Sunday, April 03, 2022

Gormless Rishi and other famous faces on the New Cross Road


Dark clouds gather over the Sainsburys petrol station on New Cross Road - an omen for the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak as inflation rises and people struggle with the cost of living? For it was here that he recently staged that ill dated photo opportunity to demonstrate that he was a man of the people filling up his car, only to be widely mocked after it was broadcast (by Sky News on 23 March) as it was revealed that he had borrowed a Sainsburys worker's car for the shoot and appeared not to know how to pay in the petrol station.


This particular stretch of the New Cross Road has had its fair share of famous visitors, and the experience has not always been a good one. American actor Shia LaBeouf hit the tabloids not once but twice in 2012 and 2014 after getting into fights just across the road in The Rose pub (known at the time as the Hobgoblin). He was dating local actor Mia Goth, press reports this week say they have just had a baby together in Los Angeles, though he is also facing allegations of violence and abuse by ex-partner FKA Twigs.

On a lighter note there was that time in 2016 when Elton John parked his Bentley outside The Rose and popped in to use the loo.


I guess as a main road many notables good, bad and ugly have paused to sample its delights, some of them even able to work out how to pay for things. I remember that the long gone Sirius fish and chip shop near the Walpole, further along New Cross Road, used to boast that Paul McCartney had once stopped there for chips and a pickled onion. Am I imagining that they had a signed photo of him in the shop?

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