James asks

I have noticed that a lot more planes are now flying over Greenwich, which wake up my girlfriend and I at 6 in the morning. I know there was a trial that London Heathrow ran a few months ago, but it does seem that the number of flights over Greenwich have risen over time.

Has anyone else noticed this to be case? Do you know of a group that is currently organising protests against this?

The Phantom replies:

Perhaps a little – and I guess as the weather gets warmer and we keep our windows open at night it’s going to get more intrusive. Certainly there are a load of helicopters that hang over us, circling in the holding pattern waiting for permission to enter London-proper. Occasionally when they hover directly overhead I panic and assume an escaped serial killer is hiding in the back yard. And those Chinooks can be damn loud.

Thing is, I find it really hard to get worked up about this one. We live in a city and cities create noise. Yeah, I get woken up occasionally by a plane, and quite a lot by helicopters. But I also get woken up by neighbours’ parties, tipper trucks, dust carts, the ex-mysterious siren, police cars, teenage boy-racers and the warehouse depot near Phantom Towers where the trucks seem to be in permanent reverse mode. They are all irritating, even rage-inducing, but when we live cheek-by-jowl with each other I don’t really see any real way round it.

It’s not like Greenwich used to be a quiet haven of tranquility. It’s always been noisy – whether you’re looking at dinosaurs crashing their way through the primordial jungle, the glassworks, the armour workshops, the factories, the trams, the aggregates yards or the constant foghorns of the ships that have been replaced by the aircraft.

Our government is convinced that the only way ahead for Great Britain PLC is to increase airport capacity – and frankly they are not going to stop until they get their way. As a vaguely green-leaning enviro-Phantom I detest the idea of a fourth runway/new airport – I don’t believe that if we aren’t the giantest air-hub in the universe people will forget we exist and stop trading with us.

So, personally I do actually oppose extra flights/ runways/ airports, but more as a general thing – and not because of the noise. While the Chicago Convention of 1944 remains in place and the world continues to subsidise aviation fuel, air travel will continue to fly asparagus from Peru in September and French beans from Kenya in January, and I find that difficult to deal with, not the noise.

I know I am alone here and that many are getting really angry with the aircraft noise, but it’s a Monday morning, I’m in a right old mood and it’s my blog.

In the interests of balance, however – and to acknowlege the fact that I’m on me tod here, yes, there is a pressure group – HACAN Clear Skies who campaign across the South East against aircraft noise in general and especially around Heathrow.

I guess I’ll get a lot of flack from this one – let the turkey shoot begin…

I’m going to cheer up this post with lovely pictures of spring, like Stephen’s daffs, in a vain attempt to hide the depressing nature of the actual subject. Thought I’d better get it out of the way while the sun’s still shining…

James asks:

Sorry for the rather dreary request, but I was wondering how your readers in the Gibson/Caradoc St area have been getting on with the new black household/garden waste recycling caddies we were offered recently when the council decided to do something about the usual Monday morning rubbish apocalypse.

Quick photo of a local wildflower – the Deptford Pink:

Still with me? James continues:

My experience has been putting mine out once and finding that it had been stolen by the following morning.
Aside from being forced to draw the rather depressing inference that one of my neighbours has been so cretinously base as to steal something that is easily, legitimately available for free, and while I await the council’s response, I would be interested to know if this has happened to anyone else and what, if anything, they have been able to do about it.

Random moment where the Phantom adds a picture of lovely cherry blossom. Inconveniently, St Alfege is getting murdered underneath it, so clearly I took the picture 1001 years ago last Friday:

So, folks – what is your experience of bin-theft? I haven’t had any bins nicked myself but I have come across it – yes, even the big wheelies. I have no idea who the hell could be bothered to pinch what James points out as being free anyway – I mean it takes effort to cart ‘em away or hoist them up onto trucks. And if they are taken by people who intend to sell them on – who to? Maybe the little caddies are pinched by kids?

I guess some people do leave their bins out all week, even if they have somewhere inside their gates to keep them (usually shared property, perhaps everyone thinks it’s everyone else’s job) and all the bins I know of that have been nabbed have been from shared property.

Better have a nice picture of some tulips from Benedict:

I guess I’d be (mildly) curious to know how many bins actually do get pinched each year, what it costs the council and what their response is.

One last picture of spring to brighten up the post. Can’t remember who sent me this, but here’s hoping that when the weather gets colder after today it doesn’t end up like this:

Paul says:

According to The Greenwich Society newsletter The Cutty Sark Tavern are seeking planning permission for a safety rail for their famous and fabulous wall where people like to sit dangling their legs over the river, while supping pints and watching the world go by.

Other changes in the pub have been positive, well refurbished, with a good new menu, and feature evenings (even though we miss the uncomfortable barrel chairs!).

The Phantom agrees. Whatever happened to the concept of personal responsibility? If you’re old enough to hold a pint in your hand, you’re old enough to take care. If you’re responsible enough to have a small child with you it’s up to YOU to make sure said small child doesn’t fall in the water. It’s not someone else’s problem. Sea and river walls have been around for centuries – yes, they can be hazardous but it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of humans to just use a bit of common sense and not take stupid risks.

I guess the pub doesn’t want to be sued if some idiot falls in. But if I recall there’s already a notice whereby they take no responsibility for stolen items etc. I don’t see it’s their problem if someone across the road from them does something stupid. I guess they could put up another ‘at your own risk…’ type notice though I seem to remember there’s also already a ‘danger’ sign. Stating the bloomin’ obvious, of course, but frankly enough as far as I’m concerned.

IMHO a safety rail is totally unnecessary. We shouldn’t be whinging to others the second we do something silly and Bad Stuff happens. It ISN’T always someone else’s fault. This wall isn’t intrinsically dangerous if it’s treated with respect. We shouldn’t be turning our riverfront into a fortress.

If you agree, do email the new managers Andy and Monse at cuttysark@youngs.co.uk and let them know what you think. If you don’t, tell me here

Thank you to everyone who sent me the link to Andrew Gilligan’s column about the Cutty Sark winning Building Design Magazine‘s coveted Carbuncle Cup for this year’s Worst New Building in Britain, beating off stiff competition from the ArcelorMittal Orbit (a construction even its designer hates) and the Titanic Museum in Belfast.

They point to the ghastly glass lifts and viewing pods ‘punched’ through the hull, the still-worrying decision to raise the ship on stilts so they can put a corporate function suite below and the bog-awful lift-tower outside, none of which I can argue with.

There’s no doubting that this has ended up as a Disney version of the old ship and it is a bit of a shock if you’re not expecting it.

There are myriad ways that they could have done it better.

Call me old fashioned but frankly I’ve always thought that just restoring her as best as possible to what she would have looked like when she was launched, without all the clumsy modern parapehnalia (especially in that lift tower – I find it hard to imagine how anyone could make glass look clumsy but somehow they’ve managed it…) I’ve not visited the SS Great Britain’s restoration yet, but that’s the sort of thing I was hoping to see on the Cutty Sark (and that was in a much worse condition – my Dad, when he was a kid, lived down the road from the bloke who cut a massive hole in the iron hold so he could use it as a sheep-pen and they’ve even managed to deal with that).

But in some respects I’m just glad to have her back – after that fire (a criminal piece of negligence on the part of  someone, who doesn’t appear to have ever been even ticked off) I honestly thought she’d just be carted away, like the Gipsy Moth – the other ship we couldn’t be trusted to look after. She may not last long on those stilts but we do have her for a little while yet.

I have to disagree with Gilligan on one thing though – call me a silly, shallow, fluffy Phantom but I adore those fairy lights; they make me smile every time I see her all lit up. And however much I hate the idea of her being hoisted up on poles, this view is rather good:

Nancy says

Just wanted to pass on my concern about local shop closures.  LeFleur, the flower and teashop on Royal Hill, shut its doors this past week (and sold off much of the interior); Stitches and Daughters, which has existed in some form or another for 40 years, in Blackheath and in Greenwich, has announced through a note on its door (confirmed by the shop attendant) that it is likely to cease trading in a few months. While neither business was doing terrifically before the Olympics, this seems an unlikely coincidence.  

No one can deny that the Olympics/Paralympics effected trade in Greenwich, with lane closures and crowds keeping, I am told, many regular customers away and not replacing them with an equal number of new ones.  A few businesses may have done well — Davy’s Wine Bar and the pub across from the main gate to Greenwich Park appeared well stocked with Olympic clients —  but during an economic downturn, this month-long, unchosen hiatus in normal trade may have been just enough to tip many into into closure.

There’s no denying we’re losing sweet indies like la Fleur (I did take a nice photo of some customers leaving with half the shop under their arm, including tables and a ‘tearooms’ sign but I appear to have lost it, gah…) and I can only assume the worst for Hooper and Palmer at Westcombe Park station, which has been closed for some time.  And as many will know by now, Bar du Musee is to be replaced by a Jamie’s Italian.

But is this really all due to the Olympics? True, there were issues in the first week or so, and they were never totally resolved, but frankly, I think this is wider than that. It’s not just in Greenwich places are closing – the whole country is seeing turndowns.

Could it be that we are just not going to the sweet indies enough? Hooper and Palmer was gorgeous to look at, and admittedly there were fewer trains at Westcombe Park during the ‘lympics,  but they had the misfortune of opening after Pistacchios in the Park, enormously popular with families for being – well – in a park and not next to a road, as much as anything. I loved to look at it, but if ever I was passing, I was on my way somewhere  - it wasn’t a destination.  I meant to go – and never did.

La Fleur, again a gorgeous-to-look-at place, for me, never really made the transition from florist to cafe – it opened rather odd hours, which I never fully got my head around, and did very little in the way of food – which although perfectly nice, didn’t come up to Royal Teas standard IMHO. I think most people thought of it as a florist that did the occasional cuppa – certainly when I was in there, there seemed to be a steady flow of people either coming in or phoning to buy flowers or plants – and being told (rather brusquely) that they didn’t sell them any more.

As for Bar du Musee – well, I can’t see that the Olympics is to blame for that one – it was a cough and a spit from the venue.  For me, that place lost its soul many years ago, when Inc. took over, going from mysterious, eccentric oddity – a really quirky, original experience – to a theme bar where the theme was the bar it used to be. After my mum and me arriving and being ignored in a nigh-on empty restaurant for 15 minutes by gossiping waiters, my last visit was three years ago.

Don’t get me wrong – I am really sad that we are losing our indies – but I do wonder how much blame we should be putting on ourselves for this.

I was a regular coffee drinker at LaFleur (when it was open) but I put my hands up now – I never got round to visiting Hooper and Palmer (much as I intended to) and I can’t remember the last time I visited Stitches and Daughters – mainly because, apart from a copy of Neil Rhind’s Blackheath and Environs, they don’t really do the sort of stuff I buy.

If we want to see these places survive we have to use them. Certainly from Hooper and Palmer I’ve learned something – seize the day – If I see an interesting new place, don’t wait for a gap in the schedule, visit now – it might not be there when I’m actually ready.

I really hope that we don’t lose our indies to chains – Jamie’s Italian will be taking up a large chunk of Nelson Road now (mainly due to Inc’s greed, hollowing out the place at the back to make the venue into such a bloated monster). But we have to support them if we want to keep them.

I notice that Greenwich Communications Centre are starting a new support club for the next generation of would-be entrepreneurs. Their first meeting is next Tuesday.

Right. I’m off to get a coffee at L’Artisan…

I’ve just had a comment in my last post that I felt needed addressing as a separate post, as I suspect everyone on here will have a view and it may well not be my own. That’s okay. That’s what debate is for.

Park Keeper said:

“I don’t mind the park being closed…..” (quoting TGP)

“…..view of a park-loving local?”

Make up your phantom mind!

Just what do you care about and what would you protect? Fenced in Disneyland or open to all park and precious but fragile World Heritage Site?

Like many others can’t wait to see the back of Coe and all this half arsed chaos.”

Park keeper – like many people I have watched what has been going on, listened to what everyone – on all sides – has to say and gradually adjusted my feelings about this event as facts change, concessions are made, goalposts are moved and realities faced.

Seven years ago, when the park was first mooted as a venue I was apoplectic because I genuinely thought that LOCOG could not be trusted to keep the park in the kind of condition that Greenwich deserves. I still don’t think that without being forced, it could have been.

I was absolutely sure that holding the event there wasn’t the right thing to do and, yes, I backed the people trying to stop it.

I feel that something really good came out of that campaign, even if it was not what many of those people actually wanted.

What they – and various amenity groups, friends, Parks officials, council etc. – got was far more positive than just cancelling the equestrian events.

What has happened, through negotiation, compromise and actually listening to people, is that we get a games that will look fantastic, be good in the long-term, if not in the short, for Greenwich, hasn’t lost any ancient trees, has avoided the really delicate areas and that has a genuine commitment to put the park right afterwards.

Of course I am concerned to see that this commitment is honoured and I am not entirely without worries on that account. It’s up to all of us to ensure that LOCOG and their legacy-based successor (the name escapes me) does do the right thing.

And yes, there is a tonne of stuff that I’m not wild about to do with the games coming here. I don’t like the fortress the town has turned into. I don’t like the petty power-mongers in hi-viz vests who are ordering people around. I don’t like that the heath is going to be a right old mess. I don’t like…well, I could write another thousand things I don’t care for about the games being here.

But there comes a point where we have to be realistic about something that will happen anyway whether we like it or not and there is much that I DO like about the games being on my doorstep, not least the thing that yes, I pooh-poohed seven years ago – the way the thing looks on TV.

The brave thing is to get behind it, enjoy the bits that are enjoyable, highlight the bits that need scrutiny and judge everything on its own merits rather than taking one hard line or other and sticking to it despite whatever other evidence might be presented.

None of anything I’ve just said even here is set in stone. It’s entirely possible that my opinions will change again. I don’t see why I should ‘make my mind up’ for once and all on a subject that changes with the wind.

What do I care about? Greenwich, of course, but not at the expense of sanity.

I understand there was a horrible accident on Bugsby’s Way yesterday, between a pedestrian and a 486 bus, at the crossroads where the Odeon is. The Twitter feeds I saw claimed it was fatal, and if so I am thinking of that person’s relatives today, and what they must  be going through. I can’t imagine what that must be like or what I could say to make it any better at all.

Thing is, though, this isn’t the first accident there by any means. Jon tells me that  “this happened 3 weeks ago at the same spot with a 108 bus and a pedestrian” but despite the air ambulance’s attendance there “was no mention in the local papers or anywhere else” – certainly it wasn’t mentioned here as I didn’t know about it. Nor did I know about  the incident a year ago at same spot when a school girl was hit by a bus.

Clearly the proverbial ‘something’ needs to be done about this junction. There’s certainly a very odd piece of road management for car drivers coming from the direction of the O2 and wanting to turn right to go to B&Q /Sainsburys/Comet/ Odeon, where the ‘obvious’ place to turn is actually a bus-only lane; drivers are required to take the one immediately left of that. It is marked with No Entry signs, but isn’t clear if you’re seeing the junction for the first time and I’ve seen dozens of cars taking the wrong route over the years. I’ve never made that mistake myself (though I have accidentally driven down the bus lane on West Parkway thanks to duff signage) but I have to stop and think every time.

But this wasn’t between a car and a bus, as far as I know, but a pedestrian. Now, part of the problem could be pedestrians jay-walking because there’s a long wait between green men, or because there’s only an official crossing between GMV and the retail park on one side – if you’re coming from, say, Moseley Row and wanting to cross on the side near Holiday Inn, it’s pretty tempting to nip across the bit that doesn’t have a proper crossing. I know I’ve done it on occasion, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

According to Jon, even that’s not the issue. He lives at GMV and tells me that he watches, day in, day out, buses speeding and running red lights. If it’s that, then short of cameras at the traffic lights to catch people doing that (and I’m not even sure if it counts for buses?) then I’m a bit stuck.

Whatever, yesterday’s tragic incident is the third in two years. With building resuming on the peninsula, this really needs to be looked at.

Whenever something’s proposed for Greenwich (or indeed the rest of London),  developers these days always virtuously cite their consultations with local focus groups, client teams, stakeholders, ‘local residents’, interest groups, committees and a whole host of other unnamed people who’ve apparently had their two penn’orth on the final plans.

I find myself wondering who makes up these groups, how they’re chosen and how much say these representatives of the rest of us actually have.

So today I’m curious. Are you on any kind of focus group/committee/stakeholder’s forum or interest group? How did you get on it? Do you think you have any notice taken of you? Have you had any personal influence? Or do you feel you’re a mere fig leaf for the developer’s embarrassing parts?

I don’t necessarily need details, either of yourself or your project, it’s just a question I’m throwing out to the ether this morning.

Okay – so as you can see from Joe’s pic here, stuff IS happening at the Heart of East Greenwich site. Whether they’re actually doing anything useful or just moving earth around to abide by rules that say they have to be seen to have started by a particular date is yet to be seen, but at least something’s happening. From a distance, this photo looks like a lovely cornfield, but obviously it’s just your bog-standard  urban brownfield site.

You’d have thought you could do anything with a site like that, wouldn’t you? You’re starting afresh – a blank canvas, carte-blanche, virgin territory and other such clichés. You could say you wanted a this, a that or a something else and it would be doable, because there’s nothing there to stop you, yeah?

No, apparently.

I’ve been hearing about the young divers at Greenwich Swimming Club. As most people know, the new leisure centre at our blank canvas site will have two pools – a splash-around fun /teaching pool and a serious ‘fitness’ pool. Perfect for the club, eh?

Er, no.

Elaine, one of the swimmers’ mums, explains:

So many people have told me about the consultation for the proposed TfL crossing proposals that I guess I should at least start a discussion here about them though of course Darryl at 853 has already said much sound stuff about it already.

I confess I’m finding it hard to get worked up about it myself. Not because I think it’s a particularly good idea – I don’t – it’s just going to send the bottleneck from one part of the A2 to another part – but because I sincerely think it’s never going to happen. It’s just been introduced as another random mad idea by Boris a couple of months before – oh, yes, I remember – an election.

Let’s face it – we haven’t got the cash. He cancelled a bridge – which costs a hell of a lot less than a tunnel – ostensibly on financial grounds (though it’s not hard to guess the real reason) and nigh on four years after that fiasco, we have even less money. Ken disapproves of the idea. So – Boris can’t afford it and Ken would cancel it anyway.

I can’t help feeling that this is a battle that we don’t actually need to knock ourselves out on – like the periodic pedestrianisation-of-Greenwich-Town-Centre plans that rock up every so often this is a chestnut that rears its head every few years, then, just when everyone’s got themselves lathered up, ducks itself down again like one of those intermittent faults you get in car engines.

Of course, I know I’m going to be shot down in flames for such complacency. I just can’t help feeling we’ve been here before – several times – and now is just a little early to start mounting the barricades.

Tickets will be available in ten years’ time for Ye Grande Phantome Tricorn-Eating event…