A lazy afternoon in my road can be easily occupied by counting the number of cars that accelerate up it at alarming speed.
Fox Lane District Residents Association have put together a new survey on traffic speeds in the area, and are working in collaboration with a range of other organisations, including the new Palmers Green Community website team, to get together some data and see what can be done. The questionnaire takes just a couple of minutes and can be accessed on the Palmers Green Community website here – well worth a moment of your time.
It may have been celebrated for hundreds of years, and in over 80 countries round the world, but did you know that May Day only officially became a public holiday in the UK in 1978? Traditionally it’s the workers’ holiday (that’s you, that is), and one of the few bank holidays which does not have religious origins – historian Eric Hobsbawm described it as “the only unquestionable dent made by a secular movement in the Christian or any other official calendar”.
On the folkloric calendar, May Day is a time for morris dancing, maypoles and celebrations of spring, the new blooms, and risings of the sap, and you can get involved in vernal dancing and prancing at the annual May Fair on Southgate Green this Bank Holiday Monday.
Now a 35-year-old tradition, the fair choses a charity each year.The main beneficiary for 2013 year is the Teenage Cancer Trust. The charity builds and maintains specialist Teenage Cancer wards in NHS hospitals, allowing teenagers who would otherwise be treated in pediatric or adult wards to be treated alongside people of their own age.
The fair will be opened by Enfield-born soul singer and X-Factor star Andy Abraham, who is a long-time supporter of the charity. There will also be performances by the Latymer School Drama Group, the Enfield Grammar School Jazz Band, The Acorn Theatre Group and the Choir of Christ Church Southgate as well as stalls selling crafts, plants, bric-a-brac and the all important cake. The fair will be open from 11-4.
Its official – Palmers Green is one of the busiest stations on First Capital Connect’s great Northern Route.
Data published by the Guardian this week revealed that more people got on or off a train at Palmers Green than almost any other station on the route, with the exception of Moorgate and Kings Cross (as these are exit points for other lines, the numbers arriving or joining FCC have not been separately measured).
Palmers Green had 1,662,004 entries or exits in 2011/12, and if you had a suspicion that the station is getting busier, you would be right. Its a 2% increase on 2010/11.
The figures for the route, in descending order, are
Palmers Green 1,662,004
Letchworth 1,523,282
Winchmore Hill 1,423,616
Old Street 1,336,722
Hertford North 1,290,728
Enfield Chase 1,248,758
Alexandra Palace 1,157,282
Hornsey 1,129,648
Gordon Hill 1,088,830
Haringey 1,062,026
Bowes Park 814,562
Cuffley 658,354
Drayton Park 505,230
Essex Road 482,764
Completists will be disappointed to see that Crews Hill and Bayford arent listed.
There are hours of fun to be had on the Guardian’s website, where you can search the data using the interactive table http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/may/19/train-stations-listed-rail#data
Now that the sun has arrived, there are a flurry of events coming up in Palmers Green in the next few days. Time to get out and about.
If you are thinking of a spring clean and therapeutic de-junk, there are still one or two pitches left at Hazelwood School’s car boot sale on Sunday – or just go along for a chance to have a leisurely chat with your neighbours over coffee and cake, and snap up a bargain. Doors open at 9.30 and early birds pay a pound, otherwise entrance is free from 10. Further details re pitches from becky@themuswellflyer.com.
The Broomfield Park conservatory is open every Sunday afternoon from 2.30 til 4.30 (as well as Wednesday afternoons) and this weekend there is a chance to hear live music from Marc Harris. You can also see the shortlisted entries from the recent Broomfield Park Photographic Competition, and cast your vote for the picture you think deserves to be the overall winner (if you can’t pop along this weekend, you have time – viewing is until 5 May). There is also a new free weekly Tai Chi session in the park starting next week, designed particularly with older people in mind. The sessions will be held near the bandstand at 11am on a Tuesday – call 020 8379 3762 to register.
We have endlessly sung the praises of the Space Art Gallery in Southgate; it is truly amazing that we have such a wonderful place within walking distance, ready to champion genuinely interesting and challenging art. This month’s exhibition is by John McKie and there are a few more days to see it if you haven’t already been along. Mckie makes his pictures on cardboard, wood or paper, with collage, ink, oil crayons, acrylic paint and pens. He says of his work
I like contrasts, juxtaposition and silliness, although my pictures are often tinged with seriousness close to the surface. My motivations vary but I suppose current events, mindless celebrity culture, mainstream brainwashing media are influences.
Finally, if you are reading this post today, you might just be able to snap up a ticket to see O Brother Where Art Thou this evening at the Fox. If not, your next chance for a dose of the Coens by virtue of Talkies Community Cinema is only just over a week away – A Serious Man is the first of the First Thursdays series at the Dugdale Centre in Enfield. For details of both, see http://www.talkies.org.uk/
John McKie’s ‘large animal…’ (c) John McKie – see his show at the Space Art Gallery
The next film from Talkies is the Coen brothers’ wonderful O Brother, where art thou, to be screened at The Fox on 24 April. The evening starts at 7 and there are still a few tickets left if you move swiftly.
Starring George Clooney, the story is loosely based on Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, as a backdrop for the adventures of a trio of escaped convicts that steer their way through a sea of strange characters. Among them sirens, a cyclops, a KKK lynch mob and a blind prophet, who warns them that “the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find.” The soundtrack is also cracking.
If that isnt enough Coen brothers, 2 May sees the beginning of Talkies First Thursdays events at the Dugdale Centre, bringing cinema back into the heart of Enfield for the first time in many years. The season kicks of with the Coens’ A serious man.
You can book both, and the films in the rest of the First Thursdays season here: http://www.talkies.org.uk/future-events
