South East London blogzine - things that are happening, things that happened, things that should never have happened. New Cross, Brockley, Deptford and other beauty spots. EMAIL US: transpontineblog at gmail.com Transpontine: 'on the other (i.e. the south) side of the bridges over the Thames; pertaining to or like the lurid melodrama played in theatres there in the 19th century'.
Time for another round up of messages from the streets, lampposts and toilet doors of South London, most of these spotted around New Cross/Brockley/Nunhead in last 6 months.
Unequivocal Safe Space statement in Old Nun's Head.
New Cross, near to Goldsmiths (painted mural)
Robert Smith of The Cure in Dash the Henge record shop in Camberwell - 'Charlotte Sometimes, Always Anti-Fascist'
Dash the Henge - 'Millwall Communist Party'
Insurrectionary anarchists busy in Deptford, next to tunnel to Fordham Park SE14 'TFL raise fares... let's raise hell'
'Brockley Anarchist Reading Club' meeting up at Skehans
'Free Luigi Mangione' in Camberwell
Toilet doors in the New Cross Inn always a treasure trove of sticker art:
Only Tears on Old Kent Road
SE15SK8 sticker on Gellatly Road sign, SE14
Palestine still rightly getting attention - these stickers proclaiming 'long live Gaza' and 'Free Palestine'-
'Free like only animals can be' - spottted on a car in Nunhead
Reclaim the Streets/Critical Mass - advertising planned event in May 2025
'Now playing Stereolab Parsec' - Station Passage SE15
'Stop lying' - Peckham
'South London is Anti-Fascist' - Peckham High Street
'Edelweiss Piraten' sticker, Nunhead (name of underground youth subculture in Nazi Germany)
Multilingual radical posters Bellenden Road SE25
'Transphobia belongs in the bin' - sticker, Brockley
'Justice for Chris Kaba', New Cross Road (shot dead by police in Streatham in September 2022)
'Black Lives Matter' - Choumert Grove Car Park, SE15
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'Black Lives Still Matter' by Aliyah Art from her exhibition 'Anime through Black Eyes' at Peckham Levels (OK not actually street art, but thematically linked)
In our latest round up of radical messaging from the streets of SE London it's no surprize to see the cost of living crisis taking centre stage.
'Don't Pay' stickers and posters have been ubiquitous recently, as the movement to encourage people who can't/won't pay their rocketing energy bills steps up.
Don't pay poster in Catford shopping centre
Don't pay sticker in SE14
As part of a national day of action on October 1st (a day also marked by rail and post office strikes), Don't Pay Lewisham organised a burning of energy bills by Lewisham Town Hall in Catford:
'Trickle down is a lie, profits rise while people die'
The tax cuts for the wealthy mini-budget in September has also prompted opposition from local cats..
'F**k the fat cats', phone box in Jerningham Road SE14
'Liz Truss - tax cats for the fat cats' in New Cross
'Liz Truss wants the poor to pay'
'say no to Tory tax cuts' - Wonder if Liz Truss will notice this road sign on New Cross Road on her way from Greenwich to Westminster? (interesting use of vinyl lettering and cat cut outs)
'Billions wasted on inadequate ppe contracts and track and trace to his mates, an insulting 3% rise to NHS staff' (posters in Brockley seemingly dating from the Boris Johnson days)
'Enough is Enough - General Strike Now' - on Bermondsey Cycleway 10
Of course the climate crisis isn't going away either - an upside down Penelope Cruz seems to be lending her head to 'Just Stop Oil' thanks to this poster on film poster montage in Queens Road, Peckham.
The far right might be on the rise in many parts of the world. but London Anti Fascist Assembly are on alert in SE14:
Update 12 November 2022:
A new Prime Minister but not much else has changed. The New Cross Road sign has been through several iterations with its ongoing commentary on the political landscape. Latest is 'General Election Now' ('Rishi Sunak has too much money' underneath in smaller lettering).
Some football stickers spotted on my rounds today, mostly in vicinity of Millwall FC. Every sticker tells a story...
'No one likes us we don't care' is well known as the Millwall cry, but what about Sham Army? The latter refers to followers of punk band Sham 69, also mentioned on sticker. The band took their name in the late 1970s though from a fragment of graffiti in Surrey referring to non-league Walton & Hersham FC. Never had them down as a Millwall band, though one later version of the band (without original singer Jimmy Pursey, fronted by Tim Scargill) did do a charity CD that rewrote Sham's 'Hersham Boys' as 'Millwall Boys' ('drink up your beers and make some noise'):
Millwall Sham Army sticker, Ilderton Road SE15
Getting into the world of international football fandom, this lamp post, also on Ilderton Road, has a sticker from Millwall FC's Italian Crew (Italian Lions' fans). Above it is a Spanish sticker which says 'Bukaneros presenta La Familia Podrida'. Bukaneros are the Ultras of Rayo Vallecano de Madrid. La Familia Podrida means the corrupt family, but the initials spell out LFP: Liga de Fútbol Profesional, the Spanish football league.
On another lamp post in same road a Millwall on Tour sticker comes above one saying 'Ultras contro el racismo' (Ultras against racism), another Spanish slogan, think this may be another Bukaneros sticker, they are famously anti-racist.
Another club whose fans are associated with militant anti-fascism is Hamburg team St Pauli. This sticker from Queens Road SE15 is from St Pauli London fans.
Of course not all European ultras are on the left of the political spectrum. This sticker, spotted in Hyson Road SE15 says FC DK with the letters gathered around a neo-nazi symbol. I believe this refers to Ukrainian team Dynamo Kiev, some of whose fans are on the extreme right. Last year the club were sanctioned after a racist attack during a game against Chelsea
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