Poor Man About Town

There used to be this hardware shop in Greenwich which sold everything imaginable for the house. It's outside display was a fascinating display of household goods, kiddy toys, gardening equipment etc. It was a landmark that added colour to the area, not any more, it's disappeared from the face of the Earth. It has been replaced by an organic restaurant. I went in there to buy a sandwich, a pleasant piped smell (yes, they do this now) wafted through the entire shop. There was bread and oils on sale. The decor could only be described as 'flatpack rusticity'. The place was hardly a cafe, it was more like a studio set for one of those dreadful lifestyle programmes on tv. What got me was the price of the sandwiches, they cost £5+ . I'm not paying that kind of money for two slices of organic bread with some organic filling. You can feed a family of four for a fortnight on that kind of money. I left.

London is being refurbished on quite a grand scale, money is muscling in and muscling out the less well off. This is Blair's Britain giving licence to the rich to do what they fucking like with the environment, community and culture.

Labels: Lifestyle