Brixton news, rumour and general chat - April 2015

[299 old timer]

Really?!? You come cheap!

It's a 2 days a week internship, wtf do you expect, £15.00 ph?

 

[innit]

London living wage = 9.15ph

 

[Black Halo]

London living wage = 9.15ph

Had not realised it was that "high" now, that's 40% higher than the minimum wage.

 

[aussw9]

To be fair, I had to complete over 200 hours of practical experience in order to get my degree. Of which i did at expenses.

Friends who were involved in medical related degrees had to do many many more hours of placement at the same rate.

If you're still studying and have the time, i'd beleive its a no-brainer. Industry experience plus a potential avenue for employment post degree. Usually a mutually beneficial arrangement if the employer is not just out to use you as a tea-maker.

 

[cuppa tee]

The cheapest main on thee menu at Honest Burger is a fritter that comes in at £7
the other burgers are all £8+ so unless you are happy with a fritter and a glass of tap water you will be putting your hand in your pocket

 

[T & P]

£7.25 is still better than the minimum wage, which depressingly is still paid by countless bars and eateries in Brixton and elsewhere.

ETA: indeed, one quick search reveals for instance that the Dogstar appears to be offering the grand sum of £6.50 ph in this ad

http://www.gumtree.com/p/bar-jobs/w...-legendary-dogstar-immediate-start/1107640934

 

[Nanker Phelge]

It's a 2 days a week internship, wtf do you expect, £15.00 ph?

I'd expect London Living Wage.

 

[299 old timer]

I'd expect London Living Wage.

Well until that becomes a statute reality I suggest you avoid all your preferred eateries, bars and pubs that only pay the minimum wage.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Well until that becomes a statute reality I suggest you avoid all your preferred eateries, bars and pubs that only pay the minimum wage.

I do my best...

 

[Nanker Phelge]

It would be quite useful to see a list of minimum wage/above minimum wage/london living wage businesses in the area...

 

[Tricky Skills]

How much does Tricky_Skills and others receive for creating content for you??

I get paid fuck all for what I 'create' [ha!] for Brixton Buzz. I wouldn't want it any other way.

We are a small team at Brixton Buzz. We aren't in this for the money. There is none...

What motivates me personally is the need to report stories that others are so blatantly missing. It sounds really arsey but I genuinely believe that these are important stories that need to be told in Brixton. Others can't be arsed, or they have other commercial restrictions preventing them from reporting these issues.

If editor offered me any payment for Brixton Buzz then it would seem false. I'd become a clock watcher. I'd think just 300 more words and then I've earned my wage for this story. There would be no motivation. The stories would be even more bollocks than usual.

There is so much shit spoken about 'sustainability' with websites. Your reference to the 'value' of twitter feeds is evidence of this. We aren't striving to have the largest number of followers. Twitter is just but one means in which we can use to tell people about our stories.

The only way you can sustain what you are doing is by having a passion to write these stories. The only funding that we need is the cost of hosting. I'll happily write a story first thing before work if it means getting it out there. I'd hate to be in a position where I rely upon begging to readers to fund what I am writing.

 

[ViolentPanda]

more akin to direct democracy

For web-users with Paypal accounts and/or credit cards.

So, "direct", but not really "democracy".

 

[Tricky Skills]

You own a site that is benefitting from gentrification and unpaid work

UTTER SHITE.

Who is benefitting? In what way? If you mean the charities that we provide funding for, then yeah. Once again - this isn't unpaid work. editor often suggests a story to me. If I don't like it, or more importantly I don't believe that it needs to be told then I'll pass on it.

 

[Crispy]

I'd hate to be in a position where I rely upon begging to readers to fund what I am writing.

That said, you should consider starting a Patreon or similar. There's nothing wrong with being rewarded for passion projects.

 

[ViolentPanda]

How do most people start £35,000 businesses? They borrow capital.

How do most cooperatives start £35,000 businesses? They borrow capital.

Crowd-funding isn't necessarily a form of borrowing, though. Sometimes it's akin to begging, other times it's a form of barter.

 

[ViolentPanda]

People en masse. They vote against by not voting

Contradiction in terms.

 

[ViolentPanda]

you're all just plain wrong

The ultimate argument of the idiot.

 

[ViolentPanda]

As an aside Fay Maschler is really a terrible writer isn't she?

I've been reading her stuff on and off for more than 30 years, and she definitely sins more than she's sinned against.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The answer to local people not being able to access crowdfunding and similar is to help them do it. Teach local people to use modern methods to open and run their local businesses. Level the playing field to allow locals compete. That's a real start to Reclaiming Brixton I think.

While that's a great aim, it's difficult to accomplish in the "real world" of differential access to the tools for accessing crowdfunding or even online education or banking.

 

[ViolentPanda]

As an aside, some people here seem to have the financial convictions of a goldfish.

What's a "financial conviction" when it's at home?

 

[Nanker Phelge]

While that's a great aim, it's difficult to accomplish in the "real world" of differential access to the tools for accessing crowdfunding or even online education or banking.

Just let them use computers....

 

[ViolentPanda]

Racist

Lackwit.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

What's a "financial conviction" when it's at home?

Fined £200 and do not pass Go

 

[elmpp]

I get paid fuck all for what I 'create' [ha!] for Brixton Buzz. I wouldn't want it any other way.

We are a small team at Brixton Buzz. We aren't in this for the money. There is none...

What motivates me personally is the need to report stories that others are so blatantly missing. It sounds really arsey but I genuinely believe that these are important stories that need to be told in Brixton. Others can't be arsed, or they have other commercial restrictions preventing them from reporting these issues.

If editor offered me any payment for Brixton Buzz then it would seem false. I'd become a clock watcher. I'd think just 300 more words and then I've earned my wage for this story. There would be no motivation. The stories would be even more bollocks than usual.

There is so much shit spoken about 'sustainability' with websites. Your reference to the 'value' of twitter feeds is evidence of this. We aren't striving to have the largest number of followers. Twitter is just but one means in which we can use to tell people about our stories.

The only way you can sustain what you are doing is by having a passion to write these stories. The only funding that we need is the cost of hosting. I'll happily write a story first thing before work if it means getting it out there. I'd hate to be in a position where I rely upon begging to readers to fund what I am writing.

In no way am I referring to the standard or motivations behind your work. It's noble stuff.

My point once more is that the value of the site/twitter followers/charity raising ability benefits from your work and, in other ways, from gentrification.

WHICH IS FINE. We're all a part of this. I just can't listen to the self-righteousness. Most notably recently is the case of the crowd-sourced wine merchants. A NEW business, displacing no other. Out come the comments about rich friends, inverse snobbery around wine drinking etc etc.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If only this vast majority from your resident association meetings had some tech savvy person who knows his way around the internet to help them set up and market a crowdfunded idea.

Which kind of misses their (willing or unwilling) lack of access to the technology to monitor any such idea.

Unless you think editor is going to keep "open house" so that people can have a go on his computer.

 

[Tricky Skills]

elmpp What value? You haven't explained this. Until you are able to define exactly what 'value' Brixton Buzz has then you are talking bollocks.

You just don't get it. We don't want to make money out of it. This would only compromise us as it has others. We don't want some spunking 200k twitter followers. Marketing turns everything into shite.

I personally see the only 'value' that Brixton Buzz has is that it is a platform in which to put across stories that others ignore from a completely independent standpoint. That's quite rare.

My 'work' benefits from gentrification? Have you actually read some of the stuff I've been writing?

 

[DJWrongspeed]

Not really. Media sites (and all outlets really) such as there rarely make money anyway but what is valuable are the readerships and the twitter followers etc. All of which increase somewhat off the back of other's work and in the case of the listings sections of the site, the gentrification. These are things you benefit from.

eh? You've lost me there, are you a troll?

 

[Nanker Phelge]

The other element to crowdfunding is that you tend to need a crowd to reach out to....so even if you have the technology, you may not have an extended enough network of 'friends' to create the financial net required to fund your project....

 

[ViolentPanda]

Maybe after a successful arches fight the energy its generated could be funneled into working for a greater Brixton local led economy? Teach locals what it needs to set up a business.

Everybody has different skills. I'd have absolutely no way of knowing how to organize /carry on something like that but I have skills that would be valuable and would love to help any organization like it

Gentrification is here to stay, the way to save the older Brixton is be as good as the people coming in. Then you are automatically better

Meanwhile, here in actual London, "gentrification" has meant the closure of local shops (however much they diversified their customer base) due to rent rises, and their replacement with shops that serve visitors rather than the local community. In the '70s I watched this creep outward from Putney and Battersea and do exactly that, then into Balham and Clapham in the '80s and '90s, and so on.
it'd be great if you could "save" an area merely by "being as good" as the incomers, but it really isn't that simple.

 

[ViolentPanda]

This is not about Nu Brixton versus old Brixton, this is about class.
This is about middle class people invading an area enmass and taking everything including our homes. They bring with them an appalling attitude that borders on undisguised contempt for the poor.
They are not frightened of the blacks anymore, they're not frightened of the poor anymore. They've got security, they have always had security; mummy and daddy gave it to them, the state gave it to them to keep the working class in their place and now they want that as well.

And why not? Because there was nothing in Brixton other than turmoil and tumbleweed before they arrived to gentrify the area, they are our saviours, we should be grateful, we should doff our caps and marvel at their wealth creation that can't even create local jobs let alone pay people a Living Wage.

They are Thatcher's children, "we really must do something about those inner cities" and when they go and vote for their politicians in their panto parliament i hope they feel betrayed when interests rates rise after a sham election, i hope they cry when their poncy pop up world implodes, i hope they sink in a sea of negative equity.

It will be the working class who pick up the pieces of a precariat, predatory, pop up economy because that's what we always do; we always do the dirty work.

It's about class, and about that other Marxian bugbear: Capitalism - the bugbear that facilitates the class conflict, and generally supports the hegemony of the middle classes. That doesn't mean we shouldn't resist, but it does mean that they (and capitalism) see their victory as assured.
Lets at the very least give them some lumps to remember us by!