De Beauvoir Cycle Gang Strikes Again

mikec is a bitter, twisted and wonderful man...

He'll also kick your arse down the track...

Hustling is a way of life...

Oh, I know that. My older boy was just kicked out of school, but give him 50p and he will bring you £2 back. We have to cut it in a bud before it's too late. Or rather channel it.

People like this don't think about families.
It's all nice if you're young and free.
Once you've got kids, you don't want them to grow up in the middle of the fucking ghetto.

Where's the point of buying a house next to the estate? Your kids will end up in shitty school, not being able to cross the road, because the other side is in another post code.
You can as well go native and get a council/HA place.

My mum relocated from a council estate in Hackney when I was 4 for this very reason, she said she didn't want me to grow up in a dirty, hostile, run-down environment.

Unfortunately we moved to Swansea.

Hackney then Swansea?

Fuck me mate: 08457 909090

I know, I've lived such a tragic life.

The Hackney estate was actually right on the border of Islington though so it wasn't too grim (it's just off City Road, near The Shepherdess) plus David Beckhams granddad used to live there, and sometimes he'd come round for dinner. #famousgranddadwin

Oh, I know that. My older boy was just kicked out of school, but give him 50p and he will bring you £2 back. We have to cut it in a bud before it's too late. Or rather channel it.

Do borstalls still exist?

young offenders prisons now

Oh, I know that. My older boy was just kicked out of school, but give him 50p and he will bring you £2 back. We have to cut it in a bud before it's too late. Or rather channel it.

or give him fifty quid..

I used to drink in there, before it was shit.
And the Sussex before it became the Scolts fucking Head
And The Talbot before it became overrun with cunts and I started a riot with 8 of them and all the bar staff

I don't how this has turned into a general free-for-all on Hackney and the changes that have happened over the last few years, but for what it's worth, yeah, it grates a bit that it's gotten a bit Notting Hill, but would you rather see Hackney as it was 20 odd years ago, when 1 shop in 4 in Church Street was boarded up, when the area between Dalston & the City was completely deserted, or as it is now, with money coming into the area, & actual new decent housing replacing the shit hole that was Holly Street, Queensbridge etc?

I miss the Hackney squat scene at it was, but the reason there isn't a squat scene in Hackney any more is because the housing stock in the borough is in a much, much better state than it was in the 80s.

I know, I've lived such a tragic life.

The Hackney estate was actually right on the border of Islington though so it wasn't too grim (it's just off City Road, near The Shepherdess) plus David Beckhams granddad used to live there, and sometimes he'd come round for dinner. #famousgranddadwin

The Wenlock Estate?

Before the total meltdown, I'd like to point out, that I haven't made such a statement.

More about the whole street thing being driven by certain attitudes which crossed over the ethnic boundaries long time ago. It's more about crime being cool - about hustling, providing etc.

Yeah, ok, but didn't you bring the colour thing in as well? Not picking a fight, just curious.

I miss the Hackney squat scene at it was, but the reason there isn't a squat scene in Hackney any more is because the housing stock in the borough is in a much, much better state than it was in the 80s.

What does it say about London that all the squats seem to be in Mayfair now?

:-)

I lived in old street area when I came to London and the same thieves and just a few smart dressed people.

I largely agree; the keep Hackney Crap position is ridiculous and condescending. What does bother me is what seems to be the social apartheid one sees in some where like Broadway Market.
That's not the Hackney I knew .. That's not the Hackney that re opened the Empire

The Wenlock Estate?

Yeah man! I have great memories of that place, although the stairwells stank of piss.

I don't how this has turned into a general free-for-all on Hackney and the changes that have happened over the last few years, but for what it's worth, yeah, it grates a bit that it's gotten a bit Notting Hill, but would you rather see Hackney as it was 20 odd years ago, when 1 shop in 4 in Church Street was boarded up, when the area between Dalston & the City was completely deserted, or as it is now, with money coming into the area, & actual new decent housing replacing the shit hole that was Holly Street, Queensbridge etc?

I miss the Hackney squat scene at it was, but the reason there isn't a squat scene in Hackney any more is because the housing stock in the borough is in a much, much better state than it was in the 80s.

the pendulum will swing too far the other way with folk that struggled through the bad times shifted on to alternate pastures once the gigi brigade open cafés and all the other stuff they like up.

Rest of the thread aside, got to agree with a number of EEI's points there.

I've traveled reasonably extensively through the lesser visited parts of the world, drawing some very basic points to light, I've found the people from the poorest areas of the poorest countries generally have a huge amount to give, even when there is nothing to give. A lot of people I came across would be what I consider trustworthy and extremely hardworking, e.g. if they can collect enough scraps of cardboard from streets/ shops/ other cardboard venders they might just be able to trade that for a few hundred gram's of rice/ potato/ veg etc. But they won't steal, they will almost always ask where the need arises before they take and are not offended if someone was to refuse them their waste scraps of cardboard. They will work and work and work, and expect nothing in return but megre existance.

Then when you come back to the UK/western world the excesses can be almost unbearable. I remember when I was young we used to take in international veterinary students as lodgers to make up the rent, they came from all over east asia, one was amazed by the sea, she ran into it in 3degreeC air temperature in feb (sea maybe 8C) fully clothed and was the happiest I think I've ever seen a person ever, she'd never seen the sea. Another broke down in tears then broke down further when we took her to the local supermarket (independant in early 90's bought out by tescos) as she had never seen such an array of fresh fruit & veg and so readily available, and cheap (despite many of those products coming from just miles from her own home).

Yet, in the UK we are blighted by people living quite well by our standards, and extraordinarily well by world standards, who see it necessary to rob/pillage and steal from others to fuel their own better than average existence. I find it very hard to comprehend how people (generally people of the estates if we're honest) can behave like they do, but its an impossible task to get the wider message across to them; their more concerned with 'hardness' status in their locale than almost anything else, and I find that scary.

On a different tangent, in the Peruvian rainforest (pre-amazon) I came across villages & towns of shacks that you wouldn't even be able to effectively keep chickens in, with a single UV bulb for light and pretty much nothing else, but a lot of the people that live there are not concerned by having a house with walls that can keep out the various dangerous bugs & insects out and their family in, they are FAR more concerned with status in their locale, Iphone4's (only weeks after they had been launched), genuine Armani & levi jeans, various designer jackets & tops, mega bucks trainer shoes, lexus's, BMW 7seris & merc E classes (all almost new) to parade around their little strip of the jungle in (there is only 6miles of road that those cars can actually drive on, they are shipped/ container ed into the area). These people are generally, not poor, they just choose to spend their earnings/ barely-legitimate gains on items that are purely to 'outdo' their neighbors. Sound familiar?

Can this simplistically be put down the the effect of TVs?

I get more and more depressed on each visit to Nigeria, as folk that don't have much seem to devote their energies to the purchase of total fucking nonsense in the aim of showing outwardly how well they're doing, which, is of ZERO benfit to their lives. They aren't totally poor, they have access (sometimes a group access) to tv with foreign satellite channels pumping out MTV and all that dribble. It's almost like the end of Jim Bowen's Bulls Eye: "Here's what you could have won" - The metaphorical rubbing of your face in the mirror of how shit your life is because of you don't have what we're advertising.

That is what pollutes the mind IMO. The places that I've been to minus TVs but are materialistically really poor seem happier and to co-exisit much better. None of the inflated individualistic egos that get bigger the further West you travel.

Were kids as brand aware in this country in the 70s/80s as they are now? I didn't know anyone robbing/stabbing for a pair of airmax then as now.

Can this simplistically be put down the the effect of TVs?

I get more and more depressed on each visit to Nigeria, as folk that don't have much seem to devote their energies to the purchase of total fucking nonsense in the aim of showing outwardly how well they're doing, which, is of ZERO benfit to their lives. They aren't totally poor, they have access (sometimes a group access) to tv with foreign satellite channels pumping out MTV and all that dribble. It's almost like the end of Jim Bowen's Bulls Eye: "Here's what you could have won" - The metaphorical rubbing of your face in the mirror of how shit your life is because of you don't have what we're advertising.

That is what pollutes the mind IMO. The places that I've been to minus TVs but are materialistically really poor seem happier and to co-exisit much better. None of the inflated individualistic egos that get bigger the further West you travel.

Were kids as brand aware in this country in the 70s/80s as they are now? I didn't know anyone robbing/stabbing for a pair of airmax then as now.

Probably not far off, but then take as a counter example the increased emancipation of a generation of rural women in Brazil, who, seeing the educated, independent, urban women depicted in soap operas, seem to have collectively said 'fuck this shit; I want a piece of that.'

As for the whole hand-wringing thing, just because one identifies a psychopathic cunt as a product of their environment, and want to change the things that are wrong with that environment, doesn't mean that you have to let the individual off with being a psychopathic cunt. It's a tough call though, because though it's easy to talk about the platonic ideals of 'normal person' and 'scum/thief/brute', most teenage boys are going to be somewhere between the two in terms of the acceptability of their behaviour. We aren't simply trying not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, we're more like dealing with a baby soup, and trying to get rid of the bathwater element without throwing any of the baby soup away.

That is what pollutes the mind IMO. The places that I've been to minus TVs but are materialistically really poor seem happier and to co-exisit much better. None of the inflated individualistic egos that get bigger the further West you travel.

Were kids as brand aware in this country in the 70s/80s as they are now? I didn't know anyone robbing/stabbing for a pair of airmax then as now.

So there was no crime in London before TV? Or before the advent of mass-media? Oh, wait a minute...

Also, Airmax was not available until the late 80s.

This is such a fucking cul-de-sac of a thread now.

Much like Deacon Mews.

well it does seem that de beauvoir has become a bit of a no-through road. but now the discussion is mostly about how to turn things around in the area.

either way it's still entertaining and at times even amewsing.

Let street it as an unsolveable, and bypass the wider issue. Every time we try to get the thread back on track, someone decides to avenue pop at it. I just don't want to hear terrace ism argument anymore; it's completely lane. A dead end.

So there was no crime in London before TV? Or before the advent of mass-media? Oh, wait a minute...

Also, Airmax was not available until the late 80s.

Crimes are commited for different reasons. To me it seems a lot of what is commited isn't about stealing a piece of bread because you're hungry, it's more along the lines of I don't like my iphone3 I want an iphone4. I wont get a job or work I'll take it cos 'it's my right, innit'

Crimes are commited for different reasons. To me it seems a lot of what is commited isn't about stealing a piece of bread because you're hungry, it's more along the lines of I don't like my iphone3 I want an iphone4. I wont get a job or work I'll take it cos 'it's my right, innit'

No, I don't agree. Persistent thieves & robbers commit the crimes because someone else is willing to pay for the goods they obtain in this way, ie it is their 'job'. Bike thieves nick not to get new wheels, but to sell the wheels so that they can buy stuff with the money they get.

There are some opportunist crimes, but the kind of organised mugging that the 2 guys were doing (the original subject of this thread) was not spur of the moment, it was a criminal enterprise.