Rufford street – tipping

Posted on August 22, 2006 by William Perrin

67if0924These mysterious boards are typical of the sort of odd things that get tipped in the area.  Will report and try to get moved

Posted in Street Tipping, Mess, Trash | 1 Comment

St Pancras station emerges from restoration

Posted on August 22, 2006 by William Perrin

StpancA friend tipped me off that recent changes at St Pancras now allowed passengers into the part-restored Barlow trainshed and even without having a ticket.  The internal views are simply beautiful – the steelwork has been painted back to its original powder blue, the glass has been replaced letting in huge amounts of light and you get to walk in some of the undercroft. My fuzzy mobile phone picture is (literally) impressionistic.

But most intriguing of all is that a sense of mystery still prevails about what the train shed will look like when it is finished.  There is still much scaffolding and sheeting you can’t see the whole thing – St Pancras seems to be doing a prolonged dance of the seven veils as it constantly reveals different bits to the viewing public.  Perhaps it is in keeping with the whole Kings Cross vibe to have the world’s biggest and oldest stripper ?  Easily the best architectural attraction i n London right now, well worth a stroll down on a sunny day – and it is free.

Posted in St Pancras redevelopment | 2 Comments

Murder at Egg nightclub on York Way

Posted on August 17, 2006 by William Perrin

Islgazette_logo Shocking news in the Islington Gazette of a murder at the Egg nightclub on York Way/Vale Royal.  The full story is here.  Some comments attributed to residents in the nearby Maiden Lane estate about drug dealing and noise though raise some concerns about how the club is run.  However one should take media reports like this with a pinch of salt.

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New CEMEX noise pollution video

Posted on August 16, 2006 by William Perrin

Readymixplantruffordst_5_2 Working from home a fair bit lately and the noise from the CEMEX plant on Rufford Street is driving me mad.  Lots of beep-beep-beep vroom crash.  So i worked out how to edit video and have put together a compilation from the video footage i have amassed – a sort of edited pollution highlights.  You can find it on YouTube here.  More seriously CEMEX have promised that their environmental study of the plant will be finished any day now.

Posted in Noisy CEMEX concrete plant Rufford Street | Leave a comment

Problems at Pentonville……

Posted on August 16, 2006 by William Perrin

Pentonville_prison_iln_1842 Some pretty remarkable reporting in the national press of corruption amongst prison staff at the ‘Ville on the Cally.  Some 14 staff have been suspended in one go.  The main story is in the Guardian here and a good comment piece today here with a startling observation of cooking crack in a prison microwave. For those with a historical bent the wikipedia piece here on Pentonville is very good with a superb picture from 1842 that i have borrowed above – the pic shows wonderfully the mud and isolation of the prison when the Caledonian Road had probably just been cut.  The Prison Service site on Pentonville is here and their press statement on the corruption allegations is here. If anyone reading this is or knows a prison officer  or is a former inmate there it would be fascinating to hear your perspective.

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Robbery Gifford Street 25 July

Posted on August 15, 2006 by William Perrin

Dsc00952If you were around Gifford Street near the entrance to Bingfield Park at about 7:30 pm on Tuesday 25 July did you see a man robbing a woman of her handbag or someone runnign awy. See the (belated) incident board in the picture.

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Havelock Street – poor street cleansing

Posted on August 15, 2006 by William Perrin

Dsc00945Havelock Street has had continuous building work for the past three years as the decayed Naish Court is replaced by Guiness Trust.  But now that the worst phase of building is coming to an end there is no excuse for poor street cleansing.  I saw a motorised sweeper there today which did a good job of the gutters but the broad pavements are a mess – weedy, littered with tyres, dumped TVs, small waste, dog poo etc.  Larger items linger for some time.  I reported a dumped TV there a week ago but it is still there – chased with Contact Islington today – and got the strong suspiciion that the job had been missed.  Quality control and monitoring has slipped.  In the ICSL measurement jargon this poor cleansing is a ‘Grade C’ standard’.  Will see if something can be done to improve.

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Migratory habits of shopping trolleys

Posted on August 15, 2006 by William Perrin

Dsc00951This Marks&Spencer trolley has turned up on Pembroke Street  near the building site.  The nearest branch with trolleys is i think on Chapel Market about a mile away so someone made a real effort to push this all the way.  Or it decided it need to head Southm, perhaps as part of a longer migration to Africa.  Will see if it can be picked up.

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