Manuel meets Chantelle

I started my working career in an office near East Croydon Station. it was a good time in my life. I worked shifts, I still lived with my student mates in a flat in Balham, gateway to the South, and started playing rugby for Shirley Wanderers.

Croydon was/is a place of high rise offices dominating the skyline, and had the reputation as one of the easiest places to drive into and a little swine to drive out of!! It has one of the largest council estates in the country down the road in New Addington, and all the other inner city suburb planning blight which was synonymous with the sixties. That said, we had a few good runs ashore in the town, particularly after the end of our evening shift at work.

You will appreciate, then, why a smile crossed my face recently when it became known that Croydon was to re-invent itself as Britain's own equivalent of Barcelona. Now let me see, is Croydon by the sea? No. Is its architecture inspired by a classic designer like Gaudi? No. Does it have a footie team who qualifies for the Champions League every year? No. Does it have anything to inspire comparison with Barca? Well, I suspect crime might be comparable.

The architect behind the regeneration is Will Alsop. Previously he has tried to get Barnsley to reinvent itself as a walled Tuscan hill town! His plans for Croydon include a 30 storey high equivalent of the Eden Project, the reintroduction of the River Wandle, presumably with accompanying gondolas from Venice, no doubt to be followed by Croydon bidding for the World Rowing Championships.

Nice try Croydon, but stick to what you are best at, doling out visas to 3rd World refugees (well meaning Brazilians excluded of course) and the invention of the Croydon face lift.

The Crystal Maze

Work took me on a magical mystery tour for South London yesterday, as I travelled by train to Crawley and Three Bridges. The Northcote Road area of Clapham Junction has changed out of all recognition. While the street market still exists, and the Northcote Arms is still on the corner, its clientele now consists of yummy mummies and City types rather than poor students and bed sit dwellers. The Bank was a bank in my day, its now a gastropub, and there are the obligatory coffee shops, cheese and butchers outlets. The bakery I used to live above is now a designer breadshop. I wonder if the cockroaches still live upstairs??

On then through Balham, gateway to the South, a picture of which sits on my lounge wall to remind me of the times. We had good fun in and around Bedford Hill, and Devonshire Road. We were not quite on first name terms with the working girls, but the fact that the Bedford Arms is now owned by the Soho House group shows how that area is well up market too now. That said, you did used to be able to buy Chocolate Oliver biscuits in the old fashioned Cullens store in Balham High Road.

Thornton Heath has two great Youngs pubs, The Fountains Head and the Lord Napier, the latter is a big band and jazz pub in the Glenn Miller style. I must schedule a trip back there when Argyle play Crystal Palace.

I brought my first house in Norbury, and Tim was born in Mayday hospital just outside Croydon. I always thought it a strange name for an A & E department!

The train then swept in and out of Croydon giving me just a glimpse of the old IBM office that I first worked in and the Porter and Sorter featured previously in this blog. Croydon is still one of those places which is easy to get into but a nightmare to find your way out of. Just as well then that I was on the train.

Croydon has not changed much since I worked there thirty years ago, although it does have a tram now which goes from Wimbledon to various locations in South London. I took it once from there to Addington and walked on to Shirley Wanderers RFC for their 50th anniversary celebrations. The clubhouse was a bit like Croydon, in as much as there were the same old faces there from the mid '70s when I played regularly for them.

Rugby was a great game to play in those days, but watching the two matches at the weekend, I am beginning to think that its days are numbered. Their big chap runs into our big chap, then we do the same. Flair and enterprise seem to have disappeared.

I don't enjoy rugby league as Ii feel I am watching the same game every week, and with a few exceptions union seems to be going the same way. I do hope the rugby world cup will revitalise my enthusiasm for the game, or once again during a crackingly good social weekend, the match will become the low point.

Oxymoron

I have had serious toothache this week, and anybody who knows me has been keeping well clear. Grumpy is not in it. To indicate how bad the pain was, I have been popping painkillers like smarties, and I am normally so against them you would not believe.

To a certain extent its my own fault. I knew I needed some treatment, so went to see my regular dental practise, knowing my usual dentist had moved away to start his own.

I found his replacement did not do NHS treatment, and after assessing my dental needs, two fillings and a crown, he quoted almost £400. He also took great delight in showing me his gold fillings and saying they were the way to go and I should have them. I took an instant dislike to the guy, and thought if I was going to pay that amount of money I would rather give it to somebody else.

He was also arrogant and rude to his dental nurse, but I am informed this is not unusual. My wife is in the trade and knows a thing or two about it.

So, I thought I would find a practise taking on NHS patients and rang the local NHS patient assistance line (PALS). They gave me a few names, but before registering with any of them I lodged a piece of wheatgerm in the damaged cavity and pierced into the nerve.......hurt or what!!

So now I am patched up. I found a very pleasant Polish dentist in Acton who assessed me, although he declined me as an NHS patient as the work was not worth his while for the fixed fees he can claim from them. He did quote £250 though and made no mention of crowns, just standard fillings. I mentioned the fact that I played for London Polish RFC in my youth, in Balham, South London and that seemed to help the relationship. he said he could see me on the NHS for checkups and other 'minor' work, so that was a step int he right direction.

The Polish connection reminded me of my embarrassing moment on the H22 bus after a recent rugby match when I engaged a young lady in conversation. She was not too keen to talk and said she did not understand as she was Polish. I then impishly asked her was she a plumber or an electrician....she got off at the next stop!

Talking of teeth, a few weeks ago there was an article about a chap who had crashed his new £125,000 BMW into a lamp post when he took his girlfriend out for a spin in it. Apparently she distracted him while he was driving and he was quoted as being relieved when, on impact, she had screamed!

Its good news week.....

Well, its started in that vein. Our eldest, Tim, proposed to his lovely girlfriend , Lili, while on holiday, and she said yes....good girl.....so on Monday night we went out to Joe Allen in Covent Garden for a bit of scram. Tim thought he was about 7 the last time he went, and in those twenty years, the style, decor , burgers and the boy on the 'joanna' have not changed that much. Lili is from Brazil, so she struggled to identify too many of the people in the flyers around the wall, but she liked the place a lot.

Also on Monday the youngest, Kieran, graduated from Liverpool University with a history degree . He is hoping to stay on to do a Masters, but it all hangs in the balance at the moment as he was awarded a 'Desmond' by the narrowest of margins. Tim and Maxine share the top billing in the house, with a 2.1 each, I remain the dunce of the class having just scrapped a few 'A' levels, in the days when they were considered a good qualification to have.

I broke my leg on a motor bike during the examinations, and sat my Maths papers in hospital, with a teacher by the bed invigilating. Consequently my grades were not good enough for Uni, so I ended up at City Poly in their Sir John Cass campus. After a year or so we came to an agreement that if I left they would not kick me out.

Still, the experience of living away from home, allowed me to improve my table tennis, basketball and rugby skills, as well as play footie for Balham Celtic on a Saturday afternoon. Parties were pretty plentiful, and being thrust into bedsits and student flats was a bit of an eye opener, so, social skills 1, Academia 0 I think.

I wonder what Nick Harrison and Rob Stokes are doing now?

I have taken the decision to change estate agents as I seem to have exhausted the network of my current incumbent, and the new people have viewings already set up for this afternoon, so that might even contribute to the good news.

An increase in the base rate tomorrow might not though.

Maxine will be in London on Fiiday to celebrate her birthday and when she's here its always good news. The week concludes with my oldest god- daughters 18th birthday bash in Guildford.