After weeks of inactivity work has started again on the new hotel at the corner of Melbourne Ave and the Uxbridge Road. Scaffolding is starting to go up. The delay has been down to the developers needing to carry out a detailed structural survey for Holiday Inn Express who are going to operate this hotel. There will also be some changes to the plans with two more storeys at the front (Uxbridge Road) end to increase the number of rooms. I don’t know what the likely completion date will be but I can’t see Tony Luckhurst being back before Christmas.
The new Morrisons Local in West Ealing opens on Thursday
The old Blockbusters stood empty and forelorn for some months and then work on the new Morrisons Local started and it’s progressed very quickly and will open at 9am on Thursday. On the corner of St James Ave and the Uxbridge Road this supermarket should bring some much-needed footfall down this end of the high street and, hopefully, benefit the nearby shops.
Do we need so many betting shops in West Ealing? Time to say no.
I asked this exact same question the last time there was an application for a new betting shop – Betfred on the ground floor of where the new hotel is supposed to be going. Yet, here we are again with William Hill wanting to open a new betting shop at 70 Broadway:
I missed this licence application and the closing date for objections has passed but just how many betting shops do we need in West Ealing? Can we keep leaving it to market forces to determine what happens in our high street or should local residents have a say?
There is an opportunity to have your say about betting shops and other forms of gambling by completing the Council’s online survey as part of its consultation on its gambling policy. Some of the questions are about clustering of betting shops so directly relevant to West Ealing. The online survey closes on September 27th so not much time left to complete it. You can find it here.
I don’t know how much effect these surveys have but if we don’t say anything then silence will be taken as consent to what’s happening. I for one think we should restrict betting shops and other similar establishments, especially those with ‘fruit machines’ and fixed odds betting terminals which are a major route in to problem gambling. You can find out more about all the issues around gambling at the GamCare website.
My three music highlights from the West Ealing SoundBite Festival
We’ll put up more photos and feedback from SoundBite shortly. On a totally personal note, as I was helping organise the event on Saturday, I didn’t get to see many of the acts but of those few I did see three stand out for very different reasons:
Her father Romeo sang for us last year and this year his daughter Maria sang at the craft market in St James Ave. She stopped everyone in their tracks with her smooth, jazzy singing. Hers is the sort of voice and style of singing that I’d love to listen to late night in a small, intimate venue. A venue like Ronnie Scott’s or perhaps, locally, the Bush Hall in Shepherd’s Bush could work well for her. Catch her here on the video of clips from the music at St James Ave and remember this is where you first saw and heard her. She starts 6 minutes in to the video.
I’d been looking forward to the Bollywood Brass Band all day and was beginning to give up hope that I’d manage to get to Dean Gardens for them but i finally caught their last set at 6pm.
I really enjoy their combination of drumming and brass and their engagement with their audience. You can’t help but feel the energy and joy in their music and that got through to a group of children who got up and danced right in front of the band.
Photo copyright Vivien Boyes
My third highlight was TJ ‘Holyboy’ Johnson who I’d been told about so I made sure I got to Melbourne Ave to catch him closing the music there. I wasn’t disappointed and nor was the crowd who were drawn to his Hendrix-style blues guitar playing and driving voice. I was struck by the cross section of people who, like me, just felt compelled to stand there, soak it up and not miss a minute of his set.
Here’s what’s happening when and where for Saturday’s SoundBite Festival
Here’s the latest running order of events for Saturday.
St James Church Gardens
A range of children’s entertainment from 10am -3pm including
-Relish Kids Cookery -showing how to making apple crumble (primary school age)
– Facepainting, table tennis and other games
St James Avenue
Craft market from 10am – 3pm with live music from 12noon – 3pm
Crafts include a wide range of hand-made, local goods raning from jewellery to soaps, gifts and much more.
The music line-up (subject to any last minute changes) is:
|
12.00- 12.20 |
Sophie and Anisha |
|
12.20-12.40 |
Sophie D’Souza |
| 12.40-13.00 | Interval |
|
13.00-13.40 |
Oddfellas |
|
13.40-14.00 |
King Ralph |
|
14.00-14.30 |
The Mobile Clones |
|
14.30-14.50 |
Maria |
|
14.50-15.00 |
Andrea Richardson |
Melbourne Avenue
Live music and hot food from 11am – 5pm.
Entertainment for the day is:
|
11:00 |
James Perryman |
|
11:30 |
Zumba by Karen Freeman Dance |
|
11:45 |
Vienna Spring |
|
12:15 |
Vanita and the Exit Factor |
|
12:45 |
Madhurang Bollywood Dance |
|
13:00 |
Nev Hawkins |
|
13:30 |
Performers from Westside Youth Centre Connexions |
|
14:30 |
Irish Dancers |
|
15:00 |
June |
|
15:15 |
Sumeet Bellara |
|
15:30 |
Westbound Piccadilly |
|
16:00 |
Lizard |
|
16:30 |
TJ ‘Holyboy’ Johnson and the Preachers |
Leeland Road
Farmers market from 9am -1pm as usual
Punch and Judy shows at 10.30am and 12noon
Dean Gardens
A range of food and comunity information stalls including our own Abundance stall along with vegan food, Gifty’s Chilli, Cheddar Deli, Clare’s Garden Honey, West Ealing Centre Neighbourhood Forum and more.
Donkey rides for children from 12noon
There will also be hot food stalls and a beer tent. Hot food includes:
- Silva Cafe with jerk chicken
- Karaam with Lebanese food
- Sumo with a range of Far Eastern foods
- Sunjam and Caribbean food
- German Sausage stall
The running order for the live music is:
|
12:00-14:00 |
Gypsy Dynamite followed by The Onironauts |
|
14:00-15:00 |
The Chairs |
|
15:00-15:20 |
Bollywood Brass Band |
|
15:20-16:30 |
Dorance Lorza & Sexteto Cafe |
|
16:30-16:50 |
Bollywood Brass Band |
|
16:50-18:00 |
Ramon Goose |
|
18:00-18:30 |
Bollywood Brass Band |
|
18:30-20:00 |
Tankus the Henge |
St John’s Church in Mattock Lane
Tours of the church tower from 10am -4.30pm
Cooking a meal for a Fiver from 10am – 3pm including:
11am – Everything you ever wanted to know about preparing chicken and meat preparation
12noon – Chicken Tikka Masala by award winning chef Dipna Anand from Southall’s famous Brilliant restaurant
2pm – Caribbean cooking including jerk chicken and goat curry
There will also be ask the expert sessions with local restaurant owners, local greengrocer George Puddle and more.
The Apex 32-38 Uxbridge Road (corner with Craven Road)
Emergency services training to rescue a crane driver from the top of the tall cranes on this site from 11.30am -3.30pm
There is a safe viewing area for the public to watch this drama unfold.
Donkey rides in Dean Gardens for SoundBite on Saturday
Not these donkeys as they look happy on the beach! However, we have a friendly donkey coming to Dean Gardens to take children for a ride on Saturday for the SoundBite Festival. Actually, Dean Gardens used to be known as Jackass Common in the 1800s due to it being used for donkey races. No racing on Saturday but nice to be reuniting a donkey with Dean Gardens after more than 100 years.
More information on eveything at SoundBite here.
Abundance plum jam on its way for SoundBite Festival
We’ve had a bumper crop of Marjorie Seedling plums this year. Other plum varieties seem to have suffered from last frosts but our tree is fairly well protected so must have avoided the late frosts which hit the blossom and stop any fruit developing. So, it’s been a busy weekend cutting up plums and making jam. The jam has an added ingredient to give it a little bit of a special taste -star anise. I’ve tried it and its delicious – a slightly sharp edge to the plums with a hint of aniseed.
It will be on sale at the SoundBite Festival on 21st September along with blackberry jam, elderflower cordial, lemon and elderflower marmalade and more.
For all the latest on SoundBite – stalls, bands, children’s entertainment, food follow the SoundBite Facebook page
The Return of Sherlock Holmes to OPEN Ealing
The Adventure of the Crying Boy and The Adventure of the Creeping Man
I saw this first time round at OPEN Ealing and thorougly enjoyed it. The performance starts with a reading of Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Creeping Man and then moves on to Wally Sewell’s specially written drama, The Adventure of the Crying Boy, exploring the relationship between Holmes and Watson. (I still love watching the TV repeats of Jeremy Brett playing Sherlock Holmes. He perfectly captured the edginess of Holmes.) Anyway, well worth £5 in my view.
The Adventure of the Crying Boy by Wally Sewell in ‘Evenings and afternoons of Sherlock Holmes’ performed by Peter Saracen and Edmund Dehn, directed by Anthony Shrubsall.
It’s on at OPEN Ealing on Thursday 8th, Friday 9th, Saturday 10th and then Thursday 15th and Friday 16th August at 7.30pm. Matinees on Saturday 10th at 3pm and Friday 16th at 1pm.
Price: £5.00
Wally Sewell says, “As a writer I’ve always been interested in the mythical and the symbolic, and the concept of the unconscious, with its population of monsters swimming in its dark depths has been a constant draw. Representations of it, usually in the form of forests and wild places, are something of a recurring motif in my writing! My first exposure to Sherlock Holmes was having the Hound of the Baskervilles read to me as a school boy. At that stage what caught my imagination more than Holmes’spowers of deduction, was Conan Doyle’s evocation of the moors, haunted by malign spirits and bogs that could swallow up ponies, all observable from the relative civility of Baskerville Hall. I’ve tried to catch something of that spirit in my play.”
His play concerns an impromptu late night meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, who is now married and largely absent from Holmes’s life. As their conversation progresses, touching on Holmes’s cocaine addiction, his dalliance with Freud and confessions from childhood, demons pull themselves up through the cracks in the floorboards and out onto the stage.
The play has been well received at its various performances around the fringe, winning praise from members of the Sherlock Holmes Society and at least one professional psychiatrist!
Performed here with a reading of the short story The Adventure of the Creeping Man, the show promises to be an intriguing and engaging evening or afternoon’s entertainment.
NB Not suitable for children.
More details about this and other OPEN Ealing events here.
Work starts on new Morrsions in West Ealing
I thought I saw signs of action yesterday at the old Blockbusters on the corner of the Uxbridge Road and St James Avenue. Then this morning I had another look and ,yes, work is underway to turn it in to a Morrisons. They are clearing out the store in readiness for the new fit out. I had a word with a man with a Morrisons hi-vis jacket and he wasn’t sure of the exact schedule but thought it would take about 10 – 12 weeks or so to complete.
All quiet on the hotel front
Another occasional update on the new hotel in West Ealing – nothing’s happening. Having cracked on with the demolition it’s all been quiet for the last 10 days or so. I hope plans are still on schedule as I’m looking forward to Tony Luckhurst’s return in good time for Christmas.