Neighbourhood gentrification is a mixed blessing. Not rescuing slums and tending window boxes, but the more commercialised variety that seems to take all the quirky character out of a street. So Kilburn High Road still has tiny restaurants with local customers and no chain affiliation. Pubs that have history - in one case 525 years of it. Architectural idiosyncrasy. But yesterday we saw that, the Junk Shop not withstanding, Greenwich is going upscale. Goddard's pie shop is still there, albeit in new premises, after over a hundred years in the same family, but wine bars and little boutiques are slowly displacing small cafés and second hand bookshops. And Queensway, in Bayswater, when J and I had our first meal there - our first meal together ever - twenty-four years ago, was funkier, less ''expensive, more real. Will Kilburn suffer the same fate? What about Brixton?
The news today, of course, is that Baroness Thatcher has died. Tributes of course - and many who view her legacy with some bitterness as well. An amazing number of interviewees on television, but then, whether or not anyone expected the death right now, it has been inevitable for some time and the media have had lots of time to prepare.
The news today, of course, is that Baroness Thatcher has died. Tributes of course - and many who view her legacy with some bitterness as well. An amazing number of interviewees on television, but then, whether or not anyone expected the death right now, it has been inevitable for some time and the media have had lots of time to prepare.
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