Raleigh Burner - The Test Drive (Part 2)

Much to my delight the Raleigh Burner fit like a glove -You should get one, Ronnie.
Charlotte beamed in childish delight as she cut a figure of eight in the street, her teeth gleaming, drawing an unusual similarity to the Sun Pat kid as she skidded to a stop outside the front gate.

The next few days were spent with me tip toeing down the stairs, not wanting to concede defeat in the rising probings about the present not being an entirely selfless act. This lead to me failing in finding suitable examples, such as " Well if that was the case....erm....well wotshisname would never have given...you know, her.....that... and that wouldn't of happened."
I also kept getting caught out- having to respond with guilty cries of, "Nothing...Just checking the front door's locked..."-my response too quick, and the echo of the hall doing nothing to hide my guilt, as I admired the bike in the hall in the darkness.

It was with great pleasure I was rung the following morning with what I would normally consider the definition of mundane, boredom at its most intense. I was asked the kind of question which paralyses my jaw, and makes me want to slowly slur to a jolty standstill, and drop the phone. I was asked to reunite my friends with his keys he had left round here before he went to work. Resisting the urge to ask if he had dropped them before, after, or even at the same time as vomiting on my carpet the previous weekend, I agreed.

It was at last a genuine reason. As I guided her out the front door I watched the gleaming white wheels catch the sun. Aware I couldn't sit down on the Raleigh Burner and cruise, I figured everyone looks big on a BMX, besides everyone will be too busy looking at the beautiful, hypnotic, polo-white alloys to notice me.

As I left the front gate swinging, clinging to its post looking like distressed Mechano, I peddled off down Graham Road, whistling as I glided under the railway bridge. Feeling a picture of youth, I imagined Ribena pumping through my veins, those black and red Filas on the peddles (maybe original F13s?) that Mum took back to the shop because they turned my socks blacks when it rained( despite my desperate pleas, and mid-tantrum declaration of allegiance to black socks) . I imagined myself rockin' those black baggy jeans, with the red or green backpockets that every older brother had in the nineties.

I glided past the chip shop where a lovely Indian couple work tirelessly in stove like conditions, amid mobile ring tones, and kids who view the shop as there stronghold. I cycled past, reaching the corner by the Spurstowe pub, and peddling in slow motion so I could hear the old Jamaican dude who leans on the rail of the estate opposite. His strong accent creating sticky, syrupy tones , talking to no one in particular and answering his own questions by laughing contentedly every few minutes.

Then to my delight, as I peddled through the gloomy post war estates, built after this side of London Fields was heavily bombed during the war, I had my Rocky moment. Kids playing in the gulley's of the estate blocks began to run beside me to the end of their block. I hopped off the kerb excitedly, swaying awkwardly on landing, forgetting just how small the bike actually was.

Picking up pace once more I turned into the cycle path that leads to London Fields. Suddenly, for the first time, I was in traffic. It was only then that it dawned on me. My panting grin being wiped from my face instantly, this was the worst kind of traffic. Elegant foreign exchange students, mostly Scandinavian and beautiful, all riding bikes that would be found in a Disney produced Dickensian London.

My fantasy had been shattered, I looked, well ridiculous. I suddenly felt like an elephant on a unicycle at the zoo, as I balanced on top of the tiny BMX, having to pedal furiously to stay vertical. I could feel the bemusement I caused each passing cyclist, as they looked down on me (literally) from their sophisticated, adult bikes.

I dropped off the keys, and then sheepishly cycled home, still I'm pleased to say in awe of the Burner, but embarrassed when faced with company. Just as I reached the home stretch, I saw a small Afro Caribbean girl up ahead, no taller than the arm of a chair, leaning on her elbows and tummy on the wall of her front garden. She watched me approach, and with perfect timing as I passed , she pointed at me and laughed, shouting, "MY Gosh! You too big for DAT bike!."

Raleigh Burner (Part 1)

Football shirts, Mohawks and Raleigh Burners were three things that would make me stop dead in my Cica velcro trainers. Replica shirts due to Italia 90 completely consuming my seven year old mind. Punk rockers because of the hair, and the burning envy at the lack of bath time. Raleigh Burners, well the beauty of them them made my NHS glasses steam up, and my mechanical sweet bag to mouth limb malfunction.

So when slowly descending into desperation in front of my laptop on a dreary January evening, skimming hopelessly through EBay in search of a present for my girlfriend's birthday. A birthday which sits incidentally, just after Christmas. We had to move our anniversary because it was just too traumatizing.

I was just reaching breaking point. Friday afternoon maths lesson posture. Displaying to my computer through the art of body language just how disgusted I was to be sharing this time with him - my left arm spread across the desk, left ear folded and pressed against my shoulder, head horizontal to screen, while plodding noisily at the keyboard with the index finger of my left hand....when all of a sudden, up she popped.

I'm sure if I still had NHS bottle tops (instead of the acute pain of vanity, commonly known as contact lenses), they would of steamed up and cracked. Instead I blinked hard, yelped and tried to remember the opticians utterly liberating advice of- wait for it, look up and blink slowly.

The shiny frame the colour of blueberry slush puppies after swimming. The Roy of the Rover red and yellow racing stripes. But most of all, the gleaming white plastic alloys blurred into vision.

"I have to have it", I declared. "No, she has to have it", I corrected myself. She'll love it....what's not to like? Leaning back on my chair and folding my arms to try and push through the deal. I then consoled myself that even if I couldn't get my Jiminy Cricket legs under the handlebars, at least I could look at them.

It could be somewhere to hang out- by the Raleigh Burner in the hall. Somewhere I could linger between the bedroom, lounge and toilet. That's the useful thing about halls I thought.

Without further hesitation, well apart from a brief daydream of a few kids giving chase, which quickly escalates into a crowd, chasing and cheering as I freewheel through rubbish strewn streets, and bish, bash bosh, I'd ordered the eighth wonder of the world.

She was arriving within five working days from Stoke on Trent. When I checked the items I'd bought(won!) on my EBay account the next morning, I was dazzled all over again. Luckily it was too early for the painful reaction that brought the first time -my contact lenses were still lying in wait in the bathroom.

But then the panic began. With no clear guidelines to the size of the frame or wheels, I found myself staring at the garden the photo of the bike was taken in. Is that short grass and a tall fence...or tall grass and a short fence? I cursed the bike's former owner for his flippancy, while purring reassuringly to the Raleigh Burner on the screen that she was coming to a good home.

The following days were spent having discrete liaisons with my.....my girlfriends new bike in my inbox. Gazing at the wheels, trying to block out the looming Homebase fence in the background. I felt a bit like a lonely businessman who had just bought a Russian bride, blurring his eyes so he won't discover any unsightly moles on her profile picture.

With no reply from the seller regarding the bike's size, my nights were interrupted by hazy, panic ridden nightmares about those tiny BMX's with stabilizers, upside down in skips. I woke up startled in the darkness. My girlfriends eye line is roughly that of Ronnie Corbett's. Was I the same size as Ronnie Corbett when I was eight?

(To be contd....)

New Piccadilly Cafe

On Denmar street, just behind the tourist melee and the glaring lights of Piccadilly Circus, sits a treasure of an old fashioned cafe. The glow box sign of the New Piccadilly Cafe is just visible from the end of Shaftsbury Avenue, and has been a beacon to actors, playwrights, and students since the 1950s.

The look and feel of smart leather booths and smooth Formica surfaces makes it easy to glide back to the era when this cafe first opened. The menu is refreshingly simple, and offers the kind of home-cooked food that causes sentimental stirrings in the palate. A menu that has nourished beatniks and jazz singers, mods and rockers, struggling actors and homesick tourists has changed little to the present day. My favourite is the spinach and cheese carbonara (£5.50), delightfully stringy gorgonzola served with homemade pesto and parmesan served in kitsch glassware.

At the counter hums a bright pink coffee machine. Owner Lorenzo Maioni is reassuringly authentic as he polishes glass tumblers in the background, admiring his waiters' work from behind the billowing steam of the candy coloured machine. Waiters are over-attentive, the interior is cosy, the walls lined with promotional posters for West End productions, both in the coming week and over two decades ago. The wall of postcards from satisfied customers from all over the world confirm the cafe's status as a much loved piece of London's history.

If you're lucky, on a warm summer day you might find the place nearly empty, just an actor learning lines and a City old boy eating his regular meat and two veg dish, tried and tested over decades. Or on a winter weekend, craving warmth, you may find it bustling with people and laughter behind its steamy windows.

This is when you not only see that Mr Maioni is excellent at what he does, but also feel a slight deflation that the New Piccadilly Cafe is not only your secret to hold. I often see smug students taking their parents to the cafe, keen to show them that they have uncovered the real London. It always does the trick. It's the sort of place that, once discovered, pulls you towards it; any step near St James Park, or a mere glimpse of the increasingly grotesque Leicester Square, and the cafe cries out to you.

Today, however, the bewildering rise of land prices in London means the cafe is facing a fight to keep going. But, forty years after he took over the helm from his father, Mr Maioni seems philosophical about the Piccadilly Cafe's future, as though it is a question he is so used to answering that it rolls off his tongue.

"We will always have to fight, being as small as we are. But we will work it out, we always have."

He has no desire to see the building listed, as other historic cafes like the greasy spoon in Bethnal Green have been recently. If that happened, he reasons, his selling options in future would be severely curtailed.

But, for now, the cafe sits as a romantic reflection of how cafes used to be and, having seen through the fifties, the swinging sixties and the last few decades, I hope this gem of a place is allowed to continue and flourish as a rare outpost of old fashioned hospitality.

Dark Days

Director Marc Singer

Certificate 15

Running time 84 minutes

Year 2000

At first, all you can hear is the noise. Somehow the 16mm seems to shake, although of course this would be impossible to detect in such darkness. However as the lights thunder round the last bend, the headlights unfurl the steam from the sewage that clogs the damp stanching air beneath New York City. From the onset, this fascinating, humbling documentary unearths a world never before explored. 

Beneath Penn Station and the banks of the Hudson, exists a homeless community who have deserted the streets of New York, to live in a makeshift underground shantytown. 

"No one in their right minds come down here," says Tito, one of the inhabitants who had been living in the tunnels for six years.

This is yet another reason why this documentary is so astonishing. Its director, Marc Singer, a disillusioned Londoner, who arrived in New York with the intention of spending a few years exploring the city, supported by pay from occasional modelling work, overhead a conversation about the tunnels in a bar in Greenwich village. 

Intrigued, he went looking for the ramshackle community. After several unsuccessful expeditions, he finally found the small shelters made from what the rest of New York left behind.

"It's a dump down there, pitch black, rats running around everywhere, garbage, and smells that make your eyes water. When I first went down there, I was amazed and awed; I had so much respect for everybody and I kept thinking, 'Could I have done this? Or would I have let myself go to pieces?"

This beautifully construed documentary was born from Singers desire to unearth the lives of these people, and make a difference. Dark Days certainly does this, and its refreshing creative angle enables a documentary free of the usual techniques used to pull at viewers heartstrings. Devoid of brash voice overs hammering away moral ideals, Singer created a free flowing documentary that simply gives a platform for the homeless to speak

The drug addictions, family tragedies and rejection are all obvious factors in the downfall of the inhabitants. However with the patiently shot footage, Singer has steered clear of leaving his own impressions on the viewer, and lets the voices and personalities be revealed.

From Dee, a crack smoking mother, who lost her two children in a fire, to young Chris who collects cans twelve hours a day, to raise enough money to live above ground on the weekends. Instead of  just uncovering the depths of humanity in New York, Singer unearths the unique sense of unity formed in the most depressing surroundings imaginable.

Ralph, who managed to give up his crack addiction, talks of his daughter being raped while he was in jail for burglary offences. He has never forgiven himself for not being there to protect her.

These painful stories of the inhabitants broken lives, are dispersed amongst the daily fight for survival. The friendships and characters of the tunnels are unearthed not through the interviews, but the acceptance of Marc Singer when he moved down into the tunnels, and there openness to talk in front of him.

Dark Days is a truly inspiring piece of work. By emerging himself in such squalid conditions, and putting no boundaries between himself and the focus of the film (He even assembled a film crew from the inhabitants) Singer maintained creative control, and in doing so, touched and ultimately changes the lives of the people the big apple forgot.

Best View of London

 

From LCC News 01/07

Highgate Hill N6

(Nearest tube Archway)

The steep ascent up Highgate Hill is one to test nearly every city dwellers calf muscles. As I reach a midway point I can't help but wish that the first cable car in Europe, built between Archway and the top of Highgate Hill, might creep up behind me. Alas, the last one to crawl up the hill was over a century ago, so the chance of this occurring seemed as slim as that of  Dick Turpin, who took "holidays" here from Essex,  riding up and asking me to join his Highway gang.

Beyond the lines of Georgian red brick housing that stretches down below you, the city looks alluring and mystical. It is easy to imagine Dick Whittington performing his statutory thigh slap, his plan to return cemented on hearing the bow bells chime.

Other highlights in Highgate include the cemetery - a visit to Karl Marx's grave, and perhaps if your brave enough, that of the recently deceased Alexander Litvinenko. This could be followed by some shepherd's pie with homemade bread, at The Bull on North Hill road.

Primrose Hill NW6

(Nearest tube Chalk Farm)

Just north of Regents Park, within earshot of the occasional mating cry from London Zoo, Primrose Hill offers a breathtaking view of London's emerging skyline.

As I reach the summit, I manage to refrain from letting out a Pongoesque howl into the wind. Instead I stand, slightly star struck, not at one of the "Primrose Hill Set", emerging bleary eyed from the bushes (admittedly your more likely to see Les Dennis than Kate Moss these days), but at the late afternoon sun bouncing back off the dome of St Paul's. It is easy to understand why anti-aircraft guns were positioned here in 1940, for its a truly panoramic view of our capital. Today, the towers of Canary wharf stride into town in the distance, and the Telecom tower looks like London's lynch pin, above the greenery of Regents Park in the foreground.

It is worth waiting for the sun to slip behind the hill, prompting the lights of the city to be switched on.

To complete your afternoon, a stroll through Chalk Farm, where the shops have managed to remain largely independent (Thanks in no small part to the husbands hedge fund or bloodline) The Sunday Roast at the Lock Tavern is a staple favourite  in this part of London. The Yorkshire pudding alone is worth the wait for the table, and the roast potatoes more than make up for the "too cool for school" locals.

Parliament Hill

Parliament Hill, situated in the grounds of Hampstead heath, provides stunning views of London. The hill was famously referred to as, "traitors hill". During the English Civil war it was where the loyalists regrouped. Loyal to the English parliament, it is easy to understand why they chose this vantage point, with such intimate views of the capital.

This view is also believed to be the inspiration for many of Coleridge and Shelley's romantic prose, and was also regularly admired by Karl Marx on family picnics.

After your eyes have engraved the view to memory, a walk through the lanes just north of Hampstead heath tube could complete your afternoon.  Hidden amongst the leafy mansions is a gem of a public house, The Holly Bush. 

Comedy Store Players

LCC news 02/07

Down a narrow staircase just off Leicester Square, "The Comedy Store",  is the perfect antidote after another drizzly weekend in January. If your student loan didn't quite extend to some winter sun, I highly recommend this weekly show to blow the Christmas blues away.

The show has been running for over twenty years, on Wednesdays and Sundays, with the original member Mike Myers, bringing an idea which has been popular stateside to Britain, before departing to Beverley Hills on the back of its success, to star in a certain, Wayne's World.

As everybody took there seats, it seemed many in the back rows were, like myself, new to live improvised comedy. Between mouthfuls of very reasonably priced bar food (Goujons and chips £5.50) I heard people whispering to the first timers, "Think...Whose line is it anyway..but...more.......I don't know...British?"

The smokey, jovial non-intimidating atmosphere was further endorsed by seeing all the comedians drinking and chatting with the audience before the show. All this contributed to the comedy beginning at a frantic pace.

The first comedian to take the stage was the energetic Andy Smart, with his gold jewellery and Hawaiian shirt; he is twice as quick as your funniest uncle.

He quickly explained the proceedings and asked for the audience to shout out strange objects.

"Tampons!?!....You must be great at parties," the first roar rippling through the audience.

This became the backdrop as the show continued with relentless pace. 

Paul Merton certainly lived up to expectations. With hair slightly wilder that the Have I Got News for You studio allows, he looked in his element in this intimate environment. He quickly won the first round of "improv" , a game where they created a story by taking it in turns to say a few words when nominated.

Josie Lawrence, of fame from Whose Line is it Anyway?, was fantastic and added another dimension of comedy with her presence. The audience in tears as she imitated a North Korean lady explaining how nuclear warheads are constructed, with Paul playing the role of her translator.

Jim Sweeney was a pleasure to listen to, with an awe inspiring wit and an unusual warmth. Richard Vranch was fantastic on the piano, and his turn of phrase was deadly. Along with Andy Smart, Lee Simpson was a comedian I hadn't heard of prior to the show, but he left a lasting impression.

It was clear early on in the performance that the success of the night also depends on the role played by the audience. This slightly nervous energy, which I had been apprehensive of before we arrived, only adds to the enjoyment. You find your even more ready to laugh due to the slight tension created by improvised comedy. You enjoy the relief that the joke has worked, which makes you laugh even harder.

The show exceeded even my highest expectations. The energy, talent, combination of personalities and cosy environment, created the perfect lift, before the week had begun. For some winter sun in the capital, I'd certainly recommend the Comedy Store Players.

Wednesday & Sunday £15 (NUS £10)

Open Goal

Press Gazette, 1 November 2007

Free football magazine to target stadiums

A new monthly free football magazine, Open Goal, with a target distribution of 250,000 is to be handed out at every Premier league football stadium from January.

The 48-page, glossy, A5 sized magazine, will be the latest in a number of big free magazine launches this year. Others include London Weeklies Sport and Shortlist.

The new title's circulation is double that of top-selling football monthly Four Four Two.

Entrepreneur and founder Richard Stonehouse, who is backed by Newcastle based investment group NStar, is also editing the title.

Stonehouse said, "Media buyers have realised that 'free' does not mean a devalued product. The internet, and the success of the Metro since it arrived from Sweden prove this."

The magazine aims to reach 36 per cent of each ground's average attendance. Stonehouse said that Addidas, Reebok, Sky and 888.com are among the high-profile advertisers already to have signed up with the new title.

He added:"We managed to distribute 20,000 copies (of a trial issue) at the Arsenal versus Bolton Game. Our second dummy issue was also extremely successful at Old Trafford. where a further 25, 000 were distributed.

"Modern stadia such as the Emirates are fantastically designed, and make distribution extremely easy. We also pay our staff to pick up dropped copies, of which, I'm pleased to say, there were very few."

When asked whether the new . free title might perhaps tread on the toes of the long standing programme seller, Stonehouse said: "We had no problems, and I do not foresee any problems.

"We can exist side by side with programme sellers, both because fans are going to want to read about their own clubs, and because our product is entirely different to anything on the market.

"I am a subscriber to Four Four Two and enjoy the magazine, but it is a bit morose sometimes. Open Goal is much more chatty, less formal, we want more pub talk and passion to fill our pages."

The first dummy issue can be viewed as an e-magazine at www.opengoalmagazine.net