensive populist move and can’t be bothered voting for them again.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, london

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Delores.

Delores who?

Delores my shepherd…

It wasn’t Delores, nor was it an African Christian missionary. Instead, it was the guy from down the road. And he didn’t tell any knock-knock jokes either:

Do you know about the planning application for the Red Lion, he asks. No, I say. (The Red Lion is a derelict pub at the end of my street). He explains that this is the last day to object a planning application to convert the derelict pub into (his words) “an African church.”

Oh, that’s good news, I say, why would I want to object replacing a derelict pub with a church?

Because, he tells me, we have parking problems here already. There’ll be hundreds of cars every Sunday.

You’d have been proud of me, how I stayed calm and cool, and in the friendliest possible way explained that I’d much rather have car parking problems on a Sunday morning, compared to nightly drug and knife-crime issues (as we used to have with the Red Lion).

I should have also informed him that, even though car parking space can be tight late in the evening, in comparison with most of suburbia, we do not have car parking problems at all.

I welcome “the African church” to my area (and plan on a lie-in Sunday mornings anyway). Some people just have to object anything. Ealing Council doesn’t have a great track record at showing common sense, but I sure hope they dismiss this objection.

Current Affairs Ealing, Ealing council, hanwell, human, london

Dear Lord, give wisdom to the men and women of Ealing Council, for they know not what they are doing.

When they don’t spend their time –and our money- on expensive chest-beating self-advertising campaigns around the borough like big ages, they spend their energy on reverting what was done right by the previous council, as it seems.

The latest ingenious idea is to reduce some of the bus lanes around the borough in order to relief traffic congestion. By that, they do of course mean congestion by cars. (Not a new idea though.)

When bus lanes were extended a few years ago, a route was created to support free and swift flow of busses, and to support a comparatively safe heaven for cyclists. Removing some bus lanes now, or reducing the hours of operation of 24/7 bus lanes to standard peak hours, is a very regrettable step back to the dark ages of individual transport.

If the good lord hears my prayers, surely he’d advise the councillors to spend all the above money, and more, on efforts to reduce individual traffic throughout the borough rather than allowing for even more. Attractive offerings of public transport, and optimum support for alternative means of transport, are the obvious first choices.

Falling back to the petrolhead wisdom of the 1950s might suit a conservative council, but it certainly doesn’t suit a congested 21st town in the 21st century.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, london, Traffic

Oh, welcome back. More about the past weekend as soon as I manage to find the words.

Something else came up last night though: While I was preparing the rubbish – mostly, of course, recyclable items –, I couldn’t help noticing that smell. Unmistakably that smell, and it wasn’t for the first time neither.

Years ago, when we lived in Park Royal and near the Guinness Brewery, we had that smell in the air every couple of days, too. I believe it occurs when they malt the barley (or whatever it is they do) when making that brew.

I wonder in one of the not-so-inviting Hanwell industrial estates features a brewery?

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Thoughts Ealing, hanwell

Did you ever drive around in London’s suburbia? No? Well… let me just say that some streets are so narrow, with cars parked all over, than cruising Naples in the rush hour seems like a piece of cake in comparison.

You cannot, for example, drive to Waitrose West London through Felix Road without stopping, giving way, backing out. Or take Maunder Road, of many others.

Fascinatingly, some queer brain at the council still chooses Felix Road to be the main access into Hanwell coming from the busy Argyle Road, and some super-whacky planners agree that Maunder Road should serve as one of the two main access paths to the new Cambridge Yard five apartment block development. There is no limit to insanity, but I am drifting off my main subject today…

Well, the point is that many drivers are unwilling, and, presumably, unable, to back out. Some of this might be a genuine inability to be considerate drivers and considerate people(see insanity, above), but I think many simply cannot drive back in a reasonably straight line for more than three inches.

I am proposing that each driver must show the ability to navigate a curved course backwards as a mandatory part of each driving test. I’m serious.

Thoughts car, Ealing, london, Traffic

Starting today, the press notice released on an unspecified day in March 2009 reports, Hanwell businesses will be taking part in a trial scheme to provide more public toilets in the town.

It means that four local cafes and bars will allow free and public access to their toilets. In return, each gets £600 per year to help cover cleaning and upkeep.

The truth is that these businesses aren’t so much taking part in a trial scheme to provide more public toilets in town, they are part of a scheme to help the council weasel out of their duties. £2,400 per year, a few hours of bigwig palaver and a new sticker in the window is going to be much less than buying and maintaining “real” public toilets. As such, the plan is admirable, but I can’t help thinking of my hair dresser.

In short, his argument is that he cannot allow public access to his toilets (only to a select few), because his facilities would otherwise be used to route drugs, weapons, and some-such.

If he’s right, those four businesses have just taken on a pretty big responsibility. I can only hope he’s wrong, ‘coz I can’t believe those four local businesses are up for the whole package.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, london, Politics

The Mayor of London is a poor man, who –basically- can’t maintain all parks and public spaces as well as they should. So, with limited budget, they run a public opinion poll of sorts, where Londoners could vote for their park.

The top ten parks will get funding for a makeover, and the results are now out.

Nice to see one of our local parks, Brent River Park (aka Bunny Park) is among the winners. The small animal centre and “litter management” are among the six objectives, and rightly so.

Also nice to see that Crane Valley Park also made it to the last ten; I had always thought of Crane Valley Park as Rapists’ Park. No wonder the Crane Valley park objectives include an increase to staff presence to help people feel safe.

Well done, but once Boris and others start beating their chest about this, remember that it means that the many other public parks and spaces simply won’t get the attention they need.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, london, Politics