Somers Town Coffee House, Chalton St February 27, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Cafes & Restaurants, Camden , 1 comment so farI live in the part of Camden that’s called Somers Town. Its a tiny district of about one square kilometer, tucked in between Euston, Kings Cross and Crowndale Rd. Established in the 1820s, its always been thoroughly working class. Most of it is owned by Camden council, with a mix of tenants, leaseholders and housing association tenants. There’s not much gentrification, but nice flats are not cheap and many of us hold high hopes for the Kings Cross redevelopment. Some tenants have done well on the right to buy and sold on to people like me, keen to live close to town. There’s a friendly, well-established community which is very mixed but manages to muddle along together in a way that makes it a good place to live.
Most of the pubs are ordinary blokey and smoke filled places, not really my scene, so I was rather surprised when my sister suggested we meet at the Somers Town Coffee House for dinner, which she informed me had been converted to a gastro-pub. The last time I poked my head in there it was smokey, with a few old blokes sitting around nursing pints. Interesting old building, but probably not somewhere I’d spend much time.
Expecting ham and eggs, I turned up to find an elegantly refurbished French bistro, owned by two French sisters, with creme brulee on the menu, and a decent wine list. The food was good, though not extraordinary, but the ambience seemed pleasant and it strikes me as the kind of place I could happily spend time in. My sister had a pear and goats cheese tart (very good) followed by a plate of mussels (okay), and I had a steak with veges which was good enough. We finished off with an unusual lavender creme brulee - a little runny, but well torched.
What I find hard to understand is why. There are some excellent gastro-pubs up in Camden Town, and this place is a dark two hundred metres from a clutch of restaurants on the corner of Euston Rd. A quick google reveals that the new ownership is not without controversy, and regulars are unhappy because a number of them have been barred from it for trivial reasons. The new owners wouldn’t discuss this with the Camden New Journal.
I’m surely one of the people the new owners are trying to attract, but I don’t want that to be at the expense of those who’ve been here a lot longer than I have. The mix attracted me here (yes, alright, along with the relatively cheap prices and transport links), and I’d hate to see it turn into a yuppie-ville, though at the same time it would be good to have a pub that I feel comfortable in. If regular locals could keep on nursing their pints while I have a glass of NZ Sauvignon Blanc, wouldn’t we all be happier?? Tomorrow, at the tenants association meeting, I’ll see if anyone knows any more about this.
Selling Out Or Changing the Face of Capitalism February 26, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Green in the City, Investing , add a commentWhen Green and Blacks was bought out by Cadburys last year, I’ll admit I was disappointed. Fabulous chocolate, fairtrade and being made by a nice wee eco-friendly company ensured my undying loyalty and massive contribution to their profit margins. I still buy it, of course, but with less of the feel-good factor than before.
The Body Shop is a rather different case. It’s a long-established firm which, while remaining true to it’s roots, is not as green as it once was. It’s certainly a while since they’ve been prepared to refill bottles for you, and not all stores have recycling boxes now, but the idea is sound and I believe the goods are still sourced in an environmentally-friendly, fair trade way. The Body Shop has been listed for a long time now, so its profits are already going to a random collection of investors, with a large shareholding is still retained by Anita Roddick.
Now, the Body Shop is rumoured to be the subject of a takeover bid from L’Oreal.
Companies, even green ones, function in the market, and for any investor there comes a time when they need to decide if their money could be better used elsewhere. Perhaps Anita Roddick will come to that point in the next few weeks. Keeping to the founding values must be harder and harder if the company is successful, and rather irrelevant if it is not. Essentially, companies like L’Oreal and Cadburys are buying into a brand, perhaps to strengthen their green credentials but also certainly because they see an opportunity to make a profit. Its unlikely that they would break that brand by taking it too far from its original values, because that would destroy value and profit-making ability.
It is perhaps a cynical move, but at least these companies continue and their founder’s energy and funding can be turned to other projects to further their own ideas. That’s why I’ll continue to buy Green and Blacks, and Body Shop cosmetics, at least as long as the products remain sound and the companies are allowed to retain a reasonable level of green values within their new corporations. My brand loyalty won’t be as strong, and if another new idealistic company appears with similar products, I’ll be more likely to switch.
I suspect Body Shop shares have gone a bit high on the rumours to be a good buy and exposure to the UK retail sector isn’t a good idea right now, so they’re probably not on my list of good investments at the moment.
Cobblers in Camden
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Camden, Green in the City , 1 comment so far
It’s a cliche, but I’ve got huge numbers of shoes. I love buying them, wearing them, and the elegant look of them on the shelf but it’s impossible to buy a good pair of comfortable, well worn shoes. They can only appear with careful buying to start with, and time to wear them in.
Repairing things is an oldfashioned idea, increasingly rare in our throwaway society. I’m determined to keep a good pair going though, and have some that are onto their third or fourth new soles. It’s also true that while leather soles are supposed to be posh, they’re ridiculously impractical for London streets and only last a few weeks. The solution is a simple, and very local one - KG Shoes in Eversholt St. This obscure little shop behind Mornington Crescent station has been there since the 1950’s, doesn’t take plastic, and is the best shoe repair place I’ve ever found.
I just had my boots redone - soles, heels, patch at the side where it was coming away - for £25, and they’ll be good for another couple of years. I try to remember to take pointed toes in before I’ve had them more than a couple of weeks, to get the toes reinforced. The bloke behind the counter tells me I shouldn’t buy the pointy toes, because they don’t last. He’s right, of course, but that’s my folly.
This is an unashamed endorsement. They’ll do bag repairs as well, and always polish your shoes for you before returning them. I’ve been using them for seven years now, and have always had excellent service and good prices. If you’re anywhere near Camden, use them.
What is the Firefox?
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a comment
Some debate over what the little firefox really is over here, but its certainly a dog, not a panda. This is an endangered red panda - also extremely cute, but not quite the same! They’re wild animals who would not tolerate sitting on a padded footstool, even if it was legal to keep them as pets
Firefox Live February 25, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentThe new version of firefox is now available for download here (and its the cutest ever)
Local Government Act brings Mayoral Office into Disrepute
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : London , add a commentThe Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has been suspended for likening an Evening Standard reporter to a concentration camp guard. Certainly this was not a very nice thing to say, especially given that the bloke concerned is Jewish, and Ken’s handled it all quite badly. But now, an unknown quango has been able to suspend him for bringing the office of Mayor into disrepute.
I voted for Ken and although I don’t always think much of his outbursts, he’s done a lot for London and is at least not ruled by spin doctors. Does this mean that my vote, and that of millions of other Londoners, means nothing? What sort of democracy is this?
The court that did this, the Adjudication Panel for England is an ‘independent judicial Tribunal which was established by Part III, Chapter IV of the Local Government Act 2000 to hear and adjudicate on matters concerning the conduct of local authority members.’ In other words, when the Labour Government set up devolution in London, it didn’t really trust those authorities to police themselves in the way Parliament does, and made sure there was a conduct monitor set up to make sure that naughty local authorities didn’t misbehave.
Ken’s conduct no more calls the office of Mayor into disrepute than Prescott’s thuggery undermines the office of Deputy Prime Minister or Blunkett’s shananigans harmed the office of Home Secretary. It doesn’t do much for his personal reputation, but he’s always been like this and we voted for him in spite of, or perhaps because of, his unwillingness to be always politically correct and on message.
It is the ruling of the Adjudication Panel which brings the office into disrepute. It shows that the office, and the vote of Londoners, can be swept away by an unaccountable quango. It shows that the role has little power, little mana.
Ken has an opportunity to appeal against this ruling, but it is the law itself that is at fault, not the interpretation of it by the tribunal. This is a political matter, not a legal one, and shows that the Government respects neither the office of the Mayor of London, nor it’s people.
Perhaps it is the Government which should be suspended for a month.
Live to 120 February 22, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentBy 2010, new anti-aging drugs will be available which will lift the average life span by 20 years, according to an article in yesterday’s guardian.
Assuming this meant staying at the health and fitness of 50, say, until 70, rather than just extending decrepitude, this suggests some radical changes in lifestyle. Will the answer to our low rate of childbirth be to work longer, and increase the overall proportion of our lives spent working back to the levels of the mid twentieth century? Will the trend we seem to be seeing now of people making a transition into retirement by reducing hours gradually and developing portfolio careers later in life happen over a far longer period? Will it mean, as suggested in the article, that the retirement age is raised to 85, or even more? With careful planning, it might be possible for many to still become financially independent in their 60s, able to devote their energy away from the commercial world and into other activities of their own choosing and invention. The promise of increased leisure brought about by technology might finally come true.
It might become easier for women to return to having children in their twenties, when they know that, at 45, they still have 40 years working life to build a career, rather than less than 20. Great-grandparents would be commonplace, and able to participate more in child-rearing, giving parents two generations of help ahead of them rather than one. Families would be bigger, with an extra generation alive at any one time.
A longer productive life would make paying for education, then house, then retirement easier, and would go some way to easing the burden of an aging population. If the wisdom that at least some find as they age was combined with better health and the energy to keep participating in public life, that may help to give a longer term perspective to our society. Or it could easily lead to ossifying attitudes and frustration from those coming up behind, having to wait longer and longer for ‘their turn’.
Perhaps it could lead to ageism being truly recognised as one of the last great prejudices, and that infering wisdom, inability to learn or anything else based simply on age is as ridiculous as basing it on gender or race. Or it could lead to a reverse-ageism becoming more common, with the young increasingly disregarded by the huge mass of more experienced elders who’ve had the benefits of compound interest to boot.
But, as James Lovelock points out in his new book, it means that each of us spends more time on the earth, consuming its resources. Birth rates would have to drop drastically to accomodate a 20% increase in life span. In Western Europe, we’re already heading down that path to some extent, but will that just mean that the future remembers us as the greedy generation, who wouldn’t let go?
For myself, if those drugs appear and seem safe, I’ll be very keen to take them. The world is a fabulous place, and the next century will be a fascinating time to live through.
Office2Office, at 285 February 20, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Investing , add a commentOffice2Office used to be part of HM Stationery Office, and still has a number of government clients. It’s recently renewed a couple of big contracts and, while its not terribly exciting, it’s price to earnings ratio is a good 13.8, and it regularly pays a reasonable 3-4% dividend. Its nothing exciting, but looks like the nice stable sort of stock that will do just fine in the long term, so I took a small stake into my ISA.
The problem with ISAs is that you can’t invest in AIM stocks, and that’s where all the action is with the interesting environmental companies. Hopefully, my broker account for my SIPP will be sorted soon, and then I can start investing in some of those.
Someone told me I should keep my age percentage of my pension portfolio in gilts and bonds, but I’m really reluctant to do that right from the word go. Hopefully, I’ll make a profit, and I plan to put that into those very safe investments against another stock market crash. One of the advantages of getting older is that you do remember the crashes - 1987 was very bad in NZ, the asian flu of 1997 and then the dot com bomb. I just hope things aren’t quite as hyped as they were shortly before each of those.
Carnival of the Green, #15
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Green in the City, London , add a commentThis week’s Carnival of the Green is over at Hip and Zen, with as eclectic a collection of Green posts as ever.
The Starbucks challenge, to get FairTrade coffee in Starbucks, often features on the Carnival. I thought I’d give it a go myself today, although I’m not too sure whether it applies to the UK.
I was down on Piccadilly, and the Caffe Nero was filled with smokers - the coffee’s more Italian, but unfortunately so are the tobacco rules. I was fairly sure that our left-pondian cousins at Starbucks wouldn’t stand for that sort of nonsense, so gave them a try. They had FairTrade coffee, but only that yucky stuff in urns, no grounds for an espresso. I tried to get the barrista to explain why, but didn’t get any further than ‘that’s the way it is’. Ho hum. And it seems to be some sort of Starbucks ‘Fair Trade’ mark, rather than the normal one, so I’ve no idea how truly fair traded it was.
Pizza Express, Wardour St February 19, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Cafes & Restaurants, London , add a commentAfter a hard couple of hours shopping lunch was essential. It was starting to rain as I wandered down from Oxford St through the back of Soho trying to avoid the crowds. Chinese New Year was still in full swing, but with most of Chinatown dug up for roadworks and the drizzle, the lanterns blowing in the blustery wind weren’t really enough to add festive cheer. It’s interesting that while Europe celebrates the dead of the year, just before the coldest time, China, which is at much the same latitude, waits another few weeks until there’s a hint of renewal in the air.
Pizza Express is a London institution, born here in Wardour St and a year older than me, another child of the sixties. Although the food is not stunning, it is unfailingly reliable, and a good pizza with a decent quaffable red plonk is all that’s required. They’re in some ways an upmarket macdonalds - clean, predictable and everywhere, at least in the UK.
I had a rocket and parmesan salad, four seasons pizza, a big glass of something from Montepulciano and some fizzy water, topped off with a cheesecake and a coffee, sitting in the window with the paper, watching the cold, damp people rush about their Sunday afternoon business. When I accidently tipped the waitress the entire amount of the bill rather than my normal 10% she noticed, told me and immediately started reversing the charges. Unobservant that I am, I’d probably never have picked it up, so I was very grateful.
