Sore Bitch

Hottest day of the year so we decide to walk down to Shoreditch Park in the blazing damp scarlet sunshine. Down the back streets of Shacklewell, through the still verdant spaces of Hackney Downs and London Fields, then down the canal. I love to walk in London: off the main roads, through the differing areas, seeing lives go past, bumping into the Shands of Highbury out for a bike ride, whilst other cyclists try to bump into us.

Shoreditch Park is hosting the Shoreditch Festival which promises to reveal “little nooks and crannies, weird spaces, or historical places, beautiful and scary, secret and warm, green spaces, playing spaces, eating, drinking, walking and dancing spaces”. Unfortunately, the only weird spaces here are the ones out of the sun. This is just a corporate-sponsored indie event without the interest. Young people under the influence of Docherty, Allen or Winehouse wander around with warm cans of cider, trying to hide spliff from the coppers-on-choppers. I see 20-somethings in pere ubu, Birthday Party or Frankie says: T-shirts. Get your own music, kids! Food is salmonella burger or ambitiously priced noodles. Even the people from Hackney council who give away the free cotton bags have stayed away. We find Rob and Aline and Gareth who have, in turn, found a tent with seats but it’s not enough to make us stay very much longer; the 76 whisks us back home.

Sore Bitch

Hottest day of the year so we decide to walk down to Shoreditch Park in the blazing damp scarlet sunshine. Down the back streets of Shacklewell, through the still verdant spaces of Hackney Downs and London Fields, then down the canal. I love to walk in London: off the main roads, through the differing areas, seeing lives go past, bumping into the Shands of Highbury out for a bike ride, whilst other cyclists try to bump into us.

Shoreditch Park is hosting the Shoreditch Festival which promises to reveal “little nooks and crannies, weird spaces, or historical places, beautiful and scary, secret and warm, green spaces, playing spaces, eating, drinking, walking and dancing spaces”. Unfortunately, the only weird spaces here are the ones out of the sun. This is just a corporate-sponsored indie event without the interest. Young people under the influence of Docherty, Allen or Winehouse wander around with warm cans of cider, trying to hide spliff from the coppers-on-choppers. I see 20-somethings in pere ubu, Birthday Party or Frankie says: T-shirts. Get your own music, kids! Food is salmonella burger or ambitiously priced noodles. Even the people from Hackney council who give away the free cotton bags have stayed away. We find Rob and Aline and Gareth who have, in turn, found a tent with seats but it’s not enough to make us stay very much longer; the 76 whisks us back home.