so horsemouth failed to go out on the e15 mum's march yesterday (a campaign to prevent working class mums and their children from being rehoused outside london when hundreds of social housing flats lie empty on the estates) - he feels suitably guilty. he'd forgotten about it until the morning in question and not liking surprises he got a wobble on. he'd assumed they we making the same huge march they did last time but no it was a comparatively short and un-puritan ramble round stratford.
instead (or just after, it would have been, in the horsemouth does everything chronology) he went up to quantative easing park a tiny corner of which covers over the site of the old clays lane housing co-op, which was the second largest purpose built housing co-op for single people but is now no longer social housing but trees and fields - landscaped out of existence. and as john notes frequently the wrong type of trees (a species that likes muddy feet planted on well drained hillsides for example and now obviously not thriving).
horsemouth has written before about the closing down of clays lane (perhaps intemperately) but this was probably just personal pique at having been evicted out of his best flat ever to make way for refugees from it - and they weren't even happy about this as many of them wanted the community to be refounded elsewhere rather than be dispersed round the various councils, almos, tmos (sorry about the technical housing terms) of london. and this was just the ones who stayed to the bitter end - horsemouth's friends who left during the years of its decline got nisht. but there was (at least) some compensation and rehousing for the remaining members - and for all people's rose tinted memories of 'the lane' it was not a vastly loved place - there were plenty of conflicts. horsemouth's friends who lived there probably know better. even so horsemouth went to some great parties there.
in some ways, and this was the perspective at the london federation of co-ops, the clays lane management committee did it to themselves - there was a deal on the table they prefered to get the lawyers in (and they lost). the co-op had a complicated courtyard democracy management structure which meant it was difficult to provide all the documentary evidence that elections to the management committee had been taken correctly. the result of this was that any attempt to refound the management committee to deal with difficult circumstances could always be challenged. this all came up again recently in another context (the world of housing is a small one after all) - horsemouth should re-read his piece to see if he's being fair, at the time he was quite angry and it seemed to him a manifest and deliberate injustice but perhaps it was just a fuckup that could have been avoided or at least mitigated better.
and hey! he really liked that flat.
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anyway - horsemouth walked home from QE park, got a quick bite to eat, and then went into town to hear the stick in the wheel album launch.
first on was jack sharp (of the wolf people) at first solo and then with two other singers - good songs, great singing, perhaps a joke about the folk audience being more likely to be pro-hunting that other audiences (introducing a song about hare coursing) needs work.
then the gentle people - horsemouth likes the four piece line up and the harmonies (a 30 minute song-cycle with only 1 noticeable fuckup -wow),
and then stick in the wheel who played the tracks in the order they are on the new album (reviewed in the observer today). they recently played the house of commons where the made sarah champion (MP for rotheram and member of the shadow cabinet) cry.
horsemouth is of the opinion more MPs should be reduced to tears on a regular basis but perhaps he's just being intemperate.
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