Stroud Green Road in The Times, this Saturday (July 19)

hedgetrimmer

There will be a major feature, on the cover of the Times Magazine, about Stroud Green Road this Saturday (July 19).

I wrote it. I'm not announcing this to blow my own trumpet, but because I've lived in this area for around 20 years, and I was really pleased to find this website, and so many other enthusiasts when I was researching it. And I am hoping that the people who use this site will get a kick out of seeing the story of their high street in a national newspaper.

I've always been deeply impressed by the mulitcultural nature of the area, how so many different nationalities are able to live alongside each other and get along. Ethnic ghettos, on the other hand, really depress me. Stroud Green Road is the embodiment of mulitcultural London.

So I interviewed 10 people who live and work on the road, all of them immigrants, all of them different nationalities, and wrote down their stories. It's accompanied by some brilliant portraits taken by Muir Vidler – really a world class photographer.

I hope you'll go out and buy the Times on Saturday, and have a good wallow in the joy of being a Finsbury Parker. For a weekend at least, it will surely be the coolest, trendiest place to live in Britain, so make the most of it...

Thanks, by the way, to whoever it was suggested Ho Chi Minh might have lived on Stroud Green Road. I can't help feeling this might be bogus, but I repeated the notion in the article, and I expect it's going to stick now...

Hedgetrimmer

Philistine'sMonster

This has excited me so much I'm going to have to pop out to Stroud Green Road right now and sit outside with a drink ... Um ... which means Wetherspoons because Chapter One doesn't open til 5 now. Hey-ho. Thanks, hedge strimmer.

andy

BUT IT'S A SECRET! THAT's THE WHOLE POINT! (on the other hand...is there any way we can get a link here from the times site)

jandb

Expect open-topped tourist buses from Crouch End.

Mike from London

I am going to offer my services as a SG Blue Guide

krappyrubsnif

Dying to know who you are, Hedgetrimmer.

hedgetrimmer

Just a fellow battling the forces of nature, winos and slappable schoolkids to keep his privet tidy, Krappy

tosscat

You've kinda blown your anonimity so I think you should fess up.

Mike from London

Can we organise a signing at the Faltering Fullback?

Ali

Ho Chi Min stayed in Ferme Park Rd, the MySpace site nicked that and used a bit of artistic licence !

tosscat

I'm sorry to rain on everyone's SG love-in parade, but isn't HT just hawking a newspaper? Poor old lizziej

Agaton Sax

Apparently Gollum from Lord of the Rings lives in Crouch End, but no one ever recognises him

tosscat

Andy Serkis (sp) - a Peter Jackson fave - was also King Kong.

dion

@ hedgetrimmer - are you the elephant man?

Bridget

Thanks for letting us know, I have just emailed a load of friends about it and will tell the neighbours.

Looking forward to seeing it!

tosscat

Hello, I'm new, buy my thing and I'll never be on here again.

hedgetrimmer

Tosscat you are a cynical one. I could weep. Just trying to spread a little FP cheer is all (but yes, I'll obviously be made for life on the back of the dozen extra sales on Saturday).

Toddlesocks

Thank you for the heads up on it HT, i will be sneaking a peek at it at the inlaws this weekend.

hedgetrimmer

Thanks Toddlesocks.
I've had a few drinks, so I'll probably regret this in the morning, but I have to be tiresomely sincere now.
As a fellow who bleeds Finsbury Park every time he is upended by one of the many pitbull turds on my street, all I know is that if someone else had written this story, I'd be mad keen to see it – I just imagined people getting wise to it a couple of weeks after it had come out, and being disappointed because they couldn't get hold of a copy of it. Outrageously, journalists don't actually get royalties for their articles. The sum of my weeks of hard work compiling this piece now belongs to The Times. So it benefits me nothing at all by alerting you all to it.
What would benefit me immeasurably would be if Tosscat could be banned from buying it, reading it, smelling it, or even being allowed to wipe his arse on it.
I hope everyone else enjoys it. It was an eye-opening experience for me to meet some of the amazing people who live on Stroud Green Road, and I'd like to think some of that will filter through to the people who read the magazine, too. Even those who do wipe their arses on it.

dion

Hedgetrimmer - But more importantly, is your hedge the shape of an elephant? There was a big thread on this recently after the Evening Standard Homes & Property article.

tosscat

HT, a precedent was set - I don't make the rules. Of course you will benefit, maybe not directly, but you will benefit in the long run if there is an upsurge in sales/interested people writing in - I'm sure lizziej wouldn't have benefitted from filling her focus group directly, but if she consistently filled them then it would reflect on her. We're all in sales in the end. I am interested in the article. If you don't want me to read it then that's your choice - do you just want me to leave the money somewhere for you? I am cynical when it comes to things like this, if you'd even joined and said hello in the new members bit first you may have looked a bit more genuine.

krappyrubsnif

Let's all turn on Tosscat. Tosscat, how can thee be so ungrateful, after this noble heir to Johannes Gutenberg and Julie Burchill has toiled long and hard in the dusty halls of his trade to produce this article...and probably for little more recompense than the price of a dozen pints of London Pride.

I bet you couldn't do it. You'd give up after the first interview and turn in an a thousand words of meaningless, florid, cynical claptrap with far too many adjectives. Personally, I'm looking forward to Hedgetrimmer's words.

tosscat

Do I use too many lovely adjectives?

jandb

You can't beat a bit of good old fashioned cynicism.

andy

@tosscat - who died and made you moderator?

katiejane

@ hedgetrimmer - looking forward to it. Thanks for letting us know. I like Saturday's magazine in the Times.

While we're on the subject, does anyone else think the Observer's gone down hill recently? The magazine's diabolical since Barbara Ellen moved over to the main section. As for the feature on Sophie Conran's kitchen last week - aaargh!

Colette

Well i'm looking forward to the article, and I don't tend to buy the Times, so thanks for letting us know, hedgetrimmer. Ignore that Tosscat, seems he likes to cultivate a certain angry man image at times...

tosscat

@ andrew - you did for a bit - where have you been?

hedgetrimmer

Dang it, I do regret my last comments now – sorry if I came across like a surly teenager. No doubt I should have said hello first, but I've been so excited about this I just had to dive straight in with my news…
Anyways I'm cycling off to The Times in Wapping now to pick up some early editions of the magazine. Can't wait to see it myself. And to hand out copies to those who so kindly took part. I think they were all a bit bemused when I first wandered into their shops back in the spring and tried to explain what I was doing. It'll be great for them to see that indulging me was – hopefully – worth their time.
The elephant hedge is truly one of the wonders of the world. It crossed my mind to attempt a unicorn or a turtle on my last trim, but I found I could barely manage a straight line. In fact I couldn't even do that. The elephant man is up there with Michelangelo in my books.
I'm not sure about the Observer magazine going downhill, don't see it often enough. But it's generally better than the Times mag...

tosscat

Will someone tell me who is featured please; I'm not allowed to look at it myself.

hedgetrimmer

Mr Patel, Mr Haji, Mr Doudrich, Mr Andronicou, Ms Durham, Mr Cihat, Mr Chen, Ms Lamprea, Mr Mosteanu and Mr Shah