Camden Market / Camden Lock Market, Classic or Dud thesedays?

It's funny, people have been saying that Camden Town's lost its edge for almost twenty years now, but it's basically still -- by any normal standard of measurement -- a bit of a shithole. It's a lovely old shithole, though. Mega City is still there. The Roundhouse is great. The Camden Brasserie is still cheap and does nice chips. The Monarch is more-or-less the same. And you can still get battered sausages, rockabilly and reliably shite beer at the Marathon.

I went to Camden market a couple of weeks ago for the first time in light years, as my colleague from India was keen to see it, and it wasn't the gruesome experience I feared it would be. It seems the various sections - crappy tourist rubbish, vintage clothes, relatively tasteful accessories, smart expensive furniture, etc - are quite clearly marked out.

Any truth to the rumours that the Stables market is to get demolished?

Plus, the toilet at the World's End is still the worst in the city. It's like the crows leaving the Tower of London. If someone installs a proper loo there, we're all screwed.

I think people saying Camden's lost its edge are talking more about the sense that the area is "over" as far as being hip, rather than it not being edg-y anymore. It's still rough and full of junkies & crackheads.

Mind you, now Camden's Trendy Hawley Arms is the hip place to be.

its the area that refuses to gentrify

oh i like the hawley arms!

I say demolish the whole thing and build a bland identikit shopping centre over the shithole. The blander the better.

Yeah it takes ages to get to the Starbucks on Parkway, they need one closer to the tube station.

I say demolish the whole thing and build a bland identikit shopping centre over the shithole. The blander the better.

I was tempted to advance this idea on the Save Camden Market Facebook group, but I didn't want to be that one guy who joins a group just to argue with its premise

You should join the "I joined a group just to argue with its premise" group.

Argh paradox!

p.s. camden market has always been mediocre. i actually like it better these days. feels less crowded than years ago.

best place around there is the Oddballs juggling shop.

That still going eh? Good to hear it.

I guess the blind short guy that sang Beatles songs with a zither has gone for good!

They used to have a bigger shop in Old Street, that's been shut for years but the camden shop is still there xpost

I love the atmosphere, the pubs, and the Chinese food. But God the market's really really awful. Just wall to wall hippy/tourist tat that you only find there or at festivals.

Chinese food?

yeah, smelled lovely. By the bridge, just through the 'door'

Oh I know it's there, just not convinced about its quality that's all. Especially if the complain later was about tourist tat that you find at festivals.

had some nice Japanese food from the stalls around the lock.

or maybe it was crap, but it SEEEMED good.

you only looked at it?

yeah, only looked. Was dashing to get into Zoo des Londres to see the new grills.

oh that was to stevem

damn son

http://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/02/09/camden460x276.jpg

holy shit.

oy vey

Sky news reporter on the scene: "I'M SURROUNDED BY DRUNK PEOPLE!".

Fire behind the Hawley Arms, "where Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty are regulars". Open and shut case, M'lud.

yeah, this is pretty bananas. i have some friends who live around there -- i hope they're ok.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44416000/jpg/_44416478_camden4_416300jpg.jpg

fuckin' 'ell! that's a big fire.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_01/camdenFIRE0902_468x297.jpg

Moira Smith, 46, also of Kentish Town, saw the flames out of the window of her home "and the next minute, it was on the news ILX".

No casualties, it seems.

god. there must be at least £200 worth of nice vintage clothes, poof, gone, just like that.

haw!

Pete told me about this in the pub last night and I just assumed it was a lie.

Bloody big fire though - all that tat isn't half flammable.

Not a big Silverfish fan myself but this is perhaps going a bit too far.

god. there must be at least £200 worth of nice vintage clothes, poof, gone, just like that.

Where's Noel Fielding going to get his clothes from now, eh?

^^^ i was thinking the same thing about the guys that wear 'nobody knows i'm a lesbian' t-shirts

Those shirts should read "nobody knows I'm an idiotic post-modern ironist ponce who thinks he's all that and a big hit with the ladiezzz"

i like the pope, the pope smokes dope

i like the archbishop, the archbishop smokes crack

'bout time somebody burned this dump to the ground

I'm gutted :)

You guys were all so incensed when people made light of that warehouse full of brit-art burning down.

i think i was reliably snarky about that yo.

(xpost) You mean Saatchi's warehouse including Tracy Emin's bed? I had a good laugh about that.

Hell yeah, straight lulz.

Yeah ok that thread was awash with schadenfreude too.

Woolwich & Charlton

f'real

Isn't that where Jagger grew up in the throes of Dickensian poverty?

It's disgraceful how you kids treat the SO BRAVE survivors of Munich '58.

Ah thought Jagger was Lewisham

nuke that too though

Also, Tooting has the best Indian restaurants in London as Baron Nedward of Raggettstein will testify.

cf the keralan restaurant around the corner from st georges. also tooting bec lido = lushness, as do tooting common, wimbledon common, wandsworth common.

Surely Bethnal Green is curry capital of London? Unless I've been lied to?

'curry' more liek 'yuppie running dogs'

i don't understand south london >_<

you've been lied to, dom. and DG, don't fight it, feel it.

^_^

Tooting ranks high but so would Wembley and Southall for obvious reasons.

Oh yeah, when did "Mind the Gap" become "Please mind the gap" ?

"Please don't fall down between the train and the platform and break your dam leg, snakesonaplane" in 5..

don't tase me bro

"Come tase my mind"

Earl Brutus reunion single to be.

I'll apologise, but I'm not taking my sunglasses off.

london that's south of the river = nuke.

except keep 02 arena.

i'm pretty sure i saw dave q's band at the hawley arms once

Ken you wouldn't be able to get to Brighton if you did that.

i have honestly never understood south london hatred at all, though i have lived here my whole life.

nobody understands the hate for somewhere they happily live

I don't hate South London! I like Clapham.

^^^wannabe yuppie

Clapham has a Bodeans

d.i.h.a.Primark?

Clapham would be the first place on the map I'd nuke.

twatsville

Clapham or this thread?

;_;

Matt DC seems to be confusing "Clapham" with "Streatham" and "Peckham" here.

Last time I was in Streatham I watched a big fight in a car park between a gang and a fuckload of police, while sitting in a chair in a garden drinking beer while being totally ignored by all concerned. It was kind of a weird experience.

No change there then. Can't say that I miss the place.

i went to mottingham the other day! that was an experience!

Does ILX have any love for the burbs? Teddington? Harrow-On-The-Hill? Etc.

Romford!

London Overground is going to shake up what we think of as London, let me tell you.

Croydon, however.

Ken you wouldn't be able to get to Brighton if you did that.

First Capital Connect goes from st pancras innit.

IT HAS TO CROSS THE RIVER AT SOME POINT

Croydon, however.

aye.

Brixton>>>>>>>>>>Clapham

you can't get weed as easily in clapham

you can't get clap as easily in weedham

i went to mottingham the other day! that was an experience!

an incredibly tedious one?

Does ILX have any love for the burbs? Teddington? Harrow-On-The-Hill? Etc.

i'm from them so yes and no. inevitably increased peace, lower street crime and pollution are countered by the increased monoculture + stereotypical smalltown mindsets, crapper transport options etc.

i went to a nice party actually but yeah i did kind of feel like i'd arrived in the middle of nowhere

Clapton may be the Streatham of North London (as Peckham is to Hackney)

Clapton >>>> Streatham though.

clapton has some nice walks

i don't know the whys or hows of that really - are they so different? but i think the main selling points for where i live are 1) close to v nice riverside walk, marshes etc. and 2) nuff buses (xp)

oh and that i'm terrified that wherever i end up next and whenever that may be it won't have a shop 2 mins walk up the road that sells great bread baked instore daily. this is important.

Now a home for the BNP and Aslan:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/6984/7732704.jpg