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Made me lol anyway.

Ha ha, yeah exactly.

Apart from a brief shift of allegiance to Andy’s in Brixton (also Cypriot diaspora) Deniz has been cutting my hair since I was a nipper. His dad used to cut my dad’s hair.
We’re growing old together.

Although I stopped going for a while during the Brexit crescendo - we were probably going to come to blows.
He’s an infuriating reactionary git at times but ...a good barber.
He’s doing another Ironman this year so no politics talk.

Yeah. Fucking awful.
My sister was at school with someone who died in that fire.
I actually walked past the house this morning on my way to the barbers.
😕
Whether it was started deliberately by racists or not is now kind of irrelevant, everyone at the time was sure it was the NF, they’d already firebombed the Moonshot club in NewX.

There were a lot of positive things happening as well back then though, community action, festivals, arts etc.

http://transpont.blogspot.com/?m=1

This blog has some good people’s history stuff.

The Battle of Lewisham

My dad (local vicar) was there on Clifton Rise - they sent the NF packing. 🙂
I was a child - but I remember the vibes.
We had a black South African friend visiting us that day 😖

factory in Ireland

Ah now, you’re challenging my memory. Maybe mine weren’t Japanese.
Or was it Japanese denim sewn in Ireland?

Playboys!!!

I wore the black buckle DM sole Robots (were they actually George Cox?) as my school shoes - with slightly short straight leg trousers, neon socks.
Joe Strummer innit?
Although it was already retro in ‘85 - that look segued straight into psychobilly for me.
Flat-top at Andy’s.

Thanks for that.

My mate Diggory (RIP) built a self build on Drakefell rd. in Brockley, I’m not sure if this was the other scheme mentioned. I think so.

Bitd anywhere SE beyond Lee/Lewisham/Forest Hill (Downham, Eltham, Catford, Grove Park, Bexley etc) was bandit country - growing up we called it Stabbing land.
Although Deptford and New Cross where I lived had its own issues.
😂

Sound like we were shopping in the same places.
I got a pair of the Japanese Lee 101z repros I wore with the redwings.
Raw denim was niche in the 90s.
Especially as my mates were wearing para boots, camo and dreadlocks.

John Simons is legend.

My first Docs came from a similar sounding place on the Walworth Rd. looked like the cover of New Boots and Panties.
There used to be a shop like that in every area - Brutus shirts and STF Levi’s. last one I know of was in Rotherhithe.

Ok, you win.

I’m not trying to win, discussion is good.
🙂

The deaths in the Med are a stain on all our consciences.

I'd guess se London was always much more diverse and as a result less racist than the country as a whole.

The reason the NF marched through New Cross in the 70s was because there was a local NF councillor elected and they wanted to inflame local tension.

There’s much less of a binary now - when I was a kid it was still mostly white English/West Indian. The white working class have mostly gone, which has eased tensions tbh. Rich white gentrifiers and a wide range of immigrant groups make it feel polarised on class rather than ethnic lines.

Actual open racism

How about allowing brown people to drown in the Mediterranean?

I’m not sure I agree.

Living in SE London over much of that time it definitely felt like things were improving- hip hop and rave seemed to have a positive effect on my generation, yet the casual misogyny and inherent racism of ‘lad culture’ was there at the same time.
Racism never went away, just moved out of London -and other cities where there was white (working class) flight.
There aren’t NF pubs in Lewisham (I know someone who lost an eye sticking up for his Indian mate) - but there are plenty like that in Rochester or wherever.

Gauging the prevalence and degree of racism depends on what metric you’re using. Public expression of racist views has been mostly shut down, yet they thrive in the anonymity of the Internet.
Systemic, institutional racism is being addressed - in some quarters more than others, but this hasn’t changed the private opinions of many in this country. In fact working class white men now identify as a victim group.
Tidying up the surface doesn’t get to what lies beneath- and often seems to make that worse.

Which is kind of my point about pitchforks for some twatty teenage tweets - when there are serious things that need addressing.

It’s not less prevalent tho’

I think, like misogyny it’s on the rise.

Yeah. Herzog innit?
Nomad.

I should check it out. I read everything he wrote in my late teens early 20s.

I’m re-reading In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

Nice to read a book again that I loved in my 20s and find I still love it but for different reasons.

I have a guitar tech mate who lives in Bath, I’ll ask him if he has any ideas.

I have to walk everything

Tricky.

Wouldn’t it be easier to hire a small (quiet) generator?

If you’re in London try Clerkenwell Screws.

Is is a bike thing? Derailleur limit screw?

found M4x6mm

Can’t you just grind off a mm?

Yes it’s a pan head, also iirc a cheese head (USA)

Post holes, concrete.
Paint the bit of the posts that’ll be in the concrete with bitumen (Black Jack) first.
Trowel the concrete so there’s a slight fall away from the post and it’s higher than the tarmac.

Awareness of racism etc and the public calling out of it has increased a lot more in the past decade than in the preceding couple
IMO.

I guess people are trying to relate the cricketer being a teenage twat to their own experiences.

My bigotry when I was young certainly did not come from my family. It came from private school and my failure, for whatever reason, to use my brain to challenge that shit.

I guess the question is, at what age do we hold people accountable for their words and actions?

I went to state schools in SE London in the 70s and 80s and I heard some shit, and I was around some pretty repellent kids, but also some right darlings.
The worst racism I heard was from teachers at my ex grammar school (state comp) eg. You’re pretty clever for a n***** aren’t you XXX?
This from a maths teacher to my friend I’d been sitting with leaving a lesson.

I think this cricketer said some moderately daft stuff when he was pretty young, I wouldn’t cut him any slack for it but I also wouldn’t go looking for a fight over it. I absolutely agree that an apology should say something like ‘I said some racist and sexist things, I used to be a bit of an idiot when I was a kid’. The daft idea that there is some binary of racists and non-racists (or whichever prejudice you choose) needs to be addressed. We are all capable of othering, judging, condemning people based on some attribute we think they have that we don’t possess. Race, ability, sex, gender, sexuality- whatever.

The worst violence, misogyny and homophobia in my school was from the boys whose parents had come from the West Indies. In the early 80s these lads were definitely the dominant social and cultural group.

There were a few who made my life a misery, I ran into one in my early 20s - he was slightly incongruously (for those times) working behind the bar of the local punks/freaks/squatters/bikers pub, I cringed inwardly expecting the same old shit. ‘Hey man, I was a cunt at school, I’m sorry, what’re you drinking?’

I was chatting with a (black) friend in Deptford around that same time, talking about some guy I’d known at school who I referred to as half-caste, she was like ‘you shouldn’t call him that!!’
‘ but that’s what we all said, he would’ve called himself that’
...

People can change and sometimes they need a bit of persuasion, but we all have feet of clay.