The Transmitter Issue 34

A SOUTH EAST LONDON MAGAZINE www.thetransmitter.co.uk

ISSUE 34 Winter 2014

Have

YOU found aGolden Ticket?

We Transmit You a Merry Christmas !

Editor Andy Pontin Sub-Editor Annette Prosser Designer Simon Sharville Photographers Loukia Avvakoumides, Carol Cooper, Angie Davila, Emir Hasham, Guy Milnes, Andy Pontin, Darren Wilson Illustrators Matt Bannister, Kathryn Corlett, Karin Dahlbacka Contributors Liz Clamp, Justine Crow, Mike Fairbrass, Louise Heywood, Jonathan Main, Howard Male, Melanie Reeve, Jane Riddell, Rachel de Thample, Manish Utton-Mishra, Sue Williams Printed by Cantate Communications Published by Transmission Publications, PO Box 53556, London SE19 2TL, thetransmitter.co.uk editor@thetransmitter.co.uk @thetransmitter Cover illustration Karin Dahlbacka karindahlbacka.com

Transmitter 34

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Welcome

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Disclaimer The views expressed by contributors are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect this magazine’s editorial policy or the views of any employee of Transmission Publications. So there.

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to

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22 10 A

nd so this is Crimbo ... and what have we done?

Well, for a start we have hidden six Golden Tickets in copies of this issue.

They are out there somewhere – did you find one?

It has taken us 34 issues to finally get inside our namesake, the actual Crystal Palace Transmitter, and we have dedicated a few pages to the mind-expanding visits by us and other lucky locals, all made possible by Fun Palaces and our gracious hosts Arqiva.

And what else, you ask? Only local news and updates, shopping ideas, funny stuff, a ghost story and more fabulous regular columns than you can shake a stick at, that’s all.

Merry Crimbo one and all!.

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ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST

Auckland Road, Upper Norwood Advent Carol Service Sunday 30 November at 6pm Community Carol Service with the Blessing of the Christmas Tree Sunday 21 December at 6pm Crib Service for the family Christmas Eve at 4pm Midnight Mass & Blessing of the Crib Christmas Eve at 11.30pm High Mass for all the family Christmas Day at 10am

CHRIST CHURCH Gipsy Hill

Christmas

WHAT’S ON CHRISTMAS CHURCH SERVICES UPPER NORWOOD METHODIST CHURCH Westow Hill

Churches Together Advent service Sunday 7 December at 8pm Carol service Sunday 21 December at 6.30pm Christmas Day Service at 10.30am

Christingle Service with children’s activities Sunday 21 December at 5pm Carol Service Sunday 21 December at 8pm Children’s Nativity Christmas Eve at 4pm Holy Communion Service Christmas Eve at 11.30pm Holy Communion Family Service Christmas Day at 10.30am

ST STEPHEN’S CHURCH

College Road, Dulwich Dulwich Friends of St Christopher’s Carol Concert featuring two choirs and celebrity readers Monday 15 Dec 7pm-midnight Service of Lessons and Carols featuring St Stephens Choir and local readers Sunday 21 December at 6pm

ST LUKE’S CHURCH

Crib Service for children to come dressed as shepherds, kings, angels or in other Nativity costumes and take part in the service Christmas Eve at 4pm

Winter Lights Christmas Fair Saturday 13 December at 4pm

Midnight Mass Christmas Eve at 11pm

Carols by Candlelight Sunday 14 December at 6.30pm

Eucharist Book of Common Prayer Christmas Day at 8am

Holy Communion Christmas Eve at 11.30pm

Christmas Choral Eucharist Christmas Day at 10am

Holy Communion Christmas Day at 10am

St Stephen’s Day Eucharist Friday 26 December at 11am

West Norwood

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PUBS THE SPARROWHAWK

Christmas Parties Throughout December with celebratory menus (from £14.95 per head) Christmas Day Open 12-7pm Christmas meal £60 per head for 4-course menu Booking essential Boxing Day Kitchen open 12-8pm Bar open 12-9.30pm Booking recommended New Year’s Eve Dine & Disco Kitchen open 12-10pm Bar open 12pm-late DJ plays disco classics from 10.30pm FREE entry Booking essential for evening meals New Year’s Day Kitchen open 12-8pm Bar open 12-9.30pm Booking recommended

THE WHITE HART

Festive Menu (£24 per head for 3 courses) & Sharing Platter (£20 for two) Throughout December Christmas Day menu (£50 per head) New Year’s Eve DJ until 1am FREE entry

CRYSTAL PALACE MARKET Haynes Lane

Handmade Palace Christmas ceramic ‘paint and go’ decorations for children (£2) and wheel throwing taster sessions for adults or children: make a bowl ready for collection the following week (£5 inc materials) Saturday 6 & 13 December 10am-3pm Book with Beth at handmade@ crystalpalacefoodmarket.co.uk Christmas Waggle & Hum Songs and rhymes with puppets with Fiona Byers from Upper Norwood Library.

Suitable for ages 0-2 years.

FREE but donations for the library welcome Sat 13 December 10.30-11am Christmas Street Dance Performance by local dance school Perfect Circle FREE Saturday 13 December 12noon Christmas Storytelling Grotto Listen to tales of GobDrop and Snowshine with The Man from Story Mountain in a cosy Mongolian Yurt.

A story of Christmas gossip, highlighting the power of being small. Gift for each child (£4 entry) Saturday 13 & 21 December 11am, 12noon, 1pm, 2pm Christmas Carols Performed by the Crystal Palace Youth Orchestra FREE Saturday 21 December 2pm

New Year’s Day Traditional roast served from 12noon

THE ALMA

Christmas Market Stalls, winter barbecue & hot drinks Sunday 14 Dec 11am-4pm Christmas Day 3-course lunch (£75.00 per head) Booking essential New Year’s Eve Set menu Music and dancing midnight-3am

WESTOW HOUSE

See feature on page 10

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Christmas

WHAT’S ON SHOPPING The Sparrowhawk Christmas Pamper Fair Saturday 29 November 2-6pm Crystal Palace Beauty, Health and Fitness Triangle give advice about skin care, nutrition, pregnancy and fitness. Christmas gift vouchers available to buy. With mulled wine.

FREE Westow Street www.crystalpalacetriangle.co.uk Alhambra & 161 Christmas Cocktail Parties Late night shopping & pop-up festive cocktail bar FREE ENTRY Wednesday 3, 10 & 17 December 7pm-midnight 148 Kirkdale Sydenham SE26 Alhambra Christmas Shopping Evening Complimentary mulled sangria and discounts on all stock Friday 5 December 7-10pm 148 Kirkdale Sydenham SE26 161 Food & Drink Taster Evening Sample some seasonal treats Wednesday 3, 10 & 17 December 7pm Tickets available from 161kirkdale@gmail.com Smash Bang Wallop Earlies & Lates Saturday 6, 13 & 20 December open from 9am From 18 December open til 7pm (til 5pm Christmas Eve) Westow Street Crystal Palace Alexandra Nurseries Christmas Market Local crafts and produce Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 December 10am-6pm Parish Lane, Penge 6

THE HORNIMAN MUSEUM Horniman Christmas Fair Gift stalls, parades, food & mulled wine, yuletide activities Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 December 10.30am-5pm Horniman Christmas Songs & Music Community choirs including the Crystal Palace Community Choir, Raise the Roof Horniman Choir, and the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir perform on the Bandstand Sunday 7 December from 12-6pm

Christmas

WHAT’S ON OTHER STUFF Make Your Own Christmas Wreath Workshop with professional florist Tom Travitsky Sunday 30 November 2 -4pm and Wednesday 3 December 7-9pm £30 (booking essential) Alexandra Nurseries Parish Lane, Penge

SOUTH LONDON THEATRE The Flint Street Nativity by Tim Firth 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 December 8pm (2.30pm matinee 6 & 13 Dec) Mizzis Horrocks’ class of seven-year-olds is about to perform their nativity play at Flint Street Junior School.

Chaos ensues.

Recommended for ages 9+ Nunsense by Dan Goggin 13-17 January 8pm (3pm matinee 17 January) Award-winning musical which has become an international phenomenon with over 5000 productions worldwide. Hilarity for all the family as five nuns put on a talent show to raise funds. Tap and ballet dancing, an audience quiz and comic surprises.

Tickets for all performances £5-£12 The Old Fire Station Norwood High Street, West Norwood www.southlondontheatre.co.uk 8

Irma la Douce Cert 15 (147 mins) Romantic comedy directed by Billy Wilder with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine 8 December at 7pm £9 (£7 Friends) Dulwich Picture Gallery Gallery Road, Dulwich Christmas Workshop for Children Saturday 13 December 10.30am-1pm St John the Evangelist Auckland Road, Upper Norwood Norwood Society Party Night A celebration of the year’s meetings and another look at items of interest in early copies of the Norwood Review Thursday 18 December 7.30pm FREE but a donation is appreciated Upper Norwood Library Westow Hill Alexandra Nurseries Christmas Extravaganza Live music, bar & hot food Friday 19 December 7pm £8 (booking essential) Parish Lane, Penge

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Christmas Antics I

f you have a penchant for ale supping, know ye that Westow House didn’t make the Londonist ‘top 10 craft beer pubs in London’ list by serving tasteless dishwater. I slid a couple down while chatting to Westow head honcho Justin about what is shaping up to be a jam packed December at the Palace’s go-to party joint.

Justin and his team are really pushing the boat out this Crimbo: there will be hot live bands every Friday (sans DJs for those of you who occasionally like a break from disc-spinning egomaniacs) and a Christmas menu to die for. Drinks-wise they are laying on a great selection of seasonal ales plus a festive speciality that is taking trendy London by storm – mulled cider folks! If you have yet to try it, shame on you, you untrendy thing.

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The biggie on the festive Westow calendar is the New Year’s Eve Disco (tickets £10 online or from the bar).

Think Saturday Night Fever complete with illuminated chequerboard dancefloor. There’s no excuse, guys, get out your white suits and dancing shoes, and go charm those ladies with a tidy bit of Travolta.

Bookings for their massively popular Christmas menu are flying in thick and fast, so be quick if you want to make a reservation. We are talking dill- and vodkamarinated salmon gravadlax, roast Norfolk turkey (with all the trimmings, natch) and homemade Christmas pud in brandy sauce. Available through the whole of December, book now or harbour regrets! westowhouse.com @westowhouse

Photos by Loukia loukia.co.uk

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News & Events The happened and the happening IT’S VINTAGE, DARLINGS! Just as the long summer was finally coming to an end and the skies were starting to grey, an evening of glittering fabulousness on Gipsy Hill whisked us away for a few more colourful hours. Penelope’s Vintage Pitstop, compered at the Goodliffe Hall by the delightfully acerbic Untamed Edna Experience, raised over £1000 for Macmillan Cancer Support whilst treating an audience of around 150 guests to an array of vintage stalls, live jazz music and swing dancing.

The four-part fashion show, dressed entirely by Crystal Palace businesses, will linger long in the memory thanks to a fantastic group of students from Bird College and splendid choreography by event organiser Danni Smith. A vintage treat indeed.

Photos by Emir Hasham emirhasham.com

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News & Events FESTIVAL ALERTS The festival team is gearing up for the 2015 event and would love you to sign up for monthly newsletters to keep you in the loop. Emails straight to your inbox will keep you posted about how the festival is evolving in its mission to bring to Crystal Palace great culture and the arts; information on fundraising; advice on how to submit programme activities or recommend bands; details on advertising & sponsorship opportunities and publicity deadlines; and how to be involved in the festival as a stallholder or as a volunteer.

Don’t miss out! Subscribe on the festival website today!. crystalpalacefestival.org @SE19festival

PARK PLANS The recently-published proposals for the future of the National Sports Centre (NSC) have generated a lot of coverage and comment, none of which has been positive. The Greater London Authority (GLA) has spent £75k of public money on the report. Sadly, the four proposals it puts forward are uninspiring and involve a reduction in NSC facilities: two of the proposals suggest the removal of the athletics track.

The sports community and other NSC users are mobilising to challenge the proposals, pointing to the flawed assumptions which underpin them.

The Crystal Palace Park Community Stakeholder Group (CSG) will be submitting its own response, and is particularly concerned that some of the proposals clash with regeneration projects which are shortly to commence in the park. It also appears that what is proposed may encroach on parkland outside the NSC footprint and that the report has been influenced by the need to ensure a redeveloped NSC complements the ZhongRong Group proposals for the top site.

Fortunately there is good news too. Following the announcement of the £240k Community Project Fund, the CSG has been working with Bromley Council to establish operational arrangements for the scheme. It is hoped the fund will be up and running by the end of the year. Details are not yet finalised but grants of up to £20k for a range of projects, from environmental improvement to education, are likely to be available. The CSG has pressed for a fund such as this from its inception and is delighted that it has now been established. crystalpalacepark.org.uk @CPParkCommunity 14

CLOSED DOORS It’s now been five years since the doors of 25 Church Road have been kept firmly shut to the local community whilst the Kingsway International Christian Centre has been holding religious events for their own members. In September ‘The Open Door’ announced that later this autumn they would be applying again to Bromley council for a change of use to D1 Place of Worship with D2 community use add-on (as a ‘multiuse facility’). They have made this decision despite the overwhelming objection to similar proposals by thousands of local residents and traders in 2009. By the time you read this, KICC’s planning application may have already been submitted.

The Picture Palace Campaign has spoken to thousands of local residents during these years and has found an enormous strength of feeling regarding the former Rialto. What many, many of you out there would like at 25 Church Road is a cinema – an arts centre – which would enhance and complement the mix of uses already here on the Triangle and help with the social, cultural and economic regeneration of the town centre.

For those that haven’t already joined the campaign, now’s the time to do it! Save 25 Church Road! The campaign team will be outside Sainsbury’s on Saturday 29 November or see the site for more info. cinema4crystalpalace.org.uk picturepalace

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Photo: Carol Cooper

News & Events

THE LOVELY GALLERY Teacher Anna Lovely is the Camberwell Art School graduate behind The Lovely Gallery which opened earlier this year in Sydenham. As well as exhibiting works by established artists, the gallery encourages up and coming artists and also makes space on its walls for work by young adults too. On the weekend of 6/7 December they will be having a mini art fair to launch their latest Small Picture show in which an eclectic mix of work will include pieces by the three generations of the Lovely family. As well as Anna herself, both her father, Patrick Lovely, and her daughter, Bonnie Lovely, are practising artists. The exhibition will include paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics and sculpture, all at affordable prices.

As befits the season, mulled wine and mince pies will be served as you view, and live music is promised. With an exhibition of work by Forest Hill School Sixth Form in January and a solo exhibition in the spring featuring abstract painter Paul Tonkin (whose colourful paintthrowing you may recently have enjoyed on BBC4 in The Rules of Abstraction) there is plenty in the pipeline for South London art lovers to peruse. If it’s doing rather than viewing which appeals, have a look at their website as you’ll find details of on-site life drawing classes too.

The Lovely Gallery 140 Sydenham Road London SE26 Open Thursday-Sunday 12-6pm thelovelygallery.com 16

GLITTERING PRIZES Rosebery’s Auction House are promising extra sparkle for someone (could it be you?) on Christmas morning as their 9 & 10 December fine art auction features a selection of exquisite diamond jewellery which includes a Jaeger LeCoultre cocktail watch and a diamond set art deco double clip 1940s brooch. Or if you’re planning on celebrating the day with a marriage proposal, how better to get the message across than with a £5,000 2.4 carat round cut diamond ring set in gold and platinum?

See website for details of viewings, auctions and how to bid Roseberys Auction House 74-76 Knights Hill West Norwood SE27 roseberys.co.uk

CHEZ CHANDLER Our leafy suburb can now officially include another literary connection in its heritage, as a blue plaque has been unveiled at a house in Auckland Road celebrating the years author Raymond Chandler was resident there. Born in Chicago, Chandler lived at the doublefronted Victorian villa from 1900 to 1905 (around age 12-17) whilst being schooled at Dulwich College. His education a success (his studies in Classics are said to have informed the character of detective Philip Marlowe), during the war he sent back food parcels to one of his teachers such was his appreciation of the school. South Norwood is home to a blue plaque celebrating Arthur Conan Doyle: it would seem two of the world’s most famous crime-writers once found the Norwoods most inspirational.

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Trading Places

Photo: Emir Hasham

New Year’s resolutions? Let’s support our indie shops!

ROUGE & BLANC Thanks to a brand new offy on Anerley Road, we’ll all now be able to conceal our wine consumption from the neighbours once recycling day comes along. BOB Wines (a catchy brand name that stands for Bring Our Bottles) has a wall of silver taps set into one wall where you can get a refill from their ‘house’ red or white. A neat concept, you just buy an empty bottle for £1 then keep filling it up (£6.50 still, £7.50 sparkling). Simples. The business is run by a partnership of six. Kenrick Bush – a lone Frenchman, the other five are all Italian – will be the man on-site and with over 15 years in the trade, he absolument can’t attendre to answer all your questions.

Vino can also be purchased in the traditional way: their selection reveals a penchant for small producers in 18

the Piedmont region, as well as English wines from Kent and Sussex. Beer drinkers will find their favourite local breweries on the shelves (including Clarence & Fredericks and The Gipsy Hill Brewing Company) and Kenrick is hoping to stock a range of craft soft drinks and snacks too. If you think your artisan product would go with the flow at BOB’s, give Kenrick a shout.

BOB Wines 29 Anerley Road SE19 Open Monday to Friday 12-9pm, Saturday 11am-8pm, Sunday 12.30-6.30pm facebook.com/Bobknowswine

Trading Places NEEDLES & PINS ORANGES & LEMONS Not only has Church Road this year ticked the boxes for those in search of fresh meat and fish, it now boasts a permanent independent greengrocer too, just opposite the White Hart. Fares Tellia had been looking for a site in Crystal Palace for two years, having had requests from customers at his East Street Market stall in the Walworth Road to set up here on the hill. Continuing the family tradition, Algerian-born Fares has been a greengrocer for 10 years so he certainly knows his onions. Buying from New Spitalfields Market three times a week Fares can find whatever you’re looking for, so if you like your veg in a good old-fashioned brown paper bag rather than shrink-wrapped, we suggest you put Tellia’s Deli on your weekly shopping list right now.

facebook.com/VintagehartLondon taylorabel.co.uk dawnwilsonmillinery.co.uk

Photo: Darren Wilson

Tellia’s Deli 105 Church Road SE19 Open Monday to Saturday 10am-8pm and Sundays 11am-6pm

Designers of dresses and creators of cushion covers (and those who aspire to be) will be pleased to hear that a selection of sewing essentials is now available on the Triangle. Machine needles and bobbins, pearl head pins, colourful bias binding and reels of polyester thread in a range of beautiful shades can now be found at Vintagehart, who are also stocking original vintage buttons & braids, Fat Quarters for crafters and magazines & patterns from the 1940s to the 1980s.

Their sweet vintage sweet tins are perfect, too, for storing such bits & bobs (and make lovely presents for a budding seamstress too).

If you’re new to the scene but would like to get your inner Sewing Bee on, Taylor & Abel are offering local classes for beginners. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming venues: it’s really not nearly as scary as you may imagine and they’ll teach you loads of stuff you’ll be amazed you can do. If it’s the hats in the Vintagehart window that are turning your head, have a look at brand spanking new website Dawn Wilson Millinery. Not only can you now buy Dawn’s readymade creations online, you can even put in a bespoke order too.

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CHRISTMAS AT THE MARKET DOWN THE LANE 22

S

aturday’s Crystal Palace Food Market has been going (and growing!) for over a year and a half, and is fast approaching its second Christmas. Born out of a Transition Town brainstorm at its 2012 AGM on how to bring more local and sustainable food into Crystal Palace, it now supports 14 organic/biodynamic farms (mainly in East Sussex and Kent), a network of community gardens through the Patchwork Farm stall and myriad South London small food businesses.

Fourteen new businesses have now been launched from the market, including ATE Street Food and Heaven Preserve Us, and it has been nominated for a number of awards in addition to being listed by Time Out as one of the best up and coming markets in London.

As there is something really magical about Christmas markets, this year each Saturday in December will be a festive one, with something for everyone. The eclectic selection of music from Busker’s Paradise will include carols from Crystal Palace Youth Orchestra and a Christmas dance performance from Perfect Dance kids. Throughout the month you’ll be able to create your own ceramic decorations & presents with potter Beth Mander, make personalised Neal’s Yard cosmetics with Sarina Gascon McKavana and buy locally-made presents, cards and decorations from the local artists’

Photos by Guy Milnes guymilnes.com

stall, Handmade Palace, where there’s even a free wrapping service. Little ones can visit a sparkly yurt Christmas grotto to receive a gift from Glastonbury’s ‘The Man from Story Mountain’ and hear enchanting festive tales about GobDrop and Snowshine too.

A special Christmas Waggle and Hum has been arranged for the tots too. See the Christmas listings on page 5 for dates, but best to check on the website for specific timings and details nearer the time.

Pride of place at the market belongs to butchers Jacob’s Ladder Farms, who work only with small organic or biodynamic farms. All the farms have been visited personally by the market team who can attest to their excellent animal welfare standards. Antibiotic, pesticide and fertiliser use is kept to a minimum too, hence the amazing flavour of their meat. This Christmas, they are offering turkeys, geese and roasting joints, which can be ordered in advance on the stall or website and picked up on Christmas Eve (see right).

Other favourite stalls taking Christmas orders include Veasey’s fresh fish stall, London Cheesemonger’s, Brett & Bailey for Christmas puddings and cakes and Owl Kitchen for gluten free Christmas treats. Look out too for Christmas trees and wreaths as well as raw chocolate goodies.

You can place Christmas orders directly at the stalls or through our Christmas page on the website. All orders will be ready for pick-up on Christmas Eve at 5 Tudor Road, SE19 2UH. crystalpalacefoodmarket.co.uk.

If you’d like to get involved in the market as a volunteer (including Duke of Edinburgh award opportunities) or are interested in having a stall, please email us at info@crystalpalacefoodmarket.co.uk.

If you’d like to get involved with Crystal Palace Transition Town, visit our website for details crystalpalacetransition.org.uk or come to Green Drinks at The Grape and Grain from 8pm on the 2nd Wednesday of each month 23

IT’S ELECTRIFYING! Illustrations by Matt Bannister bannisterimages.com

A tour of the real transmitter, open to the public for the first time in 15 years, was a sparkly highlight of the Fun Palaces autumn weekend as our brilliant band of visitors – young and not-so-young – report The first weekend in October saw much of the country (and beyond) revisiting an initiative originally created by architect Cedric Price and theatre director Joan Littlewood in the 1960s. 'Public engagement at its most open and inclusive' was their wont as they planned to create a high street for the sciences where anyone and everyone could explore the world and be inspired. Their vision never materialised, but the Fun Palaces concept was revisited this year as a celebration of its centenary. People found themselves exploring happiness in Newcastle, art in Liverpool's Chinatown and printmaking in Leicester and, more locally, gardening in Burgess Park, swimming with mermaids at Brockwell Lido and 3-D printing at the Upper Norwood Library. A most brilliant idea, conceived by the Crystal Palace Fun Palaces team, was to explore the interior life of our beloved mascot, the beguiling transmitter tower at the edge of the park.

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un wasn’t the word that first sprang to mind when, at the push of a button, a great steel shutter clanked sideways to usher us and a small party of 10-year-old school children into the mysterious complex.

The signs in a silent reception lobby – clearly never designed to receive guests – bark AUTHORISED ENTRY ONLY and DANGER 415 VOLTS (this was chicken feed we were later to discover). THINK, screamed one.

During the tour, all of us were forced to do that.

Two chaps bearing pale complexions arrived to split us into groups. ‘Do NOT’ warned our allotted engineerguide Bruce ‘touch ANYTHING.’ In fact, he added, if we knocked a switch by mistake or even suspected we had leaned on one, we MUST tell somebody immediately. The prospect of this was possibly where the ‘fun’ lay of course: surrounded by the Dr Wholike roomscapes of flickering lights, levers, knobs and ticking needles, bank after bank of valves and transmitters old and new, who wouldn’t be tempted to flick just one teensy-weensy little switch?

Of course Bruce wasn’t as scary as we first perceived and proved a veritable mine of facts, scientific, political and commercial, all delivered with dry wit and patience. ‘You always have to keep the customer satisfied,’ he confirmed as he showed us the massive back-up systems in place in case of failure.

Two of everything is the motto. ‘Like keeping a spare lightbulb, only much, MUCH bigger.’

There are millions and millions of pounds at stake as the tower provides a digital broadcasting service far and wide, and we all soon realised the significance of our required caution. Just imagine if the BBC went off air for a mere ten seconds during Strictly because somebody happened to lean on a switch …

Each ‘transmitter’ and its vital benign twin is labelled with logos as diverse as SKY, Ideal World, Channel 4 and UKTV with impressive numbers beneath – 4, 291,821 homes. I scratched my head and scribbled things like Com 5 TxB, TxA in my notebook and wondered if I would ever be able to translate them into meaningful explanations. The answer sadly is no.

DANGER: 50,000 volts, yelled another visual warning though one wasn’t certain what it referenced. After all everything around us was cheerfully effervescent with electricity, not to mention fraught with potential death.

And then, charmingly, beside cabinets with rainbows of pulsating cables accompanied by a cascade of LEDs, adrift on a trolley, was a modest Roberts DAB radio, slightly grubby about the gills. The rest of the place is spectacularly clean, with old-fashioned analogue brooms parked here and there to keep the dust down.

Sealed as it is from the heat of sunlight, it is not surprising that those that work here have the look of a nightclub tan about them. One of the main hazards is the constant din from the fans required to keep the myriad machines cool. ‘Step inside there’ suggested

our man to the visiting YouTube generation who were fascinated by a vintage half-shell telephone booth complete with curly phone wire and hole-punch interior.

Some wag had affixed the words FREE HAIR PERM THIS WAY on its arch. Once in, the queasy muffle of contrasting pressure on the ear drums was a shock.

Bruce explained that if there’s a problem, they need to be able to make a phone call but the constant noise means they can’t just dial out on a mobile. Probably wouldn’t get a signal anyway, one is tempted to joke.

But we were suddenly outside underneath the fantastic tower, looking up into its tummy full of rain showers, its elegant steel skeleton rising more than 700 feet into the London sky. This view alone was worth the visit. Giddily peering up, I recalled the tale told by another engineer interviewed in a previous edition of this magazine. He had spoken of climbing the tower and arriving above the cloud-line; the only other landmark visible was the point of the Croydon tower, its crucial back-up twin, on Norwood Hill jutting out through the tent of white precipitation. A view for Jack on his beanstalk, I had commented. Today we were right beneath the giant’s feet.

The original Fun Palaces were supposed to be venues where the arts and sciences could coincide: what a fitting location the transmitter tower is.

Justine Crow 25

Two groups from our school, Virgo Prep School, were invited to tour the Transmitter at the base of the antenna.

Our guides were Bruce and Ray from Arqiva. On arrival, we saw some of the artwork put together. The tour took us through the maze of corridors. The first room was the Multiplexer which showed how many channels can be transmitted through one cable. The second room was a review of the original analogue system and then the new digital systems. There are duplicates of everything to ensure the viewers never lose service. We also learned how the three main transmitters in the UK cover each other. The transmitter sends TV to millions of homes and each segment showed which channels were transmitted to how many homes! It also transmits emergency frequencies, radio and mobile communications. We were very fortunate to be among the first visitors in over 15 years and feel truly privileged to capture a different view from under the transmitter!!

Thank you Jules Hussey, Fun Palaces and Arqiva from Virgo Prep School!

The tour was

INTERESTING, especially how if you had a type of technology you need backup technology Tyrese

I really enjoyed the tour.

I LOVED being in a room with all the

lights and standing under the transmitter – even when it was raining!

It was a very Millie interesting build and shape, and an

AMAZING, once in a lifetime experience Chloe

It was interesting when our tour guide explained that we had six channels into one frequency called multiplex and we had two of everything. Standing under the transmitter was

BREATHTAKING and I had a great time Giada

The tour was a

BRILLIANT experience and I learned so much. It is so easy to turn off so many signals and TVs. Kyle

I was

SURPRISED

at how easy it would be to turn off the signal for so many TVs and radios!

Tom

I learnt a lot of things that I did not know.

It was very

EXCITING.

When I stood under the transmitter, it was amazing for me and I really enjoyed it.

Ebelena

Transmitter tower climbing high, Up into the Palace sky, Looking up from down below, Gives us a sense of vertigo.

We want to climb up to the top, But our leaders made us stop.

It’s so unfair we said to them, They reminded us we’re only 10.

We’re actually 12 but couldn’t think of a rhyme.

Poem by 1st Crystal Palace Scout Group

AthatGREAT INSIGHT makes you think about how

things we take for granted actually happen – who knew Radio 4 came off a wire sticking out from a shed?

Mark Painter

FANTASTIC to be in a place

I

was brought up on the Crystal Palace and Sydenham borders before moving to Forest Hill and now see the transmitter from my flat rather than being in its shadow. It has always been part of my life & for me is a very special landmark which I still wave at.

The tour was one of the best things I have done in London especially as Ray and Bruce were so welcoming and enthusiastic. It was amazing enough to see the tardis that is under the antenna but incredible to be able to get close and look up at it.

Bruce didn’t talk down to us but managed to keep things simple, even for me, a completely non-technical person, and we saw both the obselete equipment and the new digital stuff. The stories were great (like getting hold of the BBC during a power cut) and we could really see the beauty of all the working lights when Bruce switched the main ones off. I loved details like the 1950s sealed wooden door and the green ‘go home’ buttons. It was an amazing experience and my South London colleagues are very jealous. One of the photos is now my screensaver so I can really rub it in.

Jane Riddell

of such national significance Anthony Fitzgerald

It’s like a

JAMES BOND set down there!

Matt Dempsey-Thompson

Thank you Jules Hussey would like to give massive thanks to Julie Aylward and Angela McLean of Arqiva; to brilliant tour guides Ray, Bruce and Charles (Chick); and to Bob Burns and team from Crystal Palace Radio & Electronics Club who ran a special events station that weekend speaking to people from across the world.

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Justine Crow gets a bit emotional over the gorgeousness that is

STANLEY HALLS Photos by Angie Davila angiedavila.co.uk

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icture this: a long vaulted picture gallery, a fully equipped theatre with copious stage and orchestra pit, set doors, viewing gallery, two vast meeting rooms, sprung floors, a large house, half a dozen villa-type salons, a labyrinthine basement and grand staircase, all bestowed with stunning original Edwardian fittings and cleverly flooded with light.

Now picture where you might find such a place?

Holland Park? The Art Nouveau district of St Gilles in Brussels? Try South Norwood. Actually, you’ve been past it a hundred times and occasionally wondered why that unusual red brick building with a touch of the municipal about it has vases of flowers on its gables.

The exterior may be pleasingly peculiar to the passerby but nothing prepares you for the remarkable interiors and the potential within. Its protagonist, the North London-born inventor and philanthropist William Ford Stanley, certainly saw its potential as well as that of the people he hoped would flock through its double doors, pressing their hands to the curved brass handles to be educated and entertained, to be bettered in the first public building ever to be lit with electricity.

Opened just after the turn of the century to stand alongside the Stanley Technical Trades School (now part of South Norwood Harris Academy), braving the bombs of the Second World War and later surviving the ravages of apathy, financial deprivation and theft, this laudable community project to provide a centre for lectures, the arts and neighbourhood activities continues with the Stanley People’s Initiative (SPI).

Formed in 2011 when the halls were, according to Carol Clapperton the group’s current chair, with some understatement, ‘going to pot’, the SPI was created as a result of a meeting in which a hundred people showed up and a hundred people were unanimous in their commitment to preserve Stanley’s vision.

Inevitably it has been a long old haul but, perhaps less predictably, Croydon Council who ‘own’ the building has been, within the constraints of its legal obligations, largely supportive, eventually selecting the charitable organisation as its ‘preferred partner’ (ghastly term) after a bidding process.

Grade Two-listed, sprawling and characteristically physically robust in a way that is unparalleled in modern edifices (where front walls fall at the passing of a bus), the operation is complicated and costly but the optimism and energy of Carol’s fellow members, Judith Burden secretary and David Somner trustee, is reassuring. They are in thrall to both the heritage and the future, brimming with historical fact, gossip and thoughtful discussion. While David bounces off to help set up the screen for a forthcoming film festival, Carol and Judith show me round.

It is, frankly, astonishing. The detail everywhere, from the inlaid stucco roundels that feature throughout that Judith explains were supposedly inspired by 29

Stanley’s wife to the green-glazed ceramic spindles and balustrades on the staircases, perfectly combines elegance with municipal functionality, the notion of which is apparently lost on many of today’s fast track designers and architects.

Though stout, there is fragility. There are quirks too, not least the ancient loos and awkward access – a jaded though well-meant council gonk somewhere in the not so distant past succeeded in further complicating matters as he tried to fix both issues by plonking a disabled toilet squarely in the middle of a corridor.

Earlier, David had enthused that the volunteers make new discoveries all the time – a fan from an old air-conditioning shaft with blades ‘as tall as me’; a marvellous bill of fare. We pass pianos (‘Five,’ says Judith, ‘and one a Steinway. But I wouldn’t recommend striking up a tune on any of them right now’), hundreds of corporate velvet-seated stacking chairs and many ornate fireplaces still sooty and cracked with erstwhile heat. The stage and meeting rooms remain in use, though less so than in previous decades when dance troupes and theatre companies vied to use the facilities.

As well as being the ideal location for film festivals, the venue hosts comedy nights and rehearsing actors, location shoots, special talks and one-off musical shows such as the highly successful Endurance steel orchestra. A recent Sherlock Holmes evening in the vast and deeply atmospheric upstairs salon attracted a crowd of seventy or more. Stanley would have approved as, like his local contemporary Conan Doyle, though an accomplished scientist, he was also an ardent free-thinking spiritualist.

And Stanley was an aesthete as well as a realist who established his mathematical tool factory not far from Norwood Junction making instruments for 30

many different industries. He designed and built his own homes in Albert and Chalfont roads respectively, stipulating the use of the latter solely as a children’s home after his death (Mary Bell, the newsworthy child murderer was housed there). Naturally, ownership having passed to Lambeth Council, it was pulled it down in 2006 before it could be listed.

Thanks to the Herculean efforts of the SPI no such despicable fate awaits the magnificent Stanley Halls.

The journey to complete refurbishment will be arduous though, fraught no doubt with myriad applications for funding and the horrendous complexities of planning, coupled with the ever-present distraction of politics and protocol. Like the manufacture of one of Stanley’s steel tools, the task will require patience and precision, a firm-hand and generous expertise.

Apart from events, the halls are open to the public on the third Saturday of every month. Recently redecorated by 60 local teens, there’s also a modest café with a local art exhibition. If you pop your head around those considerable doors, I guarantee you will be impressed, not just by the extraordinary architectural space but by the vitally important legacy it houses.

William Ford Stanley might have been born in Islington but he became part of the community and one of South London’s finest sons. And those vases of flowers?

Stanley was cocking a snook at his po-faced Victorian forebears. Makes you love him even more. stanleypeoplesinitiative.wordpress.com StanleyHalls

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Are you a WINNER?

Terms & Conditions The Golden Ticket (The Prize) is redeemable at the NAMED participating establishment ONLY for goods and services up to the value of £50. The prize is non-exchangeable and is not redeemable for cash or other prizes. To redeem your Golden Ticket, present it at the named establishment before end Thursday 18 December. After this date tickets will be INVALID. The full value of the ticket must be redeemed against goods and services on a SINGLE VISIT, no surplus credit will be given for any unused ‘underspend’.

Transmission Publications Limited (TPL) accepts no responsibility for any costs associated with the prize and not specifically included in the prize (including travel to and from the establishment). TPL accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of accepting or redeeming the prize. TPL accepts no responsibility for the quality of the goods or services offered by the participating organisations, any complaint or dissatisfaction should be raised directly with the establishment in question. Full Disclaimer at www.thetransmitter.co.uk

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A warm welcome and £50 worth of stuff awaits the lucky finders of the SIX Golden Tickets.

Could there even be six finer establishments than these? Which one is on YOUR ticket?

If you haven’t already, it may be worth flicking through ALL the pages in this issue, just in case there is a GOLDEN TICKET nestling in Sue William’s patch or lurking around Louise’s lipsticks.

SOMEWHERE amongst the thousands of issues of The Transmitter are SIX tickets and the lucky winners will be off to claim prizes from six WONDERFUL and GENEROUS local businesses in Crystal Palace. In your wildest dreams you could not imagine the marvellous SURPRISES that await you (unless you have been there before).

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Arenkha Caviar £10 Chapel Down Vintage Brut £26 Crystal Palace Market Haynes Lane, Crystal Palace

Vintage hair flowers £15 Violet Betty’s Church Road, Crystal Palace

Christmas Shopping Who likes to shop local? Yes, we know. YOU do!

And what better time to do it than Crimbo. Show your favourite shopkeepers a bit of yuletide love #YourHomeYourShops

D1 overdrive pedal with valve circuitry, a laser cut stainless steel case and custom made aluminium knobs Dickinson Amplification £399 Antenna Studios Haynes Lane, Crystal Palace

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Paella set £19.50 Alhambra Kirkdale, Sydenham

Hand-painted Spanish pestle & mortar £12.50 Alhambra Kirkdale, Sydenham

RAF Wool & Tan Leather Gloves £100 Simon Carter Westow Street, Crystal Palace

Dawes L’il Duchess girls bicycle (20” wheels & 6 speed Shimano gear system) £229.99 Blue Door Bicycles Central Hill, Crystal Palace

Lakrids by Johan Bülow Danish liquorice from £5.99 Smash Bang Wallop Westow Street, Crystal Palace

Purse/makeup bag from Chase and Wonder £10 Brave Girl Westow Hill, Crystal Palace

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Ceramic coasters £4.95 Alhambra Kirkdale, Sydenham

Handmade charcoal grey cloche £50 Dawn Wilson Millinery Vintagehart Church Road, Crystal Palace

Christmas Hamper with Champagne, Wild Beer, cheese, chutney & crackers £125 Others available from £35 Good Taste Food Westow Hill, Crystal Palace

Willies Cacao Black Pearls (sea salt, lime chilli, apple brandy) £6.99 Smash Bang Wallop Westow Street, Crystal Palace

Tales from The Earth Lady Luck sterling silver necklace £39.99 Brave Girl Westow Hill, Crystal Palace

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Fur shrug £25 Violet Betty’s Church Road, Crystal Palace Proviz REFLECT360 Reflective Jacket £74.99 Blue Door Bicycles Central Hill, Crystal Palace

Christmas vouchers Champagne Breakfast for two £50 Cocktails for two £30 Joanna’s Westow Hill, Crystal Palace

1970s-inspired swirl design cufflinks £75 Simon Carter Westow Street, Crystal Palace

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MELANIE REEVE GUIDES US THROUGH A SEASONAL SELECTION OF GREAT VALUE FIZZ I’m reviewing four different styles here, which hail from classic regions and beyond. Sparkling wine from Brazil? Now’s your chance to try it! With Christmas budgets in mind, the wines sit across a price range to suit all pockets. Christmas drinking just got interesting!

Coconova Sparkling Brut NV (Vale do Sao Francisco, Brazil) Marks & Spencer £9 A blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc and Verdejo created by one of Marks & Spencer’s own winemakers, Jeneve Williams, from vineyards located in a river valley in Bahia, Eastern Brazil. This region is unique in wine-growing terms as, at 9 degrees south of the Equator, it should be simply too hot for wine production. Vineyard irrigation enables a productive grape harvest in this hot region, with Brazil’s main wine production area located about 500 miles further south in the cooler region of Rio Grande do Sul. I was impressed by this wine’s juicy nectarine and melon aromas, with a fresh yet rounded finish.

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Guide to Christmas Food & Wine Matching A few wine recommendations with Christmas menus in mind Canapés Sparkling wines Smoked salmon Champagne, a fruity Sauvignon Blanc or a dry Riesling Roast turkey with trimmings Oaked white – Chardonnay or a white Rioja. For reds look for fruity rounded styles rather than mature, savoury reds (try Chilean Merlot or Californian Zinfandel – my personal favourite) Roast beef Mature Bordeaux or Rhone red such as Chateauneuf-du-Pape Christmas pudding Great with rich Madeira Mince pies Tawny port or mulled wine (try my Mulled Cider recipe over the page)

The Wine Society’s Cava Reserva Brut NV (Penedes, Catalunya, Spain) www.thewinesociety.com £8.50 Awarded ‘Best Value Cava’ by Wines of Spain (Top 100 2014). Made by a small family estate in Penedes, Spain using the three traditional grape varieties for cava production, plus a touch of Chardonnay to give elegance.

This producer exceeds the minimum ageing requirement of nine months and allows for an extended maturation of 30 months to develop more complex flavours.

Fresh apple flavours, with rounded biscuity notes. Also available in magnum (£17.50) which I have in my wine rack – the perfect size for a party!

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Melanie’s mulled cider recipe 2 x 500ml bottles dry cider 3 cardamom pods, whole and split open 2 star anise 1 cinnamon stick 1 tablespoon dark clear honey, or to taste Calvados, to serve Heat all ingredients together gently in a pan.

Add a generous dash of Calvados just before serving

Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label Brut NV (Reims, Champagne, France) www.laithwaites.co.uk £32.99 A true classic among champagnes, created by a pioneer of her day. In 1805 Madame Cliquot took over the family Champagne business following the loss of her husband. Inspired by the yellow-hued yolks of eggs laid by her hens, she created the distinctive yellow-orange label that still adorns bottles in this range today. A lovely complex wine with a range of aromas – light toast, white peach and delicate vanilla spice, which intensifies gradually with bottle age (given the chance!).

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Wine questions for Melanie?

Get in touch! winealiveuk@gmail.com Wine Alive

Alessandro Gallici Prosecco NV (Prosecco DOC, Veneto, Italy) www.laithwaites.co.uk £10.99 A top-quality Prosecco made with fruit selected from low-yielding vines in a region to the north of Venice.

Prosecco as a wine style is all about the fresh, immediate flavours of the fruit and this example is bursting with concentrated flavours of citrus lemon and ripe green pear. Enjoy as an elegant aperitivo.

Ahh, Little Baby Cheesus Have yourself a cheesy little Christmas, says Manish Utton-Mishra

Y

You may have heard that Christmas is round the corner. And you may be aware that Christmas is a time for Loving and Giving. It may be. Know what it’s better for? Cheese. You heard it here first, Cheese. And Wine. And Beer. And the occasional dram of course.

What’s the ideal Christmas cheese? I bet Stilton just popped into your head. Right? Nope. Wrong. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love a good Stilton. But there are so many other interesting blue cheeses available.

So, how do you go about choosing the perfect cheeseboard for you and your guests? The first rule of cheese-buying is if you’re paying for it get what you like.

Don’t try and please everyone because you won’t. These are the Good Taste Food team’s recommendations for a ‘traditional’ board.

Young Buck Mellow yet packed with flavour. Has a lovely sharp tang to it and it even appeals to people who think they only like strong blue cheeses. Young Buck is Norn Iron’s [sic] only unpasteurised cheese Bath Blue Another unpasteurised cow’s milk blue. This time from Bath, well, Kelston Park Farm, just outside Bath. This is the middling-strength blue that makes it on to this list. Has an amazing bouncy and creamy texture Stichelton How Stilton should be made if the rules could be changed. Stichelton is basically a Stilton but made using unpasteurised milk 42

Hard cheese For me it has to be Montgomery’s Cheddar from Somerset.

Made by Jamie Montgomery and his team. However, if you want a mellower and less aggressive one try my personal ‘desert island’ cheese, Lord of the Hundreds. A simply divine ewe’s milk cheese from Sussex.

Soft cheese If you want to keep it British there is only one choice.

Tunworth. Now made using pasteurised cow’s milk in Hampshire. It’s a ‘camembert’ but far superior!

Washed rind cheese Got to go Continental for this one. Eposes. The Monarch of washed rind cheeses. Washed in Marc de Bourgogne, the local pomace brandy. Pungency heaven!

The final type of cheese to consider divides people into two groups. Those who like them and those who haven’t quite discovered the right one for them yet …

Goat’s milk cheese Got to be British for this as Sarah Hampton at Brockhall Farm makes this country’s finest goats cheeses! From Pablo Cabrito – an ash-covered log – to the harder, more mature Dutch Mistress Enjoy!

Good Taste Food and Drink 28 Westow Hill Crystal Palace goodtaste-fd.co.uk @GoodTasteFood

The short & sweet of it A potted history of the black stuff by liquorice-lover Liz Clamp

W

e all know we either love it or loathe it – but what is liquorice? In raw form it is a plant grown traditionally in hot, dry climes from Spain to California.

And yes, less exotically, in Pontefract, Yorkshire.

Liquorice roots take up to four years to reach their full length of 30 feet. Harvested in the autumn, they are left to almost dry for nine to ten months, after which the root is crushed and pulped before the extracted liquid is then dried into a golden brown powder. It is this raw powder that is used as flavouring in food, tobacco, alcohol, cosmetics and, of course, made into the sweets we enjoy (or not).

Liquorice began life both as a sweet and a medicine to which various civilisations attributed various healing properties. Cleopatra used it to preserve her beauty, whilst in Ancient Greece physicians found the liquorice root provided relief from chest complaints. Chinese doctors have potions and remedies dating back thousands of years that use liquorice as a means of curing many disorders – even ‘disenchanted relationships’.

Probably its most useful property (in days of old) was the ability to quench thirst. Indeed it first came to Britain after being issued to Roman soldiers on their long march over here. In turn, monks took to liquorice and found that it grew particularly well in Pontefract; after the dissolution of the monasteries Pontefract farmers continued to grow the root. Now, after a break of over 100 years, liquorice is once again being grown commercially in Yorkshire.

Liquorice Allsorts • t he roots contain glycyrrhizin, an element which is 50 times sweeter than sugar • t he finest powder probably comes from Persia • c rushed liquorice root is now made into board • i n the James Bond film Goldfinger, the character Jaws bites through a huge cable – it was actually made of liquorice • t here are over 300 types of liquorice • t he Danish make a salty liquorice which contains ammonium chloride (salmiak) •L iquorice Allsorts were created when a clumsy sales rep spilled his individual samples & immediately received an order for a mixed-up group In the licorice fields at Pontefract My love and I did meet And many a burdened licorice bush Was blooming round our feet; Red hair she had and golden skin, Her sulky lips were shaped for sin, Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd The strongest legs in Pontefract.

Excerpt from The Licorice Fields of Pontefract by John Betjeman 43

MINE’S A PINT Manish Utton-Mishra meets the Gipsy Hill brewers

A

pparently the water, the air, or more likely the cheaper rents, have meant a plethora of microbreweries opening up on our doorstep. At the last count there were eight. EIGHT! There’s Gipsy Hill Brewing Company; The London Beer Factory; Late Knights; The Cronx Brewery; Clarence and Fredericks; Inkspot Brewery; Canopy Beer Company; and A Head In A Hat. I recently met with one of the founders of Gipsy Hill Brewing Company, Sam McMeekin.

Sam and Charlie Shaw started the brewery and Simon Wood – now considered an honorary founding member – joined as the head brewer from day one.

Charlie started with Five Points Brewery in Hackney from their inception. Sam worked in emerging markets investments in SubSaharan Africa but eventually got disillusioned with being stuck behind a desk and not meeting with the small enterprises/villages that actually floated his boat. Via a mutual friend Sam and Charlie met and the rest is history. Albeit a short one at the time of writing: it only took them four or five beers to decide to go ahead with the brewery.

Beer, they felt, is as entrepreneurial a venture as any that is based, for example, in tech or the City. And of course beer is very much a tangible product. And beer is, aside from tea perhaps, at the heart of British culture!

Why Gipsy Hill? Charlie lives locally, and the rent is much cheaper than it is in Bermondsey and Hackney, where many of London’s microbreweries have been set up.

I wondered why they feel strongly about brewing beer no more than 5%. It started at 4.5%, they reveal, but as they brewed more and more it became clear that they had to raise it to the 5% mark.

But it doesn’t have to be stronger, they believe, to be packed with flavour. Another reason for doing beer at low ABV is that Sam, Charlie and Simon aren’t getting any younger, don’t choose to drink stronger beers much any more, and want to brew beers that can be enjoyed with friends and family without the risk of overintoxication!

What do they brew?

Southpaw, 4.2% This is a stunning, hoppy, amber ale with fruity tones. I get a beautiful malty aroma followed by pineapples and other tropical fruits on the palate. It’s unusual and, as the name suggests, packs a punch!

Beatnik, 3.8% A brand new pale ale. This really does – as it says on the bottle – hum, with floral notes on the nose followed by a passion fruits and citrusy palate.

Both of these are available at Beer Rebellion most weeks. You can also buy bottles to drink at home from Good Taste or BOB Wines or order a Southpaw with your meal at Domali or Joanna’s.

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IN the

Photos by Robbie Ewing

robbieewing.com

KITCHEN WITH...

ALISON McNAUGHT Rachel de Thample meets one half of Domali, Crystal Palace’s much loved

veggie restaurant (and steals her recipe for Bobotie while she’s there)

Where does the name ‘Domali’ come from?

It’s a combination of our names. We were going to call the café Beetroot for a while and registered the name, however our friend Mat suggested Domali. Friends seemed to like it so it stuck.

Domali has been an incubator for a number of local chefs and café owners. Tell us more

We met ‘working’ in a ski resort, Chatel in the French Alps. It didn’t seem much like work! Though as a chalet girl I had to provide a 3-course meal from scratch every night. I had to learn quickly.

We have been lucky to work alongside some very talented people over the years. Eamonn from Blackbird Bakery joined us just after he returned from working in Martha’s Vineyard in America. An amazing chef and talented baker. Andrea from Comfort and Joy was our main chef for eight years, her cooking was/is legendary, running her own show was a natural progression. The feeling of interconnectedness between us all is lovely.

What inspired you to open Domali?

What is Christmas dinner like for you?

It was Dom’s idea initially. There were lots of empty shops around at the time and a real buzz surrounding ‘café culture’ in the mid-1990s and we felt we could offer something new and interesting using the experience from Chatel. We both loved vegetarian food and also wanted to be independent and work for ourselves.

I fall into the category of those who eat ‘less meat, more veg’. My Christmas dinner will usually consist of lots of amazing veg and some organic meat. A couple of years ago I had roasted goose with celeriac gratin & braised red cabbage – that was great. Good roasted potatoes are essential at Christmas. I hate Brussels sprouts, people feel compelled to serve them during the festive season. I have tried cooking them in every possible way but have admitted defeat – I just don’t like them.

How did you and Dom meet?

Did you have another restaurant or did you work as a chef before?

Domali is the first. After Chatel I gained some professional experience at the Fire Station in Waterloo, which was a very good restaurant at the time. It was inspiring as they were using lots of exciting ingredients, like truffle oil, which I had never encountered before. I don’t call myself a chef, I see myself as a cook.

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Favourite local haunt to do your Christmas shopping?

This is tough, I can’t pick one! Smash Bang Wallop do amazing chocolate, I always find something interesting at the Bookseller Crow and Good Taste Food and Drink is just the most amazing tasty emporium. Beer and cheese make great presents.

LENTIL BOBOTIE

Bobotie is a traditional South African Cape Malay dish, in its original form a fruity, spicy, meaty bake with a bready béchamel on top . I first made the dish as a chalet girl in the early 90s, when i was looking for new and interesting vegetarian options. One of my co-workers owned a copy of the Oxfam Vegetarian Cookbook by Rose Elliot. We loved it and it became our ‘go-to’ veggie cookbook. In fact we were completely gutted when a client accidentally-on-purpose took it home with them. We think they liked the bobotie a little too much!

The dish mainly appeared on the Domali menu in the early days, not so much recently. It was only when thinking of something 'exotic’ for a veggie Christmas meal that it came back to mind. Revisiting this dish has been a real treat. It has been slightly adapted from the original – the bread has gone – but it's still spicy and fruity and is totally comforting. All things I associate with Christmas! It is usually served with rice but I think it will work well with most Christmas veg, though perhaps not roast potatoes (unless you want to go to sleep for a very long time after eating it!)

INGREDIENTS

2 red onions, finely chopped 3 fat garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 tbsp sunflower oil 2 thumbs of ginger, finely chopped ½ tsp cinnamon 2 tsp English mustard powder 2 tsp chilli powder 1 tsp turmeric

METHOD Preheat the oven to 180º.

2 tsp ground coriander

Cook 200g lentils until al dente. (You can use tinned lentils if you want to cheat: Merchant Gourmet are very good). Drain and set aside.

2 cloves

While the lentils are cooking place the onions in a large saucepan with the sunflower oil, garlic and ginger. Cook on a low heat until the onions are translucent.

¼ tsp fenugreek

While the onions are cooking lightly toast the fenugreek, cardamom pods and cloves. This should only take a minute. Don’t burn them!

400g carton chopped tomatoes

Grind the newly-toasted spices in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar, then add them to the cooking onions along with the cumin, coriander, mustard powder, turmeric, chilli powder, cinnamon and bay leaves.

60g raisins, finely chopped

2 tsp ground cumin 2 cardamom pods 200g puy lentils, cooked 600g squash/pumpkin, cut into small cubes 2 bay leaves 10 dried apricots, finely chopped salt & pepper to taste

Add the cubed squash and slowly cook for 5 minutes. Then add the chopped tomatoes, the lentils, the apricots and raisins, and keep the mixture on the heat until the squash is cooked through but not ‘squashy’. Finally add salt and pepper to taste.

For the béchamel

You can prepare the béchamel whilst the bobotie is cooking away.

60g plain flour

500ml milk 60g butter

Bring the milk to just below boiling point, whilst melting the butter in separate largeish saucepan.

2 tsp English mustard powder

Stir the flour into the melted butter and cook for a couple of minutes on a very low heat. Gradually whisk in the hot milk, and cook on a very low heat until you have a thick sauce. Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly. Beat in the eggs then add the mustard powder, grated nutmeg and salt to taste.

½ tsp grated nutmeg

2 eggs, beaten salt to taste

When the bobotie mix is ready, place it in an ovenproof dish and pour the béchamel over the top.

Pop it in the oven for 35 minutes: serve and enjoy!

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n e m o w r o f k c i t s Li p k c i t s p i l e t a h o h w

These new hybrid products may convert you says our beauty advisor Louise Heywood

L

ipstick has quietly been going through a little revolution. There is now every combination of hybrid lipstick on the market. Some are bold and matt, some are subtle tints, but none look or feel like traditional lipstick. If you find lipstick is slimy and lipgloss too sticky then I suggest you give these products a try as they feel comfy, are relatively low maintenance and come in formulations that are lightweight, balmy or velvety.

I’m not really a lipstick kinda girl. I love make-up (lucky really since I’m a make-up artist) but lipstick can make me (and I think many others) feel ‘made up’ and 48

a bit self conscious – often resulting in it being blotted off just before leaving the house. But colour on the lips is flattering and since hitting 40 I am realising my face really benefits from some colour, however subtle. And it makes teeth look whiter, especially in berry tones.

Personally I love red lips worn informally with jeans and t-shirt and little other make-up, but having said that you can probably get away with wearing last year’s dress to the Christmas party if you accompany it with a bold lip colour. If going for a strong colour then gloss can look OTT so stick to a matt finish which is bang on trend.

SIX OF THE BEST:

these all look as good as they feel

The sheer lipstick/balm hybrid

Revlon Colorburst Lip Butters £7.99 If you are terrified of lipstick this is a good place to start with a great colour range. Candy Apple is a wonderful, easy, fresh orangey/red that is particularly nice on pale skins Lipstick Queen Chinatown £22 This is the one that has really converted me to wearing red. It’s the original chubby stick, which says it is a gloss but actually it’s more like a balm.

I particularly like Thriller (which is a sheer scarlet red) and Chase (a pretty coral/red)

The balm/stain hybrid

Revlon Colorstay Moisture Stain £7.99 This stain is sheer and lightweight, with a velvety finish and unlike most stains is not drying. Cannes Crush is a flattering coral

The lipstick/gloss hybrid without the stickiness

Maybelline Color Elixir £6.99 A sheer liquid lipstick that feels like a balm but applies and shines like a gloss. Nude Illusion and Caramel Infused are lovely nudes for a subtle polished look

The hybrid of everything and yet kinda unlike anything

Dior Addict Fluid Stick £26 A mix between a lipstick, a gloss, a balm and a lip stain.

So lightweight you can forget you’re wearing anything.

Loads of lovely colours: Shade 869 Vie d’Enfer is an easy to wear dark red Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet £8.99 Similar to the Dior but with a velvety matt finish.

Slightly tricky to apply but worth it as it really lasts.

The colour range is small and bold: Hot Pepper and Ole flamingo look achingly cool in this velvety formulation TIP : When applying your usual foundation or tinted moisturiser, cover (lightly) all around the edge of your lips and then kiss the back of your hand to blot it off your lips. After applying lip colour, I like to blot the edges with a clean finger to give a softer look.

Louise Heywood provides one-to-one and group make-up lessons and makeovers in Crystal Palace louiseheywood.com @lheywoodmakeup

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Slow toads and cyclamen leaves Stickily glistening with eternal shadow Keeping to earth.

Cyclamen leaves Toad-filmy, earth-iridescent Beautiful Frost-filigreed Spumed with mud Snail-nacreous Low down.

Seek out some cyclamen says Sue Williams

I

n England the cyclamen commonly used to be called sowbread, not a very prepossessing title for such a beautiful plant. In fact I’m a relative newcomer to the mysterious delights of the cyclamen. It used to figure with me in the same category as the African Violet of the 1970s, forlornly over-watered on the kitchen windowsill.

They appear everywhere at this time of the year, ranged up for indoor decoration, to brighten up the shortening days. The indoor variety, or pot cyclamen, have been developed from Cyclamen persicum which is native to Asia minor and semi hardy. The colours range from pure white to deep pink and they thrive best indoors in cool conditions where there is not much direct sunlight. Oppressive central heating will not suit them at all. Neither will over-watering and it is best to allow the plant to dry out to the point where the leaves are beginning to wilt and then giving them a thorough watering. There is some discussion as to whether these indoor hybrids can be planted out at the end of their season and I find that in most cases they take pretty well to the outdoor life, especially as the Norwood climate is on the whole very temperate.

If you are going to throw them out then it is worth giving them a second chance in the great outdoors.

And for me it is out of doors that these plants reveal their true magic. They flower freely in that most thorny of areas – dry shade – and at a time of year when their delicate blooms seem almost too good to be true. The Cyclamen coum is one of the most stalwart cultivars. It hails from the mountains of Turkey and Northern Iran and throws up blooms ranging from deep carmine to purest white in the darkest months of December through to March.

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Excerpt from Sicilian Cyclamens by D H Lawrence

It is happy to grow under deciduous trees and shrubs where the soil is well drained and the plant is protected from the heat of the summer sun. If left to its own devices the cyclamen will eventually form a cushion-like mound of flowers. These naturalised groups of the plant work really well if interplanted with aconites and snowdrops which appear in the earliest months of spring.

Cyclamen do not grow from bulbs but are tuberous perennials. They have a root system that could grace a Lord of the Rings film. The delicate leaves and flowers issue forth from a tangled weave of tubers and coiled seed stalks. It is important that these are not left to become parched in the hottest summer months but given a water occasionally if they are sited in a very dry spot. There is a wide variety of leaves to this genus, ranging from the marbled ivy-like foliage of Cyclamen hederifolium to the dark green, shiny heart-shaped leaves of Cyclamen purpurascens. Just as a horticultural footnote the word hedera in any plant description denotes that the leaf is ivy shaped as this derives from the Latin. Always good to bring in a bit of Classics.

Once established the cyclamen is relatively easy to replant. With the use of a sharp spade the clump can be divided and the separated cyclamen repositioned in a hole filled with humus rich soil. Ensure the hole is not too deep – or the plant may not flower – and that the site has good free-flowing drainage. Last year I divided several cyclamen and all but one have taken in their new home. When the flowers die back the plant will benefit from a good covering of leaf mould.

Happy gardening

Photo: Todd Boland/Shutterstock.com

THERE’S A WORLD OUT THERE! Howard Male devotes the whole of his music column to the enigma that is Paolo Conte O

ne of the most agreeable things about being a ‘world music’ critic is that occasionally I’m introduced to an artist who, unbeknownst to me, is a huge star – and has been for decades – in some other part of the world.

For all I knew, the Italian singer-songwriter Paolo Conte only had a small cult following. So, curiosity aroused, I googled him and there on YouTube was this ‘new artist to me’ commanding the attention of some 15,000 people in a dizzyingly huge amphitheatre. Suddenly all was right with the world, because it would have been something of a tragedy if this musical and literary genius hadn’t been, in his 77th year, reaching a mass audience who, it could be seen from the clip, clearly adore him.

So what is it about this Italian crooner that’s prompted me to devote the whole of my column to him even though I don’t speak a word of Italian? Well, he’s no mere crooner for one thing. Think Foreign Affairs-era Waits rather than post-Swordfishtrombone Waits, then throw in some Leonard Cohen and Jacques Brel and you’ll be halfway there. He’s got the kind of beat-up, booze-worn, tobaccoworn voice that age doesn’t wither: rather it adds further veneers, textures and emotional resonance.

Moving on to specifics – track 1 of his latest album Snob (Wrasse Records) is a jaunty accordion-led groove, reminiscent of South African township jive, over which Conte repeatedly sings his two-word chorus, ‘Kunta Kinte!

Kunta Kinte! ’ (the name of the African slave at the centre of the American TV drama Roots). And yet the verses have little to do with the slave trade, speaking as they do of mobile phones, Wimbledon and a young bride’s ‘jewels of blue wood’. And yet the quirky arrangement and the absurdist’s sense of mischief in the words fuse to create the impression that this song is more than just a series of vivid snapshot images from a foreign (to both us and Conte) land.

The next track on Snob is a love ballad. But our ageing romantic doesn’t do love ballads as others do them.

The enigmatic woman in Donna Dal Profumo Di Caffe is no more than a dream Conte has just woken from.

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She smells of coffee and so he drinks a coffee to her memory. Another woman in another song is compared to, ‘A summer cat, darting here and there, pursuing an idea of its own.’ Then there’s the girl who warms her legs before the bonfire, and the one in the yellow dress who brings him fresh fruit. Every Conte song exudes a dark warmth that juxtaposes the everyday with the achingly romantic, and the nostalgic with the surreally modern. He recognises that the everyday object (a bouncing ball, a black necklace, a bar of soap) can evoke profound longing if given the right context.

Snob isn’t released here until January but that shouldn’t stop you getting some Conte in for the Christmas break. Because despite the picture I’ve painted of a wilful eccentric – perhaps even a ‘difficult’ artist – the man weaves exquisite melodies often set against lush orchestration and can therefore be appreciated as both easy and uneasy listening. So invest in a copy of The Best of Paulo Conte (Nonesuch Records), get that log fire going and whisky poured, and enjoy reading the English translations of the lyrics as you listen (trust me – it’s an experience akin to watching a gripping subtitled movie).

Do I detect an echo of T S Eliot and his coffee spoons in this verse from Under the Stars of Jazz? ‘There are two thousand enigmas in jazz. Ah, so you can’t follow the tune. Time is made up of moments. And weekly puzzle magazines.’ Who else could mention weekly puzzle magazines in a song and in doing so get you thinking about your own mortality? Conte has created his own territory somewhere between the French chanson, the jazz standard and the Argentinean tango, often adding a Satie-esque twist to an otherwise formulaic melody for good measure (the piano is also his instrument of choice).

There’s a 40-year back catalogue of some twenty albums: I’ve barely scraped the surface. It’s great being a ‘world music’ far-from expert!

Howard Male is the author of the novel Etc Etc Amen (available from The Bookseller Crow).

Jonathan Main offers a great selection

of reads to give or receive this Christmas

THE BOOKSELLER @BooksellerCrow

A

few years ago we had a snow day that cut Crystal Palace off from the rest of London and the further down the hill you moved away from the busy party that the Triangle had become, the more silent and still the air became. A similar scene can be found in the brilliant novel Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (Picador £12.99) excepting that is, that here we are dealing with the end of civilisation as we know it. As far as I’m aware, on that snow day, there was never a band of militant evangelists lead by a prophet looking for his fourth wife, waiting to ambush any unsuspecting travellers at the bottom of Gipsy Hill. On other days, possibly. But not on that one.

A virus, a Georgia flu, wipes out 99 per cent of the population in a matter of days and a story that begins with the death of an actor on stage playing Hamlet, moves through twenty years of post-civilisation to encompass more Shakespeare (A Midsummer’s Night Dream) with a group of travelling players, horses pulling vehicles from the old world, hollowed out of engines and the other pointless peripheries of combustion; a text from Star Trek inscribed on the side of the lead vehicle, ‘Survival is Not Enough’. Much of the final third of the book takes place in a once-abandoned airport.

Someone there keeps a ‘Museum of Civilisation’ in which are placed a Christmas list of redundant items: iPhones and iPods, laptops, car engines, stiletto-heeled shoes, passports and credit cards, money and, um, magazines. In a year rich in popular fiction, Station Eleven is one of the high points.

Stay Up With Me by Tom Barbash (Simon and Schuster £12.99) is another of my favourite books of the year; this one is for fans of the American short story that invoke the C-word (Cheever) and even more so, Tobias Wolff (who gets a namecheck in the acknowledgements). These elegantly well-told stories mainly concern the monied denizens of Manhattan,

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who are fraying at the edges. People who tip waiters $20 because they lied to them. People bewildered by the limits, or otherwise, of their own morality. People who get told by old ladies whom they have robbed, you are not who you think you are. Excellent stuff.

With The Green Door (Langton & Wood £8.99) local author Christopher Bowden returns with a Victorian mystery story praised by novelist Sheena Mackay for its ‘nice balance of the chillingly supernatural with a sharply observed contemporary England peopled by vividly painted characters’. Expect a troubled history and danger ahead.

At fifteen weeks pregnant Matilda Tristram was diagnosed with colon cancer when, after weeks of being told by doctors that her condition was Probably Nothing, an MRI scan showed a tumour the size of an apple. What kind of apple she wonders? A Cox’s Pippin? A Granny Smith? – an indicator of the mordant humour that percolates Probably Nothing (Penguin £16.99), Tristram’s ‘as it happens’ graphic novel diary of her not-your-average nine months. This is an amazing book for many reasons, not least as a record of what Matilda went through, but also for the artistry with which it is rendered, the beautiful moments of observation, both with pen and ear.

Somewhere towards the middle of Probably Nothing, Matilda and her partner Tom receive the contract for their first children’s book. They go out for an indian to celebrate the 1.5p each will earn per copy from Santa’s Beard (Walker £10.99). Illustrated by Nick Sharratt this Santa’s beard has a life of its own, travelling from chin to chin, from a chef to a baby to a princess before finally landing on the right face. It’s a perfect Christmas book for the toddler in your life. You should probably buy a lot of copies.

Published by English Heritage Played in London

by Simon Inglis (EH £25.00) is a handsome survey of sports played across the wider capital, focusing specifically on its architectural heritage. Conceived in 1954 the National Sports Centre in Crystal Palace Park was billed as Britain’s first modern sports centre, incorporating wet and dry sports within the same building. It is the only post-war sports building to have a Grade ll heritage listing, and this book calls it magical, which is food for thought given current proposals for its future (see page 14). An altogether fascinating book.

If you are of a certain age I wouldn’t recommend reading Discovering Scarfolk by Richard Littler (Ebury Press £12.99) at bedtime, or your dreams will most likely be very weird indeed. Imagine, the back cover asks, you and your family are held captive in a town that is forever locked in the 1970s. And a very particular 1970s it is too, one that recalls all of those odd public information films of the time, often voiced by Donald Pleasence and looking as though they had been filmed by Polanski. Never Go With Strange Children one Scarfolk poster implores, while another cautions, Light is Expensive, When You’re not Using Your Eyes KEEP THEM SHUT (or we’ll shut them for you). It’s brilliantly done and foreboding is everywhere.

In Pigsticks and Harold and the Tuptown Thief by popular local author (and sometime Transmitter contributor) Alex Milway (WalkerBooks £6.99) there has been a crime spree in Tuptown on the eve of the Butterfly Ball. Pigsticks, all bustle and self-importance, and Harold his nervous but observant partner, have to do their best detecting, complete with deerstalker, magnifying glass and cape. Happily all ends well, except for Pigsticks’ terrible singing that is, and if I were him I might be a little wary too, of the suggestion of sausage rolls for the party, particularly when it’s Bobbins, the Angry Mouse, who is making them.

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A short story

by Justine Crow Illustrations by Kathryn Corlett kathryncorlett.co.uk

As I write Autumn is but a memory and the rough edge of Winter catches the neck and chafes like one of those blasted scarves our Cassandra was minded to have us wear. I’d rather the cold than the itch but what choice did we boys have cast in her iron, though benevolent, shadow?

I write with gratitude too as she would also always have us do and to say that the news of my Uncle Malhi’s passing caught me as a thunderbolt. No, really! As I took my missive, it actually rained and as I slipped in the knife, the sky above my lodgings clattered as if with grief and made me leap! That this mountain of man might have command of the heavens was of no surprise however. Even in death.

I was downstairs when it happened, attempting to avoid the Madame Beane, who heard my jolt and had that door open so fast I flew upwards for a second 57

time. The paper knife spilled and skewered her slipper with a circus twang and I was able to escape without discussion to the rent. She could still be there for all I know!

But Cousin, that was not to be the final of my electrifying performances on that day. Sorrowful news in hand, I entered my room and was instantly aware of another’s presence. I searched behind the drapes, beneath the bed, beside the chair but found it must be my imagination, ignited by that last brandy. With M. Beane’s fomented wrestling to pull out the knife that pegged her still fresh in my mind, I went to bed and pulled up my covers and my last happy recollection was of your father, my deceased uncle, calling with a wooden cutlass and eyepatch: ‘A vast behind!’

I awoke with a start to the storm assaulting the shingle. In darkness I lay discomfited once more by a presence. This time it had breath and it was in my ear.

Nearly stiff and definitely dry of mouth, by brandy or terror or both, I defined a footstep on my counterpane. And another. Like the walking of a cat.

But I have no cat (Madame B would double the rent for extra occupancy). And the padding continued. Then stopped. And belched.

I snapped upright and there was a fearsome scream and something was bowled at me in the blackness, a small shape with farflung embrace that snatched my vertical forehead and clung with soft terror over my eyes, its fur quivering, its jaw resting on my head a shiver, its pelt up my nostril. Cousin, it took me several moments to remove its grip that did near suffocate me, whilst thinking that though this was some fiendishly athletic feline, it would find no mice up there. No matter what the Madame claimed.

The fur muff finally extracted safely to my pillow, I drew the drape to allow the bossy stormlight in and saw that it was no rat catcher. The eyes that now gazed into my own reflected a creature with a more complicated soul than Master Tomcat or indeed Madame Beane – a little brown monkey. Well, t’was not quite a monkey, more like a baby. With simian palms & bottlebrush tail and rings like washday tidemarks. What a gem! So I called him that.

Gem it seemed had appeared out of neverwhere.

There is no zoological park nearby my lodgings, no circus (despite my tricks with the knife) nor even the travelling fair. Perhaps he came with an organ grinder, thought I, and had rid himself of that perpetual din. Either way, Gem moved in and with an adjoined fear of all things Beane, we made firm friends almost immediately.

She must not know he was there and cleverly, he knew this. In the morning when I was to leave to make way to the city where I clerk, I left Gem in the bed where we first met. All day he stayed until I returned after my supper at the tavern with some fruit remains and bread and rinds and I’d open the window for him 58

to do his business on the shingle before he hopped back down to break bread and entertain me. That lucky organ torturer had him dance and play and got no doubt quite wealthy on the dear little fellow’s talent, for he could mimmick a waltz and a coalman’s walk complete with silent sack; he creened as if a greedy starling and sung like a bereft hound.

Once Madame B came upward and rapped and demanded to know if I had, I can hardly say it, a maid aboard! As if my circumstance would warrant that luck indeed, but that naughtiest of lemurs made much fun with his panting and so I had to open up to prove her incorrect and she smacked those drapes hard but found nothing but an empty wall behind that hurt her hand. All the while Gem wore my hat so fully that he was inside & Madame missed the furry band about its brim.

At night Gem’s manner was more or should I say, less.. I do not know what the night is like in the kingdom that produced him but he found the South London stars of little comfort and quaked at the horn and distant trundle from the station tunnels, burying himself deep into my side. But then he finally had reason.

One terrible night I woke to find him shaking with fear atop my breast, his tiny finger jabbing my cheek to rouse me. I took him by my shoulder and tried to stare hard into the pitch to ascertain the cause of his unsettlement but could glean nothing from the dense air. I held my breath and he held his, and I listened.

There was footfall..

And Cousin, it was near. By heavens that primate was on my head again and both of us gulping our stomachs back up as a figure, grey against the black, flimsy as a slung shawl but taller than the clock in the hall, appeared to cross from the closed door, over the rug where it lingered and looked, to the heavy drape.

When the phantom stopped, I could see no face, just a hollow where a head would be. It squared itself as if to confront me and then shuddered as if disturbed by the night breeze. Then it continued toward the window.

Which too was shut, I might add. Then the figure slipped behind the curtain there without ripple or motion. My monkey however, once frozen, now warmed by the departure of the spectre, climbed off my scalp and tiptoed over to the patchy velvetine and peeped beneath. And went under the cloth.

I heard him nest and snore and so fell asleep myself and the next day began to feel the vision we had shared was nothing more than a dream conjured up by his simian Vaudevillian antics and that cheap tavern barrel my current poverty forces me to take. I stretched and scratched and went searching for my pet but he was disappeared.

And blasted Madame Beane was knocking: “What IS the meaning of this?!”

So I briskly opened up and feigned a casual yawn

full on and had her gape at my own gaping undress.

She looked away and proffered in a small wrapped box which I took and she left retching and fainting all down the corridor.

I called to Gem to help me unwrap the gift from you that was left outside my door without means of porter or messenger boy and certainly without permission of the Beane counter. I peeled off the note that came first and saw your neat script as redolent as Aunt Cassandra’s. ‘A legacy,’ you wrote, ‘from your beloved late Uncle Malhi.’ I called again with that miraculous animal kiss we all make when soliciting any creature from bird to bison – kiss, kiss, kiss – but the stowaway ringtail resisted all my charms. So I slid off the lid and took out first a banker’s draft made to my account for the sum of three hundred pounds. It is a wonder that got past my lady Beane! What a gift indeed.

Then a further crumple of paper, like a parcel 60

unfinished. I fished it out and still absently puckering and calling to Gem, I saw another note in your script.

‘May it bring you luck,’ you wrote. ‘The rest is buried with Mahli. God rest their souls.’ For luck, yes, it had indeed delivered in three divine hundreds. But what pray, transported such fortune at his bequest?

Now Cousin, I climb into my bed alone save for this other gift upon my pillow and I have no doubt your spectral father requires the return of his talisman.

Despite the financial salvation, how can I leave these lodgings thus unfinished?

In the dark against the pained whistle of the locomotive beyond, I am not certain I should be so thankful, afterall. For you know well what that other profference was to be. I unfolded the final papery blossom that wafted spice into my room like a question mark until in my hand I held it. A mummified monkey’s paw.

by Pip Irkin Hall

MISSING LETTER OF THE WEEK

Santamas Christians don’t believe in Santa for some reason.

He is not the real ‘reason for the season’.

Oh come off it all ye faithful, forsake your gods so fake.

Worship meat and drink and fruity xmas cake.

We need no saviour as we savour.

No priest as we feast and feed without creed.

No spirit holy but the spirit roly poly.

No pious revelations, put up flashing decorations!

Don’t appease us with Jesus, tickle us with St Nicholas!

Not church bells - sleigh bells!

Not ‘God’s presence’ - Santa’s presents!

I call upon you to choose the pagan path!

Invite only Santa’s love into your hearth!

@ ECONOMYCUSTARD | ECONOMYCUSTARD.CO.UK

© SIMON SHARVILLE 2014 61

Astrofact

My great great grandson borrowed my Time machine, crashed into his great Grandmother and instantly never existed

SAGITTARIUS - The Archer -

Nov 22 - Dec 21 You need to become more in touch with your emotions and learn mechanisms to impart them to close relatives. Next week, make a Xmas pudding imbued with feeling by forcing out confused angry tears into the mixing bowl so that your family can taste your inner pain come the big day.

Maybe spit in it a bit too and daub a few bogeys if you have any particular grudges.

CANCER

LEO

PISCES

- The Crab -

- The Lion -

- The Haddock -

Jun 21 - Jul 22

Jul 23 - Aug 22

Feb 22 - Mar 21

On Xmas morning, as you clutch the lame gift bought last minute by your partner, not only do you consider it badly chosen, it will in fact cement the decision you have been wrestling with inside all year - to leave them in order to pursue a single life. You will become a ‘onesie’ not wear one.

With Neptune tricuspal in your sign the expected will be turned on its head.

As a result, your office Xmas party will be relatively pleasant. No one will insult the boss and no one will form an unlikely coupling in the post room.

Neither will anyone photocopy their genitalia or vomit in a pot plant.

You will find yourself strangely able to eat twice as much festive fare this Xmas as unbeknownst to you, over the past year, deep in your abdomen you have been growing an unborn twin. In the New Year he begins to speak. His name is Bernie.

Astrological Gift Giving: My guide on what not to get me for Christmas.

Homeopathy kit – I got you nothing as well.

Essential oils – Unessential.

Talisman – I already have an Amulet.

Lucky charm – I make my own.

Incense – Incenses me.

Rune stones – Otherwise known as stones.

Healing crystals – I grow my own.

Voodoo doll – for kids.

Spiritual self help book – Give me a break…

Tarot cards – useful as coasters.

Happiness bracelet – for saddos.

Paranormal gifts – already possess them.

Mystic Mike is omnipresent but you can interact with him here: 62

LIBRA - The Scales -

Sep 23 - Oct 23 You will find Librans rooting for the underdog or defending and assisting those with weaker personality traits. It makes them look and feel great. You will find them serving in a Penge soup kitchen this Xmas, with a massive smug/caring grin. mysticmike.co.uk

@mrmysticmike

AQUARIUS

- The Goat(ee) -

- The Water Carrier -

- The Bull -

Dec 22 - Jan 20

Jan 21 - Feb 21

Apr 21 - May 21

With the party season approaching it’s time to get into shape. Looking at your chart, the shapes available within your particular cosmic destiny are: amorphous, blob, bubble, splodge, globule or nebulous so take your pick.

As Jupiter passes through your guilt zone this Xmas, make sure your free range bio-organic turkey is encircled by a minuscule and motley selection of stunted vegetables from your neglected South London allotment to make you feel more at peace with your status as a city-based middle-class capitalist.

The stars suggest your love and money zones collide and combine this month so withdraw all the money you have in crisp new twenty pound notes, take it home and roll naked in it to experience the cosmic union of romance and commerce. Then kiss it all goodbye because Xmas is coming.

ARIES

GEMINI

VIRGO

- The Ram -

- The Twins -

- The Virgin -

Mar 22 - Apr 20 You receive ‘smellies’ as your present every single year from most relatives and friends. Does it fall to me to spell it out to you? Splash a water/soap solution on your yeasty armpits and down there in the musty regions, scrub, rinse and dry then select from one of your hoard of unopened deodorants and apply generously. You might get a book next year - from a partner even.

May 22 - Jun 21 You will receive a self help book this Xmas that for once sounds as if it could really work. I predict I Can Make You Fat will indeed change your life - and may even end it.

Aug 23 - Sep 22 Xmas can be a lonely time for the single person. Impish Mercury suggests you discharge your sexual frustration by stomping into Blackbird Bakery and asking for two massive baps in a loud voice.

Mystic Mike’s Message

Mystic Xmas SCORPIO - The Hunter -

Oct 24 - Nov 21 Install a giant inverted illuminated flashing plastic Santa in the chimney of your house and an illuminated flashing plastic sleigh with eight illuminated flashing plastic reindeer on the roof, that all gyrate to a hip hop reworking of Mary’s Boy Child as a desperate cry for help because you can feel your meaningless life silently dissolving away.

The Solar System is 4.6 billion years old, so the planets had no lives to influence for roughly 4.45 billion years so being an astrologer then was pretty dull. Then the dinosaurs evolved but unfortunately they were fairly unimpressed with star signs. I had to wait until a sufficiently gullible lifeform arrived that was able to believe in Astrology for it to take off. So thanks everyone! And the whole Xmas thing you believe is so cute too – I’m wearing my reindeer jumper now.

Happy Xmas!

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Astrofact: To assess who in your office finds you sexually attractive, remove your clothing at your desk and see who doesn’t laugh.

TAURUS

CAPRICORN

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