zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Jan 12, 2012, 9:40 am
I’m not living in East London anymore. I’ve been meaning to write more about this fact, but I’m so busy with life here, which is basically all about survival – not my own, that of my 13 month old son – that I just haven’t had time. Seriously, it’s just one seemingly endless session o...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Dec 13, 2011, 8:07 am
So this is the Youtube clip that has everyone talking, and I have to confess I don’t mind it as much as some. Nothing gets a Saturday morning off to a good start like spotting a really cracking Walk of Shame. Of course, I don’t let on. In the same way that it’s considered civil to ignore toddl...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Nov 12, 2011, 9:18 am
A while ago I was sent the re-issued Moro cookbooks, which have come in handy lately, as I’m in the midst of developing a signature salad. I know, it’s not going to change the world. But it’s important to me. I’m back in Oz, you see, and when you attend a barbecue here (which is definitely m...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Oct 18, 2011, 3:00 am
One of the key bits of advice I was given by baby books was ‘meet other mums’. It’s a bit like starting a new job and getting to know your colleagues, you see. So once I’d had the child I dutifully took myself off to Tiny Toes mothers’ group, baby swimming lessons, music sessions and yoga...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Oct 9, 2011, 11:23 pm
Apologies for going off-piste for so long. I’m not actually in East London at present, but back in the land of The Slap, much like Wee Birdy. For those who haven’t read the book, by Christos Tsiolkas, it has a very simple and brilliant premise – a brat is slapped at a backyard barbecue, settin...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 28, 2011, 4:25 pm
Just wanted to flag up this interview on Eating East – this place is the most fantastic old-fashioned greengrocer… well worth a visit if you are in the area.    
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 19, 2011, 5:27 am
So I was on the bus back from Borough Market yesterday, with a belly full of that holy trinity that no Michelin-starred restaurant will ever come close to – a Monmouth flat white, a rocket and chorizo roll and a crème caramel from the French buttery (and may I point out that I am doing the equiva...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 16, 2011, 4:52 am
Ms Baroque in Hackney – baroque sounds like broke if said in an American accent, which she is (American, that is, not broke); the kind of wordplay you enjoy if you’re a poet, which she also is – has launched a new website. I heartily recommend visiting. Baroque in Hackney Anyway, she’s com...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 13, 2011, 3:47 am
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Wall going up. I was vaguely commissioned to write a piece about my husband’s grandmother, who escaped from East Berlin, but in the end it wasn’t published, so I’ve decided to post it here instead. My husband – like many Berliners – gets a bit te...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 11, 2011, 5:14 am
The news is simply bilious with riot coverage at the moment, and there’s nothing I can add that hasn’t already been said with far more eloquence and devastating accuracy elsewhere (I thought this piece by Zoe Williams was particularly good). So I thought I’d write instead about the Japanese d...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 9, 2011, 11:47 am
A statement to our youth In the aftermath of the riot in Tottenham, and with the violence on the Narrow Way, we call on the youth of Hackney to show restraint and urge you not to get caught up in rioting. We ask this because a riot is not good for you and it is not good for our community. We know...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 9, 2011, 3:54 am
A few months ago I was walking down towards the park with my pram – it was a weekday, when previously I would have got on a bus and left the borough to earn money. You see a different Hackney during the day – mums with prams, and people without jobs, mostly. Sometimes the gangs gather in London ...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 8, 2011, 5:40 pm
Well I got on the No. 38 after lunch today for a pleasant afternoon at the British Museum – seriously, it’s a great thing to do with a baby. He gets to coo at brunettes (they start young, I tell you) and I get to wander around looking at 5,00o year old corpses and Roman silverware hoards and all...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Jul 17, 2011, 1:43 pm
Some time ago I wrote a post titled ‘Is it just me or are bus drivers losing it?”. And then I checked my messages today and an actual London bus driver has responded to it. Have a read. “I’ve just seen this post, and despite it being quite old, wanted to reply. I’m a bus driver (not on th...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Jul 8, 2011, 5:40 am
Amid the cranes and dusty footpaths and tower blocks, with their balconies cleverly rebranded as ‘winter gardens’, pockets of leafy green are sprouting at Dalston Junction. First up is Farm:Shop. When this first appeared I thought it was a hydroponics shop to supply London’s skunk growers (se...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Jun 26, 2011, 5:52 am
Just wanted to write briefly about CreateLondon - there is so much on. I picked up the brochure yesterday and got that slightly feverish feeling you get when you realise you can only ever do a fraction of the things you’d like to. Having said that, though, I went to the Arcola yesterday for the ...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Jun 20, 2011, 5:18 am
I read this on another blog, and just had to quote it here as I love it so much. It’s by author Ben Aaronovitch and reflects exactly how I feel about London. There’s something about the very air of this city that suits me. I was born in a dry, hot corner of the world that is, according to meteo...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Jun 3, 2011, 6:00 am
Thought this might raise a weary smile…
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Jun 1, 2011, 1:56 pm
The local post office closed a while ago. For a while it was an empty shop and then there was a little art installation there for a year or so. And then about a month Borough Wines opened up. They sells wine from the Bergerac region of France, where the owners have a vineyard, also olive oil from P...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - May 29, 2011, 1:05 pm
Andrew Lansley’s NHS listening exercise closes in just 4 days. We need to move fast to flood it with objections to his dangerous plans. Thousands of personal submissions to the listening exercise will make it much harder for Lansley to spin the results. He’ll have to publish the figures, whe...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - May 27, 2011, 6:11 am
It’s always been one of my firmly held convictions that you can’t get decent Thai food in London. I say this as someone who once waitressed (on reflection, quite badly) in a very good Thai restaurant in Australia. The Bangkok-born chef made sure the kitchen staff only prepared half a recipe so t...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - May 23, 2011, 4:43 am
The indefatigable Bronwen Handyside, Secretary of Hackney Keep Our NHS Public, has forwarded details of how you can contact Lords about the proposed dismantling of the NHS. The ‘pause’ in the Bill’s progress ends at the start of June, so now is a good time to write. Although most of the disc...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - May 21, 2011, 10:19 am
I’m new to the world of children’s books – or rather, returning after a rather long absence – and I have been impressed by what is out there at the moment… and keen to find more. I started off in true PFB (Perfect First Born) fashion by reading my son books that were a bit too old for him...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - May 17, 2011, 11:36 am
The Government has announced a pause in their controversial NHS Reforms. The Labour Party in Hackney is organising a series of events where people can hear more about the proposals and what they could mean for the local NHS. The Hackney Council Labour Group has organised a meeting at Stoke Newingto...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - May 11, 2011, 4:10 am
This battered corrugated iron church on Shrubland Road looks like it would be more at home in Alabama, or perhaps a Flannery O’Connor novel, than in Dalston, and I have always been intrigued by it. So I was happy to open a copy of Hackney: Modern, Restored, Forgotten, Ignored, and there it was. Bu...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - May 7, 2011, 8:44 am
So I became a British citizen a few weeks back at Hackney Town Hall. Of course, I’ll never be truly British. The entire Australian cricket team are still dead to me, for a start*. But I quite liked the idea of making the decade I’ve spent here official, and Old Blighty has been good to me. This ...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - May 5, 2011, 5:12 am
It’s funny how the minute the clouds come in – like this morning – I automatically feel like turning on the oven and baking something. So I thought I’d recommend one of my favourite cooking blogs: Coco & Me (the pic to the left is taken from the blog). Tamami is a Japanese mother-of-two wh...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Apr 28, 2011, 9:47 am
Back in the golden seventies my mum left her moses basket containing my newborn sister at the supermarket checkout. She made it all the way home when she realised her mistake, and went back to collect her. My sister was still asleep and was handed over with a laugh and the remark, ‘we were wonderi...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Apr 19, 2011, 6:07 am
Going to be slightly lazy today because it’s such a beautiful day and I want to be outside…. so thought I would post The Last Tuesday Society’s email verbatim, which lists their lectures for the year. I’ve only visited once – it’s a funny little shop on Mare Street – and got a bit spoo...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Apr 16, 2011, 2:17 pm
So I was all set to visit this new cafe/restaurant on Kingsland Road after spotting it last week. Finally got out of the house at about 11.30am after …. well I won’t go on about all the things you have to do to leave the house with an infant, I’m not the first person in the world to have one a...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Apr 8, 2011, 2:42 pm
It’s easy to forget that Hackney has its very own National Trust property. In fact, the woman in the gift shop was saying that the main problem Sutton House on Homerton High Street faces is that it doesn’t get the visitors, because no one seems to know where it is. And in a classic computer-says...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Mar 31, 2011, 12:13 pm
The hayfever season now looms – the Daily Mail is already shrieking – which means two months of sniffling and hiding indoors on breezy days and cursing at the BBC Pollen Count. Every year I try different remedies – acupuncture, antihistamines, ionisers, anything. I’ve also heard that eati...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Mar 28, 2011, 3:32 pm
If you happen to visit the Turkish Food Centre at Ridley Road market, and feel like Iran’s national dish for dinner, then pick up a couple of tins of Gormeh Sabzi. It costs 1.49, and is a mixture of herbs, oil, dried lime and kidney beans. This is the basis for a typical Persian dish that provides...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Mar 21, 2011, 3:29 pm
Now that weekends start a little earlier (Saturday kicked off at 4.30am – not that I’m complaining; if I’d known how little sleep you actually need to function I probably would have invented something quite significant before having a baby), it’s become necessary to build a scheduled family ...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Mar 15, 2011, 12:00 pm
I don’t have a problem, but sometimes I long for a night on the lash. One of those brash drinking sessions, with sloppy kebabs and raucous bus rides and a blurry 3am trip to the cash point that has you declaring a week later that your card has been cloned. Not to mention the savage hangover that n...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Mar 14, 2011, 6:47 am
Have just received a couple of emails about local events… and thanks to Tired of London Tired of Life for this pic, which I sort of borrowed, hope that’s OK. Those who oppose the 44 million pounds (sorry my pound sign is nowhere to be found on keyboard) may want to join Hackney Unites for just ...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Mar 13, 2011, 11:38 am
http://columbiaroad.info
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Mar 10, 2011, 7:47 am
British Library If you like words and stories, you’ll find eavesdropping particularly satisfying in Hackney. Just yesterday in the doctor’s surgery waiting room (always fertile ground) I listened to two women reminiscing about the childrens’ homes they grew up in, and the nuns who cared for t...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Mar 5, 2011, 5:02 am
The problem with many deeply fashionable cafes is that they are so busy being deeply fashionable that the concept of serving decent food with a bit of grace seems to escape them entirely. And you sort of feel a bit wary about visiting them (well, I do, anyway) because your glasses might fog up, or y...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Feb 22, 2011, 2:18 pm
In my last post I wrote: Is this the magical twelve-week change, when your newborn turns from a wild screeching Angry Tomato into the kind of sweet-faced cherub you see in nappy ads? F***, I hope so. Well, this turned out to be a premonition. Because my child is going to be modelling nappies for ...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Feb 16, 2011, 12:19 pm
Between school on London’s Essex fringes and Birmingham University – in what I suppose must have been a parentally-guided bid to broaden my experience of life, I spent six months clerking for a Japanese investment bank in the City. In those days – we’re talking more than 30 years ago – I ...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Feb 9, 2011, 9:37 am
There’s something so exciting about opening the front door to an Amazon delivery (except when it’s not for you. One of the problems of being home full-time is that delivery people tend to ring every doorbell in a flat just to get that parcel out of their life. Back when I was pregnant and the si...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Feb 1, 2011, 5:09 pm
‘Becoming a parent is like blowing up your entire life, and the baby is the best thing lying in the rubble’. So said Lorrie Moore in her terribly cruel (or maybe that was just me) novel, A Gate at the Stairs… or something along those lines. I would check, but I have a nine-week-old baby boy sl...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Nov 4, 2010, 7:51 am
For those who are finding Broadway Market a victim of its own success just lately – and I suspect the outraged blogger behind Hackney Hipster Hate would count himself a founding member of this group, you may like to check out the new market on Chatsworth Road in Clapton that is launching this Sund...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Oct 27, 2010, 7:48 am
For reasons known only to itself, Hackney Council has ordered the Premises Studio and Cafe (home of the best fry-up on Hackney Road) to remove a gigantic rabbit painted on its exterior wall by a Belgian artist who goes by the name of ROA. Now if it was painted on Buckingham Palace, for example, I c...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Oct 23, 2010, 4:59 pm
I don’t know if it’s just me, or if there’s something in the air at the moment that’s making the general mood in London plain grumpy. It could be a combination of the savage cuts announced by the Tories (and by the way, when exactly does Cameron plan on using the line ‘the mess we were lef...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Oct 4, 2010, 1:34 pm
Our Patterned Hand opened up on Broadway Market quite a while ago, but it was only recently that I ventured in with a bona-fide sewing expert, my mum. She arrived three weeks ago laden with a suitcase full of everything from bunny rugs to a crocheted red cardigan (all made by her), plus loads of oth...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 24, 2010, 8:59 am
Congratulations are in order for TP Bennett’s Bezier apartments on the Old Street roundabout, which have come runner-up in the Carbuncle Cup, judged by members of Building Design. Nicknamed the Bezier Bum, when you drive past you do wonder just how no one missed the fact that the apartments resem...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Aug 22, 2010, 5:41 am
Today being Sunday, I thought I’d post this interview with Helen Lang, one of the artists who sells work through Elphicks in Columbia Road. If you haven’t already been, or if you’re visiting London and looking for a gift or memento to take home, then this is a great place to find something unu...
Comment - Like

zoe d. posted an article on East London Local - Jul 29, 2010, 9:49 am
By Yuli Linssen-Kaminitz East London has endless vintage shopping options which make it awfully hard for a new fashionista to know where to begin. However, there are few shops that stand out with their originality, selection, quality and service. Visiting these shops will make you realise few thin...
Comment - Like