what a mess

Apparently there was a demonstration in Leytonstone yesterday, protesting against the proposed closure of Whipps Cross hospital. This will all be only one part of Blair's petulant plan to break the country and leave it in pieces for the next guy - like, "If I can't have it I don't want you to have it either." Oh, sorry, I mean his proposed revamp of the NHS.

Ellis Sharp of The Sharp Side was there - and quotes a compelling set of figures comparing the cost of war to the cost of hospital beds.

I know which I'd rather pay for.

Meanwhile the occupation of the old Vortex building continues in Stoke Newington. There is a big petition against the opening of a Starbucks - rumours are flying thick and fast, but I haven't seen anything about any actual applications, etc. Let me tell you, Starbucks is not, NOT, N-O-T, what we want around here. They'll just come into the area, gobble up the things that make it home - our Blue Legume, Il Bacio Express, & Belle Epoque and Acoustic in Newington Green, Bodrun & the other Turkish places in the High Street. Isn't that what they do? They just want to eat England for the next decade, at the rate of a bite every two weeks. All they want to do is chew Stoke Newington up and spit it out.

Meanwhile, true to the real character of our neighbourhood, les enfants Baroque keep coming home with stuff they got in the 'free shop' in the occupied building. With just about everybody in the UK actually paying more than the advertised rate of inflation - and we haven't even seen the council tax increases yet - I think free shops must be the wave of the future.

And by the way, Ms B went to renew her Baroque Oyster card the other day: it was £105 for a month. Three zones. Now, will someone help me out here? I swear that at the New Year they said Oyster card fares weren't going to go up - only non-Oyster ones - in a bid to reward people for using the preferred, electronic, trackable, fne-able, touch-in-touch-out-or-be-prosecuted, system. Big Conductor is Watching You. So how comes I'm suddenly paying £7 more? (Note: inflation is currently running at, what is it, 4%? Not 7%.)

Also in current news, the Olympic site in east London apparently had nuclear waste dumped on it in the fifties.

According to the Standard:

"A report on the Clays Lane site in Stratford, carried out by engineers WS Atkins in 1993, stated: 'During a search of archive information from the London boroughs of Hackney and Waltham Forest, records indicated that a quantity of radioactive material was deposited in the late Fifties in a disused cesspool.' "

Projected costs are now running at around £5bn, or double the original estimate.

Maybe we should take Tony and Ken on an official visit to a few disused cesspools.