Ladies Unite!
Mrs Grumpy
It’s been bothering me for some time.
Who are these miserable traders and anarchists and allotment holders who throng Stoke Newington’s green and pleasant lands, and regularly trouble us with their planning problems, the 2012 Olympics (as if), their ingrowing toe-nails and the failure of their business visions? Why is nearly everything in N16 (apart from all the really good bits, by Suzy and Thamasin and Helen, and even Saskia – although she’s a bit too la-di-da for me) written by grumpy old men? (And some grumpy young ones. come to that?)
Why can’t Tottenham and Arsenal live in peace and harmony (or just shut up)? Why does anyone care? And is it technically and biologically possible to say one more meaningful thing about Newington Green without losing the will to live?
While we’re about it, do we need to have anything more about the bloody swimming pool? Surely it’s obvious that it will never open again, that Jules Pipe is the devil’s spawn, that New Labour didn’t work then, isn’t working now, and that Clissold Park will soon be paved over and redeveloped – properly – as 1400 live-work units for creative terrapins? If you need to swim, move to the coast. Or Spain.
Do we need to suffer words like ‘multicultural’, ‘bendy-bus’, ‘thriving’, ‘bohemian’ and ‘vibrant’ more than once a year? When words like ‘street-cleaning’, ‘dustbins’ and the phrase ‘sack the lot of them, or go away and make your own bloody socialist republic’ actually have much more meaning and relevance? Do we need UN peace-keepers for this tortured corner of North London? Or could we perhaps just get on with it and stop bleating?
Ladies – it’s time to fight back. While I hold no brief for the buggy-botherers of the yummy mummy brigade (pace the great Sue Heal), I would argue that we have more to offer the residents of our dear postal district than recipes. Think, sisters, of our proud heritage of wild women and naughty persons of the female persuasion, who once roamed the world of N16. Could I not plea, through the pages of this august organ, for something else – something that speaks not of the angst, the police, or even the farmers’ market, but of real life, of the universe that exists in spite of both the Guardian and N16?
Sisters: that’s the challenge. Have we all shut up? Or can we challenge this sad, male sobbing-in-beer tendency with our own vision? Don’t let me down. N16 can be ours, once more.
Write to the magazine now – and often. It worked in Florida – it could work here.
Pictured: a piece by French-born local artist Lili Phelouzat, featured in a recent Stokey exhibition of her work. Lili, who has lived in Stoke Newington for four years, sees herself as an ‘abstract impressionist’, citing Moebius, Klimt and Deschamp amongst her influences. Lili likes Banksy because ‘it’s not meant to be there’. For more information on Lili’s work, email lilipetonet@hotmail.com.
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