And so whilst you were watching England scrape through in the World Cup, I was pissing myself watching the live stream of the first Lambeth cabinet meeting of the new Green administration. Life in the fast lane etc.

I tell a lie, but of course I was watching the football, but I don’t really give a shit about England - always club over country. I had the pictures on and followed what proved to be a more dramatic viewing back in Lambeth Town Hall.

Just let it go, Jase.

I did allow myself a smile within the first few minutes. The most routine matter of any local authority meeting is to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. These are always approved; no fucker raises any queries.

But wait! What’s this?

The last Lambeth cabinet meeting was way back in March. That didn’t stop the old goat Green Councillor Scott Ainslie from questioning the minutes.

Long-term observers of Lambeth Council will know that Councillor Ainslie is a bit of a sticker for protocol and routine. He is never shy of quoting the Council Standing Orders and raising questions where need be.

His concern with the minutes from the Labour cabinet’s meeting back in March was regarding the building of council houses. The new Green cabinet member wanted to query the number quoted in the previous meeting compared with the reality.

Oh Gawd, here we go.

Councillor Ainslie referred to a long-lost Brixton Buzz FOI where I revealed that Lambeth Labour managed to build a stunning four council houses in a four-year period. Central government funding etc is a consideration. But they had promised to build a thousand in the same time frame.

I thought that would be it, there and then. The previous Labour minutes will be corrected for the record and we could all move on and see what bright new hopes the Green Party have for the borough.

But nope, the first Green schisms were already on show in the public domain.

I don’t think it’s any secret that the Lambeth Green Party old guard were pretty much pushed aside in a bit of a coup when the party took control of the council last month.

The likes of Councillor Ainslie, as well as Jon Bartley and Pete Elliott, may be in cabinet but they are very much the old guard, offered portfolios without actually pulling the strings.

New Council Leader Councillor Martin Abrams lingered on the point of order put forward about council houses. It could have been a slam dunk win for him to say, “Yep, I agree, Lambeth Labour were shit, they built four council houses,” but instead he had to take legal advice about what to do over the discrepancy within the minutes.

I was still watching the football by this stage, by the way.

A bodge of sorts over the validity of my FOI was agreed. An asterisk will appear in the March minutes, which doesn’t show tremendous transparency, as was the pledge from the Lambeth Greens.

The business of the meeting then carried on. It was fairly routine stuff and rather dull. There was an interruption midway through the first item on the agenda from Acorn Housing, wanting to question why the new Housing Portfolio Holder, Councillor Elliott, had been ignoring all correspondence. This didn’t feel very much like the start of a new era.

I did like the way Councillor Abrams handled this. Previous Lambeth Labour leader Angry Holland would have shut down any interruptions from the floor and threatened to kick out members of the public. Not so Councillor Abrams: “This is your town hall and we welcome your suggestions.”

It was fascinating to see the new dynamics in place. This is the first time the Greens have been under any scrutiny, yet they’ve barely had enough time with their feet under the table to actually achieve anything.

Sure they have done some great things in reversing instantly the closure of the dementia centre on Central Hill, as well as making a very bold pledge not to work with immigration officers when it comes to Lambeth residents.

I did piss myself seeing Labour melt Councillor Danny Adilypour being given his three minutes of opposition time to speak. Thankfully the camera was showing the back of his head so you couldn’t see his usual smirk. This didn’t prevent the new Labour dickhead from trying to rewrite history.

The Greens are managing to deflect all of the criticism so far with a blame game of saying it’s all Lambeth Labour’s fault. It’ll be interesting to see how long this time frame is able to play out.

Councillor Adilypour did mention for the first time a threat of government inspectors coming in to take over the council should it continue to fail. That’s something he never mentioned when his Labour lot were in power. Fancy that.

The familiar line “We refuse to be lectured” was played out for the first time. I expect more of the same to follow over the coming months.

I’m not sure how many of my other Brixton Buzz FOI’s the Greens will be able to pull out as they try and get to grips with the absolute shit show of a mess that Lambeth Labour inflicted on the borough.

Welcome to the new boss…

And so after finally finishing Simon Hannah’s superb Radical Lambeth, I’ve started to watch some of the related videos to accompany the book.

It turns out that not only am I a slow reader, Im also a slow watcher of YT videos that are clogging up my browser tabs.

It’s a fascinating period in Lambeth politics, and one that also shaped and framed the national picture as well.

Hannah’s book documents the period roughly between 1978 through until 1990 in the borough. It tells the story of the rise and fall of radical politics at the Town Hall.

A follow up would be most welcome, explaining how the right wing cabal was able to take control, with the legacy still inflicting great damage for residents throughout Lambeth today.

But anyway.

Back to the videos.

Hannah has helpfully put together a standalone page that links to the relevant content. This includes relatively recent interviews with ex-Leader, Ted Knight.

Ted passed five years ago. Some of the conversation in the 2018 video interviews are already sounding very dated.

Even in his later years, he was still a powerful and eloquent speaker. You can see how at his pomp, he was able to mobilise thousands of residents to march with him to Westminster. You can’t see the current Cabinet fostering such political loyalty.

Some of the archive shots throughout the videos capture the borough and the associated protests of the time. The early 1980’s were a very different way of life.

Steve Nally from the Anti-Poll Tax Federation makes some powerful arguments:

“Be prepared to wage battle against the forces to survive.”

Forward Ever - Backward Never, etc.

And I didn’t even add the clickbait Wankerville to the title.

I had to leave the flat on Saturday afternoon. Have For Sale sign, have prospective buyers wanting to poke around.

It’s best to give them some privacy. But please do take your shoes off.

Oh…

I laced up my rain cherry red DM’s, and went off stomping towards Wankerville.

I made it a circular route, cutting through lovely Larkhall Park, a brief stretch along Wandsworth Road, and then up towards Wankerville Old Town.

My face doesn’t fit around here. I was clean cut and freshly shaven. But even my boy-ish good looks struggle a little with the Clap’ham 20-somethings.

I took cover in the charity shop stretch.

Clap’ham once had a half decent run of bog standard charity shops. The past few years has seen them morph into ‘vintage retro shops.’

This is Wankerville talk for add another £20 on to the price tag.

Trinity Hospice in the Old Town remains affordable. It has the second best CD collection in South London, only rivalled by Oxfam in Herne Hill.

I don’t usually waste my time digging through the charity shop CD crap: Cliff, Simply Red and Boyzone is your usual offering.

But an upside of having an upmarket neighbourhood like Clap’ham and Herne Hill is that the Bright Young Things do have good tastes in the CD’s they want to dispose of.

I spent five minutes flicking through. I ended up with a couple of Neil Young albums, and Beth Orton’s Comfort of Strangers.

Yours, for three quid all in, Guv.

Job’s a good ‘un.

A return to Brockwell ParkRun on Saturday morning. It’s been a while.

Much in the same way that Brixton Rec is my spiritual home of swimming, Brockwell is my zen place for ParkRun.

It’s where it all first started, and it’s probably where it will all finish, given those BASTARD hills.

But what a way to bow out, popping your clogs whilst running Brockwell ParkRun.

It’s been a cheery Saturday, Comrades…

It was lovely to see some familiar faces and old friends ahead of the 9am start for the race that’s not a race.

I was on time for once as well.

My forward planning involved a brief shifty at the Brockwell ParkRun FB page.

Ah, and so the start has been shifted up towards Brockwell Hall. There’s a new route as well.

I’m pleased that I took the time to take this on board. It takes ten minutes to walk up from the bicycle parking at the lovely Lido towards the big old Brockwell Hall.

A few brief ParkRun instructions, and then blimey - WE’RE OFF!

I know the park inside out, but the route itself I wasn’t sure of. No worries, Jase. There’s zero chance you’re going to actually be setting the pace throughout the 5km.

I was boxed in at the start, but then soon found my rhythm. There was no shame in a 50+ bloke being overtaken by a blushing Bride in her wedding white, probably half my age.

Good effort, Madam. Now get to that bloody Church on time.

The finish was uphill.

Oh ARSE. That took it out of me.

It was worth it though on a splendid Transpontine morning. I was rewarded with the view stretching out over to the City.

I was buzzing off me tits, natch.

The ParkRun email dropped an hour or so later. Fourth in my age cat. I’ll take that.

I’ll also try and not leave it as long next time.

Another day, another random walk around these Transpontine streets.

The route was roughly from Sunny Stockwell and over to the Oval Art Trail: Gasworks, Beaconsfield (closed) and then the Grand Daddy, the mighty Newport Street.

Never one to let an opportunity to snap away, have camera, will snap, etc.

The South London light was fading. My camera struggled to pick out some of the autumnal colours amongst the concrete.

With major regeneration taking place around The Oval with the old gasometer, now is a useful time to capture the changes.

I’m pleased that I managed to capture the old Cricketer’s boozer before it was bulldozed this time last year.

Snappety snap.

I love turning a corner around my S Ldn patch, and then OH MY DAYS, another new mural has appeared.

Create without permission, as we use to say back in the day.

But I suspect that Spanish artist Sebas Velasco did seek permission before he painted his beautiful new piece of work on the side of Broadstone House along Cobbett Street, SW8.

It’s titled ‘Yves’ - a local young fella from Brixton, standing on the Brixton mainline platform.

The art may - or may not - be long for this world. It’s right at the heart of the failed South Lambeth Estate ‘regeneration.’

If Lambeth can be arsed to get its act together after more than a decade of stalling, then we may soon have another soulless, uniform development springing up soon.

Then again.

When regeneration stalls, the streets speak.

Or something.