The jungle drums beat loud and fast in the Twitter era, so here are the best titbits of gossip to be spread liberally about this week. Football still dominates the weekend agenda, of course, but we’ve already covered that, of course (and yes, there will be a screen at Streetfeast).
1. Your photography judged by Rankin
The festivities for 40 years of Kentish Town City Farm continue with two calls for your fantastic photos. Firstly, the Farm are running a competition for images depicting the best of Gospel Oak. Capture a favourite local view beautifully and Grafton Road’s world famous snapper, Rankin, will judge winners in under 12, 13-25 and 26+ age categories.
They are also requesting farm snaps from the last 4 decades – particularly the 70s and 80s – and promise to scan them and hand them back immediately if brought to the office. Root around in those dusty draws for that perfect Polaroid of a happy pig.
2. Broke Bike, Mountain
Did you know K-Town has its very own Transitions? A simple premise that sees locals come together to help their area become less dependent on fossil fuels, the Belsize group has been highly active for a while but the enthusiasm is really taking hold in NW5 now too.
This Wednesday – being the solstice an’ all – there are lots of things afoot, starting with a new bike workshop at the Canopy by the tube station from 7pm-8.30pm. This is a chance to have your bike fixed, but more importantly to learn how to mend the damn thing yourself.
Also at 7pm through until dark a musical picnic takes place at the summit of Parliament Hill. Bring locally sourced food and perhaps an instrument (Mrs Kentishtowner would never admit it, but she’s quite partial to a bit of didgeridoo) and dine among the elderflowers. The solstice nights on the Hill are, frankly, unmissable.
There are also plans to start a local vegetable box scheme in the autumn, so for info on these and loads more hyper-low carbon initiatives, pedal your way over to transitionskentishtown.org.uk now.
3. Restart defunkt technology
Yet more eco fixing is taking place at the Magdala Pub in South End Green tomorrow (Saturday) in the shape of the first Restart Party. Local repair heroes, tinkerers and green entrepreneurs will assemble from 2pm-6pm and mend mobiles, fix laptops, kickstart printers and generally love and repair any other gadget otherwise destined for wasteful scrap. Owning a vintage Nokia has never been so much fun.
4. Borrowed time for Brewery’s Ibiza sunset terrace
We gasped at this artist’s impression of the controversial luxury flats finally going up on the Dalby Street site next to Talacre. We always knew the lovely sunset enjoyed at Camden Town Brewery Bar was going to be blocked, but this 8-story monster will loom large above the Overground platforms – look at the existing arches dwarfed to the bottom right of the image. For the love of God!
The drama about access to the Sports Centre will be nothing to the potential tussle if moneyed residents-to-be make a fuss about burgeoning Mews events like Street Feast – ironically deposed from Brick Lane under similar circumstances, before landing here last week. We suggest such killjoys shut up ‘n’ eat up if they choose to live in the heart of vibrant NW5.
But surely this monster can still be stopped? Who’s got the skinny on it?
Keep you suggestions coming now…on our Facebook page or info@kentishtowner.co.uk
4 thoughts on “Community Pinboard: Rankin Photo Comp, Free Bike Fix, Luxury Flats”
It’s far too late to stop the Dalby St development.
You can see the long, brave and tireless fight led by the likes of Nick Harding and others over at
http://www.savetalacre.co.uk
but be prepared to turn off in disgust at the mendacity of the developers and the Council after five-ten minutes of reading.
I just read the above – awful! Not exactly the same situation of course, but put me in mind of the wonderful ‘The Secret History of our Streets’, (available on iplayer).
Nothing can stop these development monsters once they see the ££££ signs 🙁
It’s all very well to moan about this development but what about the housing crisis. Looks like a good proportion of this is going to be ‘affordable.’ The only solution is to build. It’s fine for those with a home to object but for the likes of me who pay half our incomes to live in shitty overcrowded flat shares with no hope of anything better, I can’t get too upset over some lost car Parking spaces – not that I’ll have any chance of moving there myself!