[Ben Reeve Lewis visits Channel 4....]
I went to Channel 4’s building in Pimlico this week. As you can see from the picture below, the entrance in Horseferry Rd is a bit tricky to find. The unobservant could easily walk past and miss it.
Had a nice meeting which may or may not pan out into more work.
As I walked through the lush open plan offices and glass meeting rooms I was struck by how few people in TV seem older than about 26 and how many of them look like they have fallen off the cover of a trendy magazine.
Hoxton pointed boys with full on French impressionist beards and glamorous women with tattoos of the Sistine Chapel ceiling on their arms.
All part of the job
Everyone is over-friendly in case you turn out to be someone important who they should know. I recognise the smiles and behaviour from my 3 years as a professional musician. The music world works along similarly shallow lines.
A world away from Council homelessness and advice units that I’m used to, where everyone looks grizzled, cynical and worn out and a greeting is an almost imperceptible and cautious raising of the chin, presuming you are just about to dump a load of crap on their desks that they are going to have to sort out.
Visiting the poor
And interestingly, as I began surfing for housing stories I fell straight across this blog post on Guerilla Wire about the middle classes poking their TV lenses into the lives of the poverty stricken as a modern version of Victorians paying for a tour of the slums to see how the other half lives.
Author Jayne Linney complaining about the latest series of “Famous, rich and hungry”:
“So what is the real purpose of these snapshots into life on poverty street – to allow those fortunate individuals not surviving there, sit back and after 55 minutes and using the remote control, switch off their conscience as the credits role; I put to them, since when did I and my peers become nothing more than creatures to be observed from the safety of the sofa?”
Says Jayne, but having spent 4 months this year taking part of one of these “Oh isn’t it awful” documentaries I have to say my experience was very different.
Lucy Fyson, the director/camera woman who was with me everyday was so enraged at injustice that she often worked away from the camera to help people who were being filmed and was very protective to ensure they didn’t get edited in a negative way.
We joked that we should put her on the rota she did so much above and beyond the call of duty.
Hidden underground
Ever a fan of the weird and unusual mine eye alighted this week on a £4.5 million underground Hobbit home.
I have to say it is right up my street. If I made a big lottery win it would definitely be a contender, apart from the fact that its Hampstead……………………….North London.
Non Londoners might find this difficult to understand. South and North are a bit like water and oil. I’m dyed in the wool Sarf London, Deptford and Millwall are in my soul.
Frazzy is a massive Arsenal fan. Lots of black Londoners are. Just like Spurs picks up Irish and Jewish followers. Thing is, Arsenal…or ‘The Arse’ as they often known, are actually a Sarf London team. “Woolwich Arsenal”, relocated by expediency to north London in the early 20th century when the rent on their ground went up. Sounds familiar?
I spent a year living in Hackney. Really liked it but could never shake off a feeling of betrayal.
Been safely back Sarf for some years now. I’d rather move out of London than go north of the Thames again. It just isn’t right. Which is why I was interested in Rightmove’s ‘Happy index’
Places to be happy
A map of areas where, for a variety of reasons, people find life happier.
Harrogate comes in first, Shrewsbury second, Ipswich Third, York fourth and Chester fifth.
Deptford doesn’t come anywhere near. Surprise,surprise.
Amazingly, my old enforcement stomping ground, Lewisham ranks quite highly. Maybe the survey asked cockroaches where they could best breed. And god knows I’ve trodden on a few in my professional time.
A British tradition
Osborne this week announced plans to deal with the housing crisis by extending the building of starter homes to rural communities.
No problem to me Georgie Boy there but there is a long British tradition of a thing called Nimbyism. A religion usually practiced by Conservative heartland voters who think you are the bees knees.
Ministers said:
“In a recent survey of rural businesses the main barrier to growth that most identified was planning restrictions. So for a start, we’ll review rules around agricultural buildings such as barns to allow rural businesses to expand more easily”
Hahah Good luck with the Village Green Preservation Society George, who went on to say:
“if we are going to attract and maintain a dynamic workforce, we need to make it easier for people to stay in their rural communities”
What about maintaining a dynamic workforce for London? Where my Police mates inform me they can no longer afford to live in order to stay working in the Met because of rents and house prices.
What made me smile this week
Way back in the 1970s I was walking past the Grove Tavern in Lordship Lane, twixt Forest Hill and East Dulwich. An unprepossessing place on the South Circular when my passage was halted by a completely pissed Richard Burton and a fur coated Elizabeth Taylor whose perfume was so overpowering I had to reach for my Ventolin inhaler.
I have told this tale a number of times to people who said I was making it up. Why would Hollywood’s golden couple consort in a Sarf London boozer?
Well I logged on to a community blog and found that they had indeed lived locally at that time.
I stand redeemed. Nuff said.
The Grove has closed down now, unaware of its fate, see pic. The door to the right of the chimney is where I saw them staggering out.
See ya next week
Your “All part of the job” para really made me laugh Ben :)
I was born in London – lived North and East before ‘settling’ on the south side aswell. Deptford and New Cross, namely. Living so close to the water in Deptford there, on the cusp of Surrey Quays, made all the difference; I found some much needed serenity there.
I left London in 2010. When I was paying 550 for a room. I figured that was enough now. I got to Scotland and paid 450 for a 1bed flat.
I might be joining you Reb. London is pricing me and Frazzy out, although I swore I wouldnt be driven out.
At Channel 4 I was chatting to one of the girls who worked there, she told me she was in the process of moving to a cheaper place in Stratford @ £750 for a room in a shared house.
The north/south London thing is a bit of a joke for Londoners I know but there is some truth to it I find. There is that slight hesitation at accepting invitation to a shebang if it’s over the Thames. I know north Londoners feel it as well. Just a split second’s calculation before agreeing haha