Out-takes 2: Day One - Anerley Road, SE19

Still ill, so another out-take, this time from 5 June 2007, Day One of this blog.

A close-up of Unwins, which is still empty. Someone's cleared out the posters and other assorted debris and whitewashed the windows, but that's it. When I'm up and running again I might document it's current state.

Day One Hundred and Sixty-One - Anerley Road, SE19

Hooray! Make Me A Princess has been, erm, kissed by a frog and is to become 4 Paws'n'Claws!

Mind you, given that someone in the US has beaten them to the name and with their rather cavalier attitude to spelling (see closeup of their "coming soon" sign here) I give them about as long as the previous tenants.

Which is a pity, as a pet grooming salon is exactly what we need around here. Perhaps they can also pick up all the dog shit that is almost a daily hazard on this stretch of Anerley Road.

Day One Hundred and Forty-Six - Anerley Road, SE19

Stormy weather.

Day One Hundred and Forty-Four - Anerley Road, SE19

Towards the end of February/beginning of March every year the roads suddenly become a minefield of works. For years I assumed that it was just that companies waited until the better weather to dig, but then Feb/March is often worse than the month that precedes it, certainly for rain and wind, so that doesn't make much sense. Then it struck me: it's the end of the financial year! Cue all the water, electricity and other concerns using up their budget so they don't lose it for the next year. Meanwhile, traffic slows down and pedestrians have to dodge holes.

Day One Hundred and Thirty-One - Anerley Road, SE19

I've gone in to "Simply Food and Wines" at least once a week for six years, supporting my local shopkeepers and not going to the Tesco Local up the road, and they've spoken to me twice:

• once to ask me if the plaster cast that'd been on my arm for two weeks was as a result of the tube bombings that had happened the day before; and
  
• once to compliment me on my beard.

Cheery bunch.

Day One Hundred and Twenty-One - Anerley Road, SE19

The dreaded flash again, so that you can (just about) read this. Maybe I'm turning into my Dad, but I'm not sure I agree with half-price fares for those on income support. Like giving kids free travel, which happened two years ago, it sounds like a good idea, but there were at least two downsides to that particular initiative:

(a) kids get the bus instead of walking, meaning they get fatter, e.g. the kids from the school behind where I live now get the bus two stops to the main road at lunchtime, pick up fried chicken and chips, and then get the bus back. If it cost them 90p each way they wouldn't. Surely this goes against all government health policies? Get the kids walking!

(b) kids now hang out on buses more than they ever did, contributing to a 55% increase in youth bus crime in the first year since free travel was introduced.

But the thing which baffles me most about the half-price bus fares for job-dodgers initiative is that it is funded by an oil deal with Venezuela - you can see their flag at the bottom of the picture. Socialist solidarity or propping up a virtual dictator? Hmm.

Day One Hundred and Twenty - Anerley Road, SE19

The bathroom shop gets a refit and a new sign. Their website is similarly not-quite-ready.

Day Ninety-Four - Anerley Road, SE19

Well, blow me down with a feather - Make Me A Princess has closed down, barely three months after it opened. That's pretty amazing. Could it have been that it wasn't, as I originally thought, an outpost of the bridal accessories shop I linked to in that post, but just a dodgy hairdresser stealing a name and a logo, with dire consequences? Or does the fact that that link to said bridal site no longer works have anything to do with it? The clot thickens.

For a close up of that repossession sign (how can any business not be able to afford rent after three months? Did they have no capital at all?) cliquez ici.

Day Seventy-One - Anerley Road, SE19

Rainy morning. Nice to see that the white goods have got their raincoats on.

To see what I got up to in the evening, see here.

On the discman today: AM and PM- Boo Radleys Giant Steps

Day Sixty-Five - Anerley Road, SE19

Back from a week off, mostly spent in Paris (very nice, thank you), and still slightly blurry, apparently, but not blurry enough not to notice that H A Marks, shadowy construction firm, have given themselves a new sign. It's like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory - no-one ever goes in, no-one ever goes out.

On the discman today: AM and PM - Soft Machine Out-Bloody-Rageous: An Anthology 1967-73

Day Thirty-Eight - Anerley Road, SE19

This, of course, assumes that postmen can read...

Went to the GBBF again tonight, this time with Louise. Pictorial evidence of both nights - and a podcast from Tuesday , get me, I'm so 2004 - can be found here.

On the discman today: AM - Mahavishnu Orchestra The Inner Mounting Flame

Day Thirty-Six - Anerley Road, SE19

Rather late home tonight, as I've been at the Great British Beer Festival. As I tottered home off the train I nearly fell into this, which wasn't there when I left home this morning.

On the discman today: AM - Tetuzi Akiyama Route 13 to the Gates of Hell PM - my recordings of the Beer Festival

Day Thirty-Three - Anerley Road, SE19

Hang out the balloons - today's the day Make Me A Princess opened!

Because that's what we really need around here. A bridal accessories shop. Meanwhile the Post Office next door has been long closed down, the off-licence still hasn't been replaced and the travel agents just down the road has just done what appears to be a moonlight flit. Why can't anyone open a useful, profitable shop in this row?

On the discman today: AM - The Bonzo Dog Band The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse PM - Ride Smile

Day Six - Anerley Road, SE19

The twenty-first century's equivalent of "drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence"? I've lived in London for fourteen years and the "six for a fiver" deal has been ubiquitous for all of that time, defying inflation and anti-booze campaigners alike. Perhaps Hogarth had it right, after all.

On the discman today: AM and PM Keith Rowe The Room

Day One - Anerley Road, SE19

You wonder how an off-licence chain can go bust in binge-drinking Britain, but Unwins did, just in time for Christmas 2005. Eighteen months on, my local branch is still empty - obviously not one of the 200 shops that Thresher bought up.

This stretch of Anerley Road is remarkably lifeless, given its proximity to the station and lots of nice middle-class homes. You'd think someone would want to use the several closed-down premises around here for something other than advertising Billy Smart's Circus.

On the discman today: AM - Gentle Giant The Power and the Glory, PM - Radian TG11