pecknam blog - adventures in SouthEast London

Guerrilla Zoo presents Oro de Ojo, our 1st party of 2010! We kick start the ’10s with a special canivale of mayhem!
Oro de Ojo is absurd, surreal, confusing &  somewhat gloriously paniked party! Come immerse you in a world of psychedelic strangeness and mystical interventions.
Inspired by the work of cult film maker Alejandro Jodorowsky. Featuring surreal live performance, absurd art sessions, nonsensical live music and psychedelic/psychotic art installations.

Guerrilla Zoo presents Oro de Ojo
Friday 22nd January 2010
@ Corsica Studios, 5 Elephant Road, London SE17 1LB
8pm til LATE

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Pandemonium circus returns with a high octane blend of crazed and depraved circus and musical antics, sonic sideshows, snake charming, suspensions, broken b movie bass, drunken and devilish preaching, cross dressing ragga core, gyrating gypsy swing, barber shop transformations, Ukrainian speed folk, human fishbowls, clown core and much much more…

 
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I attended Lewisham Primary Bridge School as a wee nipper in the early 1980’s, and 2 decades later I have found out it is one of the latest schools to be occupied in protest due to closure and selling up to Leathersellers.

Parents and supporters have been occupying and protesting at the school since its closure in Easter. Lewisham Council plan to demolish this lovely old building which has been a thriving community school and build a new privatised school to the capacity of 800 pupils, 3 - 16 year olds.

English Heritage have awarded the building as grade 2 listed, creating a spanner in the works for Lewisham council and putting a hold on, but not yet ending the proposed plans.

The closure of the school has caused much upheaval to the routines and education of the pupils and parents. Pupils are having to get up an hour earlier in the morning in order to get transported by coach to and from the gates of the school to The Mornington Centre in New Cross! This “temporary” solution is costing Lewisham Council £900 a day.

An eviction notice was served to the occupation for Wednesday 24th June at 10.30am.

I went down on the day to show my support, make some T-Shirt banners, take some pictures and join the 50 or so local campaign supporters gathered outside the school in protest of the eviction.

A group of lively students from Goldsmiths College Anarchist Society joined parents on the roof of the school, where a camp has been set up and access to the roof has been sealed. There was strong police presence early on and a police helicopter flew over the site at one point, but the police moved on later in the morning and the atmosphere remained positive.

The bayliffs were due at 10.30 but arrived late and after some kind of negotiation it seems the eviction has been resisted!

If you are interested in finding out more and getting involved check out the Facebook Group: Hands Off Lewisham Primary Bridge SchoolPrimary Bridge School

I was vaguely aware of the thousands of hidden packages placed worldwide by ernest Letterboxers or Geocachers, but until now had never set out to find one.

There’s a cache listed on Peckham Rye - the hunt was on. We downloaded the GPS location and using Cacheberry phone software had a compass & proximity locator to follow. This is obviously designed to make you feel like you’re in a film. It’s great.

A bit of muddy wandering and a search in a bush later and there it was, a plastic tub painted in camo colours. The contents weren’t particularly exciting but then that’s not the point; we wrote in the notebook and left some stickers + a nice Danish coin with a hole in the middle.

Zoe then fed me some wild garlic. You can eat the leaves raw, it surprised me how garlic-y a green leaf can taste. Good in salads apparently.

More geocaches on One Tree Hill, Telegraph Hill, in Burgess Park and just about everywhere else. Some have a puzzle to solve instead of GPS taking you straight there. Go find one and reward yourself with a pint!

It’s summer! I grabbed my new GPS phone and my BMX and went out exploring.

First discovery was this huge piece of land behind Sainsburys on Dog Kennel Hill. I assume it’s privately owned as there’s a fence all around it, but this has a few sections completely removed and there’s well-trodden paths across. The lighter green area on the gmap view is an artifical football pitch.

View Larger Map

Riding on through Dulwich Village I wasn’t distracted by Dulwich Picture Gallery (it closes at 5pm), but did find Belair Park nearby with a nice lake and small skatepark. Now I’m typing this I can’t help thinking of the Fresh Prince; especially as this huge house sits in the grounds.

Soon after came a slightly uncertain turn onto Grange Lane which is marked as a private road and leads up past Dulwich & Sydenham Hill Golf Club, a Scout building and some lovely allotments. A bit of a squeeze got me into Sydenham Hill Wood which is a lovely place for a wander. Spot the ‘ancient’ ruins there, and see the strange contrast of perfectly kept golf grounds just behind the fence:

From there it’s almost all downhill back to Peckham, that made me happy.

I loved having access to an online map and using the satellite view to head towards green spaces, and GPS tracking is a New + Exciting thing for me let’s go all the way and see my route:

Sunny days, bikes, and pocket technology are great.

I emailed Southwark Council asking what dates the I Love Peckham festival would fall on this year and got this reply:

Hi Mike,
I Love Peckham will be different this year.

A whole creative summer programme will be programmed under the banner of I Love Peckham.

We are hoping that events and activities will be coordinated as part of the programme which will be marketed.

I will keep you posted on developments.

Kind regards
Anila

——————-

Anila Ladwa
Culture Development Officer
Southwark Council
T: 0207 525 1006 / 07958 244 938
E: anila.ladwa@southwark.gov.uk
————————————————-

For your essential guide to events in Southwark
www.southwark.gov.uk/discoversouthwark

If you’ve got ideas for an event there’s contact details and information on funding here.

Here’s looking forward to lots of fun things happening over the sunny months!

From: info@spikesurplus.org

Hi there everyone,
I suspect you’ve all heard by now that at 7am on Thursday 12th February, 20 odd coppers, Southwark’s property department, some bailiffs, and 4 big noisy dogs turned up and suddenly we found ourselves on the wrong side of the gates. The on-site security (with the big dogs) seem regretful of the situation and have been letting us on site to get stuff sorted. Tomorrow we have more time. There is still lots of good stuff that we haven’t get found homes for… do any social centres want to take on the free shop? Got a vehicle? Any community gardens etc wanting plants, pots, outside furniture etc? There’s material, costumes, card, paper, some plants, pots, sofa’s, tables, chairs, wood, old tools, fire extinguishers, cushions and more. Please get in touch seriously asap if you want to provide a home for any of this. Oh, and if you want to buy a Spike t-shirt for a tenner, get in touch on the email and we’ll arrange something.

You may still feel to campaign to keep the Spike as a community space as it has been for 160 years. English Heritage should really list the place to protect the building but there’s little time for this.

Hope we all get to gather again soon. We’ll let you know as soon as our services are re-housed.
Best wishes,

Spike

It’s been on the cards for a while, but despite the court saying The Spike would be given 2 weeks notice of eviction the police and bailiffs arrived unnanounced at 7am this morning.

The residents have been told they can enter on Monday, one person at a time, and recover their belongings.

Residents, supporters and film crew outside The Spike gates.

Security team inside the property.

Love and warm cups of tea to all Spike crew.

Spike Surplus is a community centre who has helped many artists,
musicians and free thinkers to attain their goals. Now after ten years providing beneficial services to the community, Southwark Council are evicting the Scheme and selling of the land. This is a massive injustice! Please help the Spike
Contact http://www.spikesurplus.org

The area was namechecked on the xmas episode of Have I Got News for You, their photo story round-up at the end of the show included:

“At a shopping centre in Peckham, Father Christmas regrets telling a 12 year-old gang leader he can’t have the latest Playstation.”

Should we be laughing while the media associates our area with gangs (again)? Could I ask a more obvious question?

In fact what I’d really like to know is:

• was the bendy Santa actually photographed here (Peckham Square perhaps?)
• and WHY DOESN’T HE HAVE A BEARD?!  All the SE15 Santas I know would consider this grounds for a brussel sprout pelting.