Farewell, Ornamental Spaghetti: Bob Hoskins, 'Monalisa', Malet Street, Bloomsbury, Highgate, King's Cross, Soho

Bob Hoskins, one of London's finest character actors, passed away today.

Paul Coleman reflects.

'Monalisa' poster on King's Boulevard, King's Cross,
London N1C  © London Intelligence, 2012

Farewell, 'Ornamental Spaghetti'

I still kick myself to this day. 

Especially today (Wednesday, 30 April).

One afternoon, donkeys' years ago, actor Bob Hoskins emerged from the side door of Dillons bookshop on Malet Street in the Bloomsbury area of London. 

Bob sported a beard.

Wore a fawn raincoat.

He looked right at me. 

Nodded. 
Smiled. 

And trundled off in the direction of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Ever since, I've wished I'd turned, trotted after him, and gushed something like: 'Thank you so much for George in that great London film, Monalisa.'

'Race' and sex

Hoskins received an Oscar Best Actor nomination for playing small-time crook George, employed by Mortwell (Michael Caine) as a chauffeur to Simone, an enigmatic, high-class call girl, (played by Kathy Tyson).

  Neil Jordan and David Leland wrote a beautiful yet 'noir-infused' love story for white working class George and Simone, a discerning streetwise black woman from Liverpool. Their initial mutual distaste, born out of George's race prejudice and Simone's class snobbery, transforms into genuine affection despite a seedy 1980s backdrop - kerb-crawling King's Cross, peep show Soho, and high-class call-girl Highgate clientele. 

George's contempt for Simone rapidly gives way to respect and real affection - but this leaves George vulnerable to vultures hailing from a connected London establishment and underworld. Their vicious attentions compel George to fall back on his solid friendship with Thomas (Robbie Coltrane) - but only after George unravels Simone's secret.

By gently putting 'race' and sex near the heart of this love story, Monalisa (Director: Neil Jordan, 1986) stands as a brave London film - as Hoskins sensitively imbues George with all his London working class frailties and strengths.

And, as a piece of 1980s London nostalgia, Monalisa remains unrivalled.

Ornamental spaghetti

Again, donkeys' years ago, this author won a DVD copy of Monalisa by correctly answering a question posed on the Robert Elms BBC London radio show: 'What song accompanied George as he searched for Simone's friend Cathy (Kate Hardie) in Soho's sex parlours?'

'In Too Deep' by Genesis.

'We have a winner,' says Robert.

Of course, it's Nat King Cole's sublimely pleading 'Monalisa' croon that plays the film in and out as Monalisa's credits roll. 

As much as those two songs, though, I remember Bob Hoskins delivering many of George's great lines, including:

"See I'm cheap, I can't help it. God made me that way."

Later; George says to a Savoy Hotel waiter: "I'd like a pot of tea please."

Waiter: "Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong?

George: "No, tea."

Waiter: "Very good sir."

And a bit further on,after briefly discussing the merits of Thomas' bid to sell plastic 'ornamental spaghetti', Thomas and George share their thoughts about Simone.

George: "Well, she's a woman of substance. She's a lady.

Thomas: "I thought you said she was a tart...a tall, thin, black tart."

George: "Well, maybe. But she's still a fucking lady."

Farewell

After Monalisa, Hollywood film audiences benefit from Hoskins' London-honed craft.

But he retires from acting in 2012 after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Sadly, on this day - 30 April, 2014 - we hear Bob Hoskins, suffering from pneumonia, has passed away.

At just 71. 

Born in Suffolk but a Finsbury Park schoolboy in north London, twice-married Bob Hoskins is survived by his wife and four children.

Farewell, ornamental spaghetti.

Rest in peace.

Bob Hoskins 1942-2014

Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, April 2014.

Displacement, Regeneration: What Survives the Storm, isik . knutsdotter, South London Gallery

South London-based artists conceive new ways to show how London changes...and displaces Londoners, writes Paul Coleman.

A London Tempest

What Survives the Storm, isik . knutsdotter (© London Intelligence)

“Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if you’re watching, don’t worry, there isn’t.” 

So said BBC weatherman Michael Fish in October 1987.

But, a few hours later, a violent storm duly raged against London and southern England on the night of 15-16 October, 1987.

Storms

Fierce 100mph winds ravaged trees.

Damaged cars and homes. Cut power.

And killed over 20 people.
Decades later, storms continue to batter London. Heavy rainfalls submerged riverside homes in suburbs, villages and towns to the west of London in early 2014.

Londoners now no longer talk about stormy weather idly...but warily.

Violent
What Survives the Storm, a participatory arts show, staged by artistic group isik . knutsdotter – thoughtfully reflects upon other types of storms battering Londoners each day.

For instance, on Saturday (12 April), 20 guests to a show at the South London Gallery in Camberwell spoke frankly about tempests of a financially violent nature.
Violent, because these storms attack Londoners financially. 

Cramping their lives.

Limiting what our children might become in the future.

Falling real wages.
Rising prices.
Astronomical house values and rents, rippling from central to outer London.
And, a hail of developer-council partnership ‘regeneration’ schemes – Heygate, Earl's Court, Seven Sisters, Woodberry Down, and the Olympic Park – to name just a few, that blow Londoners out of their homes and price them out of their traditional neighbourhoods.
Compelling many to look outside of central London for a home.
Tearing many out of London completely.
In such an economic climate, the outlook for Londoners on average and lower incomes remains stormy.

Boxterity

What Survives the Storm serves up a cacophony of resonant images, sounds, smells and objects - including a weather vane, full-feathered pheasant and hessian cloaks, and pungent Peckham soil. 
isik . knutsdotter, conceived by Louise Sayarer and Eva Vikstrom, utilise this cacophony conceptually.
Their concepts undermine the ‘opportunity’ propaganda that developers and councils deploy to justify this creeping displacement of working Londoners from London itself.

A displacement tempest brewed originally by distant global atmospherics.

But impacting locally on people across London.
isik . knutsdotter also conjure other metaphors to describe the way developer-led regeneration changes London and displaces Londoners.

They've coined ‘Boxterity’ –  a rapacious ongoing process where developers across London demolish streets full of public and private homes - and redevelop these spaces with row after row of build ‘em quick bog standard boxes, stuffed with expensive flats.
Take a bus ride through Camberwell, Walworth and the Elephant and Castle.
Witness 'Boxterity'.

'Boxterity': Elephant and Castle, south London, April 2014 (© London Intelligence)

Ripped out

Sayarer and Vikstrom settle their sharp metaphorical gaze too on mature trees that grew for decades into the Heygate Estate’s ‘urban tree canopy’.

Developer Lend Lease, facilitated by Southwark Council's elected politicians, are demolishing the Heygate.
Some of these long-standing mature trees have been felled.

Removed from the south London skyline and streetscape.

Their roots ripped out of the south London soil they nourished - and that nurtured them.

Ripped out of London altogether.

© London Intelligence, 2014

For more info: isik . knutsdotter

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, April 2014 

Tony Benn 1925-2014: Flame of Anger, Flame of Hope

Tony Benn, interviewed, at Occupy protest camp
outside St Paul's Cathedral, London, in November 2011
(Photo: © Paul Coleman, London Intelligence)

Tony Benn

Flame of Anger, Flame of Hope

“Inside him burned the flame of anger against injustice  

- and the flame of hope that we could build a better world.

That was what moved him.

For that reason he was trusted.

He was a lovely man.

And I hope that his family will gain something

from the knowledge that their grief is shared.” 

(Tony Benn, born in London, 3 April 1925 - died 14 March 2014)

Explanatory note: 

The above quotation pays tribute to Tony Benn. 

But the quotation itself is extracted from Tony Benn's own generous tribute to John Smith, the former Labour Party leader. 

On 12 May 1994 the Labour Party leader John Smith dies at his Barbican home in London.

Later that day, Tony Benn, speaking in the House of Commons as the elected Member of Parliament for Chesterfield, says ofJohn Smith:

“I thank the Prime Minister (John Major) and the other Members who have spoken for what they have said about John Smith.

“I had the privilege of knowing him (Smith) and of working with him closely over 25 years in Parliament and in government, and he had two qualities that I would like to mention.

“Inside him burned the flame of anger against injustice, and the flame of hope that we could build a better world. That was what moved him.

“Secondly, he was a man who always said the same, wherever he was. Whether one heard him in public at a meeting or in private, whether one heard him in the Cabinet or in the House of Commons, he always said the same thing.

For that reason, he was trusted.

“He was a lovely man, and I hope that his family will gain something from the knowledge that their grief is shared by us.”

Source: Hansard

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, March 2014 

Mayor Boris Johnson, London Real Estate Forum 2013, MIPIM Cannes 2014, Developers 'concordat'

Last summer, London’s Mayor warmly embraced foreign cash investment gushing into London property. In March 2014, the Mayor finally acknowledges a “downside” to such vast capital inflow, writes Paul Coleman.

London Mayor Boris Johnson waves papers signifying his 'concordat'
with property developers at MIPIM 2014

Give 'appease' a chance

Rewind to June 2013.

Inside a big white tent in Berkeley Square.

Delegates perch on show stands at the London Real Estate Forum.

London Mayor Boris Johnson strides to a podium.

Mayoral sermon time, dashed with caper tales and jolly japes.

Johnson flatters an international cluster of property investors, developers and agents. 

He praises them for firing up London’s property boom

Heralds them as “galacticos, real superstars, doing more than any other to drive jobs, growth and recovery in our great city”.

“I was in Abu Dhabi recently and was thrilled to be told by the Sheikhs they recognise me as the de facto ruler of the eighth Emirate,” jokes Johnson.

He welcomes Malaysian investors pouring £1.6 billion into a massive new luxury homes development around Battersea Power Station – “that moldering old hulk most of us only remember from a Pink Floyd album cover”.

Let free market global property investment cash gush into London.

Bring it on, chimes Johnson.

MIPIM Cannes 2014

Fast forward to March 2014.

Inside a MIPIM conference hall at Cannes on the French Riviera.

Delegates digest a handsome lunch.

Mayor Johnson shuffles to a podium.

Since LREF 2013, foreign investment inflows in London land and property aggressively intensify the number of Londoners on average and low incomes who simply cannot afford to buy a home in London.

Property prices spike.

Council estates undergo demolition.

Replaced with luxury high-priced housing developments carrying a low quotient of so-called ‘affordable’, part-buy, part-rent homes.

Developers market new homes in marketing suites in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai to cash-rich buyers.

Londoners who can scrape together a deposit – and secure a mortgage from a reluctant market of lenders - often don’t even know these new homes are on offer.

Many more Londoners are simply squeezed out of London – ‘displaced’ from their own city where their families have lived for generations.

On Johnson’s Mayoral watch, Londoners suffer the multiple impacts of London becoming an asset class for speculative investment, where London property mutates from a place to call home into an international reserve currency for global elites.

For Mayor Johnson, this means serious political fallout.

Critics carp Johnson as he ‘faffs around’ to find a practical response to London’s growing housing crisis.

And if Johnson doesn’t meaningfully respond, he faces historical consignment as the ‘Mayor who sold London’ to international property speculators.

And caricature, as a cad bounder with mad hair, who aggravated a housing crisis facing many Londoners. 

Smattering

Hence, nine months on from LREF and Berkeley Square, ‘Sheikh Boris’ splutters a far less avuncular and platitudinous tune to MIPIM delegates at Cannes, the international real estate show (11-14 March 2014).

Johnson coats the title of his presentation with an academic gloss: ‘Housing in London: Population & the Economy – meeting the challenges of 21st century growth’.

Verbally, Johnson jests about confusion over the true meaning of MIPIM (Le Marché international des Professionnels de L'Immobilier).

He japes: “It’s not ‘May I Push you Into the Mediterranean’ but ‘Making Important Property Investments for Millions of Londoners on Modest Incomes’.

At last, Boris blurts his crux.

His meaningful response.

The Mayor acknowledges the “stupefying torrent” of international capital inflow into London land and property contains “a downside”.

Seriousness replaces the Mayoral smirk.

“London is a finite asset that is in global demand," says Johnson.

“It puts terrific pressure on people living in London and on the domestic property market.

“There is no doubt for millions of people growing up in the city, searching for work, there has never been a more difficult or challenging time to get on the property ladder. Homes people thought they could get six months ago are now moving further out of their reach.

“And many people feel a particular sense of anger about one thing in particular that we can easily tackle – the overseas marketing of new homes in London in swish marketing suites before Londoners even get a chance to know these new homes even exist.

“That can’t be right.

“We want people in great Asian capitals to come to London and invest but we don’t see why they should be able to look at new images of new London properties and take cash out for them ‘off plan’ before Londoners even know about the opportunity.

Paper moon

And, very possibly, due to his fondness for history, Johnson seems highly conscious of the perils of even mildly imitating Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who waved a white paper at Heston Aerodrome – signed by Hitler and Chamberlain himself - that signified a policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany in 1938.

Comparing an inflow into London of speculating property investors and corporate property developers to a planned invasion by a hostile neo-fascist state might seem extreme.

But Johnson himself seems to stumble into such a comparison and says: “So I have in my hand a piece of paper…”

And even waves several pieces in his right hand.

Johnson continues: “This signifies the concordat we have agreed with sixty of London’s leading property developers who have agreed that they will stop any practice of marketing London homes exclusively overseas in advance and they will insist that all such homes are marketed first, or at least, simultaneously, to the London and UK market.

“You can’t say fairer than that, can you?”

Concession

Johnson describes this as “a small but important gesture from the property industry”.

But is it canny appeasement or a genuine concession?

How will it be guaranteed?

Will developers and agents create marketing suites in London for new homes?

How anyway can Londoners compete with foreign cash-rich buyers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Shanghai?

Johnson says: “I do hope that, given the buoyancy of the London property market, developers will accept that a high quotient of affordable homes on new London developments is only reasonable.”

© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, March 2014

Carlo Sant'Albano, Cushman and Wakefield, MIPIM international real estate show, Cannes: Global $1.3 trillion property market

Global property transactions are predicted to spike in volume and value during 2014. Property players promise to more aggressively chase London development opportunities, writes Paul Coleman.

Local politicians at MIPIM seek to cut 'regeneration' deals on public land with corporate developers

Transaction satisfaction

The predicted magic number for total 2014 global real estate transactions is $1.3 trillion (£800 billion).   

That's up from the estimated $1.2tn for 2013. 

It's just a number, albeit huge and possibly mythical.
But it's the pot of gold at the end of the real estate rainbow - and it's galvanising upbeat delegates at MIPIM, the 'international real estate show' in Cannes. 

People like Carlo Barel di Sant’Albano plan to make sure their clients get big handfuls from the pot of gold.
And they'll be grabbing as much as they can of London.

Sant'Albano, executive chairman of property services provider Cushman & Wakefield, quietly heralds the end of real estates' ‘dark years’ that followed in the wake of the banking and finance ‘meltdown’ of 2008.

Sant’Albano tells his fellow 'MIPIMites': “The lull in transaction volumes is over. Relative to the past six or seven years, it’s a totally different feeling. Investors are now willing to take decisions.

Appropriately and aggressively

“London continues to be a very exciting part of the world,” continues London-based Sant’Albano. “We have to find opportunities for our clients, to help them accomplish their strategic plans, as appropriately and as aggressively as possible.”

The United States and Western European cities, like London, will be crucial.

London’s ‘prime central’ property market therefore seems set to continue to drive up house prices, rents and land values across the city. 

In turn, Londoners on average and lower incomes will struggle further to find genuinely affordable homes.

Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, March 2014.

MIPIM, Cannes, Monopoly, Sale of Public Land, Green Belt, Tax Breaks, High Speed 2, Camden Town

Politicians tell property developers and investors at MIPIM that publicly-owned land in London and the rest of the UK is up for sale, writes Paul Coleman.

Set-piece 'debates' conceal the public land deals conceived at MIPIM

Land grab

MIPIM, the ‘international real estate show’, hosted in Cannes in the south of France, shapes up like a global ‘Monopoly’ board game.

Players fling dice in the shape of millions of dollars at property in cities across the world.

London and other British cities offer specific potential profits to property developers and speculative investors – in the shape of publicly owned land, recently made available for private sale by locally elected politicians.

Sacred

Richard Claxton, chairman of construction consultancy Pellings hosts a debate by asking: “Is the Green Belt the answer to London’s Housing Crisis?”  

The Green Belt, swathes of protected land around London, now no longer seems sacred.

Will London's green and pleasant Green Belt mutate into a greedy and unpleasant construction belt?

At Cannes, you find UK delegations totally support High Speed 2, the multi-billion rail link between London, Birmingham and other northern cities. “Sheffield, Nottingham and Leicester will have opportunities through HS2 opening up London to the rest of the country,” says Steve Norris of the Temple Group planning consultancy.

At Cannes you won’t find local folks from Camden Town protesting how HS2 might demolish their homes, businesses and destroy long-established family and social networks.

Tax breaks

Elsewhere, inside MIPIM, announcements fly. The Selly Oak hospital site in Birmingham – a former NHS hospital - is up for sale, reports Lisa Pilkington of property mag, Estates Gazette.

People under a ‘Sheffield City Region Enterprise Zone’ announce ‘expansion plans’ where investors will enjoy ‘tax breaks across a range of prime sites’.

Excited

Chunks of London attract global MIPIM property players, including areas deemed by politicians and the property industry as ‘rundown’, ‘underused’ and in need of ‘regeneration’.

Take just one of the many excited Tweets from property media outfit, Estates Gazette. ‘Greater portion of stock we’re buying now is beyond Central London. Pop growth means demand for resi so we see good value there.

Translated.

‘London’s rising population means increased demand for genuinely affordable homes is pushing up prices in areas beyond central London.

‘More profits for us.’

Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, March 2014.

MIPIM, Cannes, London Mayor, London local councils, New York penthouse, Green Belt

MIPIM – the ‘international real estate show for property professionals’ – bathes itself in Cannes sunshine this week, writes Paul Coleman.

A taste of a Casino Royale lifestyle for MIPIM 2014 delegates at Cannes

Beware the Ides of MIPIM

It’s early March – and London’s Mayor Boris Johnson and several local authority officials sacrifice their precious time and flagging energy to suffer the climes of Cannes in the south of France.

Once again, Cannes hosts MIPIM – a kind of global real estate ‘tournament’ for property developers and investors - set against a James Bond Casino Royale lifestyle backdrop.

Bulge

But, temporarily, heads swivel across the Atlantic to New York.

Specifically, eyes bulge upon 200, 11^th Avenue, The One Penthouse, New York 10011.

A ‘Penthouse in the Sky’, for sale, at $23,000 million (£13,839, 583).

For your $23m, you’ll get three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms (!), inside 3,598 square feet of a re-designed, 1930s-built ‘slice’ of the 'Big Apple'.

New York property company Zillow predicts New York home values will rise almost 5 per cent over the next two years.

New reserve

We're not quite sure why all these dollar signs spin so furiously in MIPIM-dweller eyeballs. After all, isn't this where central London land and property prices seem destined anyway?

Lay aside gold, Bitcoin, and other crypto-currencies. 

London land and property now reigns as a new reserve currency.

Green Belt

Even outer London's supposedly sacred and protected ‘Green Belt’ open land seems up for grabs - as London becomes an offshore locus for global players seeking a ‘safe haven’ to stash their wealth.

All this begs several questions.

Notably, where in their own city will Londoners on average and lower incomes be able to afford to live?

Will this price boom bust?

Will parts of central London become a ‘void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition’?

Blame London's Mayor. 

If the meaning of 'inanition’ escapes you. 

It's his verbal shebang.
One of his most cherished phrases.

Just like, 'London, a world class global city'.
You're welcome to a slice.
If you can afford the price.

Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, March 2014