Day One Hundred and Four - Hamlet Road, SE19

St Paul's Church, originally built in the 1860s, rebuilt (by the looks of it) in the 1960s.

Merry Christmas everyone and see you on 2nd January.

Day Ninety-Nine - Hamlet Road, SE19

Never noticed this plaque before, but then the area in front of this house has only recently been given a bit of a makeover so it may have been obscured previously . Ira Aldridge was an African-American actor who came to Britain in 1824 and apparently caused quite a stir. It looks like he lived in England for about thirty years, but the plaque is silent over exactly which of those years he spent in Upper Norwood. More info here and (better) here about someone I'd never heard of before. See, those plaques are worth putting up.

Day Fifty-Five - Hamlet Road, SE19

I was very confused this morning - had Mr Brown called a snap general election and I'd missed it?

Turns out (my new favourite phrase) that there's a council by-election in the Crystal Palace Ward of the London Borough of Bromley. Because of the weird local government topography of London, five different boroughs - Bromley, Croydon, Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham - meet at what used to be a tree at the top of Anerley Hill, right at the heart of Crystal Palace/Upper Norwood. This means that the area is (a) divided between five different authorities, so there's no joined-up policy for the place, and (b) it's at the borders of all of them, so none of them pay it much attention anyway. And that although I live in the London Borough of Croydon, the station - which is ten minutes' walk away - is in Bromley. Which is why (a) I knew nothing about the by-election, and (b) I was so confused this morning.

On the discman today: AM - Jazkamer Balls the Size of Texas, Liver the Size of Brazil PM - Philip Jeck Stoke