Distance restaurants can extend onto pavement?

Papa

It's a sign of gentrification and being taken over by the moneyed young professional-type that Kreuzkav previously identified - and you'll probably see Guardian Saturday magazine and Observer features on in a few years when they finally catch up with what's going on.

JefkeVanHoornzehout

Sorry, @Papa L , I'm even more lost now. Were you answering my question to @Kreuzkav ?

Papa

Yep, I was.

Scruffy

Well bugger me with a fish fork! Who'd have thought that bloody-minded, sociopathic restauraters wearing jumpers over their shirts were a sign of gentrification? Maybe we need more and further-reaching austerity rather than less in order to quell this horror.

Thanks, I knew I was missing something.

HolbornFox

I used to wear a jumper over my Ben Sherman shirt when i was about 15, maybe it's the way to go.

grenners

Don't worry. It will be too cold to sit outside soon. Christmas is nearly here.

conformable_kate

@Scruffy knowing about fish forks is a dead gentrification giveaway, really.

Scruffy

Really? Gawd love a duck and stone the crows, @conformable_kate ! Are you suggesting I'm an example of immigrant gentry? Gentry, I couldn't say, but definitely not moved-in. I was born in Hanley Road, sufficiently long ago to know that heirloom fish forks—used for buggering only—are a (sadly, almost forgotten) north London working class tradition and rite of… er… passage. I grew up (as much as I ever did) around here and have lived most of my life here too, so I can tell you, when I were a lad, we ate the fish straight out of t' newspaper wi' our 'ands. It saved on washing plates and the otherwise-utilised fish forks (well, you really wouldn't want to eat with them, would you?) If we were lucky, we'd have a few pages of the previous week's Manchester Guardian or Daily Herald, which we took turns reading aloud.

Eating with a fish fork? I learnt about that as a child, from seeing the toffs coming up from Highbury, with their airs and graces (and fish forks) dining al fresco (al fresco, if you please!) outside t' posh chippy (that wasn't fer the likes of us local riff-raff), with chairs and tables extended right out to the kerb! During hard times our whole family would be stood there in t' gutter (no space on t' pavement), cap in hand (we had only one cap between the nine of us—but we were happy) hoping for greasy scraps. "Too cold" to sit outside around Chritmastide, @grenners ? Chip shop owner would burn a few unemployeds on the pavement to keep customers warm. Didn't see a non-commercial gastronomic fish fork up close until I was nearly a teenager, on one of those Sunday trips to the V&A with Mater and Pater. Gentry? Nah! Pas moi!

(And you try telling any of that to the young people today, and they just ridicule you!)

grenners

@Scruffy .....Manchester Guardian?

Ali

Scruffy you have just reminded me that there used to be a maternity hospital in Hanley Road

Scruffy

Indeed, @Ali , it was the City of London Maternity Hospital. Unlike the (Manchester) Guardian when it moved to London, ( @grenners ), the hospital kept its name when it moved to Hanley Road.

(Well, we've exhausted the commodial sprawl topic, haven't we?)

HolbornFox

@Scruffy @JefkeVanHoornzehout not sure what vintage you are but you might remember my family from Stapleton Hall Road?

Jim / Ron Brooks amongst others, I'm talking late 60's before they moved to the bright lights of Tottenham.

Scruffy

No, I didn't know them, @HolbornFox , but I'd have been very young when they moved out. I'm not quite as old as my cod-historical (hysterical? histrionic?) references suggest.

conformable_kate

Is it safe to come out yet ...?

I stand corrected @Scruffy! I spent some formative years just off the Cally and I don't remember hearing the expression - but I've come across it with a pitchfork so this must be an urban variation on an ancient agricultural theme, no doubt associated with the rise of the chippy.

Scruffy

An interesting and very credible etymology, @conformable_kate ; One can easily imagine (well, I can, anyway) agricultural labourers beating their pitchforks into fish forks (more portable and less likely to be considered offensive weapons) and leaving the countryside to join the urban working class.

HolbornFox

Im feeling very Robert Tressell reading this.

JefkeVanHoornzehout

From Muggsborough to an entire Muggsland in a century.

(No, Fox, never knew any Brookses)

NorthNineteen

Gentrification or not, the quality of writing on here has certainly improved. Incidentally, my Dad was born in that maternity hospital on Hanley road. I now live almost next door which we find a bit odd.

gardener-joe

Where next, Stroud Green Road?

https://twitter.com/lontravelwatch/status/1154769672241373185

Scruffy

Seems rather academic these days, given all the pavement cyclists and dumped rubbish. Still, in his haste to prove a point, that awfleh naice Johnson chappie might end up hiring 20,000 truncheon-wielding thugs who will club you as soon as look at you. Halcyon days ahead!

gardener-joe

Stroud Green restaurants’ pavement creep recently mentioned to London TravelWatch - @LonTravelWatch is currently having a thing about this London-wide problem - and they say Islington is not policing this matter effectively. No wonder it gets so hard to navigate SGR’s Islington-side pavements when it gets busy. [Harrumph over]

https://twitter.com/lontravelwatch/status/1167093108158472192