No Olympic Atmosphere in "Quite (sic) and Beautiful" Romford

Romford is about 11 miles from the Olympic stadium and it is host to one major olympic team - in the form of chinese journalists who are camped out in a hotel just outside the centre of the town.

It seems that these journalists are rather disappointed at the lack of obvious joy that the games are being held in London.

Only four days towards the start of the London Games, says China Daily the atmosphere here is so different from that of Beijing 2008 that people who had experienced both Games might wonder if it is the same event that is held by different cities every four years.

It is not easy to find many traces of the Olympic Games around the corners of the city of London, except some banners and flags which are more as decorations than as demonstrations.
Four years ago in Beijing, the Olympics became a hot topic for both local media and citizens months prior to the event as Olympics-related stuff filled up every building and street in the Chinese capital.
And tons of thousands of local communities voluntarily gave their help to visitors and Olympians when almost every Chinese city showed its own way to support the host city.
While in London here, the lives of ordinary people are seldom obsessed by the biggest sports gala in the world.

A Chinese website opened on Monday its Olympic headquarter at Romford, dozens of miles northeast of London (err not quite!) , a beautiful countryside where Olympic flavor could hardly be tasted. There is no banner, no paper stories and even a journalist with a credential around his neck could drive some curious glaring of the locals.

"We feel no Olympic atmosphere here in Romford. It's a quite and beautiful place, but no Olympics," said a journalist of the tencent.com, who arrived Romford on Friday.

Around 1,000 Chinese reporters are expected to cover the 2012 Olympics, including the 500-plus squad from the Chinese Central Television (CCTV).  Most of them arrived in London one week before the start of the Games or even earlier.

British media put some Olympic news on the headlines, but their fancy about the Olympics is in a quite reasonable way, compared to the frenzy of Beijing in 2008. The London Olympic organizers had never expected to surpass any previous versions of the Games. All they want is to make a good and sound competition.


And so on. Well London is not Beijing and I doubt we Londoners would care to be corralled into spontaneous events in support of the games. Then again perhaps the Chinese journos didn't notice that 150,000 people turned out to see the Olympic torch procession through Havering (compared with a population of around 230,000 that's not bad a turnout).. I could go on but one thing I did see in this article that I never thought I would ever hear about Romford - the words Quiet and Beautiful. Now that IS a truiumph greater than any by Michael Phelps!

The Olympic Flame comes to Romford

So the Olympic flame came to Havering today. In Romford anyway there was a big turnout to see it pass by.

One of the warm-up persons with her hula hoop. 

Flying the flag

Ah that's good, your flag has the right logo 

The torch bearer passes by 

They also serve...

And another Ambassador for Romford!

Sighs....

A true Ambassador for Romford...

Romford may now hold the dubious distinction of being the home to the youngest person to appear in court in connection with the riots.

An eleven year old youth appeared at Highbury Corner Youth Court, where he admitted being part of a gang that attacked the Romford branch of Debenhams on Monday night.

According to the Telegraph the youth apeared in court wearing an Adidas tracksuit. He spoke only  to confirm his name, age and date of birth.

He pleaded guilty to burglary, after stealing a waste bin worth £50 from Debenhams. A charge of violent disorder was dropped.During the brief hearing the court heard the boy has already been given a referral order after being convicted of a separate offence just last week. No details of the conviction were given.

Prosecutor Steven Davis told the court: "This was 10.30pm on Monday evening with a background of serious violence in Romford. "Police saw a group of 20-30 youths who were approaching large stores, breaking windows and looting. They saw Debenhams had had its windows broken and they saw [the boy] approach the window that had been smashed, lean in, take a waste bin and run off with it."

He said when police stopped the boy, he said: "I was just taking it to pass on to somebody else."

Mr Davis said the bin was worth £50. The damage to the windows was £6,000 but it is not alleged the boy broke them.

Defending the 11 year-old, Vicky Thompson said he was given a referral order after being convicted last Wednesday, but it had not even begun yet.

The youth was supported in court by his ten year old girlfriend, their three year old twin sons and his nineteen year old mother....

Rioting in Romford... sort of

Early evening last night I saw a few rumours on Twitter and Facebook that Romford was set for distrubances. I kept an eye on Tweeets about Romford and after a while rumours abounded - Primark was burning, McDonalds and Costa Coffee had been smashed, even Romford station was ablaze!

I love quite close to Romfrod town centre. A quick check outside my back door confirmed that the sky was not glowing orange from anything other than light pollution and there was not much screeching of sirens.

In a moment of impetuousness I loaded my tatty Lowepro camera rucksack with my old Nikon D50 and a couple of lenses and headed towards the centre.

Victoria Road, the main location of fast food joints and Chinese and Indian restaurants was largely deserted, the eateries closer to the centre  being shut. The area outside the station was deserted except for  groups of police officers and a few people exiting a railway station that was clearly not in the slightest bit ablaze.

The South street bars and clubs from the Goose (once the Mawney Arms) to Yates's (formerly office accommodation if I remember rightly) ere all closed but it was clear that neither McDonalds nor the Costa coffee shop were smoking piles.

Moving further on into the pedestrian part of South street it was clear that Primark was  fully intact. However there were a number of youths milling around  further on so I decided to head home. Nothing to photograph.

Mercifully I missed the disturbances. It seems that there were disturbances in the market place:



The shop being atacked was Debenhams

This afternoon Romford was much quieter than one would expect even on a non-market day. By 2.30pm the banks were shut Other shops although the two branches of Greggs were already closed (a casus belli?)

In the daylight some minor damage could be seen: A pane broken at Debenhams

Smeone must have decided they fancied something a bit less chavvy for their girlfriend

 And finally some sort of attack on a chav couturier

Amazingly last night the one place that was open (or at least had the lights on behind the solid doors) was the knocking shop on South street that masquerades as a sauna. Perhaps they were the ones to embody the Blitz spirit!


Ach the chocolate teapots that pretend to be our Prime Minister, Deputy PM, Home Secretary and Mayor of London have cut short their holidays. Far more police will be on the streets tonight. I wonder what will happen across the city tonight.

EDL coming to Romford

There is an Armed Forces Day parade in Romford this coming Saturday (25 June). Serving members of our armed forces, cadet forces and veterans will parade along South Street.

It will be well attended by local citizens who are looking for a peaceful and pleasant time. Sadly there is one group that intends to be there who, with their appalling track record of loutery may well cause problems on the day.

The English Defence League has a Romford Division that intends to be out to support the parade. According to their Facebook page:

"we will be celebrating this years armed forces day in our usual patriotic manner in romford market,this is not an edl demonstration but an event to support our brave lads and lasses from the armed forces and as such we request that you all bring your flags,edl colours are optional.this is a family event so the more youngsters that show up the better"

The EDL are a bunch of louts who create trouble wherever they march. While this is not a demonstration I would be mightily surprised if they do not get tanked up at one of the local pubs - possibly the Lamb, the Golden Lion or perhaps the Bitter End given that they intend to meet at the Market Place.

I would not be surprised if racial abuse is shouted at Asian Romfordonians at the very least.

To give an example of what the EDL are like Flesh is Grass  has an important post about an EDL march from Redbridge to Dagenham yesterday. 250 members marched through the borough without a police escort.  Three Asian youths were attacked, one requiring hospital treatment for a broken jaw. Such violence is par for the course for the EDL.

Dog track from a dirty window

Not quite the pride of Romford

Local scouts has made the national press for all the wrong reasons. Not for him “bob a jobs” or other goodly works. The little louts made the news by making anti Semitic comments at last Sunday’s Remembrance Parade at the war memorial in Romford

According to the Guardian and other papers, at least explorer scouts taking part in Remembrance Sunday service in Romford, Essex was heard to repeatedly shout "Let's kill the Jews" at Jewish veterans.

The Rev Lee Sunderland, who was taking part in the service, expressed shock after hearing the scouts shout: "Here come the Jews, let's kill the Jews."

Other witnesses said the racists chants were started by a boy believed to be 15 years old. One of the troop has since come forward and been interviewed by police. He has been ordered by the Scout Association to visit the rabbi of the Romford and district synagogue to apologise in person.

Jack Rose from the synagogue said: "They were boy scouts who are supposed to be true to their cause. Somewhere along the line someone has been completely stupid or they really think these things."

Paul Freedman, an 84-year-old Jewish former RAF pilot who laid a wreath at the service, challenged the scouts. "I was absolutely fuming ... I told them I was a Jew and I'd spent four and a half years in the RAF during the second world war, and that Jewish people had sacrificed so much for freedom," he told the Evening Standard.

Simon Carter, a spokesman of the Scout Association, said the scout who confessed to starting the chant flouted the scouting ethos. "As scouts we promise to do our duty and to help other people. Clearly this child has not lived up to this promise”.

Frankly there is at least one scout I would love to see have his arse kicked from the Western Road Synagogue, around the Ring Road twice, up South Street, through the market and finally across to the memorial garden where he can bend over and let the populace (except the 15% of local vermin who voted BNP) take a good run up for a kick...

On the other hand I hope he undertakes some appropriate community service that will ensure it will be several lifetimes before he makes anti Semitic comments again

Photo Hunt - Water (Quiet Flows the Rom I)

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is Water. This is the local river, the River Rom. Just before it joins the River Ravensbourne to form the River Beam it is let out of its culverts and allowed to be a proper river again. Okay it's not much of a river but it is Romford's river!

A band called Captain

I went with my old friend Jimmy St James see an up and coming band called Captain on Saturday (which means of course I had not heard of them before!). However Jimmy likes them and they were playing locally at the Bitter End in Romford



Were they any good? Yes, definitely. I would see them again. If they are playing locally check them out. Ever in the chance to take more photos I took my now ageing compact digital camera with me. The photos are a bit ropey but look better in black and white than colour.