Brixton news, rumour and general chat - January 2015

[ViolentPanda]

Can someone help me out with what class I am? My grandparents were coal miners and housewives, my mum was a teacher and my dad worked as a surveyor for the council, I own a flat in Brixton (or rather a fraction of it, the bank own the rest) and yes I wasn't born around here

Depends entirely which criteria you use. Most demographers (hawk,spit!) use a mixture of current employment, educational status and income to bracket you off.
For me, it's about how you make/made your living - in Marx's terms,how close you are to the means of production, extrapolated to fit 21st-century employment too - so if you have to sell your labour to a boss to make ends meet, you're a worker and therefore working class. If you're self-employed in the traditional sense, i.e. an artisan selling skilled labour on a job-by-job basis, then you're closer to the means of production, and are effectively petit bourgeois. If you're an employer or a rentier, you're basically irredeemable, though, and should be made to dance the Tyburn Jig from the nearest lamp-post!

 

[gabi]

My gran was born in brixton many years ago. She tells me it was quite the fashionable area to live in back in those days. The envy of people living in other areas. Then it changed. And now it's changing again.

Plus ca change etc. Its still the best little corner of London. As it was back then.

Deal with it.

 

[cuppa tee]

What happened to the market on Electric Avenue today ?

 

[steeeve]

Depends entirely which criteria you use. Most demographers (hawk,spit!) use a mixture of current employment, educational status and income to bracket you off.
For me, it's about how you make/made your living - in Marx's terms,how close you are to the means of production, extrapolated to fit 21st-century employment too - so if you have to sell your labour to a boss to make ends meet, you're a worker and therefore working class. If you're self-employed in the traditional sense, i.e. an artisan selling skilled labour on a job-by-job basis, then you're closer to the means of production, and are effectively petit bourgeois. If you're an employer or a rentier, you're basically irredeemable, though, and should be made to dance the Tyburn Jig from the nearest lamp-post!

I'm a heating and ventilation engineer working for a boss, I think by your criteria that makes me working class. Am I allowed to stay?

 

[ViolentPanda]

My gran was born in brixton many years ago. She tells me it was quite the fashionable area to live in back in those days. The envy of people living in other areas. Then it changed. And now it's changing again.

Plus ca change etc. Its still the best little corner of London. As it was back then.

Deal with it.

My gran was a servant back in the '20s and '30s (pretty much from the age of 14), working and living in Brixton. It was more bits of Brixton that were fashionable, whereas other bits were scabby terraces even back then (she lived in a scabby terrace on Mayall Rd,or at least her parents, her, 2 sisters and 3 brothers lived on the ground floor of a terrace on Mayall Rd for several years).

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm a heating and ventilation engineer working for a boss, I think by your criteria that makes me working class. Am I allowed to stay?

For the time being...

 

[leanderman]

Was just interested at what point one becomes a posho? Presumably my accent rules me out

I think accent is key.

Urban75 is the only place where I've been described as posh.

 

[Winot]

I'm a heating and ventilation engineer working for a boss, I think by your criteria that makes me working class. Am I allowed to stay?

<insert joke about hot air and Urban75 here>

 

[friendofdorothy]

So its another one of these organisations like A4E that pimp out on the unemployed.

These organisations get paid contracts to do this. Get paid on "outcomes". Read the guff they come out with and one would think they do it for free.

What is really needed is proper training courses that people can go on. ie ones with a real qualification at the end. Not a load of positive thinking bollox from social entrepreneurs.

I once had the dubious pleasure of A4E helping me find employment at Brixton job centre. I was bereaved, depressed and unable to stop crying for a few years - I had some pimply youth helping me to write a CV he had no idea how I should explain 2- 3 years of madness /joblessness but was insistant I should include listening to music under hobbies (I rarely listen to music) not sure how he thought this would soften the blow to prospective employers that I was a jibbering wreck.

Wonder how much govt money they got for 'helping' me.

 

[steeeve]

<insert joke about hot air and Urban75 here>

It's mostly cooling the air these days for the fat cats in their ivory towers!

 

[friendofdorothy]

Anyone seen the cover of the SLP today - 'Light Fantastic' covering the LED bill board story as raised by CH1 here.
Says Lambeth have extended deadline for public consultation to 13th February

 

[friendofdorothy]

It seems irrational to me to knock buildings down.

I can't believe they would be so stupid.

It's not a question of 'wank' or 'classiness'.

Like it would be stupid to demolish 2500 homes in zone1, then sell off the land at a loss and allow property developers to build new expensive flats and sell most of them in the far east?
Heygate Estate redevelopment: just 79 social rented units out of a total 2,535 new homes

Perhaps you think Lambeth is less stupid than Southwark? I don't share your faith.

 

[SarfLondoner]

Except, of course, that they were, in "the old Brixton".
The difference being that most of them were/are living here, whereas what's being talked about is posho "entrepreneurs", many of whom don't live locally, opening businesses that change the social dynamic of the area so that some locals no longer feel "at home" in their own community, and see the shops that used to sell life's little necessities turn into outlets designed to appeal to the night-time economy.

I would rather have "todays" Brixton than old Brixton where the night time (and day) economy was a crack and heroin market, empty shops and crack houses every 10 feet, No go areas,estates where the postman had a police escort, Junkies piping crack and banging up heroin in stairwells and doorways,Muggings at knifepoint, prostitution,arguments settled with a shoot out. Dealers jumping into your car whist sat in the coldharbour lane traffic. I like a bit of nostalgia but fuck that.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Dante couldn't have imagined such an inferno

 

[friendofdorothy]

Can someone help me out with what class I am? My grandparents were coal miners and housewives, my mum was a teacher and my dad worked as a surveyor for the council, I own a flat in Brixton (or rather a fraction of it, the bank own the rest) and yes I wasn't born around here

Are you any the wiser now?
Never known what 'class' I am. Most of my life I've felt like sports lesson at school where no one would pick me.
I've never fitted a neat catagory, it was so helpful when queer people were generally loathed and I felt I was definitely underclass.

My gran was a servant back in the '20s and '30s (pretty much from the age of 14), working and living in Brixton. It was more bits of Brixton that were fashionable, whereas other bits were scabby terraces even back then (she lived in a scabby terrace on Mayall Rd,or at least her parents, her, 2 sisters and 3 brothers lived on the ground floor of a terrace on Mayall Rd for several years).

If we're playing competive grandmothers - both of mine were in service from the age of 12. (up north where its grim)

 

[steeeve]

Are you any the wiser now?
Never known what 'class' I am. Most of my life I've felt like sports lesson at school where no one would pick me.
I've never fitted a neat catagory, it was so helpful when queer people were generally loathed and I felt I was definitely underclass.


If we're playing competive grandmothers - both of mine were in service from the age of 12. (up north where its grim)

Nope, that was kind of my point, there are no neat categories (apart from at the very top!)

 

[Rushy]

I would rather have "todays" Brixton than old Brixton where the night time (and day) economy was a crack and heroin market, empty shops and crack houses every 10 feet, No go areas,estates where the postman had a police escort, Junkies piping crack and banging up heroin in stairwells and doorways,Muggings at knifepoint, prostitution,arguments settled with a shoot out. Dealers jumping into your car whist sat in the coldharbour lane traffic. I like a bit of nostalgia but fuck that.

Step. Away. From the keyboard.

I knew you'd crack

 

[editor]

New toilet alleyway for Brixton!

http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2015/01/...tric-lane-as-builders-create-a-dark-alleyway/

 

[T & P]

Hoardings covered in graffiti in 3...2...1...

 

[editor]

There'll be £9 hot dogs coming to a bar in Brixton soon.

 

[el-ahrairah]

Can someone help me out with what class I am? My grandparents were coal miners and housewives, my mum was a teacher and my dad worked as a surveyor for the council, I own a flat in Brixton (or rather a fraction of it, the bank own the rest) and yes I wasn't born around here

what do you do for a living? do you have any unearned income from property etc. what's your relationship to capital?

 

[el-ahrairah]

I'm not sure whether you imagined a more specific scenario because it is convenient, or whether you are saying that an objection to bigotry cannot coexist with an interest in the causes of bigotry?

i'm not sure whether you're pretending to think that structural inequality isn't a thing or whether you really do think that.

 

[el-ahrairah]

I'm a heating and ventilation engineer working for a boss, I think by your criteria that makes me working class. Am I allowed to stay?

yep working class, sorry if that disappoints you, but you earn plenty of working class credibility points to be redeemed at your leisure.

 

[Mr Retro]

You know this mammoth 43 page and counting thread means we're set fair for the rest of 2015? The summer will be hot and glorious, it will only ever rain in the middle of the night and Ireland will win the World Cup.

We'll done all, I'm proud of you!

 

[Dan U]

Dealers jumping into your car whist sat in the coldharbour lane traffic.

that happened to me once down the road at the side of the cinema when i was queuing to pull out. bloke was having a domestic with his (presumably) Mrs and jumped in to my camper van. I drove him round the one way system to the bottom of Brixton Hill and declined his kind offer.

was pretty stunned but also

 

[ricbake]

You know this mammoth 43 page and counting thread means we're set fair for the rest of 2015? The summer will be hot and glorious, it will only ever rain in the middle of the night and Ireland will win the World Cup.

We'll done all, I'm proud of you!

No deduction for off topic bun fights or hasn't this month been too bad....

 

[Mr Retro]

No deduction for off topic bun fights or hasn't this month been too bad....

It's an on-topic bun fight so I think we're good

 

[SarfLondoner]

Step. Away. From the keyboard.

I knew you'd crack

Yeah, This thread gave me the needle.

 

[Mr Retro]

you didn't answer my question, you just wailed. let's try another question: are you a posho, or are you merely a self-hating lickspittle of the upper classes?

This is a wierd black and white distinction. You are either posh and upper class and if you don't dislike posh people you are a lickspittle?

I'm glad I'm neither. I was brought up to believe I'm neither better or worse than anybody. I initially respect everybody and then judge them on their character and personality. I know a lot of great people from every walk of life. I know arseholes from every walk of life too. Thankfully way way less of those as I've found most people are nice when you don't go in with a judgement on them in the first place.

 

[boohoo]

I would rather have "todays" Brixton than old Brixton where the night time (and day) economy was a crack and heroin market, empty shops and crack houses every 10 feet, No go areas,estates where the postman had a police escort, Junkies piping crack and banging up heroin in stairwells and doorways,Muggings at knifepoint, prostitution,arguments settled with a shoot out. Dealers jumping into your car whist sat in the coldharbour lane traffic. I like a bit of nostalgia but fuck that.

You forgot burnt out cars.