Brixton news, rumours and general chat

[editor]

The Arsenal have some interesting ones. Can withstand a 7 tonne lorry apparently:

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We've got more space to cover so 'YUPPIES OUT!' would do the job well.

 

[Gramsci]

I can categorically say there will have been risk based assessments

Actually you can't

 

[Smick]

This is way off topic but, I am one and I use that word all the time, instead of the polite version jew-ish, precisiely because it shocks people, it is a rude word, and i want to unpick why that is. It’s not rude to refer to a Christian is it.

I take your point and agree with it. I’ve always said that I take exception to nouns being used to describe people; a Jew, a black, a gay. But I guess that’s because I’m using sections of society which have traditionally been discriminated against. Describing someone as a Christian, a blonde, an Australian does not seem so negative to me.

 

[madolesance]

Just been perusing the weird and probably booming world of 'hostile vehicle mitigation furniture', great heavy planters giant bins and extremely ugly benches mostly. I imagine lambeth will end up going for something like these.
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Local stone masons could carve something interesting out of the blocks that have been placed in Windrush Square.

 

[Not a Vet]

Actually you can't

Feels like a panto but oh yes I can

 

[Gramsci]

Feels like a panto but oh yes I can

OK. In that case can youu go back and quote the bit in the Council report on this issue linked earlier to back up your claim its "categorical" that a risk assessment has been done.

 

[Gramsci]

Read this:

The secret of anti-terror architecture: Your city is probably safer than you realize

Meet the humble bollard.

qz.com

UK is along with Israel and USA at the cutting edge of designing security anti terror public realm. Not a great plus for the UK imo.

Some choice quotes:

As Ruth Reed, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects wrote to introduce to the organization’s 2010 counter-terrorism design guidelines: ”It is important that our built environment continues to reflect that we are an open and inclusive society, and that in interpreting these new requirements our buildings do not convey that we are driven by security measures.

Begs the question really. What she is saying is that "We" are driven by security measures but we are going to hide it by making them look like seats or planters.

The urban plannners/ architects job is to make a society driven by security measures appear to be open and inclusive.

A society driven by Reds under the bed type security measures is not imo a society furthering an open society.

I really object to way BLM is being used here on this forum to support these "security" measures. Its not what BLM is about.

 

[Gramsci]

Read this:

Making Anti-Terror Infrastructure Pretty: The Most Depressing New Urban Design Challenge - Failed Architecture

Urban designers were so preoccupied with whether they could make anti-terror infrastructure more beautiful, they didnât stop to think if they should...

failedarchitecture.com

This is not such an easy read. A lot in this. I think he is bit harsh on expecting architects to turn down work. People need to earn a living. But people can be critical of what they have to do to earn a crust.

Given that its a different perspective.

Urban designers are increasingly being tasked with an emergent ‘design challenge’ for public spaces: how best to deliver anti-terror infrastructure while generating a pleasant urban environment. By allowing themselves to be drawn into this challenge, and by dutifully working to respond with creative and constructive solutions, they are inadvertently helping to normalize a creeping ‘fortification’ of our cities that in turn contributes to a wider process of ‘bordering’ across the world.

The "borderising" is for example Brexit in this country and for EU keeping out refugees.

While terrorism may be no more of a serious threat now than in previous decades, what is more serious is the anxiety surrounding the protectionist reaction to the threat. Indeed, for our increasingly unequal economic system to reproduce itself, it needs media and political elites to ramp up a climate of anxiety, which can in turn provide a pretext for borderization.

Measures like dropping concrete blocks into Windrush Square with no announcement is ramping up climate of anxiety. See it here with some of the posts.

 

[Gramsci]

I wonder whether we should worry about there being a temporary solution? Does it suggest that the risk is too urgent to wait for the permanent solution? Does the intelligence suggest that the Ritzy is somebody's target? It's owned by a very rich Israeli Jew who was in the news because of the pay dispute. I don't think we can take the council denial of a specific threat at face value. Anti-terror measures are not meant to be discussed very much in case you help the terrorists. The less you say, the more confident they get and the more likely they are to give themselves away. All we know is that there's a very long list of people being watched. M15 and the Met are run ragged day and night trying to keep track of far too much, and we only ever get told about a small fraction of it.

Having looked this up Its not accurate to say its owned by "very rich Israeli Jew*.

I think you should amend your post.

 

[David Clapson]

The Ritzy is part of Cineworld, the world’s second largest cinema chain. Cineworld is listed on the FTSE. Its market cap today is £776.53m. Mooky is the CEO. He and his brother Israel own 29% of the company between them. Pretty rare for a FTSE company to have such large shareholdings held by a couple of individuals.

More to the point, the Ritzy is the only place well protected by the blocks. Anyone who spends a minute in the square can see that. The Ritzy has been selected for this protection. It's one of tens of thousands of potential targets in the UK, but the Police and MI5 have chosen the Ritzy for a reason. The council statement about 'no specific threat' can be taken with a pinch of salt. Anyone who takes an interest in security knows that. If you don't get that, it probably means you haven't been reading a decent newspaper since radical Islamic terrorism arrived in the UK, and you have a childlike perception of Lambeth Council's role in anti-terror.

The sudden arrival of the blocks, with the promise that they are temporary, in lieu of a permanent installation, means a lot. There are intelligence reports, meetings, expert proposals and allocation of scarce resources behind all this. Where else do you see this sort of protection? Strategic infrastructure, city centres, government buildings...but all of a sudden it's at a little cinema in suburban London.

ISIS terrorists don't choose targets at random. They do their homework. Try to put yourself in their position. They want a high body count and a huge story in the UK and worldwide. They also want respect from ISIS sympathisers, so they don't want random victims who might turn out to be Muslims, they want enemies. British people who drink alcohol are enemies. So are rich Israeli Jews. The Ritzy can be hit with a vehicle with no warning. There are almost no police patrolling the area. All in all it's a good target. Or it was until the blocks arrived.

 

[editor]

The Ritzy is part of Cineworld, the world’s second largest cinema chain. Cineworld is listed on the FTSE. Its market cap today is £776.53m. Mooky is the CEO. He and his brother Israel own 29% of the company between them. Pretty rare for a FTSE company to have such large shareholdings held by a couple of individuals.

More to the point, the Ritzy is the only place well protected by the blocks. Anyone who spends a minute in the square can see that. The Ritzy has been selected for this protection.

It's really not been set up to protect the Ritzy. It's to protect the wide open spaces of Windrush Square which recently have been host to several crowded BLM rallies and other large gatherings in recent years.

For your claim to make any kind of sense, there would have to be plenty of other noticeably stepped up security measures around the Ritzy - and there is none.

 

[Gramsci]

The Ritzy is part of Cineworld, the world’s second largest cinema chain. Cineworld is listed on the FTSE. Its market cap today is £776.53m. Mooky is the CEO. He and his brother Israel own 29% of the company between them. Pretty rare for a FTSE company to have such large shareholdings held by a couple of individuals.

More to the point, the Ritzy is the only place well protected by the blocks. Anyone who spends a minute in the square can see that. The Ritzy has been selected for this protection. It's one of tens of thousands of potential targets in the UK, but the Police and MI5 have chosen the Ritzy for a reason. The council statement about 'no specific threat' can be taken with a pinch of salt. Anyone who takes an interest in security knows that. If you don't get that, it probably means you haven't been reading a decent newspaper since radical Islamic terrorism arrived in the UK, and you have a childlike perception of Lambeth Council's role in anti-terror.

The sudden arrival of the blocks, with the promise that they are temporary, in lieu of a permanent installation, means a lot. There are intelligence reports, meetings, expert proposals and allocation of scarce resources behind all this. Where else do you see this sort of protection? Strategic infrastructure, city centres, government buildings...but all of a sudden it's at a little cinema in suburban London.

ISIS terrorists don't choose targets at random. They do their homework. Try to put yourself in their position. They want a high body count and a huge story in the UK and worldwide. They also want respect from ISIS sympathisers, so they don't want random victims who might turn out to be Muslims, they want enemies. British people who drink alcohol are enemies. So are rich Israeli Jews. The Ritzy can be hit with a vehicle with no warning. There are almost no police patrolling the area. All in all it's a good target. Or it was until the blocks arrived.

I find this fantasising about terrorism childlike.

Cineworld is a large mulitnational company who dont treat their workers very well. The fact that CEO is Jewish is not relevant.tt was never an issue in the Ritzy dispute.

Its you making it an issue.

 

[alex_]

Council say:

A specific threat is isis talking about attacking windrush square in Brixton.

a general threat is the spate of car/truck attacks in Europe in recent years.

 

[CH1]

The Ritzy is part of Cineworld, the world’s second largest cinema chain. Cineworld is listed on the FTSE. Its market cap today is £776.53m. Mooky is the CEO. He and his brother Israel own 29% of the company between them. Pretty rare for a FTSE company to have such large shareholdings held by a couple of individuals.

Maybe - but Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and family own 34% of Easyjet apparently.

 

[CH1]

A specific threat is isis talking about attacking windrush square in Brixton.

a general threat is the spate of car/truck attacks in Europe in recent years.

Have I missed something here?
We know terrorists have a penchant for bridges.
Also Christmas Markets (in Germany) street Carnivals (in Nice).

Why is it thought that terrorists would be attracted to a thinly populated area denuded of benches by the council where elderly people surreptitiously lurk drinking out of brown paper bags?

The only possibility is that it's the Ritzy crowd that are being protected - as very shortly will the Brixton Playground crowd.

 

[CH1]

Anyone want to hear Mahamed Hashi, Stockwell councillor (Labour) and co-promoter of the Brixton Soup Kitchen and Lloyd Leon Community Centre (formerly the Brixton Domino Club)?
BBC Radio 4 - Four Thought, Change Through Engagement

 

[teuchter]

I get the objection to the blocks on the grounds of overly fearful responses to terrorism.

But the idea that the real reason they are there is simply to protect Ritzy drinkers - in the current context of worldwide and local BLM protests and Brixton's particular history - it's kind of conspiraloonish.

 

[CH1]

I get the objection to the blocks on the grounds of overly fearful responses to terrorism.
But the idea that the real reason they are there is simply to protect Ritzy drinkers

I think that you seem impervious to irony and extrapolation.
What do you think if you see this Gillray? Napoleon and Wellington squabbling over a pudding?

 

[Gramsci]

A specific threat is isis talking about attacking windrush square in Brixton.

a general threat is the spate of car/truck attacks in Europe in recent years.

Quite.

So no evidence of threat to Windrush square.

VAW have been used in a variety of places.

There was a spate linked to supporters of ISIS caliphate. That's over.

Terrorism goes up and down.

It also changes and adapts. The attack on London bridge was a combination. Men in vehicle. Then they jumped out of vehicle and attacked people in the busy Bermondsey market on foot with knives. No amount of concrete blocks is going to stop that.

The putting up of blocks on Windrush square is over reaction.

Its working as sending out a message. Given some of the posts here.

 

[blameless77]

I

Posts here move from Isis to far right using a VAW as the jargon goes on Windrush square.

As TFL have extended the pavement of Brixton Road for social distancing reasons this is now prime target for a VAW driven by right wing / ISIS terrorist.

Perhaps all the railings that were taken down along Brixton Road bit of the High Street should be put back?

As some posters here think Brixton is prime target for terrorism.

Walls/ steel railings could be built along the Brixton road pavement edge with small gaps for people to get on or off buses. Gaps with doors like on the Jubilee underground.

Fence off the high street to stop a VAW. After all as Council say last terrorist attack was in the shopping area.

That is the logic that is being presented here.

Actually as a cyclist they feel really dangerous - if you're forced into the curb by an aggressive motorist, or knocked off your bike and hit one of those they would do you some serious damage...

 

[theboris]

Vauxhall Tories don't like it...

English councils backpedal on cycling schemes after Tory backlash

‘Cycling revolution’ at risk as local Conservatives lobby to remove funded cycle routes

www.theguardian.com

 

[theboris]

Vauxhall Tories don't like it...

English councils backpedal on cycling schemes after Tory backlash

‘Cycling revolution’ at risk as local Conservatives lobby to remove funded cycle routes

www.theguardian.com

Rock the Casbah! Rock the Casbah!

 

[Not a Vet]

OK. In that case can youu go back and quote the bit in the Council report on this issue linked earlier to back up your claim its "categorical" that a risk assessment has been done.

It’s just a standard intelligence process. It’s reviewed on a regular basis and clearly something must have changed. Possibly overkill but someone makes these decisions and there’s not a lot us mere mortals can do about it. Hopefully the permanent ones won’t be so ugly.

 

[bimble]

Have I missed something here?
We know terrorists have a penchant for bridges.
Also Christmas Markets (in Germany) street Carnivals (in Nice).

Why is it thought that terrorists would be attracted to a thinly populated area denuded of benches by the council where elderly people surreptitiously lurk drinking out of brown paper bags?

The only possibility is that it's the Ritzy crowd that are being protected - as very shortly will the Brixton Playground crowd.

Are you being entirely serious? Just in case you're not joking, Windrush Square is a place where large crowds of people often gather for rallies and demonstrations, particularly for causes that far right extremists hate the most, for instance the annual Reparations march which i think is usually at the start of next month. If you were a suicidal racist and wanted to drive a truck into people of colour standing up for their rights then this might seem a very good place to choose.
You might think this is paranoid and that public space shouldn't be cluttered with concrete just in case some madman decides to try to mow down a bunch of strangers one day (and that’s fair enough to argue that) but the idea that the police & council have contrived all this to protect prosecco drinkers at the ritzy seems extremely daft.

 

[Gramsci]

It’s just a standard intelligence process. It’s reviewed on a regular basis and clearly something must have changed. Possibly overkill but someone makes these decisions and there’s not a lot us mere mortals can do about it. Hopefully the permanent ones won’t be so ugly.

You are guessing that is the case.

Even if you are correct this is shit way to do things.

 

[Gramsci]

Are you being entirely serious? Just in case you're not joking, Windrush Square is a place where large crowds of people often gather for rallies and demonstrations, particularly for causes that far right extremists hate the most, for instance the annual Reparations march which i think is usually at the start of next month. If you were a suicidal racist and wanted to drive a truck into people of colour standing up for their rights then this might seem a very good place to choose.
You might think this is paranoid and that public space shouldn't be cluttered with concrete just in case some madman decides to try to mow down a bunch of strangers one day (and that’s fair enough to argue that) but the idea that the police & council have contrived all this to protect prosecco drinkers at the ritzy seems extremely daft.

Its CH1 not being entirely serious.

As pointed out in post 1218

 

[Gramsci]

In actual fact the last far right terrorist realised the best way to try to kill a lot of Black people was by placing bomb next to Iceland. Which he was correct to think.

Putting concrete blocks around Windrush square has little to do with stoppng terrorism.

The Council has , as Ive repeatedly said, produced no case for these blocks on Windrush square.

But posters here are working up various fantasy scenerios to justify them.

 

[Gramsci]

One good thing about the concrete block is that the authorities have protected me. When I finally go back to the Ritzy I will be able to enjoy a film without worrying that a terrorist ( take your pick ISIS or far right ) won't disturb my film by driving a truck into the cinema. What a relief that will be. Its been keeping me awake at night. I can sleep soundly now.

Thankyou Lambeth Council and the boys in blue.

 

[bimble]

Putting concrete blocks around Windrush square has little to do with stoppng terrorism.

Then what do you think it has to do with?
The civil servants or whatever commitee decided to buy the blocks and put them there do you think their remit is to subtly ramp up the climate of fear to better crush our spirits something like that? If not that what?

 

[Gramsci]

Then what do you think it has to do with?
The civil servants or whatever commitee decided to buy the blocks and put them there do you think their remit is to subtly ramp up the climate of fear to better crush our spirits something like that? If not that what?

As someone who uses the Ritzy , goes on demos/ events in Windrush square ( pandemic permitting) I think putting concrete blocks on Windrush square is a load of bollox.

Ive posted up a enough posts to show what I think.

Read some of my previous posts on this issue. I dont feel like repeating myself tonight.