Goodbye to Peckham

On By Laura MorganIn London1 Comment

Tomorrow sees the consolidation of my stuff and the beloved’s into a single location. I love my egg, and I’m delighted that we will be able to stop having the “Where are we going tonight? Is there any food at your place? I’m not sure I’ve got clean socks there” conversation, but I will miss being a part-time courtesy Peckham resident. Here, as a goodbye, are my favourite things about Peckham:

  • Peckham Library is a beautiful thing, and really the heart of the town centre in a way that the architects must have hoped for but couldn’t have predicted. Peckham is slowly, stealthily, undergoing a gentrification of the subtlest kind, and the library is the best and biggest symbol of it. It is also the site, approximately, of the Sunday farmer’s market, source of excellent meat and veg.

  • The all-night off licence on Asylum Road: the source not merely of late-night emergency wine, but of really nice late-night emergency wine, because the owner is a wine enthusiast and specialises in buying the last few bottles in discontinued lines, so that he gets them at a knockdown price which he then passes on to his customers.
  • Morrison’s supermarket. I am not a Morrison’s connoisseur so perhaps they’re all like this, but Peckham Morrison’s is so big and glossy and colourful that it’s more like a proper American supermarket than the inferior English version. They sell everything you could think of, and plenty that you couldn’t. I think I could live for a year in Peckham Morrison’s and eat something I’ve never tried before every day.
  • The neighbours on the road we will shortly be departing are almost uniformly friendly and charming. This is unique in London, in my experience. At least, I had very nice neighbours in Dulwich once, but Dulwich is different. Plus, they were ladies of a certain age who were more or less guaranteed to give no trouble, whereas there’s much more of a mix here. But people say “hello” as you walk past them, and put Christmas cards through the door, and yesterday one said “let me know if you need any help moving; I’m really good at packing boxes!”. What nice people they are. What a shame to leave them behind.

Our neighbours in Herne Hill, on the other hand, do at least provide excellent anecdote material.

A new decade

On By Laura MorganIn Language1 Comment

If I hear one more person say that if they hear one more person say that this is the start of a new decade they shall scream, I shall scream.

Yes, I understand basic maths, so I understand that because there was no year 0, technically every decade starts when the year ends in a 1. And here’s the thing: I don’t care. The numbering of our years in tens and hundreds and thousands is entirely arbitrary to begin with, and if we invented it, we get to decide how to use it. Convention and instinct tell us that the change from 2009 to 2010 is more exciting and more worthy of recognition than the change from 2010 to 2011, and they are correct. And if we start our decades with a 1 and end them with a 0, does, say, the year 1930 no longer count as part of the 1930s? Because that way lies crazy, missus.

So when the next person tells you smugly that the new decade doesn’t start for another year, please bop them on the nose and tell them I said it was OK. These people have too much time on their hands. Perhaps we should make decades shorter for their benefit.

New year’s resolutions for 2010

On By Laura MorganIn Navel gazing1 Comment

I’ve just had a quick look at last year’s resolutions and I have kept all of them except the Guinness one, which was a boring one anyway. So in 2010 I’ll:

  1. Keep doing all of those things (not buying new books will be easier since I got as Christmas  presents all the books  published in 2009 which I wanted to read, so I can start with those)
  2. Get my boiler fixed: it’s been slightly, but not very, broken since I moved into this flat in March 2008.
  3. Go to the cinema more: there’s no excuse for not doing it, and it’s cheaper and more fun than most things.

I feel like there ought to be a harder one on there. Don’t you think? If you can think of a good one, let me know.

Happy new year!

Advent song for December 23

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

This is the only Christmas song released during my record-buying lifetime which sounds like an instant Christmas classic; as though you must have heard it before, probably performed by Brenda Lee or the Rockettes. But no: it’s just a properly good Christmas song from Mariah Carey.

(Actually it’s not the only one – Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End), which we had last year, is an utterly authentic glam rock Christmas hit.)

Advent song for December 20

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

This is a slight cheat, because we had it last year. I haven’t run out of ideas, it’s just that this song is so good and makes me so happy that I couldn’t bear to leave it out. To begin with I thought I’d use a different version, at least, but none of them is nearly as good as this. So here’s Andy Williams with the gorgeous Sleigh Ride. Enjoy.

Advent song for December 18

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

I was going to use an older version of this song, but actually I really like the Destiny’s Child version (it is a hundred times better than their horrid reworking of The Twelve Days of Christmas), and the video is very cute.

(I’m out of the country for a few days after today, and I’m going to try scheduling the next four posts in advance, so if they appear at odd times or not at all, that’s why.)