Timon of Athens, starring Simon Russell Beale or Shakespeare on today’s political dynamic
I saw this late Shakespeare play at the Olivier last night (22/10/12). I will leave it to the professionals to review Beale’s performance, safe to say that he was brilliant, but I want to talk about the play.
Surely this is Shakespeare’s least known play, and perhaps deservedly so. The ending is a dramatic failure; the character development is limited at least by the bard’s standards. What is more in the whole play I did not recognise a single quote or aphorism. You know how it is in a normal Shakespeare play – that instant recognition – Oh, that’s where that phrase comes from. But not once did this happen in Timon.
What was striking was the central role of money. Unlike any other of his plays, money is the oil, the black, nasty, sickly sweet blood pumping through the whole play corrupting first the rich, lazy, feckless rich living off Timon’s generosity; then Timon himself as he corrupts the artists living off his wealth and then as he abuses the power that it gives him; then the rich and mean, who refuse to bail him out of debt; then the rabble, who want to foment a revolution but have neither the discipline or the skills to do so, and finally the revolutionary leader, the Stalin as I saw him, who like all the rest sold out to the power that is – money.
The tragedy was set in Athens and played rather poignantly in modern day Athens and for anyone who has been there recently (I was there at Xmas 2010) the rubbish strewn, graffiti blown, wreckage of a great city was all too real. However, the first scenes are in Timon’s luxurious mansion, where he is surrounded by his sycophantic, rich, scrounger friends. He believes himself to be “wealthy in my friends”. They marvel at his honour, his generosity; they thank him for buying their debts, providing their dowries. I felt it to be a Shakespearean commentary on the celebrity culture, but perhaps that is a little anachronistic.
Timon’s descent to the slums is tragic and his acceptance of it and his rejection of humanity, his bitter hatred understandable given the rejection he faces from the beneficiaries of his gifts. The self-righteous, self-serving, posturising of these n’ever-do-wells had me in mind of Wandsworth Tories on a bad day. I particularly liked the woman, who would have paid off all his debts if only he had asked her first rather than leaving her to the end of the queue of requests. I rather felt with Timon. He walked off to his death, though how and by what agency it is not clear.
Meanwhile the beggars, who stole gold from him go off to fight, untold but no doubt to the death after the trio in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale, the rich and powerful oligarchy re-establish the control of the state and the leader of the rabble join them, no doubt to become the strong man, the Stalin, of the re-imposed state.
It is a bitter and black tale, in which money plays “the universal whore, the universal pimp of men and peoples” as Karl Marx wrote in an 1844 review. But it is also a play with some relevance to the modern day as we see austerity bringing Athens to its knees, and the British version of austerity imposing massive housing benefit cuts only months after riots in the streets.
I don’t think I had Shakespeare down as such a socialist, even if a rather pessimistic one, until I saw Beale’s riveting performance as Timon of Athens.
Tory Housing Policy – Wandsworth style
Wandsworth Tories, along with quite a few other Councils, some Labour as well as Tory, I am afraid, continue to attack the security and stability of council housing. Only last week (17/10/12) they decided to introduce short-term tenancies. Short-term is defined as 5 year limited tenancy agreements.
There are many problems with this policy, which superficially is designed to increase mobility on council estates and free up properties for those in genuine housing need. After all, it is argued, the housing is allocated in the first place on the basis of need, usually lack of money or overcrowding of families, and the only case for moving tenants out after 5 years is that their need might have become less.
The argument presumably goes that if family circumstances have changed then the family no longer needs the letting and the letting should be freed up for new, deserving cases. But this creates some very perverse incentives. Assuming the tenants have established themselves and are putting down roots in their community and don’t want to be evicted from their homes for the last 5 years, then their logical course of action would be to ensure that they do not earn any more money or they increase their family size.
We have all heard the standard Tory complaint that working class girls only get pregnant so that they can get a council house and that many tenants are in effect work-shy layabouts. But right now in Wandsworth, and across the country, policies are being introduced, which almost demand pregnancies or avoidance of promotion or overtime working, in order to avoid eviction.
In order to carry out the policy, the Council will require staff, whose main function will be to check that tenants are not getting too wealthy. The Tory claim that Labour encourages the nanny state will look pathetic in comparison with the snooping, busy-bodying council they wish to create. And the objective? To create a transient population with no incentive to develop within their local community or a pauperised one with no ability or maybe desire to do so? Surely not!
Tory Tea Party
I don’t like the lazy assumption that the UK follows the US if about 10 years behind, but if you saw as much of the Republican Convention and of the Tory Party Conference as I did then you could not help thinking that the Tories are indeed morphing into Republicans. The Tories do make better speeches; their sentences usually have verbs and, pairs of sentences usually fit together as something like a paragraph – all of which would have been pretty remarkable for the Republicans.
But they both rely on the flag and quite a lot on God; they both want to shoot a burglar and “reform” abortion law, they both would like to drone attack Iran and they both claim that wealth generation and all that makes life worth living is as a result of the private sector. In the Tories’ case this all magnificently came together in the Olympics.
That the Olympics was the single largest public sector investment of the century, that the army had to bail out G4S and that most of the athletes were, by historic standards, magnificently funded by the state (or the lottery) seems to have escaped their attention. But don’t let the facts spoil a good story!
The same old boring incantation came out as ever. State bad, private good
Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere October Newsletter (# 42)
August & September highlights
1. Well to be honest highlights were mainly holidays, the Olympics and the Labour Party Conference – OK, so one has to be a political nerd to call the latter a highlight but so be it! As for my holiday, well I won’t bore you with lots of holiday snaps but here are just two of Niagara Falls and a Canadian native!
2. As for the Olympics – in my August Newsletter, I reported on going down to Putney High Street to see the road race pass, but later in the same month, I also managed to get tickets for a few other events. Surprisingly, to me, my favourite event was the female weight-lifting – absolutely terrific, with plenty of crowd participation. I know one Egyptian lady would not have lifted the weight without the crowd willing her to succeed.
3. For those who know me you may be surprised that on August 18th I went to the Black Pride event at the Ministry of Sound! The Ministry is in Kennington and the event was a raucous, hot enjoyable event. OK, so I was hardly an average member of the audience but I was not as much out of the ordinary as I had expected, with plenty of other “mature” participants. Not, however, my cup of tea and I have too much respect for my ear-drums to have stayed long!
4. On 21st August a Council Committee decided to keep the in-house team in the bidding to run both Croydon’s and Wandsworth’s library services. The Council contract will include running the York Gardens Library. I know that many people, including in the Labour Party, do not think that it is that important to keep these services in-house, but I most certainly do so. I will be keeping fingers and toes crossed for the next stage of the bidding process, which will become public in November.
5. There have, of course, been two Planning Applications Committees since my last newsletter, one in August and the other in September, and perhaps unusually both had applications of interest, even if small to Latchmere. First of all was the Council’s own application to convert the health centre in Wheeler Court to six Council flats. Wheeler Court is the 4-storey block in Plough Road right next to the traffic lights at York Road. The second was another Council application to convert Dawes House, that is the small block right opposite the Grant Road exit from the station and next to the Nazarene Church, into accommodation for homeless families rather than leave them in the inhuman conditions of bed & breakfast accommodation. Two good and useful applications for affordable housing, both of which were passed.
6. On September 25th I had the Strategic Planning Committee and on 26th the Housing Committee – two busy evenings. The Planning Committee included the latest plans for the Thames Relief Tunnel, which will run alongside the Thames for 20 miles and is designed to prevent the occasional disastrous flooding, which causes serious river pollution and the deaths of millions of fish. One of the base stations for this work is likely to be the Falconbrook Pumping Station, pictured here behind the demolished remnants of York Gardens Adventure Playground. All three of your councillors recognise that this mammoth Tunnel is required but we will be fighting to ensure that there is as little disruption to the Gardens as possible, so, for example, construction traffic will be coming in on a new access direct from York Road and not through the estate and the Gardens. What with the threat to the Library and the closure of the playground, York Gardens has had more than its fair share of pressure in the last few months!
7. In September I also went to the Wandsworth Museum to see the exhibition of Painting Wandsworth. The museum has 300 water-colours of Wandsworth and the exhibition showed about 60 of the paintings. The paintings date back to the eighteenth century, though most are nineteenth century works, but for anyone with a passing interest in the history of Battersea, then do go. I know the Museum is slightly out of the way being in the old West Hill Library but it is only 5 minutes’ walk up the hill from the Southside shopping centre and well worth the walk. There are also lots of buses from Clapham Junction that stop almost outside it, e.g. 37, 337, 170. It also shares the building with the brilliant de Morgan exhibition, which as I have said before is a small but world class exhibit that highly recommend to everyone.
I include two of the paintings. The first, this early nineteenth century picture of the Prince’s Head in Latchmere, which used to stand on the corner of Falcon Road and Battersea Park Road (though neither called that at the time, of course). 
And the second is of the Arts Centre, then Battersea Town Hall, which judging by the car, the tram and the fashions must have been painted about 100 years ago – say 1910. Note the Shakespeare Theatre next door, which was unfortunately badly damaged in the war and demolished in 1954. It is now Foxtons, the estate agent!
My Programme for October
1. There is a Council Meeting on 17th October and the Planning Applications Committee on the 18th October.
2. There must be more but just back from the Labour Party Conference and I do not seem yet to have got back into the full swing of Council business!
Did you know?
That Latchmere has a large, stately home or so says both our local and national press, when covering the strange Chinese murder trial of Gu Kailai. You may recall that this was the August trial of the Chinese politician’s wife found guilty of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood. Mr. Heywood, it was reported, had in his youth lived in Latchmere’s large stately home known as South Lodge.
Well, here is South Lodge (the red brick house), on the Latchmere Road right opposite the Leisure Centre. It is divided into 5 flats and pleasant enough I guess but a large, stately home? Just teaches one not to believe everything one reads in the press!
Top Hat
I went to the musical, Top Hat, last week. Great stuff.
I am a bit of a fan of Astaire and Rogers and was a little concerned that the show could not possibly compare with the film. But I was wrong – scintillating stuff, imaginatively staged and beautifully played – especially by Ginger Rogers/Summer Strallen. The second act staged in Venice could not quite compare with either the first act set in London or the film version but that is a harsh judgement on a great show.
Interesting though that the West End should be playing Singin’ in the Rain and Top Hat – the two greatest films from the two most brilliant dancers, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly – right now. Many have made the point that the great Hollywood era of musicals and comedies coincided with the great Depression – even if Singin’ made in 1952 is a bit outside the period. And now as the world faces the greatest financial storm since then we have these two revivals and the Olympics. As Nero said about the plebs of Rome – give ’em bread and circuses.
One thing in common in both crises is and was a Conservative Government pursuing negative, cutting policies. Cameron and Osborne do not understand that reducing demand by cutting Government spending does nothing but worsen the crisis. In the thirties, of course, GB finally moved out of the depression not by worrying about debt but by responding to the threat from Nazi Germany. Our parents and grandparents did not worry about the national debt – thank goodness and had no choice but to leave the next generation to pay off war-time debt, which we only completed about 10 years ago.
Heaven forbid – we don’t need war but we do need to get rid of this incompetent, deeply reactionary Government as soon as possible. After the Olympics the economy is going to be in serious need of stimulation and if we are to avoid a triple dip recession then we need aggressive investment and a quick reversal of all Osborn’s cuts.
My Latchmere August Newsletter (#40)
July highlights
1. On July 4th I went to a Labour Party fund raiser at the Fish in a Tie restaurant in Falcon Road, 
where the guest speaker was Andy Burnham, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister. As you know I don’t make this newsletter a party political broadcast – far too boring – but I must say that Andy was on great form. He was interested to see the new Clapham Junction Health Centre, as he came to open the centre with me when it was in a couple of mobile caravans in the nearby car park just before the last election. By the way, if you haven’t been there, can I recommend the Fish in a Tie as one of the best, at very reasonable prices, restaurants in our ward.
Another thing Andy s
aw was the newly re-opened entrance to Clapham Junction station. Some of you complained about the length of time the work took but I think everyone will agree that the new entrance (pictured here) is a terrific improvement on what was there previously.
2. Last month I commented that the British economy was now officially in what is known as a “double-dip recession”. Unfortunately with both Government and Council pursuing a crazy deflationary policy there seems little prospect of pulling out of it and indeed I have heard some talk about a “triple-dip recession.” The result in Latchmere was yet another rise of 10 in the ward’s official unemployment numbers, with 330 men and 230 women unemployed.
3. The Planning Applications Committee on 18th July had one application of real local interest and that was the one about the re-development of Clapham Junction’s Peabody Estate at the top of St. John’s Hill. Local residents were very actively opposed to the application, including as it does a 12 storey block and 527 residential units. Their opposition was partly based on the traffic implications on Eckstein, Comyn and Severus Roads, partly on the sheer scale of the application and partly on the size of the 12 storey block. One of the problems about the height of the tallest block is, for me, that it is not only that high but that it is at the top of the hill and will, therefore, dominate everything on the south side of the railway lines. I joined, with senior Tory councillor Maurice Heaster in opposing the application but I am afraid the very many local residents in the public gallery were disappointed.
4. On 19th July we had the Latchmere Report Back Meeting at York Gardens Library, There was a large audience and the normal range of questions about housing, pavements, street cleaning and refuse collection but what made it unusual was the decision by the pressure group London Citizens to make it a “protest” against the Council’s cuts policies. This meant that what is usually a time for the local councillors to be asked and answer questions about the local ward, became a quizzing of Tory Council Leader, Ravi Govindia.
5. I am afraid that I did not attend the Poyntz Road/Knowsley Road Triangle Party on 7th July. I am afraid I chickened out when the heavens opened and rained on what for me is the best street party in the Borough.
My Programme for August
1. Well, to be honest what with personal holidays and the Olympics – I went down to Putney High Street to see the road race pas
s, not the greatest picture but there it is! – it doesn’t add up to much at all, but I will be interested to see exactly what is going to happen to the Borough’s Library services. On 21st August a Council Committee will be considering the next stage in the “contracting out” of the Borough’s boundaries. Anyone who knows me will know what I think about contracting out core services like Libraries but I am rather afraid that it does not look good for our service, which I expect to be contracted out to some multi-national services provider.
2. I am not back from holiday until 11th September and so next month’s newsletter will not be in the first week of the month!
Did you know?
Last month I mentioned that the Falcons used to be Wandsworth Council’s Livingstone Estate and that Peregrine House used to be called Burne-Jones Court, after the painter Edward Burne-Jones. Well to continue the parade, Griffon House, which of course was demolished to make way for the Imperial College student residencies was called Elgar Court.
Sir Edward William Elgar (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was, of course, the famous English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. His best known works are the Enigma Variations, and most notably the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, both regulars at the Promenade Concerts. And for those of you who have forgotten Pomp & Circumstance then here it is on U-Tube www.youtube.com/watch?v=moL4MkJ-aLk
One of the most notable features about Elgar, pictured right, was that he was one of the first “classical” composers to take modern recording methods seriously. In a period from 1914-1925 he made several recordings but when in 1925 the microphone was invented he started a recording of all his works and hence has a fair claim to be the first composer to have had all his works recorded in his own lifetime.
Why the Council named the Livingstone blocks after artists like Burne-Jones and Elgar (with more to come), will be the subject of a later Newsletter.
Council wastes £100,000 on consultants
In July, Wandsworth Council decided to spend £100,000 to give our town centres an “identity”. Consultants will have a brief to give our town centres a purpose in this modern world. “Putney by the river”, “Clapham Junction – railway city”, “Tooting – South London’s Bengal city”, “Balham – Gateway to the South” – Wandsworth is a bit tricky I grant you.
OK, so we know that UK town centres are facing hard times with changes to shopping habits (out-of-town shopping malls and the internet) and the recession driving away their customer base. Cameron’s response is to appoint Mary Portas as shopping consultant. Months later her report is a re-hash of views what any halfway competent planner talked about as early as the 1970s. But one end result is that the Government is granting £10 million for nationwide schemes.
Wandsworth’s cut of that is £100,000 or 1% of the whole – we have approximately 0.5% of the population. We also have, despite pockets of deprivation, some of the most flourishing town centres in the country – if you don’t believe me take a look at Preston or Walsall or any of another 100 towns in the north. But what can you possibly do with £100,000? It might just pay to paint one big store.
So what has the Council decided to do with the £100K? Put out a tender to consultants to come up with a vision for our town centres. It seems to me to be money straight from the taxpayer to the ever-growing consultancy industry – better by far I say to give £100 vouchers to 1,000 families on benefits redeemable only in defined shops in Wandsworth.
What do you reckon?
The Punter is King but now dethroned!
In May I wrote a BLOG called “The Punter is King” and in it I included the following two paragraphs:
“This is very apparent in the Wandsworth example of the Springfield Hospital development site. This large, undeveloped, NHS site has stood under-used for decades. The NHS, which of course needs the money, has put forward two perfectly acceptable development proposals, but they got their politics wrong. Their last application was submitted at a time when it got caught up in the 2010 General Election. Both major parties, for largely electoral reasons, took part in a vigorous anti-campaign and the Council, assisted by the fact that its Deputy Leader lived opposite the site, decided to reject the application.
The community, or rather the immediate neighbours, knew what it wanted and won the argument – the Council gave the punters their desires. But just what are the odds on a semi-privatised NHS, even more strapped for cash, and/or its developers coming back with a larger, much less neighbour friendly application – fair to middling I guess – and in the meantime we have had an extra few years of decay, fewer desperately needed homes and less money for the health service. So we have total victory for the punters in the short-term but arguably a loss for the wider community (the homeless and patients) and a probable long-term loss.”
Well, now the Secretary of State has taken the matter into his own hands and granted planning permisson and both the local Labour MP, Sadiq Khan, and the local Tory Council, Wandsworth Borough Council, have joined together in condemning the decision. But what actually is the result? The development is much as Wandsworth Council officers originally recommended, with very much the same conditions applied. As it happens the delay was not perhaps as great as I had feared and it is not the case that a worse scheme has been put forward by an even more cash-strapped NHS.
Does it merely prove that we are all Nimbies (from Nimby or Not In My Back Yard) and that big local planning issues cannot be left to local authorities – sad, if true.
Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere July Newsletter (# 39)
1. In June it became official that the British economy was in what is known as a “double-dip recession”. This was, and is, really bad news for everyone in the country and for many of us locally. For instance, it should be noted that unemployment in Latchmere rose yet again in May to 575, which at 7.9% is the highest in the Borough (it is 7.8% in Roehampton). This compares with the average of 5.5% in England & Wales. As for the double-dip recession, I don’t particularly want to claim credit for it, but I have been virtually alone in forecasting this in the Council for the best part of a year. The real calamity is that in these hard times the Council, admittedly hard pushed by the Government, is cutting jobs and services at an increasing rate of knots. Just when is the Government going to make a U-turn on this just as it has with so many other issues recently. It really is time for a Plan B, a plan for economic growth.
2. I went to see the river pageant to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
in Battersea Park but I am afraid it was not, for me, a wild success. As you know it rained and it was almost impossible to see anything. Unfortunately the weather took the gloss off most of the street parties as well – great shame but couldn’t be helped. Did you have better luck or did you go out of London and get away from it all? Here is a picture of many of the audience trying to get a view from atop the mobile loos!
3. For the first time in ears I was not one of the Labour members on the
Finance & Corporate Resources, where the major item under discussion was Elliott School, Putney, where I know a number of Latchmere youngsters have gone. I wouldn’t mention it except for this crucial discussion about Elliott School, where the argument was whether the Council should pay for the very considerable and expensive refurbishment required for the school out of its own reserves or from the receipts for selling much of the school playing fields. The final decision on this matter is to be made, probably in August, but the Council is likely to sell some 40% of the playing fields. Here is a picture of the so-called Ark Academy closing the door on LEA secondary schools in the Borough!
4. The June 14th Big Local meeting in York Gardens was a great success and facilitator, Helen Garforth, will have found it useful in helping to frame a vision for Latchmere before the Big Lottery starts releasing the £1 million it is making available to Latchmere over the next ten years.
5. The 21st July Planning Applications Committee had no Latchmere applications but did have 3 very large and important developments for Battersea. The one of most direct interest to Latchmere was an application for 116 residential units, plus ancillary shopping and some industrial units, rising to some six storeys on York Road. The development would be almost opposite the York Gardens Library, where currently there is a car-show room and a fair amount of parking. (The site is pictured here at the corner of Lombard and York Roads).The Committee unanimously refused the application as being too high and out of scale for the site. However, my own view is that the Tory councillors, who represent the other side of York Road, are being pressurised by local residents into voting against the application but that the Council’s planning policies incline towards it : the end result of such a mess could be that the Secretary of State will grant permission after appeal.
The other two massive applications were for the reconstruction of Covent Garden Market and of the adjacent but now unconnected Market Towers at the end of Nine Elms. These are two really gigantic applications, both of which were approved.
Covent Garden Market will be completely demolished and re-constructed but more intensively. The redevelopment will include, or so it is planned, 2,500 residential units, a 500 bed hotel, a gymnasium and a 2,000 square metre (that’s very large) food super-store. Covent Garden Market is probably the third largest employer in the Borough (after the Council and the NHS) and therefore its future is very important to the Council. So, it was perhaps not surprising that it got support from all councillors and hopefully the end result will be good for us all. But I have a couple of reservations, one about the limited amount of “affordable” housing that will be built there and the other about the size of the retail unit. And it’s not because of my dislike of shopping but because at the same time the very large Sainsbury’s in Wandsworth Road is also being re-developed and I just can’t see that the area needs two megastores right next door to each other. PS Government definitions of affordable housing at least in Battersea require people to have something like £60,000 take-home pay so you can see it is affordable only to people earning more than twice the national average wage!
Market Towers, or as the developers want to call it One Nine Elms Lane is, to my mind, a very different proposition. Here the proposal is to build two giant towers; one of them up to 200 metres high, that is higher than the giant tower currently being built on the other side of Nine Elms Lane and the other slightly lower. These towers would have nearly 500 flats, a hotel and no doubt ancillary shops plus some offices. I voted against this application because there is very little “affordable” housing and that in my view these developments will make no contribution to the housing problems of most Battersea residents.
6. On 26th June, I was at the Housing Committee. Many years ago I was the Chair of the Housing Committee but this was the first I have attended for some time and very interesting, and worrying, it was too. There was masses of boring detail but two new Council policies I want to pick out in particular. The first is about Council-house rents. As from now all new tenancies will be let at 80% market rents and not on the traditional Council base. That means that new tenants will be expected to pay rents about 30-40% higher than their neighbours. Given that at the same time the Government is making draconian cuts to Housing Benefits I think we can see a concerted Conservative Party move to put an end to Council housing.
This slightly alarmist statement is supported by the other policy, which is to end the traditional policy of granting tenancies for “life”. As from now Council tenancies will be granted on a short-term basis, 5 years, and only renewed depending upon whether the tenant passes various tests. These include behaving well, not earning too much, doing what the Council expects you to do in terms of getting a job, etc. OK, so I put that case rather emotively but it is quite something coming from a Tory party that has complained about the “Nanny State” for so long! I just wonder how long it will be before this one becomes another U-turn.
7. On the very next day I was also at the Strategic Planning & Transportation Committee. Funnily enough I was also Chair of this Committee, many years ago, however, there was very little to report of interest unless one happens to live on the streets that were being discussed and as it happens none of these were in Latchmere.
My Programme for July
1. I will be attending the Passenger Transport Liaison on 2nd July. After my many years as a councillor this will be the first time I have ever attended this committee, where all kinds of public transport are discussed including even river passenger traffic.
2. On 7th July I will be attending the Poyntz Road/Knowsley Road Triangle Party from about 8pm on. This street party is, as far as I am concerned, the best in the Borough and I am really looking forward to it.
3. The Council Meeting is on 11th July; I have the Planning Applications Committee on the 18th, where a major application could be the plans for rebuilding Clapham Junction’s Peabody Estate; there is the Latchmere Report Back Meeting on 19th July at York Gardens Library, which is your chance to come and grill me and my fellow councillors, Wendy and Simon, and indeed the Leader of the Council, Ravi Govindia; and that is all followed by the Olympics, for which I was lucky and got quite a few tickets!
Did you know?
That the Falcons used to be Wandsworth Council’s Livingstone Estate. In the early 80s the Council discovered that the 1960s estate was built using a great deal of asbestos and considered spending millions to rip out the asbestos and then re-furbish the estate. But it decided that this was too expensive and so decided instead to sell the estate to private developers.
After getting rid of the blue asbestos and in the course of “re-branding” the private developers decided to name all the blocks on the estate after birds of prey, presumably because of the address on Falcon Road, and hence we have Hawk, Harrier, Peregrine, Eagle, Osprey, Kite, Lanner, Griffon and Kestrel Houses, Courts and Heights. Let’s just talk about one: Peregrine House. The Peregrine is the fastest animal of all reaching 200 mph in its hunting dive; the vast majority of its prey is smaller birds, though the peregrine itself is only the size of a crow. Typically it has lived in cliffs and mountains but in recent times they have moved into cities – there is a pair at Battersea Power Station. Life in high towers obvious
ly seems to be similar enough to cliffs for the Peregrine.
But Peregrine House used to be called Burne-Jones Court, after the painter Edward Burne-Jones, 1833-98. Burne-Jones, who was born in Birmingham, was a major artist of the very British pre-Raphaelite movement along with William Morris, John Ruskin and Dante Rosetti amongst others. They “loved” the middle Ages and were very concerned with design, which is perhaps obvious from a quick glance at the painting on the right.
Why the Council named the Livingstone blocks after artists like Burne-Jones, will be the subject of a later Newsletter.
Clapham Junction, Grant Road entrance to open tomorrow, 11th July
Good news for all those who use the Junction. We are told that the “new” Grant Road station entrance will be opened tomorrow, 11th July. At least one of my several constituents, who live with a ringside seat of CJ, in Sendall or Osprey or Eagle Heights, says that as he looks down on the station that he has his doubts, but we can only hope that the “authorities” know what they are talking about!
OK, so its a slightly dated image but I like it!
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 