Aladdin's Cave demolition threat

From the Murky Depths reports that a planning application has been submitted to build flats on the site of the Aladdin's Cave' second hand shop.  (72 Loampit Hill SE13).


The streetscape would never be the same without its assortment of statues and furniture, but the locally-listed building is a rare slice of vanishing  railway history. It was once a railway station on the lost Greenwich Park line (1871-1917) which ran between Nunhead and Greenwich Park, via Lewisham Road and Blackheath Hill.

View from the railway line, from Abandoned Stations (2003)

Image of proposed flats

You can read the planning application here. The Heritage statement has lots of information about the history of the site, even if this developer funded document unsurprizingly concludes that there's nothing worth saving...


[insert your own rant about blandification of London and the squeezing out of quirky,  'marginal' spaces by identikit developments]

Save New Cross Gate Post Office picket on Saturday

The Post Office's Valentine's gift to New Cross is its plan to close the Post Office at 199 New Cross Road on 14 February 2018. Some Post Office services will be available instead as franchise at the back of local convenience store One Stop, but the loss of a busy dedicated Post Office has been widely criticised locally and there must be fears that the adjacent sorting office is also under threat. There are no plans for a free cashpoint/ATM at One Stop, unlike at the current Post Office, and with the Barclays Bank next door with its cashpoint also closed down,  this is another loss of a local amenity.


The  Defend New Cross Gate Crown Post Office campaign has called for a last ditch picket of the Post Office this Saturday 20 January from  9:30 AM - 11:30 AM .

Mark Fisher remembered at Goldsmiths

It is a year now since the sad death of  Mark Fisher, writer, critical thoughtist and lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths in New Cross. I remenber seeing him talk there around the time his best known work, Capitalist Realism, was published. Personally I was most fond of his work on K-punk blog (and then Dissensus forum) in the early/mid noughties when Fisher was at the forefront of a wave of thinking and talking about music and politics in the post-rave/early dubstep era.

On Friday 19th January the always interesting Kodwo Eshun will be giving the first annual Mark Fisher Memorial Lecture from 6:00pm - 8:00pm in the Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre, Whitehead Building at Goldsmiths. No need to book, just turn up - full details here.

                                

Quote from Mark Fisher on wall of  Margaret MacMillan building at Goldsmiths on Dixon Road SE14: “Emancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order’, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable”

Music Monday: A View from a Hill - sounds from Telegraph Hill, Point Hill, Catford, Dulwich and beyond

Hither Green-based experimental/improvisational label Linear Obsessional Recordings has released its annual compilation album. 'A View from a Hill', released on Christmas Eve 2017, includes more than 100 artists from across the world each contributing two minute tracks. It was compiled by David Little, who records as smallhaus. Several of the tracks feature field recordings at South London locations, including the following:


Catford Gyrations - Bandstand
'The track was based around a recording I made while stood under the bandstand in Mountsfield Park, London SE6 – this also happens situated directly under a flight path, but despite the roaring jet planes, I still managed to capture some birdsong and barking dogs.I've also added some guitar, a Farfisa organ and a little bit of brass and Woodwind'

Alison Henning - A View from Point Hill
'Beautiful morning, rise and fall of piccolo sounds inspired by the A2, flight paths, Greenwich below and the early birds'.

Neil Gordon-Orr - Boney on the Hill
'Sound recording December 2017: Telegraph Hill Park, formerly Plow'd Garlick Hill, site of Telegraph during Napoleonic Wars; list of stations on the Admiralty shutter telegraph line (1795–1816), used to send messages between the Channel (Deal) and London; treated mandolin, 'Boney was a Warrior'

Z.AvTes – Le Scelte
'Written by Zuleika AvTes in London, December 2017. Original field recordings: Recorded at West Norwood Cemetery and Dulwich Park. Z.AvTes plays in Glass Isle and lives in South East London'.