Monthly Archives: January 2020

Mile End Road

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For me, this is a 1980’s stroll down reminiscence lane. For you, this is a tale of two sides of the road.

Go south and you are in a twilight zone of mid and high rise blocks liberally interspersed with unsavoury looking fast food joints. A place where obesity and Brexit may hook up for a sleazy night out!

This is where the old saying bears some truth… “What the Luftwaffe started the town planners finished!”

However, cross the road to the north side and you can stroll the Georgian terraces that surround Tredegar Square, a short distance from Victoria Park… undoubtedly a place where the metropolitan liberal elite hang out. So, if you find yourself in Mile End with a spare 24 hours on your hands, don’t be afraid, just find north on your compass.

Start with a fueling stop at The Greedy Cow, where a Kangaroo Burger hops off the menu to assault your gastronomic whims.

Yes, you heard right first time, it is pinned down for a reason…

Then you simply meander through the conservation area to find a range of traditional watering holes to quench that marsupial thirst. The Lord Tredegar is a great old Victorian boozer serving up a fine pint of Hophead pale ale…

Then there is the Morgan Arms, requiring a careful navigation to avoid the resident Greene King family! A one time great traditional brewery that has joined many others in spoiling the name of good beer with its capitalist quest to take over the world of ‘falling down lotion’…

And if the dawn of a new day still finds you in fighting fettle why not avoid the traditional Youngs beers and opt for a Proper Job IPA in The Coborn? Just don’t let on to a certain regular reader that it comes from Cornwall…oops!

Need something less alcoholic? Who needs those coffee chains when you can pop in to an authentic independent Italian coffee house?

Until we speak again, this has been a nostalgic gastronomic trip down memory lane. As for the present day… if you are looking to get Brexit done, it has all gone south.

Return to 2020 Vision

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[Acknowledgements to the Bute East Dock for providing the full cast for the following drama].

Events across 2016 to 2019 , on both sides of the Atlantic, have arguably led to what can only politely be referred to as a foggy funk of an experience…

2020 foggy Bute East Dock

So, as a fully paid up member of the ‘UK Metropolitan Liberal Elite‘, I have to concede that the ‘Majority 38% Will of the People Brigade‘ have triumphed in the prolonged political battle of barefaced lies versus ineffectual bullshit.

I have never been one to believe in the power of new year resolutions, but as we all embark on the Brexiters’ journey to the most bountiful and wondrous promised land of 19th Century independent beneficence, I have a wish… and that is that the 38% now completely own their self-proclaimed victory. Once the hard right prospectus that has been bought into begins to deliver on its empty promises let’s hear no excuses, or deflection of blame onto those who still don’t buy the catalogue of deceptions, or onto the EU, or onto immigrants, or onto anyone else but their own deluded selves.

Talking of deluded selves; a glance across the pond to the incoherent rumblings of Dumbfuckistan prompt another wish… that the Twitter-fuelled comedic interlude of the last few years be terminated in November, and some semblance of sanity be reclaimed from the ‘orange peril’ that has swamped the free-thinking world.

Until we speak again, reality is likely to dictate otherwise, but we can only dream of a return to 2020 vision…

Long Dock