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Brixton news, rumour and general chat - May 2015

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steeeve said:
35% of agricultural land was tenanted in 1994 according to Wikipedia and the percentage has been declining since. I did caveat tenant farmers above but they still get far more help than other unprofitable enterprises get/got - coal mining for example
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Wow that's surprising although it was 20 years ago
 
se5 said:
Interesting article (and mention of Brixton in the comments section) on gentrification of Harlem http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/13/harlem-gentrification-new-york-race-black-white
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Featured comment:
Look at Brixton. Think back to the early 80s, all the rasta drug dealers carving up the Coldharbour Lane, all the Carabean Bakery and grocery shops, all the drug dealers in the blockading sections of Railton Rd, all the Carabean and white working class market traders, the police stop and searches, the sound systems and the music.
What's all that like now ?
Empty. It's all gone. The property is all coverted, restored, clean, over valued and lived in by rich white trendies. The market traders have retied and moved away and a new influx of middle eastern traders have taken their place. The cafes in the covered market are all expensive foodie joints frequented by young, humourless and self serious hipsters who can afford to pay £5 for a brownie.
I know that in the old Brixton, you might get mugged or knifed or carted off by dodgy coppers, but it was cheap and exciting, vibrant and the music flowed for free and really the gentrified set with their yummie mummies and cake and coffee houses are so incredibly dull compared to what's faded away.
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SpamMisery said:
Wow that's surprising although it was 20 years ago
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Maybe, but with the consolidation of the purchasing power of supermarkets it is very difficult for small farmers to survive unless they either form co-operatives or go down the differentiated product niche market route.

World policy appears to be that it is better to subsidise farmers so they get enough for them to survive in order to offset retailers beating prices down to give us food prices that are low enough for us to have lots of disposable income to spend on consumables. If you were to look at the percentage of income spent on food a hundred or so years ago pre-introduction of subsidies then i suspect you'd see a huge difference against current expenditure.

At least we're better off than the massively disfunctional french model where all inherited farmland is split between all heirs resulting in ever decreasing packets of land, which become increasingly unviable and therefore increasingly reliant on EU farm subsidies.
 
cuppa tee said:
Halifax cashpoint in Brixton today

View attachment 71389
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The Halifax machine in the photo is still in similar condition today (Wednesday).
The 2nd Halifax machine says "OUT OF ORDER"

I foolishly tried the NatWest machine (Beehive branch) - which was sluggish to take the card and then refused to eject it.
A couple of East European sounding girls on bicycles came by asking cheerily if my card had been swallowed, which got my paranoia going.

Had to cancel my card (obviously) and a bit surprised to see money taken from my account and then put back on the internet banking system

I reckon those machines are being targeted. Suggest avoid Halifax and NatWest Beehive until they sort it out.

The Nationwide is OK though - maybe the type of machine is less vulnerable - they seem newer.
 
CH1 said:
I foolishly tried the NatWest machine (Beehive branch) - which was sluggish to take the card and then refused to eject it.
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that happened to my wife and I about a year or so back at the Streatham Barclays… she was using the cashpoint and said her card had jammed which sounded odd, i had a look and found a really budget fake card slot jammed over the real one with a piece of metal designed to retain the card rather than skim it, managed to get both that and the card back out with a bit of brute force and ignorance, then started looking for the camera which turned out to be a covert pinhole USB type thing fitted in a piece of plastic trim stuck to the underside of the top of the cash machine frame and was surprisingly hard to spot unless you were looking for it.

managed to rip that off as well at which point a woman who'd been watching us from a couple of doorways up shot off up the street. when we watched the footage back later we saw the camera and card device had been installed literally 20-30 seconds before my wife put her card in by a couple of guys who we hadn't noticed and definitely weren't around when we started dismantling their gear, think they must have left the woman behind to retrieve it all as soon as someone had lost their card after entering their pin.

arseholes.
 
leanderman said:
The comment contains much hyperbole.
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it's true though, the general gist. i.e. once interesting, "challanging" community now bland expensive one filled with bores.

i know and i am sure most will deep down agree, that most of the old brixton was better than most of the new brixton.
 
BigMoaner said:
it's true though, the general gist. i.e. once interesting, "challanging" community now bland expensive one filled with bores.

i know and i am sure most will deep down agree, that most of the old brixton was better than most of the new brixton.
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I doubt many readers of this thread remember Brixton in the "early 80s".
 
I used to come to Brixton in the 80s. Headlined the Fridge with my band once too, and recorded with the lovely Helen McCookeryBook and Lester Square at Cold Storage studios on Acre Lane.
 
CH1 said:
Well I do - like when what is now the 414 Club was a Pan African squat run by radical entertainer and author Spartacus R.
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so, quick fire, broad question with a simple yes or no -

was it better then than it is now?
 
Looked like work going on inside the pub formally known as The Angel, when I went past earlier today.
 
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Ms T said:
The fancy new flower shop on Atlantic Road appears to have closed.
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We popped in when she was packing up and she told us she was moving to new premises in Brixton (but couldn't / didn't say where).
 
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