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

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)

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

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

Can we organise a signing at the Faltering Fullback?

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

Poor old lizziej

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

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 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).

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.

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.

Do I use too many lovely adjectives?

@tosscat - who died and made you moderator?

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...

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...

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

Mr. Patel wouldn't need a copy, would he, him being a newsagent and all ... except he's not anymore, is he. He gone... I did bump into him in Crouch End the other week, however, and he's enjoying his retirement.

Unless, of course, you mean another Mr. Patel?

Hedgetrimmer, are you in fact a female with the initials CS? In that case, I know who you are.

Tomorrow's fish 'n' chip paper, Hedgetrimmer, tomorrow's fish 'n' chip paper. Well, Sunday's. May I suggest Tollington's?

It's still open, isn't it?

One of my friends is Jo Jones, fashion editor of the Observer Magazine. I'm going to get her to do a shoot and write up on Londons hottest spot right now. Thanks Hedgetrimmer for putting this area on the map - surely the only follow up is to show how trendy the locals are. Give it a few weeks and Hoxton will be full of hair weave shops, wig merchants and nail shops. Forget bo-ho, it's gonna be RAP & YAP - joggers, weave and pitbull!

Laminated place mats?

Let's aim higher. Stroud Green - the book - the film - the musical?

Appropriate titles, please.

Last X-shit to Brooklyn

Mystic Pizza P

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (for free on SG.org)

@hedgetrimmer

A fox used to come in through the catflap and steal Birkenstocks to chew.
Perhaps that's your culprit?

I like your article. It reassures me that I don't imagine these things.
I think it's important to tell middle England that the "clash of civilisations" is a load of bollocks.

No, I don't mean Leicester.
I mean the broad, complacent constituency of Times, Telegraph and Mail readers.

X-It man is in it :)

(Puts on tin hat and waits for scream from flat across the road)

There were only two copies left when I picked mine up on Ferme Park Road.

At the risk of sounding like a big girls' blouse, I thought it was an extremely heartwarming piece and timely given the agenda of other newspapers who would apparently like everyone to be at each others' throats and living in fear.

Also a reminder that 99% of people get on and that its the 1% of maniacs who spoil it for everyone else.

Hats off to HT.

Slightly tatty!? Pah. Marvellous article and I'm glad you got the lovely guy from the pharmacy. He's such a sweetie.

I do think Ravi from Jacks Off Licence would have been a good one though - wiith his 'security' the elderly Caribbean chap and his shelf stacker from Sri Lanka. I was in there the other day when they were having a great argument about cricket.

Is this article online anywhere? Or does anybody have any scans.

Have been away, so couldn't buy it!

Lizziej's focus group plug got treated as spam because it was not only commercial but crucially had nothing to do with Stroud Green whatsoever. It may change in the future but right now we don't have a fixed view about commercial posts and will treat each on its own merits. I suspect Tosscat is just being contrary again (yawn) but thought I'd clear up where we stand on that.

Personally I was grateful for the heads up by HedgeTrimmer and enjoyed seeing my new plant in the Times Magazine. And if there's something going on in our local park, commerical or not, there's room for that on here too.

I went and had my feet done in there the other day - seemed fine. Very strange. I used to go to a Vietnamese nailbar in Stamford Hill and the guy who runs it there is a character - saying very strange dark things and talking about how they are asked for protection money all the time...

Those nailbars are great for a brutal pedicure.

Hedgetrimmer thanks for the article - I thought it was great and agree there are loads of people to talk to with interesting stories. But you have to draw the line somewhere. The photography was fantastic and made the florist look much nicer that it actually is.

Also, I love to hear about all kinds of stuff in the area - commercial too - I would have been up for the Finsbury Park classes last year when I was cash rich and pre child. They have to get customers and publicity, nothing wrong with that and working in PR I know how difficult it is. I think the outdoor gym thing is a great idea and like to see new companies getting support.

I find the attitude of some people on here a bit negative and bullying - but then maybe it leads to more discussion!

Thanks.

Just to say, I completely agree with David.

I'd say it was like a noticeboard in a coffeeshop - the test isn't whether it's 'for profit' or not - it's whether its interesting or not. Personally, I think stuff like the Times article or the Gym notice are spot on and thank those people for posting them.

The infamous 'lizziej' post appeared on a bunch of other forums at the same time and wasn't relevant at all.

But it's not like there's a handbook.

JoeV, thanks

Ok, so much against the authors wishes I read it.

Why's it in the women's section on the website?

Oh yeah - pearoast!

Sorry Dom, I haven't read the whole thread - bad of me I know!

Been away on holiday so only just saw this thread.
Thank you Hedgetrimmer for alerting me to the article. I enjoyed it a lot.