Taking Sides: Clapton vs Clapham

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cuz we really, like, needed another of these threads! they're sort of diametric opposites of each other, even geographically perhaps

― gareth, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Surely London Boroughs DUEL! awaits....

― Tom, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I fear a MOB MENTALITY is developing. Someone stick up for Clapham (apart from Emma).

Clapton = pretty ropey, obviously but I feel at home there in a way I don't in Clapham, in spite of (OR PERHAPS BECAUSE OF) Clapham's demographic much more closely matching my background. Perhaps I just resent Clapham being so aggressively marketed at me..

Or perhaps social strata are just rather more complex than market research categorisations imply (well, duh). Actually, I think I'm an 'urban adventurer' in that new scheme's list.

― N., Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i say escape BOTH and head for sunny sunny Clacton!

― katie, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Leave that to the professionals to judge.

Emma was sticking out for Clapham, anyway.

― Tom, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ho Ho.

― N., Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Where the hell is Clapton?! London?!

― Sarah, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hackney, Sarah. You wouldn't understand.

― N., Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think I was sticking up for Clapham. I was pointing out that the men there are mammary fixated beasts. In the interests of scientific balance I should probably try going to a bar in Camden in something low cut.

Dunno about Clapton though.

― Emma, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Never been to clapton. This is all so north/ south London-centric :)

― j>e>l, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

for jel

― gareth, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I grew up in Clapham but rarely go there now...feels 'foreign' to me. Parts of Clapton are unsavoury but I love Springfield Park and the cafe by the river.

― David Inglesfield, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I want to go to Clapton. I hear it has a pond.

― alix, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i wuv hackney but am not fond of clapton, even tho i cannot deny i live in BOTH: haf even (occasionally) attempted to claim clapton only exists EAST of clapton road but as i live IN clapton square (ie west of cr) this = majorly nogopogo sadly

the distinction i am making is beyond me, so don't ask: perhaps it's a progressive rualism thing (in my day nothing but watercress meadows far as the eye can see etc); either that or blame eric

― mark s, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Alix, if that's the pond that the 48 goes past then you're better off imagining it in your head. It does have a very high murder rate though does Clapton, I still prefer it to Clapham though.

― chris, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Imagining Clapton Pond in Lixi's head? Would it fit?

I have "the Eric problem" with Morecambe and Clapton.

― Tim, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

surely you mean the 38 chris?

mark, you are E5 are you not? E5=Clapton

alix - clapton pond pictured below (sort of)

http://www.norfolkwindmills.com/images/clapton.jpg

― gareth, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Gareth, the 48 goes from the Stow to London Bridge via Lea Bridge road, at the end of there it turns for Hackney, past the oft mentioned (by Mark S anyway) Chimes bar, and then past a grotty looking pond, I always presumed that this was Clapton pond?

― chris, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yikes! Some bastard's tarmacked over the pond!

― Emma, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yes chris, sorry, i'd forgot about the 48! 38 does it too though...

pond got tarmaced by a menacing pub mob, they heard there was a bar underneath.

or

pond behind hedge

― gareth, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, there's some trees. It could be worse. maybe one day I'll get the 253 from Manor House and visit. I doubt it though. I am terribly unfamiliar with that part of London. And also Tottenham, which is a bit bad seeing as I used to live next door to it. Kind of.

― alix, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tottenham is too raw and edgy even for me.

― N., Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tottenham's not so bad, it's got some fantastic bagel shops (especially one that does omelette bagels, yum) but no really good pubs that I can remember. Nasty big place at the top of the Seven sisters road though, can't remember the name of it now but it's rammed every other Saturday.

― chris, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What kind of rammed?

― N., Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

FUCK OFF

(was that the response you were looking for?)

― Jonnie, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Do you mean ram raided or filled with male ovines?

― alix, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tottenham is scary. And I'm not easily scared.

― Emma, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thankyou Jonnie, it was :)

― chris, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Derek Bailey lives in Clapton and you can take that statement either way.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

he does indeed tho I have NEVER seen him there (unlike his partner, and also lol coxhill who i used to see often)

gareth i KNOW i live in clapton i just have some strange reticence about it, which to be honest i cannot explain

the legendary three skinned bears would have to have been in clapton, for example (or just possibly lea bridge)

― mark s, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used to get the 55 bus to Lower Clapton sometimes when I lived in Homerton; not all that, but this was prolly before the sinker years. (Also mark will no doubt say LC ≠ C). Clapham around the indie cinema whatever it's called is quite nice.

― Jeff W, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i bin there or thereabouts since 1982 jeff

― mark s, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I recently met a lovely lady called Lady who lived in Leeds, I asked her man where he met her and he said Clapton.

Clapham is Common.

― Simeon, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

gareth i KNOW i live in clapton i just have some strange reticence about it, which to be honest i cannot explain

Maybe you think Hackney sounds cooler...

― David Inglesfield, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

four months pass...

the strange thing about clapton is how it feels like its on the edge of a cliff. i mean, if you come down from stamford hill on the 253, everything to the east of that road feels like the wilds. when you get to the roundabout just north of the pond, and you look down the lea bridge road towards bakers arms and whipps cross, it feels like another strange world over there. like clapton is clinging to the idea and the edge of london itself, frightened it may fall off and float across the other side of the lea. more so, than homerton, at which the same charge could be levelled (clinging to london, fear of the east proper)

lea bridge and upper clapton also seem so unremittingly dark, absence of sunlight.

― gareth, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

gareth do you like william hope hodgson?

― mark s, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i don't know who he is, but i have the feeling i have written something embarrassing now...

― gareth, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

hang on a minute, this is something to do with radon daughters, right?

― gareth, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

http://home.clara.net/andywrobertson/hpl.gif

― RickyT, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i didn't realise that hodgson, or indeed, emmanuel swedenborg were actually real people, it didn't even occur to me. there is a swedenborg st (lane? gardens? in whitechapel, i thought it was something to do with that. and hodgson, well, silly as it seems, but i ended up, subconsciously, thinking of roy hodgson, the former inter milan and blackburn manager...

what does hodgson have to do with the lea bridge road though?

― gareth, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Have you read any WG Sebald, Gareth? I ask cos the boundary between the historical and fictional in his work is very uncertain, and reading it might have made me oddly sensitive to the possibility of seemingly invented characters having a historical existence and vice- versa in Sinclair's stuff.

― RickyT, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

click it = why i said it

― mark s, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

like clapton is clinging to the idea and the edge of london itself

Walthamstow Marsh feels like the beginning of East Anglia.

― David, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(haha if you follow rickyt's link you find lovecraft saying w.j.hodgson = "of rather uneven stylistic quality" => this is like graham norton calling jade "porcine") (the monsters in house on the borderland are also porcine DO YOU SEE)

― mark s, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks for the mindfuck, Mark S. I'll be crying for a week.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ten months pass...

Hey *I* have just read William Hope Hodgson and it's GRATE! The best stories starring DEVIL-FISH and SWINE-CREATURES not to mention huge giant green ORBS ever and I still haven't finished the House on the Borderland yet so NO SPOILAZ plz.

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 29 May 2003 10:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Clapton scares the fuck out of me after dark, even though I've been there loads of times and never had any grief. Dunno if it's just the murder rate that does it. Way scarier than Tottenham.

Has anyone ever been to the infamous Chimes?

― James Ball (James Ball), Thursday, 29 May 2003 12:51 (twenty-three years ago)

i livw within gunshot

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 29 May 2003 12:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Ahh Clapton... I used to live there in my London days, right next to the Lennox Lewis Community College..
You're right Gareth, a few times I fell asleep and missed the bus stop at Lea Bridge, only to find myself in the middle of nowhere, some deserted wasteland, close to that racehound track..
Never found it scary tho, unlike Tottenhame and Seven Sisters

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Thursday, 29 May 2003 13:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Poxy poxy 253 bus generally throws everyone out at Clapton Pond because of route breaks, so you have to wait for the next one amid the HORROR. Well, the SLIGHT UNEASE, anyway.

Clapham has some pubs and yuppies in it.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 29 May 2003 13:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Poxy poxy 253 bus generally throws everyone out at Clapton Pond

I use this route regularly and have never experienced interruption at Clapton Pond. They generally terminate at either Euston, Nags head or Manor House. In the other direction some of them finish at Hackney bus garage. Sure you've got the right route?

― David (David), Thursday, 29 May 2003 13:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I live in Clapham and it's lovely.

I fucking despise the other people though. I've never lived in such a twat-rich environment.

― Alfie (Alfie), Thursday, 29 May 2003 13:21 (twenty-three years ago)

A couple of years back I was living all too near Clapton, just off Lower Clapton Road, and it was fucking shit round there. One chap I knew who lived further up, towards Ericville proper returned home on a night to be interrupted from his contented drunkeness, while attempting to find the keyhole to his front door, by a hammer blow to the side of his head. His surprise was heightened when he turned to see two teenage girls stood in the gloom behind him, who pushed him bleeding to one side and marched upstairs into his flat. Clutching the side of his head, our man followed them upstairs whereupon they began filling their pockets with his belongings and sparking up Lamborghini’s. Though he shouted at them to leave and threatened to call the police, the girls seemed somewhat reticent to his requests and it was only after lifting his wallet, mobile, discman etc that they calmly exited. It’s like that round there though – another time one of my flatmates was walking back one night when he spied some chap having trouble with his car. The guy caught his eye and calling him over explained that his key was stuck in the lock, would my friend be kind enough to give it a go. Well, though he found the request to be somewhat strange, like a good stroke stupid Samaritan, my friend did just that, causing the ‘key’ to snap off in the lock. As the pieces of the puzzle fell into place (ie. it wasn’t this chap’s car at all), my friend decided to forego the opportunity to question his new acquaintance on the whereabouts of his vehicle registration documents and took instead hard to his heels. A wise precaution, we later agreed.

― Alex K (Alex K), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:21 (twenty-three years ago)

i genuinely like my part of clapton, as it happens

(the "mood" of london changes almost from street to street = one of the interesting things about it)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:33 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

Over a year in Clapton now. Strange perhaps that I have never sensed real fear or tension walking around, I see and hear no badness (but we know it happens now and then). But then the bus stop is only ever 2 mins walk away and the options many. Like other similar areas there's always a kebab shop still open at 5am. Often a lot of people out on the streets because of the Turkish social clubs, Caribbean restaurants and but it adds to sense of 'safety' really. Jehovah's Witnesses out in force and if you're not out of the door before 9.30 they'll catch you. The architecture of the Round Chapel, Victorian primary schools and the abundance of London Planes conspire to push the area as prettier than you'd expect. The duckweed is finally relenting on the pond surface, strewn with beercans and plastic bags tho it is.

Best thing is walking downhill to South Millfields recreation ground, past the first pair of a sequence of pylons that runs far beyond the Wanstead horizon, then onto the Lea bank where it meets Lea Bridge Rd. It's a secluded oasis of green with two neighbouring pubs and a disused mill of some sort. On the river itself a small dishevelled blue barge bears the name 'Ruislip'. No wonder I find it so welcoming. And this is even before you reach idyllic Springfield Park and the Marina.

Oh, yes, Clapham is still OK too.

― ;_; (blueski), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 10:36 (nineteen years ago)

i like this!

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 11:52 (nineteen years ago)

want to go to Clapton. I hear it has a pond.
-- alix (lixibell, February 21st, 2002.

aw, bless, and now she lives there (not in the pond)

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 12:26 (nineteen years ago)

i was gonna do that (quote alix i mean, not live in the pond).

― ;_; (blueski), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

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