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In this issue

How safe are our streets
Nimby roadblock
Whose land is it anyway?
News in brief
Group therapy
The bells of St Mary's
Festival news
Ladies who lunch
Straight to the Point
The Ermine Road
Local talent
Music Listings
Arts Stuff
Daniel Defoe
Vortex at the Ocean
Surfing N16
Cheep frills
How does your garden grow?
Man in the North Bank
Crossword

p17

So it's open-ish. Against all my better instincts, I have to say, I dusted down the leotard, charged the defibrillator and joined up for a touch of 'Get Those Legs Up Girls' at the spanking new Clissold Leisure Centre. The bit of it that's not been smashed to smithereens by local youth culture, that is. Those plate glass windows were always going to set juices salivating.

CLC looks great but it's what my old Gran used to call Fur Coat and No Knickers. Darken the doors and bits of it are still being hammered into submission. The builders must feel like Peter Ustinov who spent so much time making one movie that when his small son was asked what Dad did for a living replied, 'He makes Spartacus'.

My own dealings with CLC have been less than auspicious. Due to an old knee injury I'm not allowed to enter the gym until I've had a conversation with Nurse. But Nurse has consistently failed to ring. But they're perfectly willing for me to join an A League aerobics class which would leave Linford Christie panting and put my leg in the Homerton for the foreseeable duration. And that's just the half of it.

I know precisely what the old patella can take and what it can't and it's not like we're talking major by-pass here but, like Hackney Council itself, CLC seems egg-bound by lumbering systems which don't work and are haphazardly updated on a daily crisis basis. The Reception staff don't know where they are (they've got 'Here Comes Trouble' stamped on their foreheads each time someone approaches the desk) and neither do we whose Direct Debits tick remorselessly on. They need to close the place down for a good week and get it sorted.

'But shall we all live long enough for this to happen?' I asked myself while reading the Sunday Mirror who have it on good authority that Stokey is now the Murder Capital of Britain. There was a full-page printout of our cosy corner of the A to Z replete with positions of bodies and weapons used. It gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. The only thing missing was a big arrow in the middle pointing to 'Sue's House.' In the last month alone I've talked to four sets of friends who are loading up the truck for off. Will the last person to leave please ... I know one thing, it ain't gonna be me.

On a more positive note may I extend a warm welcome to the new manager of the Nat West bank in the High Street whose arrival has been greeted like the Second Coming, especially by me. For months the place has resembled a UN Disaster Zone, queues literally stretching out the door, fights breaking forth on a depressingly regular basis, two cashiers at the end of their tethers and loads of small chains with no bloody pens on the end of them! After a particularly stressful morning I got cheesed off with the peculiarly British Dunkirk Spirit prevailing, 'Never mind, it's the weekend at least it gives you time to clip your toenails' and refused to sing The White Cliffs Of Dover one last time. I stormed off home and rang Nat West HQ who burst into action on the letter writing front and a nice area manager rang to wring his hands. I'd like to think the improvements are all down to me. They're not, of course. One thing Stokey teaches you is that you're powerless against the creaky old machine. Was that a gunshot in the distance? Pip Pip.

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