Is The Cause of High Unemployment Our Housing and Transport Policies?
There was a program on BBC Radio 5 this morning about unemployment. It was the usual left versus right battle, which has been fought so many times to a non-conclusion, that the program got boring, so I went shopping at Upper Street.
I have lived in several houses and flats in my life and in some ways, where I am now suits me best. Visitors like it too and they feel it is absolutely right for me.
So what is this house like. It’s a three bed-roomed house with two en-suite bathrooms and one that isn’t. It’s modern and it’s built upside down, with two bedrooms, a bathroom and the garage on the ground floor and a seven-metre square living area, kitchen and a bedroom on the first floor. It has a lot of chocolate-coloured steel and big glass windows. Unfortunately, it was built by Jerry. It doesn’t have a garden, but it does have two patios front and back.
In some ways the nearest to it in feel, was our flat in Cromwell Tower, in the Barbican, where we raised our three sons for the first few years of their lives. There we had three bedrooms, a large living room, kitchen, an underground car park and superb views across to St. Paul’s.
My house is however not the sort of house that most people aspire to or in fact that many can afford.
So many prefer one of Pete Seeger ‘s Little Boxes on a new estate somewhere in the countryside with space for two cars. After all, these sort of estates don’t get inhabitated by the riff-raff do they? They are also as eco-friendly as Obama’s Beast.
I have now come to the conclusion that I don’t like to live in the countryside. It is all so sterile, unfriendly and full of lots of little cliques. After the loss of C and my son, not one person in the village came to see me. After all I was a loser wasn’t I, especially as I had a stroke? There’s a great belief too, that widows might decide to walk off with your partner! It was a real relief to escape on a train to somewhere, where something actually happened. But there was no public transport, so simple things like getting any food meant a taxi or scounging a lift.
I also should say I hated living in Cockfosters as a child. There the problem was that there were no children of my own age and most of my school friends lived some distance away. Only when I was old enough to work in my father’s print works and ride my bike all over the area did I feel liberated.
How I live now, is surprisingly similar to how C and I used to live with the boys in the Barbican and St. John’s Wood before that. Except of course that I am now alone and do the things like food shopping, that C used to do. But then when I wander round Chapel Market, it’s like going back to the early seventies and she’s still guiding me.
It’s a friendly and a mixed area, with some good shops, four pubs that know their gluten-free within walking distance, several gardens and superb public transport links. The people are friendly too and I’m starting to add to my circle of friends. In this sort of mixed area, you also develop passing acquaintances with people, who you say hello to as you pass. In the countryside, it’s a bit difficult to talk to someone about their basset hound as I did today, when the dog is in the back of a 4×4 passing at speed.
So the sort of mixed area where I live is not to most people’s taste, but in my view, if we want to decrease unemployment and create worthwhile jobs, then this sort of area can do it’s bit. Another mixed area, I know well is the centre of Cambridge and it could be argued that that mixing helps with the development of ideas.
How many good ideas have been hatched in pubs or coffee shops? Sterile country villages might have an award winning gastro-pub, but the only ideas that come out of places like that, are things like better ways to cook asparagus.
One of the complaints in all the villages I’ve lived was the lack of any staff locally. This was mainly because, those same people didn’t want any affordable housing built, that might spoil their view and lower the tone of the place. I have a lovely lady, who sorts my house out, once a week and she was fairly easy to find. Incidentally she comes on a bus from the other side of Dalston JUnction station. so just at a selfish level, good public transport helps people to get to their jobs. In those much admired villages, there is no public transport, so everybody has to drive, so those that can’t afford their own car, often can’t get a decent job. But then a lot of those that live in villages don’t want more public transport, because of all the noise and inconvenience of passing a bus in a large 4×4. But they have their own cars anyway!
To illustrate what I say further, I will take the Suffolk town of Haverhill, which has large numbers of little boxes, which asre being added too at a fast rate. There are jobs in the town, but many require a car to get to, as the town isn’t the most cycle-friendly and the public transport is limited. Haverhill is also a sensible commute to Cambridge, where there are far better-paid and more worthwhile jobs, but the only way to do it, is to use a bus or car. There used to be a railway, but that was axed in the Beeching cuts. Axing it actually wasn’t the problem, but building over the right-of-way was, as that railway, which is needed to provide a link etween Sudbury and Cambridge, could have been reinstated. In Scotland, they have been reinstating railways like Airdrie to Bathgate with some degree of success.
If I was in charge of eployment policy in this country, I would reinstate railways like Sudbury to Cambridge, as they not only create employment, but allow people to get better jobs. Recently, the line from Ipswich to Cambridge has been updated with better and bigger trains and the investment has led to a large increase in passenger numbers.
Where I live, we also have the example of the recently-rebuilt North and East London Lines of the London Overground, which are now used and liked by everybody. In fact, so much so, that frequencies are being increased.
I have also read and heard stories how the new lines have decreased unemployment, just by enabling people to move more easily from where they live to where the jobs are.
I think too, we concentrate on unemployment and rightly so, but in many cases better transport links will enable people to move up the employment ladder. This is just as important, as not only does it create a need to replace the person who’s left, but if people earn more, they tend to spend more and that helps to create jobs.
The Legacy of the Hackney Mole Man
The Mole Man of Hackney or William Lyttle became notorious because of all the tunnels he dug under his house and in some cases his neighbours. He supposedly has cost Hackney Council around £400,000 in making his house safe. This report from the Guardian a few years back gives a lot of detail.
Even now, a couple of years after his death, the site is still in the middle of a planning argument according to this report.
This is a difficult one, in that the building may once have had some architectural merit. I also know from personal experience how expensive it can be to restore buildings when they get to this state. So a complete restoration may only be possible by someone who has more money and imagination than sense.
I’m glad I don’t live next to what is left of the house.
Faking It!
Jerry had a way with building; cheap and nasty.
Take this little gem of a cover over the hole where he should probably have put a bolt to secure the beam.
Another Examp;le of Jerry's Handiwork
Underneath was a hole filled with some sort of mastic. To match the nuts and bolts on the staircase, I needed to create a dome headed bolt that could be screwed or fixed into the hole.
Just as I did when I created the dome-headed bolts, I cut a small length of studding. In this case though I just cut the head off of a brass bolt.
Off With Its Head
That way, I won’t get any electrolytic effects because of dissimilar metals.
A Completed Bolt
The picture shows a completed bolt.
It was then a simple matter of gluing the bolt into the hole using No More Nails.
The Installed Bolt
I suppose I could have used just an ordinary brass bolt, but felt I needed to use the dome-headed theme of the staircase.
The Garage Problem Solved
One of the things that has irritated ever since I have moved in has been the non-working door to my garage. Like many of the things in this house, the previous tenants had broken it. Several people have come to look at it and have usually suggested a new door at a cost of several hundred pounds. After e-mailing the manufacturer’s of the door control, Hörmann, they suggested I try their London distributors, Garage Doors Ltd.
I arranged a visit and yesterday, a guy came on time and an hour later, I had a working door. He also explained what had caused the problem and how I could put a remote control on the door. I like professionals like that, who do the things they are good at, explain what you do in words of one syllable and don’t try to sell you things you don’t or won’t need.
So if you need a garage door, and especially an automatic one, repaired, I would recommend the company.
So when I had a delivery a few hours later, it was just open the garage door and put everything inside.
Credit Where It is Due!
It is difficult these days to find what you need and when you do I think it should be rewarded by a small plug.
When I needed some pictures framed, an old friend of nearly forty years recommended that I try A + B Glass in Stoke Newington High Street, who do windows, mirrors, tabletops and picture framing. I’ve had quite a few reframed and they have certainly done as good a job as I’ve found and at a price that is very competitive to what I used to pay in Newmarket or Cambridge.
I would point to their web site, but they don’t have one. If you need A + B Glass, they are at 124, Stoke Newington High Street, N16 7NY with a phone number of 020-7254-4541. Here’s a picture.
A + B Glass and Framing, Stoke Newington
Since they have replaced three of my double-glazed panels in my windows, that had been broken when I bought the house. Again, friends said the price was very reasonable. They also came and measured one week, giving me an estimate at the time and then delivered and installed the new panes late the next. It was completely hassle free.
One thing that they do is give you a bill immediately, so you can do a transfer immediately over the Internet. I often think that one of the causes of bad cash flow in small businesses is their tardiness in sending out bills. So if it takes three months to arrive, you feel entitled to wait another three.
As I said in this post, if it’s a direct transfer and it fails, it usually isn’t your fault. Cheques have this amazing habit of getting lost in the post. Thatb is if you can find your cheque-book. But it seems that bank transfers are very difficult to lose on the Internet, unless someone makes a typo and then the system hopefully flags it up.
Dead Naff Designs
I am a fan of Grand Designs, although I don’t watch it very often, as it’s on Channel 4 with adverts.
But the show, as the title of this post suggests, was rather a disappointment. I saw a lot of stuff that IKEA do better, but I did find a couple of companies that might be useful to me. I also found a company to help me with a project, but they said they didn’t do that, as they concentrated on their own designs. As the designs weren’t the sort of things that I like, it was probably best anyway! But like me he was an arrogant git!
So all in all, it wasn’t worth the £18 I spent.
What Is Happening On This Site?
Now that the Western Curve which connects the East London line to the North London line is fully operational, there is a sizeable site between Kingsland Road and Dalston Lane, surrounded by a blue fence opposite Dalston Junction station.
What is planned for this site?
Note :-
- The unusual shaped structure is the ventilator for the railway underneath.
- Ashwin Street leads to the old Reeves factory and the Arcola Theatre from opposite Dalston Junction station.
It would seem there is space for a garden and perhaps a safe walkthrough between the two Dalston stations. This could be linked to a light-controlled pedestrian crossing by the station entrance.
How Not To Put Up Blinds
The blinds in the living room are broken and haven’t worked since I moved in.
The Best of the Broken Blinds
This picture shows the best of the unuseable blinds.
Yesterday, I decided I’d had enough and decided to take them down.
It wasn’t as easy as it should have been as Jerry or one of his ilk had struck again.
Plugs In a Wooden Batten
Look how in the picture, he’s used plastic plugs to attach the brackets to the wooden batten under the lintel. Consequently, he’s split the batten.
What a Grade A Tosser!
The Latest Example of Jerry’s Handiwork
One of the features of my house is the chocolate-coloured steel beams used to hold up the roof, form the staircase and as a design feature. This picture shows the beam above the windows in my living room.
Steel Beam Above the Window
You will notice what looks to be brass bolts holding the beam up. In fact they are not bolts at all, but crude brass-coloured pads stuck on the beam.
Yet again Jerry has done the cheap and nasty, rather than followed the instructions of the architect. Well I hope so, as if the architect specified foundations in the same way, the house will fall down.
It looks like I’ll be making some special bolts again.
What a Load of Old Bollards!
I just had to post this picture, I took at Canary Wharf.
Bollards on Parade
I suppose you could call them functional and protective. Just like a troop of Grenadier Guards!
Thw Wikipedia article about Canary Wharf explains how the district was named.
Canary Wharf itself takes its name from No. 32 berth of the West Wood Quay of the Import Dock. This was built in 1936 for Fruit Lines Ltd, a subsidiary of Fred Olsen Lines for the Mediterranean and Canary Island (Insula Canaria (from canis) “Island of Dogs”) fruit trade. At their request, the quay and warehouse were given the name Canary Wharf.
So it had nothing to do with Norwich City!
The Anonymous Widower 