The protagonist, a young woman called Fausta,  is ill with a disease contracted from her mother’s breast milk known as “the milk of sorrow”,  a condition that only affects those women in Peru who were abused or raped during the years of terrorist struggle.  This Grauniad review says “This Peruvian lament examining how distress passes down the generations is subtle and wonderfully moving.”

Here’s the trailer. Please go and support the screening of weird films at Stratford Picturehouse!*

* ‘Weird’ is intended to be entirely complimentary, btw

So, I was planning to just let my current obsession spill over and stick up some pictures of my new flat (here, and here, since you ask!) But then I happened to visit the bizarre and rather awesome website of Stratford’s Mr Coffee, who, it turns out, is a bit of an East London institution, (aside from a rogue vehicle in Paddington).

For those not in the know, Mr Coffee (Strapline: He’s so frothy!) is a chain of mobile cafes each operating out of the back of a ‘cute little Piaggio’. I am big fan of the one in Stratford at least, because the people are friendly and the coffee is cheap and really tasty. Also he’s SO frothy! How could you resist?

Anyway, on the website all your burning questions will be answered:

‘Who is Mr Coffee?’

‘Why is he so frothy?!’

and my personal favourite:

‘Where can I find him? I must have him now!‘

There is a video of interviews with Mr Coffee regulars from around London (not Stratford, sadly!) Also don’t miss the animated site intro which demonstrates I don’t know what exactly. The problem of over-crowding in London? The futility of our efforts to make change in the face of universal indifference? And is that Mr Coffee swerving onto the pavement to avoid a bus? Hm.

Apologies for continuing disruptions to Sajarina service. I’m hopefully off to the East London Craft Guerrilla market in Walthamstow tomorrow, so I’ll have something to write about. And internet in the next week or so so I will be able to share it with you all. Until then – ciao!

What had got me thinking about the topic in particular was the abundance of bad public art in East London, and Stratford especially. We’re literally falling over the stuff out here. My kneejerk reaction now is to see it as a symptom of shoddy regeneration and council underspend – with a few notable exceptions, the sculptures / light installations / memorial fountains here add nothing to our experience of the environment we live in. The pieces aren’t attractive, challenging, interactive, thought-provoking, inspiring, controversial or any of the other things you might wish from art in the public domain.

World Peace Sculpture

What *really* irritates me is when you look past the sculpture and see a high street full of drunks, junkies, homeless people, or a forest of yellow murder boards. I am as arty farty as they come and I still think ‘surely you could be spending the money on something more worthwhile?’

At the debate Joan Bakewell said that “the effect of public art is that you see the space around it”, as well as the thing you’re ‘meant’ to look at. Perhaps that’s the problem? If you dumbly parachute ‘art’ into a place without considering the surrounding space you’re just drawing attention to the mismatch. It’s the indifference which jars – the indifference of the people who commissioned it is mirrored by the indifferent reception of the people who live with it.

Stratford Circles

Two examples from the centre of Stratford spring to mind. One is the ‘World Peace’ sculpture (1984) outside Morrisons: not only is this unimaginative to the point of GCSE coursework, it also completely disconnected from the place around it. The overwhelming feeling you get when you look at it is ‘why on earth is this here?’ That is if you see it at all. I feel the same about the series of photographs called ‘Stratford Circles’, which reside in an attractive spot between the multi-storey car-park and the road, at the back of Krisp clothing store. Really, what is the point?

Just for balance, there is a piece I like a lot as well – the ‘Railway Tree’ by Malcolm Robertson. It is a pleasure to look at, it has a strong visual impact, and attempts to say something about Stratford’s unique identity. Even so, I think it suffers from the location, surrounded by busy road and office blocks – it discourages interaction because the only reason people would be near it is if they were crossing the road. And actually it’s a sculpture that works well up close because you can get into its ‘roots’, and feel the texture of the girders, and really appreciate the size of it. It’s only when you get close that is becomes tree-like.

Railway Tree

The question of democracy in art came up at the debate – how do you involve the public in getting the art they want for their community? I certainly don’t have the answer. East London has an incredibly vibrant artistic community and loads of great stuff going on. What I’d like to know is how we can tap some of that originality and boldness and bring it into the public realm. A hip studio in Dalston or the fantastic Whitechapel gallery are open to the public, of course, but they are intimidating places, and often half-deliberately inaccessible, physically and intellectually.

There is lots going on in Stratford at the moment on the public art front, in the run up to the Olympics. It would make me happy if the committees behind future projects took on board something that Sandy Nairne said at the arts debate: “Good public art changes, and makes, public space.”

Don’t come here unless you really love Pizza Express. There’s not really anywhere else to eat out except fast foody joints like Nando’s, Pizza Hut, KFC et al and a couple of good curry houses. On the subject of which, India Gate, we love you! Thank you for shamelessly currying our favour (geddit?!) with your endless freebies – not one small sweaty bag of salad in our takeaway, but two! Praise be! In all seriousness we like them a lot. Tasty food, friendly staff, a discount if you’re a member of the cinema… They have stolen our hearts away from the Spice Inn, who comically refused to serve my friend her beer in a pint glass, we assume because they were afeared her spindly ladywrists would snap under the weight of all that manliness.

Another place we sometimes go is a gastropub type affair called King Eddie’s. It’s a bourgeois oasis on Stratford Broadway. I’m not slamming the fact that Stratford is poor here, but the contrast is shocking, I’m still not totally convinced that the door isn’t just a portal to a pub in Hampstead. If you ever want a concise visual representation of social inequality and lingering class divisions (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?) go for a drink in King Eddie’s, then go over the way for a drink in Wetherspoons.

In spite of myself I love it though. It’s a beautiful pub, an ex-coaching inn with green walls, a saloon bar and many quiet corners. Sitting with a good friend and some mulled wine or cherry beer in a dark and cosy nook while it pisses down outside is up there in my top ten loveliest things to do. I warn you though, it’s not cheap. It is still cheaper than most places in the centre, but once you’ve adjusted to Stratford prices it seems extortionate. The food is consistently tasty, traditional English fare, using seasonal gourmet-type ingredients but doesn’t offer much for vegetarians unfortunately. The wild mushroom risotto is delicious, but that’s often all there is for my not meateaty friends.

Our final dinner destination, although we more commonly go there for lunch at the weekend is the new Londek Cafe. It’s right at the top of the Grove, if you head towards Maryland station from Stratford centre you’ll pass it on the left. Londek serves Polish home-cooking, and is full of Polish people eating it, so one can only assume they’re doing it well. I certainly like it a lot. The staff have been very friendly, not to mention surprised, as me and my friends troop in on a regular basis (and once ordered one piece of every kind of cake – all in the interests of research, you understand).

Again they’re not brilliant for vegetarians but there are two or three different options. It is incredibly cheap – a plate of extremely filling pierogi is around £3.90 – so you could eat like a king for well under a tenner *and* they have no license to sell alcohol so you are welcome to bring your own free of charge. We had a fairly raucous night a while back fuelled by cheap wine and cabbage parcels. It was awesome.

Transport

Firstly, it’s not in darkest Peru as many have been led to believe, it’s actually in zone 3 and – get this – 20 mins on the Central line from Tottenham Court Road. It’s also 20 mins from London Bridge on the Jubilee, 15 mins from Camden and Islington on the Overground. There’s also the DLR, so you can get down to Greenwich and Canary Wharf and West India Quay in a few minutes too (more about these delightful places later…)

Culture

When we first moved here we read a leaflet describing the Theatre Square as Stratford’s ‘cultural quarter’ – how we laughed! But again, there are a couple of high points. The Theatre Royal has some interesting shows, and has helped launch a few comedy careers including Jocelyn Jee Esien. There’s also Stratford Circus, which has had a few intriguing acts on, including poet John Hegley, comedian Rich Hall, as well as Constance Briscoe talking about one of her books. Above Pizza Express is the Stratford Picturehouse Cinema, which, unlike other arty Picturehouse Cinemas, offers a steady diet of mainstream films and very little else. Our theory is that the cinema management were forced to bow to the taste of the people in Stratford to make ends meet. Stratford Library is pretty cool. To start with, it’s a library, not an ‘Idea Store’ which is amazing given the amount of regeneration going on all around it (seriously, you can’t walk for a 100 metres without encountering some public art round here) and there is a huge kids section which is – drum roll please – separated from the main library. Hurrah! See, it is possible to encourage a love of reading in younglings without ruining it for everyone else. Also the library is connected to a pleasant independent cafe called Cafe Mondo which does tasty coffee and pasta and has hilariously rude Polish staff. It’s not that they don’t care, they actually seem to hate you.

Shopping

I’m running out of steam now. There is a great big shopping centre full of sportswear and nasty clothes clearly made by a Chinese orphan for 2p a day. Um. There is an impressive Poundstretcher. There’s a Wilkinson’s. Lots of estate agents. Uh…