What have I missed since October 24th?
The news this week was of eurozone bail outs, thermal imaging of tents and the demise of Jimmy Saville. Goodness gracious me, what do we have here? Why, it’s the weekly whampnews of course.
The West Hampstead community centre got plenty of coverage for its current woes – related to funding and premises. Will it stay open for the Christmas panto on December 18th?
The council launched consultations on two-way cycling on many of our one-way streets, and on turning all of West Hampstead into a 20mph zone.
Camden released its annual parking report.
A few more Overground trains will pass through West Hampstead from December.
Lots of you noticed the steam train that unusually whizzed past on the Chiltern Railways line rather than the Overground. Apparently, it was a special service from Marylebone to Birmingham to mark the retirement of Chiltern boss Adrian Shooter.
Thameslink released photos of the station development.
We discovered that we came close to having a motorway passing through the area in the late 1960s.
Camden arranged for some new planting in Kilburn Grange park, which turned into a photo-op for councillors.
Sarracino got a plug on The Guardian’s football podcast (ff to 28’10”).
Vertigo Films shot a short film for the Cultural Olympiad on the Alexandra & Ainsworth estate. Camden meanwhile is grumbling about a lack of central funding for the Games itself.
Roger Samuel estate agents and Kilburn’s newest pizzeria/wine bar Raw Brick joined Twitter.
A new wine shop – Vini Vivi – opened on Mill Lane, joining new bike shop Jazz Cycles.
The whisky & chocolate tasting at The Gallery was a hit.
Coming up
The Swiss Cottage Area Action Group on Monday evening (7pm, Crossfield Centre) will focus on recycling/rubbish.
Watch out for parking suspensions on Fordwych Road this week due to ongoing pavement works
There’s a meeting on Wednesday about possible new flats (up to 5 storeys) on the Iverson Rd garden centre site.
Residents associations are meeting on Monday evening to discuss a coordinated response to the various large-scale planning developments.
Sadly there are no free fireworks displays in the immediate area this year. The Roundwood Park display has been cancelled, as has the Alexandra Palace display for the second year running. Westway is the nearest for most people. Or relive the excitement of 2009 – the first Bonfire Night with enough people tweeting to make it interesting.
Tweet of the Week
Stiff competition this week, but this one sums up lots of people’s views about West End Lane’s café culture:
What a shame colleen02127’s tweet was chosen to represent our opinions on cafe culture on West End Lane. I thought it was an incredibly unfair and selfish thing to tweet, and a surprisingly negative choice of tweet for this week’s summary. Just because a woman has a child doesn’t mean she can’t look her best, plus babies scream to communicate so why punish them for it? Even if the mother can’t see to its needs, there’s still no need to banish them from enjoying the local treats. I hope I speak for the majority, by saying mums, babies and families are a happy and welcome part of West End Lane.
Oh dear. Not sure I’d say it “represents our opinions”, it’s just in the tradition of most Tweets of the Week, which tend to be semi-humorous messages poking fun at the stereotypes of Kilburn or West Hampstead and certainly aren’t meant to be taken too seriously. I don’t think most people mind small children/babies in our local cafés, although there are times when there are so many buggies in places that it’s hard to get to a table or hear yourself think – which is as annoying to some customers as no doubt a packed bar at The Alice House is to others.
Holy Ay Caramba! That proposal for the motorway in the 1960s looks like a horrorshow. I hadn't realised that the love-affair with the motorcar was so major. Thanks for a very interesting slice of nearly-was.