Can't quite believe that this blog is ten years old. The first posts were on 9 October 2004, covering a talk on witch trials at South East London Folklore Society, a gig by our then favourite local band The Swear at the Montague Arms, and another gig by The Fucks at Goldsmiths . The blog really grew out of a period of being involved to a greater or lesser extent in some interesting but disconnected scenes locally - South East London Folklore Society itself (then meeting at the Spanish Galleon pub in Greenwich), the South London Radical History Group and other stuff at the Use Your Loaf social centre in Deptford (evicted in September 2004) and the New Cross music scene centred around Angular Records and the Paradise Bar (now the Royal Albert).
Now would probably be a good time to stop, I'm not particularly feeling 'the local' at the moment, and blogs have partly been superseded by other social media platforms. But sure I would regret having somewhere to post things that do interest me, or to let people know about some good and bad stuff going on. And if nothing else the last ten years of Transpontine do serve as an archive of a decade in the life of South East London.
In the early days, Blogger wasn't very photo friendly so there weren't many pictures on early Transpontine. To redress this here's some New Cross-related images from 2004 I found on flickr.
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| Art Brut getting ready for a photo shoot by the Paradise Bar in July 2004 (photo by Adie Nunn from flickr) |
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| A 36 routemaster bus to New Cross Gate (photo taken at Victoria by Bingley Hall on flickr) |
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| Fear of Music flyer for a night at Montague Arms |
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| Footsteps in the snow by Goldsmiths, January 2004 (by Li-Chuan Chong on flickr) |
Hi Neil
ReplyDeleteWow, congratulations on a decade of the best named blog on Blogger.
It's been such a consistently reliable read and resource and I have always appreciated your support when I have forwarded you my bits and bobs. If you chose to call it a day I will look forward to the nice fat, limited run anthology that should have heavy sandpaper covers of course.
You will remain in my top 3 must read blogs until that day.
Very best wishes, Clive
ps we have another Vinyl Therapy on Saturday 18th Oct at The Gladstone Arms, SE1. Bring along three tracks on vinyl, theme is 'Royalty – Kings & Queens. From 1-5!
I've really enjoyed Transpontine since moving to SE London seven years ago. It's a great read for all SE London things niche, alternative and which might otherwise go unnoticed. I'll continue to look at it occasionally, too. Are you planning to continue in some other form of social media?
ReplyDeleteWow, congratulations on your ten years of blogging - it's consistently interesting and well written and I particularly enjoy the posts covering the recent history of the area. I also really like the fact that our blogs rarely overlap on content. By all means slow down..but don't give up! SE London's online profile would be poorer without you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments here and on twitter. I am not going to hang up the mouse just yet.
ReplyDeleteReally glad to hear you are not going to hang up that mouse just yet. Moved to New Cross from Camberwell three years ago and found Transpontine when I was looking for things to do locally. Since then a very regular reader of what for me is a brilliant local blog, capturing the chaotic, creative narrative of what life is (and was) really like in SE London. With corporate vultures trying to suck the life blood out of every corner of the city, radical, quixotic, eccentric, passionate, subversive blogs like Transpontine are needed more than ever. I don't do twitter etc., but if I did this would definitely be a 'like'! Don Felipe
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear it! As Deptford Dame has said, there is always something of interest and the cultural history that Transpontine covers so well is much appreciated, there is precious little of it elsewhere. Please keep going - slower is you prefer - without you we'd all be the poorer.
ReplyDelete