Bethnal Green

I live about 15 minute bus ride away. Fancy a pint, Prague (good bar with pickled cheese) is about half way between us.

that's my stop dude!

look at Ronan all up in the area

Charlie No.4 lived around there a few years ago, plus I think various other ILXers and friends-of-ILXers have at least lived in the vicinity over the years. Which bit are you in, the area nearer Shoreditch or up near Cambridge Heath Road?

I like Bethnal Green quite a lot.

my aunt manages a pub there. The Bohola House.

yeah Tracer's 5 mins bus from the Green, with me more like 10-15. that rhymes and you know it rhymes.

Ed have you tried that Brazillian restaurant on Hackney Rd?

I have not, but I am intrigued. I guess I haven't really been out and about in London Since about October really.

I'm like a 10-15 walk from BG.

Hooray, Ronan, welcome - Bethnal Green is lots of fun. I'm also 20 minutes away on the buses Ed mentions.

I think Andrew F lives around there, though he is now an enemy of ILX.

Y'what?

I'm 12 mins by train, but have never been there. Oh wait, I went to a gig there once.

an enemy of ILX

not of me! God I'm tiresome.

I live up the road from Bethnal Green. Yay Victoria Park with its bandstand!

Yeah what's that about? I know he doesn't post here anymore.

xpost re Andrew

Anyway, Bethnal Green: I like the Pleasure Unit.

I think that's where I went to a gig once!

Purple Vespa inside? Picture of VERY YOUNG Rod Stewart on the wall when he was in Steampacket?

The Pleasure Unit shut down I think.

I got cought there drinking Red Stripe I'd bought in the offie down the road and got told off in front of everyone. V embarrassing.

Arg, spelling.

Yeah what's that about? I know he doesn't post here anymore.

Those who are not with us are against us.

When I still had relatives living in Stratford, Bethnal Green was part of the familar tube route out there. It was years and years before I finally got off at the station there and ventured up to the surface. It seems like a nice spot, although everyone else who went to the all-dayer I was at had their cards skimmed from one of the bank machines there.

the pleasure unit is horrid.

bethnal green is ACE, i lived there for a year and a half.

and there's always the Working Mens Club, if you like knitting, cake, burlesque and [dom-esque quip about class divide mutton dressed as institutionalised racism lamb deleted]

And Darren Hayman.

There isn't anything the number 55 bus can't do. For this reason and other reasons I much prefer the end of Bethnal Green that's closer to Cambridge Heath Rd.

It can sometimes be hard to find a sandwich up there though.

Trudat. We can't all be having dinner at Bistrotheque.

There is the PERMANENT HALF-PRICE KEBAB SHOP ALL FOOD 50% OFF on Cambridge Heath Rd just as Hackney Rd. joins it. I can't understand why anyone would eat anywhere else if what they're saying is true. I've had a couple of things from there and they weren't completely inedible.

But mainly if I'm over in that area I stick to Nemrut and avoid any of the fried chicken or pizza (except for Papillon Pizza up by the canal).

The south Asian kebab type or the TÜRKiYE kebab type?

The seafood/veg Thai by the LDN Buddhist centre rocks.

Is that up Mare St.?

I fucking hate Bethnal Green Working Men's Club. Grown-up indie kids of the world, now you too can dress like a 1920s French prostitute while dancing to your own record collection in the least atmospheric surroundings possible! Oh, except there's a big fucking heart made of red light bulbs on the stage.

night out at poptimism again?

that band i like 'Apartment' are from Bethnal Green

i quite like the 'social club' environ but the room is pretty big for most kinds of event that happen there now i would've thought.

according to the london news there's going to be a severely ugly sculpture put up to commemorate a WW2 disaster in the tube station

iirc the cops initially blocked the entrances of the tube stations and the cheeky cockneys (i guess in ye olde bethnal green predominantly jewish) had to fight their way in to get shelter from teh german bombs. of course PLANK ken practically INVITES the bombs in.

iirc it wasn't even a real air raid

check out the siteless yellow highrise while you're there

can dress like a 1920s French prostitute

this is bad how?

Never been to this Working Men's Club - sounds interesting.

i have been there many times for hipster folk dancing and it is indeed great.

I've been to square dancing there, which was fun, even if all the lesbians that Ed wanted to dance with were more interested in dancing with me. But the square dancing was very obviously outgrowing the hall as when we went to go down the middle the couple at the end nearly ended up out in the stairwell!

x-post ha ha

Bethnal Green was quite nice when I lived there, but that was over 4 years ago. I've never heard of most of the places mentioned upthread, although for some reason back then I never explored east of Cambridge Heath Road, nor north of Hackney Road. Probably a mistake, with hindsight. Pleasure Unit has closed, bought by Mulletover (or something), probably going to be some sort of vibe bar type place, rather than a proper pub.

Who got the picture of Steampacket in the pub car park in Putney? And the Vespa?

I remember having a long argument w/ a mate re: whether it was indeed a v young Rod in the pic. I was right and he was wrong, so I could sing the I was right song.

Grown-up indie kids of the world, now you too can dress like a 1920s French prostitute while dancing to your own record collection in the least atmospheric surroundings possible! Oh, except there's a big fucking heart made of red light bulbs on the stage.

Yeah I'm also flummoxed by what exactly is wrong with this picture.

important context :

and there's always the Working Mens Club, if you like knitting, cake, burlesque and [dom-esque quip about class divide mutton dressed as institutionalised racism lamb deleted]

-- blueski, Thursday, February 28, 2008 6:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

still nothing wrong here

do they actually not let you in if you aren't dressed like a 1920s French prostitute? It must be so hard educating burly men in puffer jackets about the intricacies of distinguishing them from, say, German whores from the 1930s.

luftwaffe should finish the job

xpost

oh noes puffa jackets! we must keep these marauders out of the working-men's club.

It's very simple, if you look like an east end working man you get sent downstairs, if you look in anyway not like an east end working man, you get sent upstairs.

xpost

internet luddite in fun hating shock

Can anybody tell me anything about Globe Town? It looks like a decaying Soviet era housing EXPO.

And it's called 'Globe Town'.

that band i like 'Apartment' are from Bethnal Green

-- electricsound, Thursday, 28 February 2008 22:59 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Ex-missus fucked one of these dudes.

oic. did they write a song about her?

Dunno, I have no desire to listen to their music.

ITT Tracer Hand and Ed continue their desire to see all traces of working class culture eradicated.

How does Tracer Hand do that in this thread? Working class people don't dress this way? really?

http://jasonclark.ws/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/banging-my-head-against-the-wall-by-the-brownhorse-on-flickr.jpg

Fuck me, you're an idiot, but not as much of an idiot as me for not installing greasemonkey on the new laptop.

Of course it logically follows that because I like some of the alternative uses to which an underused upstairs room in a working men's club is put that I want to round everyone who wears and unreconstructed cloth cap, has a case of rickets or owns a whippet or calls me guv'nor and drive them into the North see.

That's exactly how working class people act! Well spotted.

Love the wilful disregard of SARCASM there.

Myself, I was trying to parse through Dom's misogyny and obvious sexual jealousy (we have moved on from petty carping at the bourgeoisie, huzzah) but this is a case of SSDD. I wish you would bang your head against a brick wall, Passatino - you might wind up more intelligent by accident.

fieldsof, the seafood/veg Thai is just along the Roman Road from the Tube station, on the north side of the road, at the mouth of a beautiful turning where there are lovely, looked-after red-brick tenements c. end of C19.

/googlemaps.gif

I guess i don't really understand (or understand the direction this just took). I didn't understand how Tracer's comment was supposed to be eradicating working class culture. Can you say what you mean Dom?

So by keeping the BGWMC solvent, the various drag queens and "professional" burlesque artists who play 1950s rock and soul upstairs are eradicating working class culture. Weird! Or maybe the BGWMC doesn't need them in order to stay solvent. Maybe the people who run it and the old wheezing geezers who constitute the last remaining vestiges of its clientele just enjoy having young creative people around who like to have a good time. But no, I guess working class people couldn't possibly feel that way.

bethnal green is okay although a bit of a hole. at least their youths aren't very good muggers though. 3 of them couldn't managed to take my ipod a couple years back.

(folks are way better at this in kings cross)

the fountain is a lovely pub for playing pool in. malcolm the dude who runs it is awesome

that bethnal green wmc indie place is not eradicating working class culture but the burlesque was pretty shit.

i am pretty sure i couldn't tell shit burlesque from good burlesque.

unlike ken c i am no burlesquepert.

:-D

only lolcats can save us now

internet luddite in fun twee dbag hating shock

-- Ed, Friday, February 29, 2008 11:27 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

what's an internet luddite?

http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/cottonpix/ned%20luddo.jpg

Ned Luddett? WHAT!??!?

Friday 29th February ......the Wedding of the year ...Leap Year Special
......a burlesque extravaganza celebrating the spirit of Eighties androgyny and polymorphous perversity

matt dc sneers but he watches ashes to ashes! lol 80s!

he is voyeurist as opposed to participant.

not seeing the links between burlesque and androgyny : / if only i was educated like the BGWMC knitting-and-cake crew.

Shut up, misogynist.

I was speaking to some douchebag forgotten YBA nomark the other day, and he said you're a misogynist. So shut up.

Results 1 - 10 of about 115,000 for hipster knitting. (0.27 seconds)

lots of people like cake.

what is YBA?

Whereabouts in Bethnal Green is it you are moving to Ronan?

Yes Barry Adamson

ok young british artists I had forgotten all about them.

^^^Speaks for us all.

http://london.randomness.org.uk/wiki.cgi?Camel,_E2_0JD

Went past the Marksman on the 55 bus on the way home today - anyone been to this pub?

anyone in london fields today? know it's more hackney than bg but this thread seemed best place to ask if any of you were near the shooting. really weird thing to happen, i was about 20 yards away, two gunshots and some innocent bystander is now in a critical condition. i was moving back and forth between two groups of friends and the line of the shots from shooter to the innocent dude went right over about 50 of my friend's heads...almost seems amazing none of them were the ones who were hit.

Fuckin hell, that sounds serious! I nearly went to London Fields today, but ended up in Vicky Park. Glad you and your mates are all OK.

Shit, we were considering London Fields as well, what with the ELL opening and it suddenly being easy to get to. Glad we didn't now.

We actually switched our plans to meet at Haggerston Park at 1pm instead of London Fields, but the decision was made before the shooting; my friend whose flat is directly opposite the Lido joined us two hours later having walked by the police tape and seen the medical airlift helicopter landing.

Yeah it's weird, normally I would be there - it's my default park - but when I heard you'd be there Garda I changed my mind. I heard the helicopters around 3:30 or so but didn't find out what happened til about 5pm.

Apparently an ambulance helicopter actually touched down in London Fields?! I'd have thought Homerton Hospital was close enough to send normal ambulances..

Jules Pipes' quote on this that's included in every news story is kind of horrible. He's like "despite this tragic event, huundreds of people enjoyed the council Fun Day uninterrupted." Er....???

I assume that since they still don't have a suspect this perp will never be caught. Pretty sad..

Everyone I've spoken to since has been majorly WTF about Jules Pipes' statement.

pretty shocking - wasn't there, could so easily have been, suspect the decision to go to vicky park the next day was at least a bit influenced by this. did have to roll my eyes at a witness giving his occupation as a "poet" in one of the news stories i read - dude you're 22, you're not a poet, you're an english literature student.

Apparently an ambulance helicopter actually touched down in London Fields?!

It was actually or appeared to be the Virgin Radio traffic copter. Whipped up big clouds of dust as it landed. Couldn't really get my head around what happened as didn't see anything except a gang of about 20 guys bolt it across the field after two shots which I thought were just some feeble fireworks despite us being as close as LG says.