Tuesday 5 February 2008

unhappy person

There's a nasty spat emerging from A.N.Onymous.

Anonymous says :-
In essence, after all, when all is said and done and at the end of the day.....PLUMSTEAD IS JUST A TOILET!

I don't mind people saying what they think. You hate the place, well fair enough, but why moan on a blog? Have you been pro-active in bettering your own part of Plumstead? I guess not. If you are so bitter and twisted and have so much hatred of this area, then move. What part of London do you want to go that is crime-free? Hackney? Plaistow? Barking? Tottenham? Stratford? OK, not East London then. Let's try South. Brixton? Streatham? West Norwood? Oh no, they call that the Wild West Norwood now don't they? Catford? Camberwell? New Cross? Peckham? Rotherhithe? Oh dear, we've kinda ruled out half of London by now. I could carry on, but will spare you the insult.

Nobody has ever pretended that Plumstead is all roses. You're absolutely right though, it certainly does have its' fair share of horrible areas, but I for one prefer to make the most of what we have and do my tiny little bit to help improve matters.

As for your shallow insight into the local newspaper stories, well I hate to burst your bubble there, but everybody knows that good news doesn't sell.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since living here I've experienced nothing but very friendly people. In fact I was getting shopping out of my boot yesterday and a young woman asked me if I needed any help with the bags (I'm v.pregnant). I had never seen her before and I wasn't struggling, she just out of her own good nature wanted to help me. It made me smile that we live in an area that still has decent people around. Yes we have problems as every other area does with car crime etc, but I've never felt unsafe here.

AJWInBlack said...

I know what you mean. We've lived here over 10 years and, while acknowledging that there are muppets, noisy morons and litter louts everywhere, for the most part Plumstead is quiet and friendly. My neighbours are great!

Anonymous said...

Are you for real Plumsteadshire?

Let's be serious for a minute, plumstead IS a dump.

I've lived here since 1966 and it's only through being too old, too skint and too sick to move that I put up with the place.

I'm over 70 and scared to leave my flat; my neighbours are the same. I have been mugged twice and a lady near me was recently threatened with a knife for £20 by a girl outside the post office in Herbert Road.

Where in plumstead do you lot live that's so flipping wonderful? WHy are you having a pop at the fellow who told the truth, that it is bloody awful here?

It has got worse every year - how many murders in the past few months? One in Barnfield and another a few hundred yards away off Herbert Road.

There's no point pretending this place is anything other than a (pardon my language) crap-hole.

Scared and 70. Good aint it?

Anonymous said...

I had to smile when I saw the blog today.

Does the blog-master actually read the posts?

Seems not.....

A few posts ago, an idiot said:

"the same could be leveled at other parts of London - YEAH THE OTHER CRIME RIDDEN PARTS!"

The blog-master then went on to do exactly what the idiot said, by writing a post that only compared Plumstead with the very worst places in London. This suggests you agree with him, that Plumstead is only comparable with the worst places in London.

You pretty much killed your own argument with that comparison dude!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Plumsteadshire. So how many areas of London do you want the blogmaster to list? You say that the areas are crime ridden parts, but they do actually make up a huge area of London. Plumstead isn't exclusively crap in the whole of London.

There have been knifings, muggings and shootings in the news for years and years, but how many of them mentioned in Plumstead?

Get your perspective straight and stop moaning or move out of London altogether.

Doctor Pangloss said...

That's right anon. I never read the comments. Complete waste of time reading an unprovoked rant about how Plumstead resembles a toilet. I couldn't agree with you more.

Anonymous said...

I am genuinely sorry for the 70 year old chap. You are very welcome to come round to ours on Griffin Road for tea and cake one sunday. There really are people in Plumstead who genuinely enjoy living there. And like the friendliness of the place. And don't let a couple of bad pennies ruin the entire area. I'm afraid crime is a fact of life in the capital wherever you live - even Chelsea.

To reply the 2nd Anon's commnets, the reason I think Pangloss mentioned those other 'crime-ridden' areas was that they are probably nearest in comparison to what you would get for your money property-wise. Although what you'd get in those areas would actually be much smaller and nowhere near the beautiful Victorian houses we have, which highlights how much Plumstead has to offer for young first time buyers. Which is what we need. Fresh eyes and minds who can see the potential. It's called Regeneration and believe it or not it happens. See East Dulwich. See Peckham Rye. See Telegraph Hill.

Let's organise ourselves and take action to make the local councilllors sit up and take notice. In my short time here, I gather they do pretty much cack all and we are in danger of being overlooked for regen money that Woolwich will see plenty of. If you don't fancy that then you're perfectly entitled to sit on your backside and wait for the big lottery win so you can move to Blackheath.

COME ON PLUMSTEAD - LET"S GET IT TOGETHER!

Ps - Let me know about the tea and cake

Anonymous said...

Plumstead might be a toilet, but at least there is a chance of it getting flushed from time to time. Unlike Thamesmead, which is where all the s**t ends up.

AJWInBlack said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
AJWInBlack said...

Nice one Georgie! I've been quietly doing what I can to encourage friends to move here over the years - none of whom have regretted it (with all the caveats about living in a fairly run down bit of the Smoke). I'd love to get a bit more involved in making sure Plumstead isn't left too far behind....

ebilpirate said...

I don't mean to sound doubting, but a 70 year old calling people Dude and typing because as Coz?

I moved over here from North London and once I have made the bolt past the station and 3 minutes up the hill I feel safer than I ever did in Camden, Kentish Town, Kings Cross, In fact the only places I would say I feel safer are areas with a two bed house cost in excess of 400k....

As for the lack of regeneration funds being spent on the shire. I sent a request in under the FOI act for a per head break down of council regeneration spending across the wards. No answer.

Anonymous said...

Yes, that dawned on me when I re-read it the other day. Maybe he is a particularly hip 70 year old !
So it looks like there really is a groundswell of Plumsteadians who are up for creating some change - brilliant news. We now just need to formulate a group… why doesn’t everyone join the PCEG http://www.pceg.org.uk/ and then we can have a forum to discuss and take actions other than on this blog. Although of course I do love the blog Dr Pangloss.
I think Nick Day had a point somewhere else on the blog, what we need are numbers. The council is more likely to listen to 1000 people together than individuals. Let’s all join up to PCEG and attend the next meeting which I believe is on the 16th March. See you there.

Anonymous said...

Oops. The 70 year old said you didnt read the posts.

Then the Doctor himself and a fellow reader go and prove it, by saying he used the words 'coz' and 'dude' in his post.

He didn't. It was the post below his that used those words.

Doctor Pangloss said...

The anonymous 'pro-toilet' persons should simply comment without hiding behind the name 'anonymous'.

It's all terribly confusing who's 70 and who's 'dude' during such bun fights.

I'm afraid, my dear old fruits, that it does sound like the 70 year old is the same person calling us dude.

If you are two different persons, then why not comment under pen names? eg Hilda Baker & Alf Garnett

Anonymous said...

Sorry Dr Pangloss but I’m going to lead off alarming, please humour me…

Plumstead undoubtedly has it's share of woes and sadly certain areas do experience more problems than others. I sympathise with those who believe Plumstead has become “a toilet”. If I’m honest there are a few areas for which this is a good description. In contrast, there are some very beautiful and well-cared-for spots. Perhaps those of us who are involved with caring for the local environment should take this on board and organise some “familiarisation visits”, rather like Nick did as part of the Green Chain celebrations. This way, old/sick/isolated/frightened folk like Anonymous can share the delights of Plumstead’s natural environment in safety and get to meet others who do too.

To my mind, and as previously pointed out on this blog, numbers do make the difference. To give an example, there are some Glyndon estate residents who endure continuous ASB problems with drug dealers and related crimes. To help counter this they formed themselves into a residents’ association and now have the attention of GBC councillors and the Met’s safer neighbourhood team. It would be naïve to think that this solves all their problems, it doesn’t, it simply helps keep up the fight. It also gives them a voice, helps them feel less isolated, and gives them some level of control. We should be glad of these efforts because problems quickly spread out into neighbouring areas and ultimately gives us all issues with crime and safety.

Wearing my Girl Guides hat, I’d like to say that if you feel strongly about our problems then think about getting involved with a local group like the PCEG or one of the residents’ associations. If Plumstead doesn’t have a collective voice then it’s difficult as individuals to demand action from the authorities. Before I joined the PCEG, I used to just sit at home and moan about everything. Now, although I still moan about everything, I at least get involved with doing something practical about our problems. I’ve also met a great bunch of other locals and it has made me realise that lots of people do care about what happens to Plumstead.

ebilpirate said...

Regarding "cozgate".

If you insist on posting as anonymous, well, please don't get offended if I presume another anonymous post in a similar tone is also penned by yourself.

Witty internet names are mandatory for a good web rant.