Author Archives: Kennington Observer

About Kennington Observer

Surreptitiously observing Kennington, including the suburbs Vauxhall, Oval, Walworth, and Elephant since 2012. We're fiercely independent and never boring.

Triple Trouble at Newport St. Gallery

Posted on by
Reply

In what can only be seen as a landmark event in the cultural annals of Greater Kennington, We’ve just attended the blockbuster show ‘Triple Trouble’ over at the Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall(ish).

Triple Trouble is collaboration of mostly new works between Invader (responsible for the Space Invader mosaics), Shepard Fairley (responsible for the Obama ‘Hope’ and OBEY brand) and Damien Hirst (responsible for dead flies and severed cow heads in formaldehyde). If you think you haven’t seen the work of Invader and Fairley then you’re wrong as they have deeply penetrated the pop universe over the past twenty years. There’s even a fake Invader next to ‘Samsun Kebab’ Kennington Cross.

This exhibit gets right to the point, and in Room 1 we’re face to face with an inviting mix of the sinister and the playful. We see Hirst’s ubiquitous medicine cabinet filled with happy Space Invaders, a bloodied Sid Vicious looking at Hirst/Invader’s serene one eyed Mandala. We then move on to Fairley’s ubiquitous Andre the Giant given a softer tone by Hirst’s blossoms, following on to a lively space invader trapped in, you guessed it, formaldehyde.

Upstairs you begin to understand that the thread that unites these artists is Punk, anarchy, and anyone/thing anti-establishment in the 1970’s. There are some arresting sculptures on this floor dealing with nuclear war, the essence of rebellion and works that make you reflect on yourself. And at the very end we find a very ironic sculpture by Hirst depicting divers discovering gold in the guise of the works we have just seen.

Newport St. usually operates as a commercial gallery and all of the works in this exhibit are for sale, and prints are available online. So you might be saying to us ‘Observer, but am I just seeing a bunch of wealthy men cashing in on their fame to suck yet more money out of people’? Our answer is ‘OF COURSE YOU ARE’! But Triple Trouble is totally free and a great way to build some brain matter. So it’s a bit like reading this blog, but without severed heads.

Triple Trouble is on now until 26 March. So you have not excuse.

The Coffee Shop @ Park College

Posted on by
Reply

Like most people, when we’re set free from our subterranean publishing prison at lunchtime we’re often at a loss for what to do. With the weather getting worse its becoming impractical to sit in Kennington Park, even if the eye candy running past is alluring. So we’re headed around the corner to revisit an old friend.

Park College is an establishment that helps young people with additional needs (primarily autism) enter the world of work. On a previous visit we saw young people gardening, repairing bikes, and working in a design space. The Coffee Shop is for folks interested in the hospitality/catering trade, and the students cook and serve all the food with the assistance of dedicated staff. This includes sandwiches, muffins, cakes, paninis and quiches. And they’re mightily proud of their hot beverages and happy to help with your selection. 

With our regular lunch partner Karen from Finance still under the effects of Manjourno, her sidekick Pippa decided to plump for the special of the day, which was gnocchi with courgettes. This turned out to be a good sized serving of plain potato gnocchi with a light cream sauce flavoured which was was served with two salads alongside on the plate. Pippa found the iceberg lettuce and avocado to be a bit bland but the shredded carrot with tahini was much more interesting. After calling her an ‘ingrate’ under our breath, we reminded Pippa that its nigh impossible for find a healthy lunch for £7 in Greater Kennington.

Your much more grateful scribe had the mozzarela and sun dried tomato sandwich. Served between two salty slices of homemade focaccia bread. The tomatoes were oily and the mozzarela plentiful. It came with a quite sinister looking green smear on the side, which turned out to be lovely avocado. And just £5! There are various hot drinks available, again keenly priced, and a selection of soft drinks that focuses on juices or fizzy drinks with a natural bent – including a tasty can of sparkling apple with ginger.

The Park cafe also has an adorable giftshop selling cards, paintings, coffee mugs, and handbags made from crisp bags. Because after all, in the parallel universe in which Tesco resides, Christmas is apparently just around the corner.

The Observer Visits the International Maritime Organization

Posted on by
Reply

As Part of Open House London week, we recently paid a much desired visit to the mysterious International Maritime Organization (IMO) in Albert Embankment. We knew we’d struggle to find an office colleague to join us on this rather nerdy outing, so the subject of the email was ‘who’d like to go cruising in Vauxhall’? Without even reading the email, we received quite a few confirmations from our male staff and, to our surprise, a few females. They were a bit crestfallen when we met in front of that giant ship’s bow sticking out of the Albert Embankment pavement.

The IMO is a specialised agency of the United Nations and is the global authority responsible for setting standards for the safety, security and environmental requirements of ships. The core of their work is concentrated on safety at sea (eg hijackings), cooperation, and ensuring that standards are united to maximise ship to port interface. Their work increasingly focusses on greenhouse gasses and sustainable shipping. And no, this doesn’t include the crisis you experienced on your Tenerife cruise when the umbrella flew out of your cocktail and landed in the sea.

The IMO building is from 1983 and has a delightful brown and smoked glass chandelier aura which had us humming to ‘Karma Chameleon’ as we strolled through the corridors with an increasingly dejected staff group. There’s a core group of administrators who work full time in the building and their work is primarily to organise 20 delegate meetings and to receive over 10,000 people a year. This is a daunting task, especially when considering the translation services it demands. When we entered the assembly hall it reminded us of a diminutive United Nations with the country names in front of the delegates. Paul, finally perking up, lowered the tone by yelling ‘oh my god, this is just like EUROVISION!’.

To be brutally honest, as we left the IMO it dawned on us that we knew about as much about this cryptic place as when we came in. However, armed with all the facts and objectives outlined above, we hope it has enlightened yourselves more than it did our staff, who hopefully topped off their Sunday with a bit of cruising of their own. We don’t judge.

The Book Elephant

Posted on by
Reply

Now that it’s fully up and running, we’ve made a return visit to The Book Elephant in Sayer Street. In 2019 we attended a consultation on the street hosted by builder Lendlease. They informed us that Sayer St. would be lined with independent shops such this very bookstore. Well, Joe and the Juice and, god help us, Gail’s Bakery must have nodded off at that point in the presentation because they’ve just rocked up. More on this sad news later.

Owner Tomasz Wrobel has wanted to open a bookshop since her arrived in the UK from Poland 20 years ago. He chose the Elephant due to its rich history, vibrancy, and diversity (flattery will get you everywhere, Tomasz). The shop has a large fiction section, true crime, science, travel, children’s books, LGBT+, and quite a range of left leaning political books. They also sell cards, bookmarks, and book related gifts. They sell tea and coffee and have a small seating area where you can enjoy your new purchase. You can also order books and they arrive in two days. Take that Amazon.

We’ve deduced that the secret trick undertaken by developers like Lendlease and Berkeley is that they initially rent to appealing small businesses and when most of the flats are sold they jack up the rent and before you know it you’re stuck with a megachain bakery. Why this is relevant is that small businesses like The Book Elephant need our trade now more than ever. So you have your mission, dear readers!

The Observer Gets Sporty

Posted on by
Reply

We recently scored members seats for the Oval Pavilion to catch a cricket match. These were procured through our Sport correspondent Mark. As you can imagine, in our office Mark has a great deal of time on his hands and in fact we forgot he existed.  He was therefore more than happy to give us a tour of the Pavilion and the artifacts it contains. Tours are also available to the general public.

The Pavilion acts a fascinating backdrop to the sport and we learned about the cricket prowess of legends such as Len Hutton, Graham Gooch and Stuart Broad. To be honest we’ve never heard of these people but their dedication to the sport appears to be remarkable and their achievements abound. Also abundant are trophies, jackets, bats and balls from varying generations. If you want to know more about how the Oval was the world’s first for profit sporting venue, we wrote about it a few weeks ago. Mark can be seen below pointing at a black void.

As part of our day with Mark we actually saw a match and were able to walk onto the pitch. Seated amongst a dizzyingly diverse array of geriatric white men reading actual newspapers, it was quite a revelation to learn that cricket is one of the few sports that you appreciate whilst reading, talking, or indeed even sleeping. Mark exhibited immaculate decorum when we asked such probing questions as ‘how do they get the grass stains out’ and ‘why can’t they just wear shorts’? The view from the Pavilion to the Vauxhall riviera was worth the ticket price itself.

Match play doesn’t start again until April of next year, so seeing the men in white ply their trade is one for your sparkly diary. Tickets for many matches are just £15 and its great fun. It isn’t it so fun if it is your round at the bar as three drinks set us back £28, Luckily if it’s a county fixture you can bring in your own booze. On match days there are also an impressive number of food outlets, from venison burgers to curry.

A tour of the Pavilion and grounds is a great way to know more about the sport and how it shaped Greater Kennington, and how Greater Kennington in turn shaped the Oval. Tours of the Pavilion and grounds take place at 10:30am daily. While you might not witness the unbridled fascination of seeing a man reading the Telegraph whilst asleep, you’ll learn a lot more about the national sport and the other sports that were once played there.  

400 Rabbits

Posted on by
Reply

Located in the heart of trendy Elephant Park, Karen from Finance and your scribe find ourselves revisiting pizza palace 400 Rabbits, the newest in a south London collection of four pizzerias. Going for the youthful and fun market (us), the design aesthetic at 400 Rabbits is very much ‘post industrial meets aisle 6 at Ikea’. From the outset service was similarly bright and welcoming with tap water freely offered. When we discovered the negronis were only £6.50 we ditched the water and we can report that said negronis  had the precise bittersweet bite you expect of the drink, served simply in a small glass with ice and no faff. Lots of other cocktails are available. As we’re journalists of the classiest ilk, with the negronis we enjoyed delicious Catalan olives.

Your scribe ordered the anchovy, tomato based pizza. It came with an abundance of silvery anchovies and flecked with plump capers. You can imagine the umami kick. To complement these were the addition of shallots, black olives and rosemary. All worked together very well. The crust is slow fermentation sourdough, crispier and more robust – although thin – than the chewy Neapolitan style along the road at Theo’s. There are plenty of toppings choices in weird and wonderful combinations that we imagine change regularly given that a whole section was devoted to “Summer Pizzas”. Walnuts and kimchi being just two of them. Karen’s customary grab for a slice was countered by a deft fork stab of her index finger.

As Karen is currently having a ‘Mounjaro moment’ we’re surprised that she accepted our offer for dinner in the first place. Exhibiting profound discipline, she opted for a smaller pizza accompanied by a salad. She had the beef which came with shallots and guindilla chilies as well as the ground beef, so again a complex topping portfolio. Karen enjoyed the pizza but nevertheless smothered it in the free chili oil, which perhaps indicates that the Mounjaro hasn’t kicked in just yet. As Karen keeps banging on about tomatoless pizza (what’s the POINT!) we promised to add that some pizzas are indeed white, so you’ve been warned.

A very good pizzeria overall, but will it make our Top 10 List ™ in the new year? All pizzas are around £14 with £10 pizzas on Tuesday. The best bit is they make their own gelato, but that didn’t fit into Karen’s new lifestyle so we passed.  

Free Culture in Greater Kennington 3 – Open House London 2025

Posted on by
Reply

It’s that time of year again and one of our favourite activities here at the Observer….sticking our noses where they don’t belong! From 13 September to 21 September ii’s the Open House London Festival, celebrating London’s housing, architecture and neighbourhoods by flinging open doors and streets not usually open to the public. We have a few suggestion for you and they are all FREE, and we love free. Well, the last two aren’t free.

Most Open House venues have friendly staff on hand to tell you more about what you’re seeing and there are often things to read. If you look on the website you’ll see some local bookable things, but we’re afraid you’ve mostly missed the boat on those babies. The localish venues listed below are open to the public on specific dates, so look at opening times. However, if you possess the audacious gaul to travel out of Greater Kennington you might find there are hundreds more free things to stick your head into around the capital. But we couldn’t possibly encourage that kind of behaviour.

London Fire Brigade Memorial Hall (perhaps your last chance to see it before it is turned into, you guessed it, flats and a luxury hotel).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/11781

International Maritime Organisation (that bizarre looking building on Albert Embankment. pictured below)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/7730

Anderson WW2 Bomb Shelter (for the fetishists among you).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/10010

St. Paul’s Newington  (Been and recommend. 1950’s beaut)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/2556

Walworth Garden (been and recommend, even if it is like a stroll through a garden centre)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/10950

Soane Re-imagined – St. Peter’s Church

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/13342

Southwark Heritage Centre and Walworth Library (been and recommend. Yes, it’s a trip to the library but with a museum stuck in it)

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/9722

Van Gogh House London (Been and recommend. Its more about restoration than the great man so don’t expect any paintings or a severed ear).

https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/8317

Lots of other interesting things that are less than free such as an Elephant and Castle Walking Tour

https://open-city.org.uk/events/elephant-48

And Nine Elms Walking Tour (fun but also not free)

https://open-city.org.uk/events/elms-29

Free Culture in Greater Kennington 2 – City and Guilds MA Show

Posted on by
Reply

The time has arrived yet again in the Greater Kennington cultural season (yes, it’s a thing) for the free and massive MA show over at City and Guilds in Kennington Park Road and of course we’ve just checked it out for you. Hours at the bottom.

What we appreciate about the MA show is that it’s not just about painting, for example sometimes it’s just a rocking chair with snails on it. But other areas show the work of conservationists, restorers, wood carving and sculpture. All set within those beautiful Georgian buildings in Kennington Park Road. The themes this year appear to be the environment, kitchenware and Styrofoam.

As you meander through the galleries you can read the bios of the artists and gain insight into their process, theory, outlook, and motivation. There is something here for everyone and some of the work is quite stunning. The work below is a reimagining of the painting ‘The Execution of Lady Jane Grey’ at the National with the subject being Justice itself with climate change activists in the background. As with this work, a lot of the artists are on hand to walk you through what you’re looking at. In other words, don’t be an armchair critic as the artist is probably behind you.

PUBLIC OPENING HOURS

11:00-18:00 Tuesday 9 September
11:00-18:00 Wednesday 10 September
11:00-18:00 Thursday 11 September
12:00 – 20:00 Friday 12 September
10:00-17:00 Saturday 13 September

The Chaos @ Southwark Playhouse

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday we escaped our subterranean office cubicles to attend the new play, ‘The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return’ at Southwark Playhouse. As the play is interspersed with party music and scenes of drug taking, we had to get it signed off from HR manager Keith, who’s musical nirvana was achieved this year at Glasto when he saw Rod Stewart and Lulu singing ‘Hot Legs’. He therefore rejected our request stating that the music was, in his own parlance,  ‘too trendy’.  When we gently pointed out that these bangers are in fact over 20 years old he relented.

The Chaos is set mostly over one seminal night in the lives of Luton teenagers Voice and Lewis. Also in the mix is Lakeisha, who assumes various guises from love interest to mother, birthday girl, and fact checker. Armed with fake Polo shirts, Top Shop jeans and Lewis’s Blackberry, the boys are caught at the crossroads of ebullience and insecurity, of teenage rebellion and adult responsibility. Coming from rough backgrounds,  Voice describes Luton as a dead end for some and the start of an amazing journey for others. The airport being used as an apt metaphor for escape.

We follow the boys as they get ready for a banging bash around the corner, and out pops the Lynx and clean shirts. To symbolise their evolution into adulthood, the only booze they can get their hands the tipple of their parents, gin. This is a very physical play, and in parts it resembles interpretive dance more than theatre. We particularly enjoyed a slightly spaced-out Lewis as he watches life, including his own, pass before him. This reminded us of when Phil from accounts comes to work on a Monday morning with flecks of glitter still in his ear.

The phrase oft repeated by Voice is that the boys are on ‘the precipice of choice’. As the party draws near the boys debate the merits of going to Uni, entering relationships, and figuring out how to not end up like their parents. Caught within a cloudy vortex of violence and gangs, they know the odds are stacked against them.  Will their lives flourish and be impactful, or will they fail to evolve and become obsolete, not unlike that Blackberry in Lewis’s hand?

The Chaos was first performed at the highly acclaimed Summerhall at Edinburgh Fringe (where we saw Baby Reindeer before anyone had heard of it, but now we’re just showing off) and a review of that production received great reviews from the publication who want to be just like us, The Guardian.

The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return is on now until 27 September at Southwark Playhouse Borough and tickets can be nabbed here.

Free Culture in Greater Kennington 1 – Lambeth Heritage Festival 2025

Posted on by
Reply

We’re aware that we say this every month, but it’s our favourite time of the year! Unless you fall asleep on your device frequently, you might have noticed that we have an affection for 1. Local History 2. Free stuff.  And while not all of the activities during Heritage Week are in fact free, a lot of them are. All of the fun listed below is local, but if you possess the malice and gaul to leave Greater Kennington, then the Lambeth Festival guide can be found here to explore the further reaches of our amazing Borough. Granted, our Borough might not feel so amazing on a Thursday morning when the binmen haven’t turned up and you have fox strewn Tesco containers in front of your home, but let us remain positive.

Wednesday 3rd September

Unseen Vauxhall — The Vanished and the Unnoticed

Walk TIME: 1:30pm

£12
Info and Booking: tinyurl.com/mw83ybzz

 Led by Geoff Fairbairn

Sunday 7th September

Kennington: From Palace to Pavilion

Walk TIME: 11.00am to 12.30pm

Kennington Station, SE11 4QJ

£5

Info and Booking: https://kennington-from-palace-to-pavilion.eventbrite.co.uk

Tuesday 9th September

Lambeth Local History sources at Lambeth Palace Library

Talk TIME: 17.30pm to 19:00pm

Lambeth Palace Library, 15 Lambeth Palace Road, SE1 7JT

FREE Booking required: bit.ly/43VzH5m

Wednesday, 10 September

‘“Seven turkeys, five sucking pigs, and three miniatures” – A History of Lambeth’s own art school, the City and Guilds of London Art School”

Talk TIME: 4.00pm

City & Guilds of London Art School
124 Kennington Park Road (Kennings Way Annex) SE11 4DJ

FREE Booking required https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talk-a-history-of-city-guilds-of-london-art-school-tickets-1426659690539?aff=oddtdtcreator

Tuesday, 9 September – Saturday 13 September

City and Guilds MA Show

City and Guilds art School

See website for hours https://www.cityandguildsartschool.ac.uk/ma-show/

Totally Free, just rock up.

Wednesday 10th September

Doing the Lambeth Walk!

Walk TIME: 2.00pm

Outside The Garden Cafe, SE1 7LB

£12 Info and Booking: Doingthelambethwalk.eventbrite.co.uk

Friday, 12 September

On the trail of Art and Artists in Vauxhall and Kennington

Walk TIME: 10.30am

Entrance to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens on Kennington Lane SE11 5HY

£15 Info and  Booking: tinyurl.com/4fptfd8k

Friday 12th September

Lambeth Palace Library Tour

Tour TIME: 2.00pm

Lambeth Palace Library, 15 Lambeth Palace Road, SE1 7JT

FREE Booking required: bit.ly/40g8Crc