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Greetings From Sunny Stockwell

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onionbag blogger

Thursday 26 July, 2007

Wish you were here

Another South London summer, another fatal shooting in Sunny Stockwell.

*sigh*

Where's Vest Man?

Sometimes I truly do despair of the SW8 'community.' Yes, it's so easy to construct your own soap opera around where you live, living in a fantasy bubble where we all work, rest and ~~shag~~ play together, finishing off the day with a good 'ol knees up around the piano in, um, The Swan.

At least the murder rate in Stockwell sometimes makes Eastenders seem believable. And yes, Google Albert Square, SW8 and you'll see that we even have our own little soap opera set.

But the SW8 community is very much fact, not fiction. It manifests itself in the most mundane ways; the owner of the Porto bakers Di Lieto apologising to me today as I popped in to pick up my daily French stick:

'We're going on holiday next week - so sorry...'

Or perhaps the Tennants drinking Caribbean Queen who politely knocked on onionbagblog HQ II yesterday to let me know that the knobber within had left his keys in the front door.

Or possibly even Vest Man remarking that 'I 'aint see you around for a while, y' cunt!' as I passed through his patch last week.

It makes you happy that you're living around here and not some hell hole like Bayswater, Bond Street or Brent Cross. There's no mistaking Stockwell for some suburban satellite station when you pass through. Not as bad as Brixton, not as crap as Clap'ham, should be the tagline written underneath Stockwell station on the tube map.

And then something so utterly shit as the latest shooting puts Stockwell in the headlines once again. In less than 24 hours, onionbagblog has gone from dopes to dopes with guns. It's enough to make a South London boy with a cycling obsession pedal off somewhere more exotic.

But then I think of all the relationships I have built up around here. If I was living up in North London, then I would no doubt call these 'contacts,' as most of them have led to some money coming my way.

But nope - they're relationships. South Londoners alike, who realise the value of a helping hand doesn't always have to translate to dosh.

In the same morning of the current shooting, I got a call from a ~~contact~~ friend asking about the copyright situation on one of my recent pictures to use for a local publication.

Nice to get the call, unlike the Lambeth Council knobbers who just lifted a picture of mine last week for their propoganda rag - no asking of permission, no picture credit and definitely no payment.

The picture request for this morning was from a project from a few months back involving South London Yoof. Kids of 14, 15 and 16, doing what kids of 14, 15 and 16 do all around the country at this time of year - kicking a ball around and taking the piss out of each other. South London Yoof even took the piss out of me, but then again I was wearing lycra.

My images all seem so far away from the pictures the knobber mainstream whores are currently broadcasting, but the actual distance is less than half a mile away.

I can't even be arsed to take photographs of the mainstream knobber media whores taking photographs of a big empty nothing any more. There's nothing to see - move along...

I use to live on the estate where the shooting took place in the early hours of the morning. The fragrant mrs onionbagblogger and I rather liked it and even tried to buy our first flat there.

We were put off by the proximity to The Swan, not the shitty headlines that it attracts.

And what's with the bandana's and gang connection? I have been known to *whisper* wear a bandana in the gym. It doesn't make me a member of a gang, although it does make me look a knobber.

Is there an inherent problem in my little patch of South London?

Probably not.

Is there a population of predominantly young kids which makes the percentage ratio of retards running around with guns seem proportionately higher here than anywhere else?

Perhaps.

It's all too easy to romanticise my little corner of South London and make fun of the mainstream knobber whores. What's more difficult is to make sure that the mainstream knobber whores don't have a reason to come back to Sunny Stockwell full stop.

That's the real task. Talking with South London Yoof would be a good start.

I was going to hold back with these pictures for another time. But what would you rather see? The big empty nothing of mainstream knobber whores, or pretty pictures of my particular patch?

A slight change in personal circumstances has left me with a little more time in South London - hurrah! Nope, I'm NOT back Somewhere in SE17, but 'hot-desking' I believe is the ~~knobber speak~~ buzz word for being caught between SW8 and the lovely liberal elite.

The best of both worlds, the Naughty North and the Sexy South. And that's just the upstairs / downstairs divide at onionbagblog HQ II.

I'm a South London Soul Boy at heart, although the lovely liberal elite are very decent folk. It all leaves me with a little more time to look around the ever changing area of SW8 and the Sunny Stockwell / Oval / Vauxhall Triangle of Intrigue, something that I have neglected of late with my North London time demands.

Now then, where's Vest Man?

Sunny Stockwell, 26/07/07

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Where's Vest Man?

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