please empty your brain below
Aside from the fact that the streetartbolxmerchants can't spell 'complement', there's something very disturbing about the way they've appropriated two stereotypically working class figures and stuck them here as exhibits, alongside minotaurs and giant anthropomorphised hares.

Sarah | Homepage | 08.05.21 - 7:32 a.m. | #

The emotions are strong this morning.

Jon Jones | 08.05.21 - 8:05 a.m. | #

Sophie Ryder's Minotaur and Hare may be same the one that was in Cheltenham when I last checked (or just another edition of the same art).

Ian | 08.05.21 - 8:15 a.m. | #

Maybe you could write about the relatively normal people places north and south of the rich people. Hearing about 900k apartments and the preppy places set up for them is rather generic.

dg writes: will this do?

toby | 08.05.21 - 8:28 a.m. | #

DG has THOUGHTS this morning and I am very much here for it.

j | 08.05.21 - 8:34 a.m. | #

Woking has very similar statues dotted around the town centre. Here the sculptor is Sean Henry.

David | 08.05.21 - 8:36 a.m. | #

London's true housing crisis... there is simply not enough luxury apartments for Russian Oligarchs, Malaysian millionaires and the children of Chinese businessman.

PJS | 08.05.21 - 8:41 a.m. | #

Ah, I posted too quickly. Having re-read DG's post and following the link I now see that the two human figures shown in Park Drive were also sculpted by Sean Henry.

David | 08.05.21 - 8:42 a.m. | #

There's also a pair of statues, facing each other a good distance apart, at Paddington Basin: the pair is called Two Figures and is also by Sean Henry.

RogerW | 08.05.21 - 8:44 a.m. | #

I do love your blogs with a bit of bite like today’s. I’m tempted to put my radical leanings on the back burner long enough to suggest bringing back capital punishment for people who break the rule of three as in “... to collaborate, to innovate and to embrace the future”. [shudders]

That first photo is fab, thank you. Cheers up a weary soul on a couple of week’s respite holiday in a hospice. I’m assuming all you worldly wise readers know that end of life care isn’t all hospices offer. Lots of tlc, 24 hour room service, listening ears, respecting both good & bad choices - and of course yummy drugs - all on the NHS.

Toni | 08.05.21 - 9:05 a.m. | #

For collaborate, innovate and embrace the future I think that we can safely read "jobs and contracts for mates, make it up as you go along, and suck it up because we decide the future whether you want it or not"

Mel | 08.05.21 - 9:28 a.m. | #

I totally agree with you DG.
Even if they remain empty for 99% of the time - which is totally on the cards - they'll still be raking it in as land value rarely decreases.

I'm sorry to hear of your illness Toni. Wishing you lots of tlc and freedom from pain. xx

Cornish Cockney | 08.05.21 - 9:29 a.m. | #

I think we'd have heard if the Cheltenham Minotaur and Hare had been taken away - it was a temporary installation but was so popular it was bought by a public subscription and kept. I think that one doesn't have "on bench" as part of the title (even though they are).

I wonder if your Minotaur is quite as well equipped as the Cheltenham one.

dg writes: Zoom in....

Nick | Homepage | 08.05.21 - 9:31 a.m. | #

I imagine this post is very confusing if your browser isn't displaying fonts correctly!

Medford | 08.05.21 - 10:18 a.m. | #

God that 'art' is terrible, particularly the minotaur and hare. Give me the tortured minotaur in the Barbican any day.

Colin | Homepage | 08.05.21 - 10:33 a.m. | #

This is good stuff. I think DG is at his best and most entertaining when his displeasure is evident and he puts the boot in. More of this sort of thing please.

Arlu | 08.05.21 - 10:43 a.m. | #

Even more amusing is the route from Preston’s Road to Wood Wharf. You walk through something that looks through a building site with only minimal reassurance you’re allowed to be there, and just as you’re convinced you’re about to be shouted at by a gruff foreman, you emerge into Wood Wharf.

I submit that the shortest route from privilege to deprivation in Canary Wharf is: South Quay Walk - Alpha Grove - Havannah Street, at 0.1 miles via the cut throughs. Though the number of BMW’s parked outside might give the opposite impression.

Chris D | 08.05.21 - 10:48 a.m. | #

Wood Wharf originally ran from Prestons Road alongside the dock basin. I only went down there once when it was still an industrial estate about 18 years about to arrange for a burnt out car to be removed. It was a hive of activity back then.

Andrew Jarman | 08.05.21 - 11:00 a.m. | #

I wonder if the fonts are going to diverge more as the day goes on.

John Styles | 08.05.21 - 11:55 a.m. | #

While disrespectful of your post, 'boozed up bankers' sound interesting. And what they did with whom.

Andrew | Homepage | 08.05.21 - 12:06 p.m. | #

How many different fonts are there in this post?

dg writes: 2, alternating

Not sure what the message here is... perhaps, expect much more of this all you people who voted Tory. Totally with Mel at 09:28 on this one.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 08.05.21 - 1:22 p.m. | #

The generations of my ancestors who did proper jobs in the area will be turning in their pauper graves.

Pamela Stocks | Homepage | 08.05.21 - 1:33 p.m. | #

I hadn't noticed the alternating fonts! Just read it again and got a whole new perspective!
Subtle and brilliant!

Cornish Cockney | 08.05.21 - 2:29 p.m. | #

Nice view in the first photo of the Massey Shaw fireboat, on which my grandfather volunteered during the blitz. Here is clip of it pumping on the Thames a few years ago.

As for the 'bankers with common sense buying larger properties in the shires'...well these may well be their handy 2nd or 3rd-home occasional overnight pads.

NickW | 08.05.21 - 2:37 p.m. | #

DG love, are you ok?

I can stick the kettle on & fill a flask and we'll meet up on a bench somewhere; have a nice chat and catch up, yeah?

Penny | 08.05.21 - 2:38 p.m. | #

Nice part of the world. Other views are available.

That's the gist of it, right?

Jordan D | 08.05.21 - 2:57 p.m. | #

Great photos and coruscating text, but the "subtle and brilliant" effect of alternating fonts is wasted on me. I found them distracting, borderline annoying.

Frank F | 08.05.21 - 3:09 p.m. | #

So you quite liked it then....

First post-Covid visit to Salt's Mill yesterday. Couldn't help musing on how quickly the thousands of jobs in those towers of enterprise disappeared when it became possible to outsource the work to places where people didn't expect to have security and a Mediterranean holiday every year. And they were making useful stuff.

Now all the jobs in these towers could be done from home, Frankfurt, or Bangalore. How much longer do they have?

RogerB | 08.05.21 - 5:15 p.m. | #

Totally agree with your views DG. This "re-generation" only benefits the more affluent.

I wonder if the good folk of Hartlepool will suffer the same fate a decade or so down the line after being promised a rejuvenation by the victorious winning party in Thursday's by-election.

Richard | 08.05.21 - 6:23 p.m. | #

Also, 'bombastic pustule' is going to give me nightmares.

Sarah | Homepage | 08.05.21 - 6:29 p.m. | #

Not for me thanks. I prefer the leafy suburbs of London- it’s a real place to live

Brian | 08.05.21 - 8:03 p.m. | #

This housing may be marketed at bankers, but like you pointed out, not many will want to buy there (especially now). Those that do will most likely be pretty junior and making decent money, but nowhere near the top of the pyramid, working hard to pay the mortgage or the rent to some overseas investor landlord.

They are those most vulnerable to swings in the job market, interest rate rises, competition from outsourced workers etc. They may look comfortable for now but I really doubt they’ll see themselves as rich.

I found the anger of the post fairly misplaced. Developers are those taking it on and ultimately responsible for this urban blight.

snurk | 08.05.21 - 9:03 p.m. | #

Few of us will mourn for "pretty junior" bankers capable of buying a £840,000 flat who don't "see themselves as rich".

ackshly | 08.05.21 - 10:37 p.m. | #

Don't blame the workforce of the developers either. If they tried to design or build for real working people, they'd get the sack. Or, if top bosses, they'd face a shareholder revolt for making suboptimal profits. Blame the planning authorities who pay lip service to affordability, but enforce none of it.

Malcolm of Kent | 09.05.21 - 12:52 a.m. | #

Almost like if people want cheap housing they should buy the land and do it themselves.

Martin | 09.05.21 - 5:57 a.m. | #

What a miserable and cynical post, maybe we should blame the useless Tower Hamlets council for failing the residents, its not CW sole problem. They are a business and have done a wonderful job so far at Wood Wharf. This feels like moaning for moanings sake.
It's all these 'tossers' expensive apartments that pay for the social housing that is provided.

Adam | 09.05.21 - 9:32 a.m. | #

When Tories such as Robert Jenrick illegally wave through planning agreements for Tory donors such as Richard Desmond so that he can avoid paying Tower Hamlets a £45 million contribution to their housing budget, I don’t think it’s the council that deserves the blame.

Labourer | 09.05.21 - 10:50 p.m. | #

Wood Wharf's property-flogging arm just liked this post on Twitter. I fear they didn't read it.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 10.05.21 - 4:29 p.m. | #

Noticed your font kept changing throughout the post. This might not be read but I don't read your posts daily, ho hum.

SJM | 10.05.21 - 10:36 p.m. | #

Mercato Metropolitano (Mayfair/Elephant & Castle) ... and Ilford shortly, they are constructing the two-storey building on former Town Hall carpark

Noel Cottrell | Homepage | 11.05.21 - 10:42 a.m. | #

The Massey Shaw, in the first image, provided most (if not all) of the water used to fight the fires around St Pauls on the night of 29th / 30th December 1940 (The Second Great Fire of London) - it was the commemoration of that event that Nick's excellent video records.

Nick if you have not made contact we'd love to hear any Massey Shaw stories that you have.

The Massey Shaw is run completely by volunteers and is open to the public, by appointment. Please come along and learn about the history of riverine fire-fighting on the Thames, her three trips to Dunkirk in May 1940 (she is a Dunkirk Little Ship) and her role in the formation of the NHS!
masseyshaw.org/plan-a-visit

Bill (Massey Shaw trustee and crew member)

Bill Scott | 14.05.21 - 1:47 p.m. | #











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