Introducing Nicki

No, she's not my bit on the side, although she could prove to be a bed-mate at least, but Lynn's new guide dog who we were introduced to today. She's staying overnight in order to ascertain whether I'll be allergic to her hair or not.

She's a sweet little thing, happy and boisterous but good natured and willing to be told "no" when necessary.

This isn't the greatest picture in the world, but trying to get her to keep still for more than a few seconds is near nigh impossible.

A Londoner's guide to bad chicken restaurants

Have a look here for some of the slummiest, scuzziest chicken outlets in London. If KFC is the benchmark, then these show you how it goes downhill from there:

http://badgas.co.uk/chicken

Big Mac or Demoniak?

Although I've seen these 'Quick' restaurants scattered over Europe (Amsterdam, Brussels and now Lille) I hadn't really taken any notice of their menu. I wonder what the average hard-line Evangelical American would make of this burger? The one thing 'demon posssessed' about this cheeseburger was a tinsy winsy touch of paprika. For a Londoner bought up on good Indian fodder, this is positvely girly.

As burger chains go. this is pretty average, by which I mean there is nothing good or especially bad to say about it. Just acceptable.

Weekend in Lille

Just had a blast on the Eurostar to Lille, Northern France. Journey pleasant and so was the city, mainly.

So what is there to say about Lille? OK, a few thoughts:

Good

Great food, wonderful Normandy and Breton cider. I could get seriously addicted to it. People not half as stroppy as Parisians, though even New Yorkers with their rep for surliness lose out here. Paris has got to have some of the least tourist friendly bods around, although I admit, it is a beautiful city.

Lille's Metro (or VAL) is one of the best in the world. Small, regular trains which have two speeds. Stop or full speed. They are automatic and if only London Underground could invest in some of this technology the tube would be a much pleasanter way to travel. I was deeply impressed with Lille's metro system, although it is only two lines.

Some lovely central areas not blighted by tourism.

The mad, bad Sunday market. Highly recommended for its size and scale. Very popular with the locals - make sure you come armed with your London elbow since no-one will move for you. This isn't out of a sense of rudeness (in fact, Lillians - or whatever people from Lille call themselves: Lilloise??) don't have anywhere to move either. The number on 'pardonez-mois' and 'mercis' put us Londoners to shame. My parents love France and they always stress how polite the non-Parisian French are. True in this case. Its VERY cramped. A great vibe there there. Nice to hear the barkers hollering in French.

Our hotel was in a central, sleazy area in what passes for the red light district - its rather titchy. This means all night fast food joints, noise of people yelling and much ambient noise generally, and sadly this brings us to the bad point. I its the guy who wrote 'A Year in the Merde' who mentions the copious use of street cleaning machines in Paris. Well I can testify to the fact that there were at least two as possibly as many as four of them circulating round our part of town for most of the night. How to Parisians sleep through this racket? Do they wear earmuffs? Do the machines travel through the suburbs as well or just circulate in the centre? I really need to ask someone familiar with French city life this question because I know that it would drive me nuts, being the insomniac I am.

The other reason to avoid Lille, and I'd include the whole of France, is that Sundays and French tourism don't mix. The only shops open on a Sunday are restaurants (and I'm being kind to them by referring to them as 'shops') and station based newsagents/tobacconists etc. Even Paris was completely dead the Sunday we travelled to it four years ago, and we incorrectly assumed that this particular Sunday was some kind of public religious holiday. Nope, its always like that. So, like Germany, unless you've got family over there and therefore have someone interesting to talk to in their abode, then don't bother touring France on a Sunday because unless you enjoy engorging yourself on admittedly some of the finest food any nation can offer, all day mind, there really isn't much else to do.

Would I recommend it? Yes, its a more representative slice of real France. Just don't go on a Sunday and if you are there over a weekend, buy all the things you want to bring back with you - chocolates, cheese and northern French cider in our case - then get it on Saturday or not at all.

Don't go to Leyton if you ain't a Muslim

I used to live not so far from Leyton. I spent six happy years in Hackney and always thought Leyton to be one of those parts of London that had not been poncified by outsiders too much. It has rows of terraced houses and although the parades of shops are filled with kebaberies rather than chippies as would have been the case before the 70s, it was still, in my opinion, a bastion of real Londoners. Places where people like me, born here, could afford to set up home and intended to. Just the sort of place for me.




Oh darn, I should really consider converting before going here


Well, we missed the housing market boat too and moved out to Dagenham instead. Cheaper, but at least on the tube, and again, a London-y sort of place, even though some residents are proud of its ‘Essex’ identity. It didn’t get a London telephone prefix until the 60s. But back in Leyton, it seems I’d got it wrong all along – silly old me. Yes, as Abu Izzadeen reminded John Reid, Home Sec, that it is in a fact a “Muslim area”.

Oh yes, indeedy.

It wasn’t done with any sense of pride, or in the sense that a ‘Jamaican area’ might be blessed with white sands and aqua seas. No, it was in the Arnie sense of “get out, asshole”. His words to Reid were “"How dare you come to a Muslim area when over 1,000 Muslims have been arrested?" I’d forgotten that London was in fact an open city and as long as you keep to the law and remove yourself from trespassing on private property, you are basically free to travel anywhere you choose.

I was also reminded by the same person that "We believe Islam is superior, we believe Islam will be implemented one day. It is very rich for you to come here and say we need to monitor our children when your government is murdering people in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

A few reminders to this chap:

1. He is right, our beloved and oh-so-in-touch political elite has sent innocent soldiers to be butchered in a war that isn’t wanted by the majority of anyone and whose complexities are understood even less, Muslim or not. My sister’s boyfriend is one of those soldiers and deserves better, or at least potentially more random way of needlessly dying, say, by being hit but a drunk driver.

2. If Islam is truly superior, then let me declare now that I disagree. I, being a fat, ageing, grumpy fucker, think fat people who give copious grumpdom to the world, and who never receive any thanks for it, and who happen to be heading to towards their forties and all the sag that entails, are in fact the most superior people on earth. So naah naah na naah naaah to you, sonny Jimal.

3. If you really don’t even wish to start considering the possibility that even at its worst, a British (or at least Western) way of life is better the hell-hole you left to come and incite your racist, anti-democratic shit, then (expletive deleted) off, for the good of all of us. If Afghanistan is the logical conclusion of what happens when Islam is “implemented” (I still can’t get my head around what this might mean) then give me a Godless Sodom on speed every time.

And then politicians scratch their poor overworked heads when the BNP are gaining council seats You heard it from me first, or maybe not, but I’m very much afraid the only thing which will be “implemented” is the growth in support of the BNP, who are getting rather canny at picking off not only the usual suspect underclass white voter (my fellow Dagenham citizens being a case in point – and I don’t use the word ‘underclass’ in a derogatory sense, because I suspect I’m one of them, at least in the eyes of tosspots like Izzadeen). Even those whose families came from overseas in the 50s, 60s and 70s are allegedly joining. Those who have chosen to try and fit in with a society which is slowly acknowledging their vital necessity, and in the case of ex-commonwealth nations, their every damned right to be here. It hasn’t been an easy ride for them or us Anglos, but at least both sides, on the whole, have felt a need for friendship rather than race-hatred. Not a perfect ride, but a slowly moving truck in the right direction. I think Izzy would be happiest watching the attempts of his moderate brethren’s attempts to engage in dialogue jack-knife at high speed.

Mobile phone jihad

Here’s an example of how to sell an idea. Honestly, it really works.

1) First, take a pop at the opposition who has made a careless, and that’s being kind, speech. We’ll use X-Mobile versus 03 as an instance. X-Mobile has just “dissed” 03, saying that 03’s is a heartless company who exploit children and their phones kill people by irradiating their heads.

2) 03 refute this. They say that X-Mobile have caused them grief, hurt, have been slanderous &c &c.

3) There is no independent evidence to prove that what X-Mobile says is true. But on the other hand, there is no evidence to prove that X-Mobiile don’t share similar shady business ethics since all the company records are stored in locked cupboards guarded by Steve Irwin-slaying stingrays and black African boomslangs. Amusingly, the stringray with the longest tail and the sharpest sting is called “Allah”. But hey, it’s a free country isn’t it? And you can say what you like unless what you say is obviously slanderous. Of course, 03 say that it is, but don’t do anything about it, such as take X-Mobile to court or launch a counter-attack of any meaning, pith or logic. They just publicly whinge loudly about how hard-done they’ve been by X-Mobile.

4) Instead, just to prove how kid-loving their company is and how well they treat children, 03 then launch a campaign of killing kiddies who use X-Mobile handsets and setting black African boomslangs on their parents. Just for fun, they also have the odd pop at an innocent bystander or two. Voddy-fone and Banana’s customers occasionally find themselves being executed on the street while telling their ‘birds’ they’ll be 10 minutes late or travelling through Liverpool Street, Edgware Road or being unfortunate enough to be on the no. 30 bus. 3 ½ ‘s customers don’t stand a chance as they are allied to the ‘evil empire’ of X-Mobile by dint of sharing the same network when roaming in the Ukraine. They just get shot at.

If you think this is stupid, then this is what I think of the recent outburst by the Pope and the reaction to it by Islamists who claim to be peaceful individuals whilst happily shooting nuns.

Like I said, this really works and I intend to fly over to my nearest X-Mobile mosque on the way home from work to sign a 24-month, aherm, no, year, contract.

Iraq was and is crap and wrong, and fuelled on rather transparent lies. Even Americans know that now. Bush and Blair are really not popular guys at the moment. The Pope was probably not so well advised when he said what he said. But the reaction to it does NOT justifying killing anyone. If being a “peaceful” Muslim means killing everyone who isn’t, then I’m a peace-lovin' Hindu, baby.

Maybe I’m just a frigging infidel. Or maybe whenever I hear about Muslims kicking off once more I think about how I nearly lost my wife who was on the train behind the one that got blown on during 7/7. A train which came in from East London and therefore had a high probably of being packed with, guess who? Fellow “peaceful” Muslims. If the 9/11 and 7/7 murderers don’t have the care to give a shite about their brothers in arms, then really, they were a lost cause anyway. At least the IRA, until Omagh, had the decency to discriminate as to who was the enemy.

Having near-death of spouse rammed in your face – well, it kind of affects one, you know. I really don't want to dislike the whole damn tribe of Islam - its the ole racist cop-out I know, but my best childhood friend, for nearly 15 yeasrs was a Muslim, and like American, I don't have much of an axe to grind with those who I've met in the course of my life. But some of the loudest, bitter ones; the kind with the "I'm more victim than you'll ever be" mentality REALLY PISS ME OFF.

Bletchley Park and 70s TV games

Mrs DD, myself and a few mates went to Bletchley Park on Sunday, home of the Enigma codebreaking facility. The people there did a lot more than this or course, it also housed for a while Britain and world’s uber-geek, Mr Alan Turing, a pioneer if ever there was one. Like the Kelvedon “Secret” * Nuclear Bunker, it was a place that wouldn’t necessary jump out on anyone’s ‘must-see’ agenda, but I’d recommend a trip up there just to sample the atmosphere alone. You don’t have to be a code or WW2 junkie to enjoy it, although if you are either, there’s even more a chance that you will.

The most enjoyable part of the trip was spent about 2 minutes before the place closed at 5, however. In Block B, one of the main exhibition spaces was a selection of very old computers indeed, including my first real computer, an Amstrad PCW8512. Yes, I said . It wasn’t a Speccy anyhow, and did “real” work, like get me through my A levels, and a good chunk of my degree. ‘Twas sad to see the back of it, though given a race between the spellchecker and a three legged, drunken tortoise, the jury would be out as to who would cross the finishing post.

Nestling innocently amongst the 80s behemoths, including the first IBM PC, Amstrad PCs (I failed my A level business studies exam on one of these as hard drive corrupted all my work before getting to print, leaving nothing but random crap and a befuddled PC support guy), a BBC Model B, VIC 20 and C64, was a silver coloured box. I stared at it. It stared at me. I questioned it as to where the hell I’d seen its brother before.

Then…

EUREKA. The orange label read ‘SPORTEL’. My childhood friend Andrew, the kind of person for whom ‘My Perfect Cousin’ was written about, only he wasn’t my cousin, owned one of these. We’d spent hours playing Pong-like games on it, huddled around the telly at his parents’ house in Greenford. Bloody hell, nostalgia struck me with the impact of a class 375 Electrostar as it reaches warp speed between West Horndon and Basildump.



Those TV games, the ones that go bip-bip-bip-BIP as you paddle a couple of over-large pixels into a “goal”. Who needs Fifa 2006 World Cup Stimulator when your ‘players’ could consist of two long lines and a variable angle? For that, ladies and gentlemen, bought up on the X-box, was how they did it in 1977.

These Pong games may have had the brain of a mongol child, (well actually their “brain” was a General Instruments 8700 chip, mostly) but boy, were they fun if you were of a certain age (under ten I suppose would is about the right level of maturity that best suited).

The model pictured above, nicked from www.old-computers.com, wasn’t the machine I had, which was a Grandstand ten-gamer, but it was that my neighbours owned, and one that I deeply, deeply coveted in ways which only an eight year old boy sans cash, can. It was available at the Southall branch of Woolies for about £16. It came with a riffle. You’d aim it at the telly and try to knock out a flying ball (a bigger square of pixels this time). I still haven’t a clue how the technology works – magic I reckon - but if you managed to get your sights lined up the ball and fired just the right time, it would disappear and your score would go up by 1. I think 15 was the max you could get.

The end of summer, energy and the North-South divide

Last week, apart from being the usual hectic chasing-of-tail dance-e-tron at work, appears to be the last unofficial week of summer, with campsites being booked to capacity, parks full of evening picnickers, as was indeed the hardly beautiful Mile End Park on Thursday when we sat by bank of the Regents Canal eating kebabs. It seems that collectively society senses that if it is to indulge in summery things, this is the last opportunity we'll have this year.

I was cleaning up the living room earlier on, an onerous task, and my attempt at Spring cleaning, only 4 months too late this year. When I ventured out for some lunchtime rolls, the air contained a slight, but distinct winter chill. Between now and the time just before we return to Greenwich Mean Time and the need for the SAD light becomes a reality, is my favourite time of year weather-wise: the temperature is perfect for doing all those things you really ought to do in the summer, but for which activities its just too darn hot to accomplish. As summers go, its been a mixed bag in Britain this year. A promising start in March with clear days and reasonable temps, then one month of rain. The a heatwave lasting a fortnight, ending with hot, cloudy days. I think days like these, with temps at 15-17C, clear skies and no rain are about as good as they get. I'm not a heat freak, but the old current bun doing what it does best in the sky doesn't half elevate my mood.

Farewell summer. Hello autumn. And may winter be cold and crisp the way it should.

Only thing is - crisp and cold winter means a good excuse for the Russians to hike our gas bills and for the New Tories, the arrogant fools, to pretend to us that there is nothing they can do about it. And for us, John and Jane Q Public, to pay the expenses of these halfwit politicians who become less and less attached to the society we pay them to govern while they care less and less about our concerns, while spinning the bullshit that of course they do care, and they are listening like billy-o (Blair whittering on about this very same concern this morning made by blood boil - sorry pal, but your chance for listening was three years ago and you patently failed to do so). Our gas bill has doubled since we moved to Daggers six years ago. If anything, we use energy than we did then. I'm just so glad we're not into the fuel poverty zone. I don't think it can be long before the average earner, and not just the financially hard-up who will be struggling to pay for the lecky.

Earlier this week, a writer's comment in the Grauniad's Comment Is Free section shrieked out at me: presumably she was from the north, and she was complaining that Nu Labour were a London-centric conspiracy and had lost any support and any connection to the people of the north. England should be politically divided with a north-south barrier, she suggested. I'm going to have to correct her: I was born and raised in London and I reckon I have more in common with any brother and sister from the north than with the Notting Hillbillies in Government. Sorry love, but there are two, perhaps three Londons. Super-rich London and Rich London has as much contempt for those way out East where I am, as they they do for anyone from Yorkshire, Lancashire or Northumberland. And what about Cheshire, the Surrey of the North? - shouldn't the citizenry there be considered token Southerners? I understand her point though. Its just that just as some Londoners reckon that the M25 is the border at which it all ends, Northerners are just as guilty at assuming that because you're a southerner, you have a certain level of wealth and a fixed mindset. Can we get back to reality and substitute North/South with rich/average-to-poor? In which case, I'm a Yorkshireman through and through (actually, my surname appears to be most concentrated around East Lancs/Pennines so I may be a northerner by bloodline in reality anyway. Find out about your name at:

http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames/Surnames.aspx

Her point was she was pissed off at being governed from a mentally distant London-based bureacracy with little connection to where she lives and the kind of society in which she finds herself. Our house is 24 tube stops east of Westminster, but it might as well be 300 miles up the GNER for all the impact the kind of people who live here have on the ruling political class. These idiots seemed generally surprised that 11 BNP counsellors were elected in my borough last may. I'm not. I can put my hand on my heart and say that I don't believe this has anything to do with racism. The opposition where I live was non-existent. When all the bosses look and smell the same and you want a change, then anyone offering an alternative wins. There wasn't a Green or freak party candidate in sight to register a protest vote. So guess what....?

From this day forward, and just to make things straight, I declare that Dagenham is now a suburb of Manchester, in fact, the whole of southern Essex is coming your way, oh land of pigeon fancier and betrousered ferret. Its a reluctant move we make, for the simple reason that pie and mash doesn't sit easily on the northern stomach and so, as a kindness, we'll keep the consumption of such regional food to an absolute min and only after the 'bab shop closes. In order to show solidarity to real people, the removal men have been phoned and are coming soon.

Ee up lad.

Travelling to Harlow

Me and Mrs Daggerdukc travelled out to Harlow in Essex, a new town I used to work in during my twenties - Piers Morgan and i apparently frequented the same college, though I was a teacher of sorts. Anyway, while I worked there, I kind acquired a liking for the place and every now and then I've been bored, I've visited it just to see what new thing are going down. I'm particularly taken with the layout devise for it by Frederick Gibberd (sorry if I've spelt his name wrong, I'm feeling too lazy to crossref). I like the sense of green space all around the centre, and, although it is unashamedly car-centric, out of the all the new towns I've visited, this one seems to be built on a human scale. Though it has its fair share of blight and decay, it has stood well the test of time by comparison with say, Craigavon, where Mrs D'D originates from. Of all the planned-for utopias our governments have indulged themselves with creating for us proles, Harlow seems to have come out of the potential for dystopia rather well and old Gibberd can congratulate himself for having the foresight to plan the spaces so well, in harmony with the countryside around it and for refusing compromise when the government was urging new towns to cram as many citizens in as they could.

So - things to like about Harlow:

The sense of space.

The contrast between the green landscape and planned city feel - eg, the tower blocks planted in the middle of town which look out over green hills. The Lawns, built in 1951, is Britain's first tower block and now a grade II listed built, deservedly so.

It feels like a proper community has grown up. This is perhaps because the original settlers were picked from the North London boroughs of Islington, Edmonton and Harringey. Peterborough never felt like much a community when I spent a good deal of time up there.

The way it has had good times, bad times, but never so bad that it has tarnished the residents' in the same way that happened in Corby.

The fact that it has some great civic architecture without allowing middle class artists' indulgences to get the better of it. The Passmore pavilion in Peterlee, Co Durham, for example, is a building I rather like, but it was plonked into a working class district, probably in a well meaning gesture to 'better' the lives of the scum who live there (I'm not saying that Peterlee residents are scum, but they, like 99 percent of the rest of us, are seen as such by the great 'n' good. Harlow experienced nothing in a way of vanity art, but it did get a massive and very gorgeous town park which really does feel like the grounds of a manor house and must be considered one of the most well laid-out in Britain.

The fact that it is a town. With boundaries, which end. So all the sprawl is planned for sprawl - it hasn't just drifted outwards and outwards, being filled in with execu-homes when and where the big building companies decree that they'll spill them there.

Bad things about Harlow:

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE WATER GARDENS AT THE SIDE OF THE HARVEY CENTRE? Could a Harlolw resident please answer me this question? This was my favourite bit of civic architecture OF ALL TIME and now the pisswits have killed them. Twunts. I almost cried when i saw the oh-so-average flats that now occupy the space. City centre flats are great and all that, but not at the expense this beauty.

The quite awful transport excuse-for-a-system. Not so much the transport links actually, which are up the crapola standard of any given provincial town in the South East, but the almost complete lack of information available. Like timetables on bus stops, you know. And the fact that its so close to London, but so inhabits a different world transport wise. My thanks must go to the chap(ess) who maintains the saucily named but essential www.harlowride.co.uk website. Despite it sounding like the punchline to an Essex girl joke, without the information which he or she must glean from thin air from what I can tell from looking around, a public transport user is screwed. Too many companies - no link, co-ordination or indeed anything between them. Typical mentally impaired Tory transport policies still in action. Kenny Livingstone, for making London's buses sane, for that in itself, I salute you.