SUMMER VOICE IS OUT NOW!!!

It's a miracle! The weird, wonderful and hard hitting Hampstead Village Voice is out this Saturday! Not only that, the Hammies Awards will take place at the Rosslyn Arms on Wednesday (7:30pm 14th July). I'm completely knackered but I think we've cracked a rather good edition this time around. Plenty of names to drop (Boy George, Russell Brand, Richard Madely, Tony Parsons and The Queen - well, she isn't in it but I thought I'd drop her name anyway) and some properly right old juicy stories.

Not least the continuing saga of the Duke of Hamilton.

I popped into see Woody and Mary today and they're livid with Hampstead. Not sure why cos all Hampstead wants is to keep the pub that's been there since 1721 a pub. But the Woody's have been like family to me over the years so I'm not about to go slagging them off but disagree strongly with Woody over the future of the pub. He doesn't think it has a future as a pub. I do. And so do alot of others. Nothing personal old boy - just don't like to see Hampstead pubs closed and turned into unaffordable housing for rich people. Nothing against rich people either. After all, I'd like to be one one day but that doesn't mean I'd want to spoil the fun for everyone else. And that's what we've had at The Duke for years. Fun! And lot's of it. Long may it continue and I'm pleased to report there are plenty of bidder's to take the pub over and give it a new lease of life. As long as Scamden and the owners (Wellington Pub Co. A.k.a. the Reuben Bros) don't get greedy, we'll still have a boozer there this time next year. It's just like an Ealing comedy init!

Toodle Pip!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldenbollocks
Editor

Volume Control

Shut it Mr. Berlusconi. Where are your AC Milan now? Looks like Jose Mourinho's Inter-Milan are stealing the limelight from your media-state empire. Barca might play pretty football but after Messi got away without a yellow twice then Motta was sent off for nothing, I decided to cheer on Inter and a 0-0 draw. It ended 1-0 to Barca but Inter prevailed and well done them. We'll be opening an Hampstonian embassy in Barcelona this summer and shall delight in reminding the Catalans that they couldn't get 2 goals past 10 men at the Nou Camp. Isn't humility a wonderful thing amigos. Forca Hampstonia!

Is it me or did someone turn the volume down? It's when you travel to somewhere like Berlin that you realize how loud Hampstead (London, Britain, Airstrip One, Oceanea) has become. I sometimes think we're living in a blasted kindergarten and someone gave the kids a load of drills, saws and sirens. Even taking the S-Bahn from Hamburg airport, I noticed a big difference in noise pollution compared to the Piccadilly Line. Not only are the trains in Germany quieter, but there are less announcements and the beeping when the doors close isn't so shrilling. Is shrilling a word? Don't I mean shrill? I'm losing vocabulary in my old age. Anyway, it feels like London has it's volume turned permanently onto 11 whilst Hamburg is a very pleasant 7. Just right for a city.

I've been in the centre of Hamburg 8 hours and haven't heard a single police siren. Heaven! Not a builder in site. Joy! And leaf-blowers? what are leaf-blowers? It's pretty chilled around here but not in the least boring. I'm in a hotel around the corner from "Schulterblatt" in the "Schanzenviertel" a very cool area my girlfriend once referred to as "The Twelve Monkeys". It's all a bit anarchistic and graffiti'd but not in the least bit menacing. Just cool.

Having watched Barca fail to get 2 goals past a 10 man Inter-Milan (A good thing too, after that cheating twat Sergio got Motta sent off) i popped round the corner for a very pleasant bowl of pasta and an apfelschorle (apple juice & soda) on the Schulterblatt. There were a few Italians honking their horns (volume: 10 - but for good reason, so acceptable) and everyone was sitting outside drinking beer and Bionade, a non alcoholic bevvy that's become all the rage in Germany.

So off to Berlin tomorrow to see my old mum and no doubt watch Fulham v Hamburg in the evening with my old drummer friend and Hampstonian Ambassador to Berlin, Archie. Who knows, I might eventually even get around to starting the next edition of the Hampstead Village Voice a task that feels increasingly like doing a weeks worthof homework on a Sunday night. Oh well. Orwell that ends well.

E.M. Goldylocks

Mustafa Goldylocks.

Editor in Tea Person

THE ALMOST SUBVERSIVE SPRING EDITION OUT ON APRIL 1st

The coat of arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead which is being reinstated after 55 years by the Nation State of Hampstonia to replace the wasteful and incompetent Scamden.

It appears Scamden and their corrupt paymasters the British (A.K.A. Airstrip One) will soon be out of business. Why? Because the revolution starts here in the tenth edition of the Hampstead Village Voice which I finally sent off to the printers today. Phew! All this deadline stuff - It's been like another episode of Lou Grant in my front room for the last three weeks and has left me with mild insomnia and a caffeine problem. Where's Mary Tyler-Moore when you need her? Christ I could use a shag!

But for a few light duties, I'm going to have a well earned day off tomorrow, the highlight of which will be to check out the screening of the excellent "Lives Of Others" at the Hampstead Town Hall where the newly formed Hampstead Film Society has its opening night tomorrow.

STOP PRESS:

The society, which will show FREE films up to July, did have the full backing of both the Hampstead Village Voice and the newly formed Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead until we discovered they are in fact stooges for both Scamden and Her Majesty's Airstrip One. The blighters even asked Hampstonians to fill out a form asking us our racial background! Isn't it racist to discriminate between races? If you're not racist, you don't care from which race someone is, do you? The form in question does and in my book that makes it racist. It's just the sort of idiotic "Lives Of Others" nonsense one might expect from Scamden and Airstrip One. After all, to true Hampstonians, race is completely irrelevant - so such forms are simply an insult to our intelligence. Even more ridiculously the form offers us the option of being "MALE", "FEMALE" or "TRANS". So according the enemy, there are now three sexes! How stupid is that? No disrespect to those of you who consider yourself "Transexual" but the fact remains, just because you're a bit confused as to whether you are male or female, doesn't mean there is a third sex called Trans, does it? Besides, Trans means to move from one to the other suggesting you are on a journey somewhere. Surely your destination sex is the one that matters? Either way, the fact we are expected to answer such ludicrous questions in order merely to watch a film is quite beyond me and every other sane Hampstonian. Oh, and in the spirit of The Lives Of Others, all the details of those foolish enough to fill in the form will be kept on a "computerised information system". You couldn't make it up! Scamden and Britain - we wash our hands of you and your frighteningly stupid mindset. 

But I digress... To show Scamden who’s in charge, there's a Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead coat of arms on page 6 of the new Hampstead Village Voice for you to put in the window of your home, car or shop-front. If nothing else, it’ll make Scamden realize how unpopular they are and send them the clear message that they need to buck up their ideas somewhat. Fat chance. Those f***ers are in a world of their own. 

Right. Off too have a little nap. 

TTFN

Mustafa Goldsteinxxx

Editor in Tea Person 

Sex: Male

Race: Human

GUNNERS VISIT CATTO GALLERY FOR WILLOW FOUNDATION

Imogen Green [left] and Iain Barratt [right] of the Catto Gallery in Heath Street join Arsenal legend Bob Wilson and Theo Walcott with his girlfriend Melanie Slade to raise funds for the Willow Foundation which provides special, morale-boosting days for seriously ill 16 to 40 year olds. Well done them! Full story including pics of other Arsenal legends in the Spring edition of the Hampstead Village Voice out on the 1st of April 2010.

I just wrote a massive blog on how the next Hampstead Village Voice will be out on April 1st priced only £1.50 and how brilliant it's going to be; all the mega names and stories it's going to feature; loads of witty anecdotes about its glorious hampsteadness and how the Borough of Hampstead is making a come back etcetera etcetera...

And the blasted internet service provider [BT bloody OpenZone] logged me out and I lost everything!!! Testicles and sexual intercourse!

So you'll just have to trust me. It rocks. Go and buy it cos at £1.50 a copy it's a bleedin' bargain.

The Hampstead Village Voice Spring edition is out on April 1st 2010.

Your very own,

Musti G.

xxx

Editor In Exile

Out Febuary 2010: The Hampstonian will feature a rather nice image of Rosslyn Hill in 1790.

Hello Darlings,

So sorry I haven't blooged for a bit. What with completing the new 100 page info-guide for Hampstead, namely, The Hampstonian [out Feb 2010] your beloved Musti's been a bit on the busy side. Worse still, those blighters at Scamden have taken out an ASBO against me and exiled me to a small island off the coast of France from whence I write.

There's this dodgy little french geezer here who orders everyone around. Think he's a Scamden spy. He acts like he's some sort of emperor, so he must work for the enemy. Worse still, it's 1812 and they haven't invented Wi-Fi yet so internet access is a bit hard to come by - thus the scarcity of my blogs and delay in getting the next Hampstead Village Voice [edition 10] together.

Fortunately, the present one [edition 009] - which features an 8 page special on George Orwell and how we're all living his 1984 nightmare - is so popular, people just keep buying it over and over again. Splendid! Might just reprint it to save the hassle of all that editing and writing.

Hang on a minute... "not now Josephine, can't you see I'm busy!"

Sorry about that. My bird Josephine was up for a bit of slap and tickle but you, the people of Hampstonia are - of course -much more important!

Okay, got to go. Josephine just won't wait any longer. I can hear her graoning in ecstatic anticipation in the next tent. "Coming dear!"

Toodle-Pip!

Mustafa Golsdstein

Editor in Exile. 

SCAMDEN RE-DEFINES LOVE AS THE NEW HAMPSTEAD VILLAGE VOICE HITS SHOPS FROM OCTOBER 1st 2009!

What a waste of money! £100,000  that ought to have been spent on something useful, like disbanding Scamden and reviving  the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead or some such similar, more managable and locally accountable authority who won't make running a local business impossible and know how to keep our High Street quiet, uncluttered and tidy.

It ain't easy being the editor of your local rag, I can tell you. Especially when you take on yet another magazine called The Hampstonian - an info guide and directory for Hampstead which will be out next year. Not only that, I've gone and fallen in love - a most marvelous but very time consuming excercise when you're the Editor, Publisher, Writer, Designer, PR geezer, Delivery Boy, Sales executive and Tea Person of not one but two magazines! 

How I fit in five-a-side footy and lounging around outside coffee bars I'll never know. But I do know that I love her and the next edition of the Hampstead Village Voice is a right cracker! 

Without getting all smug, I'm particularly pleased with the 9-page special on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four which turns sixty this year. And what with the BBC inviting the likes of Nick "Adolf-Himmler" Griffin onto Question Time to use the old - "we'll give you back your country cos it's all the fault of the non-whites" spiel, it couldn't be better timed. 

The BBC seem to have been reading the Britischen Nazional Partie's favourite local paper the Himm & Heil Express (AKA Ham & High) lately, because to invite one of Hitler's disciples onto a national television debate in the midst of a recession hit Britain that is clearly overpopulated (No - that's not a racist or nationalist comment - but you can bet that little Brown Shirted w*nker will turn it into one), is to put it mildly a little on the risky side. Still, it won't half be entertaining - especially as I don't give a shit about sodding Airstrip One (formerly Britain) anymore and will be f*****g off to a cave in Afghanistan as soon as I can get a decent price for the Hampstead Village Voice!

Enjoy the new Hampstead Village Voice which'll be out on October 1st 1984... Er 2009.

Toodle Pip and Down With Big Brother!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein

Enemigo Del Hermano Grande

Edition 008 is in the shops!

Everybody's buggered off and we don't care! Yes, Hampstead is definitely at it's best when the schools break up and all those snotty nosed little brats (just like me when I was a lad), bugger off on their hols and take their ghastly Four By Four, Hampstead Tractor mums with them.

Ahhh, there's nothing like a bit of peace and quiet and, were it not for those infernal police and ambulance sirens blasting their ear-piercing screeching noises at us all day, Hampstead would almost be as good as it was back in it's 1975 hey day.

I've taken it upon myself to release a new info-guide for Hampstead called The Hampstonian which will be out in the new year. It'll be free and, unlike that seedy little mag, the Hampstead Village Voice, will be utterly un-controversial and stuffed full of adverts. 

You see, however much every one loves the HAVIVO - apart from that weird Daily Mail reading woman who hangs around the William IV and doesn't get it - The Hampstead Village Idiot doesn't earn a big enough crust to actually allow it's editor to live in Hampstead. That is it only makes about £2m a year, hardly enough to keep me, its editor, in espresso's - I have worked out that averaging 30 coffee's a day I need to gross at least £21,900 per annum just to pay off Caffé Nero. Add to that my Hampstead rent of £2m p/a and my Scamden Council Tax of £20m p/a and I'm decidedly down on the deal.

Thus the release of The Hampstonian which is going to be non satirical but afford me the opportunity of eloping to Brazil with a beautiful Brasiliana and living the serene life on a beach that I so richly deserve! Let's face it, the pension situation in old Blighty looks pretty shitty and Hampstead is deteriorating into nothing but a sub-soviet of Scamden. So who in their right minds would want to retire here?

Toodle Pip!

Musfarta OldSplean

Mustafa Goldstein

Ed.