Wansteadium

Action at the Laundrette in Wanstead High Street on Saturday afternoon.

Pictures by sharp shooter Marcus Tylor.

There’s never been more coffee on offer in Wanstead, and lots of it’s pretty good. But this latest bit of product differentiation – from Manor House – raises the stakes. File under middle class dilemmas.

Testing times at the crossroads between Wanstead High Street and Hermon Hill with roadworks and four-way temporary lights. Traffic is queuing in each direction.

The work is at the spot we highlighted late last year which suffered from flooding. Since it’s National Grid doing the work it may be too much to expect that the drainage problem will be addressed.

Wansteadium’s food blogger Suki Orange writes:
I’m not the kind of person who goes on and on relentlessly about the same old issues, month after month and year after year. I can’t bear people like that. I mean why can’t they just make their point, get over it, and move on.

I mean no one cares about hedgehogs, OK? No one. Move on. What people care about is pizza, that much is clear. And I know this is true because ever since I first made the point on this blog some years ago that what Wanstead really needed was a cheap and cheerful pizza place where you could take the family, people have been agreeing with me. There’s a difference between having a hobby horse (hedgehogs) and reiterating a point well made (the need for pizza in Wanstead).

So, on one of those post-Yule days when all the Oranges had had quite enough of the turkey and ham, we went to Wanstead’s newest re-tread restaurant, Luppolo. It’s Italian for hops, you know, which is presumably an attempt to cunningly combine the twin attractions of this latest occupant of the former Bar Room Bar: craft beer and the aforementioned margheritas. So, friends, has it happened? Do we have pizza?

I’m delighted to report that, yes, I think we might. I was never one for Bar Room Bar – too much on the Carling/Carlsberg axis for my liking. And I’ve never liked televisions in pubs – even if it’s the world’s dullest programme (and it clearly often is), TV screens have a way of becoming the default option for people’s attention. And that’s just not right – what did the good Lord give us iPhones for?

So at Luppolo the TVs are now out. In are some modest renovations which include a few nods towards Shoreditch with quaint tilework and creative lighting, almost completely changing the atmosphere. Looking in from the High Street at the gathered groups, one could be looking into a hip canteen, complete with communal tables and nicely shabby leather and metal chairs. The low-ish 1970s flat ceiling has been covered with the kind of “very old ceiling only recently uncovered” wallpaper which I believe you can buy in the Orange Tree.

It was clear on the day of our visit that the pizza/beer dichotomy could be the subject of some continued angst for the new owners – on one side of the restaurant a big family group with many youngsters happily ate together. On the other side a stag night was getting under way. Can Luppolo be a natural home for both?

It may be possible, but not for my money without something being done about the acoustics. It’s too loud in there. The low ceilings, trendy or not, bounce the sound around like a game of Pong.

The open fire pizza oven is a welcome sight on a chilly evening, and the efforts they are making to show that they are serious about their business. Bags of Italian flour are on show and are presumably used for the dough which they say they make on site every morning. The pizzas themselves were good and very reasonably priced (from £6.95 to £11.50). They had thin bases, freshly made tomato sauce, and a good range of toppings – though I was bewildered to see baby octopus with mussels, squid and tiger prawns. If it had had jellied eels it could have been a Deconstructed East End Pizza. It’s good too to offer a children’s pizza, but they are really only big enough to satisfy toddlers. Anyone over five will probably need an adult pizza.

So I’m quietly satisfied by the experience. I suspect South Woodford’s Pizza Express might notice.

Our annual trip down Stats Lane shows another fab year for – ahem – Wanstead’s favourite website. Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, sent photos, received newsletters, tweeted and Liked. It’s all very much appreciated.

So first here are the annual figures showing, from the left, the number of individual visits the site has received, the number of people who have looked at the site, and lastly the figure for the number of different pages looked at.
Jan-Dec 2014

Jan-Dec 2013

These figures are from Google Analytics, which has slightly changed the labels it uses for the columns. We have some doubts about the middle column, which seems very high, but may just double-counting people who look on a computer and a mobile.

In the same period the numbers of people signing up to receive e-mail newsletters has risen from 363 in 2012 to 721 in 2013 and now stands at 1,125.

Thank you too to Wanstead’s Social Secretary Stephanie Pettigrew who maintains the Wanstead Social Diary. With an audience as big as Wansteadium is now getting, if you are organising an event you really do need to get it included – you can send Stephanie details at this page.

And here are the top 10 most read stories for 2014:

1. Body found in Wanstead (April)
2. Manor House shapes up (July)
3. And our new restaurant is called… (April)
4. Wanstead IS to get its own fishmonger (June)
5. Review: Long Horn (July)
6. To the Manor reborn (July)
7. Wanstead Barclays to close (March)
8. What? Another trendy bar? (December)
9. Has Wanstead got a ‘schools’ black hole’? (May)
10. The name of this new Wanstead underwear shop may be genius
(October)

Happy New Year everyone, and thanks again.

A message for Christmas, a Wansteadium tradition. This year it’s from the Reverend Jim Gascoigne who is linked with Wanstead United Reformed Church until a new permanent Minister is appointed there.

The story starts in Bethlehem which, when you look back in time, was an obvious place.

Historically, fields around Bethlehem produced grain and the hillsides provided grazing. There are stories about Ruth and Naomi gleaning from the fields on their journey and three of great King David’s heroes bringing water from Bethlehem. It was a place of nourishment and safety even during troubled times.

Bethlehem was the birth-place of David where, in after years, he was anointed as king. Although David was a warrior king and not as pure as the driven snow, he brought about peace and prosperity and his spiritual quest for a right relationship with God was exemplary. It was a place of nobility and divine purpose.

In the fullness of time, Bethlehem was distinguished above every other city as the birth-place of another, “whose origins are from of old,” as predicted by the Old Testament prophet Micah. Out in the fields an angel said to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.” We are familiar with the Christmas story that, in fulfilment of ancient prophecies, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem and laid in a manger. Is this simply a quaint story to be repeated each year at Christmas time or is it significant to us? Does it reveal some divine purpose for our well-being and safety?

There wasn’t much joy around in that place where people were living under stern, poverty-inducing occupation and despotic local government. It was common for people to deceive others for their own survival. Then as now, there was a need to deal with corruption and collusion with corruption – plainly speaking to deal with misplaced morals and wrong doing; religiously speaking to deal with sin. There was a desire for a political hero to lead victims out of bondage to Rome but at a deeper level there was a need to address the ‘cause’ not just the ‘symptoms’. There was, and is, a need for a Saviour to revitalise our sense of value and to lead everyone away from sin.

A paradigm circulates helpfully at this time of year. “If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent an entertainer. If our greatest need had been military, God would have sent a soldier. If our greatest need had been for justice, God would have sent a judge. But, our greatest need was forgiveness and redemption, and, therefore, God sent a Saviour!” This is the gift, the Good News from which joy derives. Deep, real joy is not the result of what we do but the result of what God does.

Today, we live in a world where proof is demanded for everything; what we can’t scrutinise, we suspect. Yet there are invisible things which we recognise like liberty, love and loyalty. So it is with matters of faith. There is a force greater than us at work in the world. Christmas plays out the intrusion of joy into a joyless population. Mary started singing a song. The shepherds danced back to their jobs. Christmas tells us God has acted; God has taken the initiative; God has chosen to be involved. In our battles with political priorities or with malignancies of body, mind, and spirit, it isn’t all left up to us.

God is no discriminator of persons; the Good News is for everyone. Joy is for everyone to experience because the good news is for all people. Not just the religious, but the secular, too. Not just the reverent, but the irreverent, too. Not just the righteous, but the unrighteous, too. Joyful news then and joyful news for us today!