Twenty five years ago? Maybe more, McDonalds wanted to open a store in Hampstead. The local forces of retired Colonels, twin-setted bridge players, champagne socialists and minor aristocrats with major drink problems ganged up to try to prevent such a downmarket establishment ‘ruining the tone of their high street’. And with it, presumably, the entire ‘village’. Which unfortunately had long been taken over completely by the ‘corporates’, already ‘ruining’ what I remember as a Hampstead with really cool, independent stores. So Starbucks was ok, Costa, Gap, Boots, Tescos, all fine. But Maccy-D was a step too far towards ‘downmarket’. A bit ‘oiky’ for Hampstead sensibilities. Unfortunately, you can’t fight ‘big high street’ and McD opened. Albeit with no ‘golden arches’ and a seriously toned down frontage. Oddly it was never the busiest McDonalds around and closed down a few years ago.

And now the residents of the ‘sweet’… village? Town? Suburb?? Of Walthamstow are trying to prevent Gail’s opening a store in their ‘dead cool’, ‘hip’, ‘lefty’, ‘right-on to the point of woke’, high street. It’s the ‘anti-Hampstead’. Gail’s is too corporate but, basically too middle-class, too upmarket for the scum of E17. They want their greasy spoon cafes to have the dominant market for E-Coli and none of that hi-brow, poncey designer-eating rubbish at 14 quid a croissant, when you can have a bacon sarnie for £2.95 including ketchup.

Much as McDonalds wasn’t posh enough for the genteel of ‘ampstead, so Gail’s is too posh for the scumbags of Walthamstow. Too posh and a bit too… Israeli.

Walthamstow, just last week, hosted an anti-fascist protest which amassed thousands of people in anticipation of the Nazi rioters who never arrived. Traffic jam in Billericay. And the anti-fascists held up their banners and proclamations and flags. Palestinian flags. Lots. ‘From the River to the Sea’ type stuff going on. Singing in praise of Hamas. It showed the mind-set of the average E17 dweller and their sheep-like adherence to the prevailing and moronic alignment of The Left with a bunch of Jihadi Terrorists. Who would murder the lot of them if, instead of Gaza, they were camped out digging their tunnels in neighbouring Chingford. But this bunch of infidels don’t realise that. All they do is the knee-jerk: if it is or was anything to do with Israel, then it is the enemy. They’ve already stopped Walthamstow council having any investments in companies with anything to do with anything Israel and now they’re politicising a coffee shop.

I used to quite like Walthamstow. But if you can’t get the world’s best cinnamon roll there (Gail’s, ok it is about a fiver, but sooooo worth it), then fuck the whole borough.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx