HELP!

I want to make this the best, and most inclusive blog about Hackney. Covering topics from buses to fashion, schools to chipshops, recyling to cycling, parks to playgrounds, pubs to shopping, music to theatre, cooking to digital... you get the picture. Everything that's relevant to YOU!

Can you help? Would you like to write a few lines about something that's happening in Hackney, or a story that inspired you or a photo you took somewhere in the borough?

Email me: katybeale@bluebottle.com if you'd like to contribute, occasionally or often.

I think the look and functionality of the blog needs a refresh too and I'll be working on that soon.

Hackney going green

Transition Town Hackney is part of a softly softly movement gaining momentum across the country. It aims to link up local people in the discussion and progression of sustainability and thinking local. The TT Hackney Ning site has a very helpful and complete calendar of upcoming events and workshops around the theme of sustainability.

Get discussing
Coming up this week is Hackney Green Drinks - an informal meet-up for to chat, debate and network around others interested in environmental and sustainability issues. Thursday 24 September, 7pm @ The Pembury Tavern, 90 Amhurst Road, E8 1JH

Give away something to get something
Clear out you Autumn wardrobe and swap your clothes at a "swishing" event in Ryan's Bar, Stoke Newington on 4th October, 2-3pm.

Get listening
TT Hackney host a free monthly talk at the Arcola Theatre (it's mission to become the world’s first carbon neutral theatre and also hosts monthly Green Sundays). This month's talk is from Rowena Ganguli from The London Orchard Project on 19th October, 7-9pm

Get moving
Mend that bike at the Hackney Cyclists workshop in time for the rainy weather! Sessions every 2 weeks.

Monkey Tree House

If you're not exiting London for the last of the Summer festivals this weekend, then pop into the pop-up treehouse bar on Brick Lane.

Monkey Shoulder, the Scotch whisky brand, have created a ‘secret hideaway’ in Ely’s Yard, Truman Brewery for 4 days only.

Keep yourself amused whilst sipping cockatils by playing Snakes and Ladders and Backgammon. Not your usual type of board game though - the boards and tables have been carved into the wood of reconditioned whisky barrels. Excessive? Nothing is too much for your Monkey Shoulder punter obviously.

Open 10th Sept, going going gone 13th Sept. 12pm-9pm.
Truman Brewery. Free entry.

[thanks to http://www.domesticsluttery.com/ for the tip off]

New Hackney Podcast available

photo credit and some more fantastic photos of the Mill

Edition 13: Dog walkers, mushroom sandwiches and the Dalston Mill

Hear early morning stories from the dogs and dogwalkers of London Fields, listen to London Review of Breakfasts editor Malcolm Eggs searching for the top brekkie ingredients at Stoke Newington Farmers Market.

Plus a review of the Dalston Mill [modelled on land art artist Agnes Denes’ New York "wheat field" work of 1982] which recently hosted music, food [bread made from flour ground from the wheat from the field], art and theatre in a windmill designed by the architects EXYZT, located just off Dalston Lane. The mill has had coverage in The Guardian and is linked to the thought provoking Radical Nature exhibition at the Barbican.

Something wicked this way comes...

Hackney Wicked - the visual and performance art festival in the artist-hub of Hackney Wick - launched last night in a blur of private views, bunting, BBQs, music, and panoramic views of the Olympic site.

Highlights of the exhibitions and open studios for me were the Nomadic Collections at the Museum of Hackney Wick and Rosie Emerson's work in the Peanut Factory (she was giving away free peanuts at the private view last night!).

Today, get local at the village fete (12-10pm) with more traditional games and larks alongside artist stalls, live music, dog racing, raffle, bunting, home-made food. Gavin Turk is making a guest appearance! This evening, I'll be heading to Incounter at the Counter Café with live performance and video.

The highlight of Sunday has to be the coracle regatta - a race on the river of small circular boats which look very difficult to steer! Take the easy option and watch with a beer in your hand at Eaton Mission Boat House. There's also a musical flashmob happening at 2.30pm on Dace Rd and the traditional Burning of the Wicker (or should that be Wicked?) Man at dusk in a secret location (hang out at the Main Yard to get in the know).

Hackney Citizen have come up trumps and written a comprehensive review here and Saturday's highlights here. Maps of the area are available online here and paper versions are being given out during the festival.

The Big Picnic on Butterfield Green

Cycle tour around Hackney's swimming pools

Join in a Hackney Society organised tour around the borough's historic swimming pools by bicycle. Simon Inglis,­ co-author of Great Lengths: The Historic Indoor Swimming Pools of Britain will lead the tour around King's Hall, Pitfield Street Baths, Haggerston Baths and finish with a swim at London Fields Lido.

All swims are FREE, except London Fields Lido. You'll need a bicycle to travel between pools. Contact the Hackney Society for more info or if you need to borrow a bike.

Meet 2pm, Sunday 12 July 2009, at Kings Hall, Lower Clapton Road, E5 0NU

Click through some great photos of historic swimming baths around the UK on The Guardian website.

London's best picnic spots

[image: http://sandpond.org/images_1930s_40s/picnic_lane_1932.jpg]

The current issue of Time Out sings of the joys of outdoor eating in London's green spaces, including our own Vicky Park. Plus the best outdoor dining spots in London, including the Pavilion Cafe in the same park which does the best breakfasts around (with a price that reflects the organic tag). Think steaming cups of tea -fresh herb, loose leaf or builders, bitter hot coffee, spanking fresh organic eggs, portobello mushrooms, home-made baked beans and doorstep toast. See London Review of Breakfasts if you need more confirmation.

This week's mighty TO also a has a picnic essentials shopping list including: pickles, artisan bread, ham, stinky cheese and quiche. I would have added in lashings of fizzy pop, salt n vinegar crisps, homemade scotch eggs and plenty of cake!

The London Paper also lists it's favourite al fresco eating spots this week - though none in East London.

Please feel free to comment on the best picnic spots in Hackney, or indeed London wide...

Hackney's mole man

First highlighted in Iain Sinclair's Hackney: That Rose Red Empire book, now appearing in on the cusp culture blogs such as Don't Panic, the Hackney Mole Man comes at large. He supposedly worried Hackney Council with his tunnel obsessed ways and now seems to becoming a bit of a local celebrity.... See here for their review

Fried chicken tonight

A London blogger family has created a "user reviewed fried chicken mapping project", to showcase and name'n'shame the greasy delights of our city.

Only South London chicken haunts have been geo-located so far, with Morley's tagged with the text "Usually have fresh chicken around 7pm, benches outside if you feel like eating alfresco in the picturesque surroundings of elephant and castle" and the quaint sounding Chicken Cottage in Borough with "Open quite late ... can be quite tempting to jump off the bus and grab a bite. Beware of drunk girls."

Anyone can add to the map. Currently, Hackney has no tags. This does not match my experience of the Hackney streets, riddled with chicken bones and neon signs. Go forth and geo-locate!