A Ghastly Hampstead Cosa Nostra?

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I don't usually publish articles in the current edition of the Hampstead Village Voice online. After all, our struggling local newsagents need to make enough dosh to meet their bills. What they don't need is a sordid little mafia bullying them, breathing down their necks and forcing them to pay up wads of money when they don't want to. This is exactly what a company called Hampstead Village BID Ltd is doing. Worse still, this private limited company has somehow managed to use Camden's electoral system to win a rather dubious ballot, then recruit Scamden Council to act as its summons-wielding debt collector. It's all quite unspeakable. 

   There's also another story about all this in the FINANCIAL CRIMES section of the Autumn edition, but you'll have to go to a newsagent and spend a whole £2.50 to read it. Yet, unlike the BID Ltd, we are not forcing you to part with your money against your will. Read on and share so that businesses and general public alike might be made aware of this thoroughly despicable practice.

Toodle Pip and do we not like bullies!

Emmanuel 'Mustafa' Goldstein.
Editor in hot pants.
PS. If you own a Hampstead business, have fallen victim to this reprehensible little mafia and want to be rid of it, you can email: goodbyebid@outlook.com where a band of like-minded businesses are getting together to fight it off.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH... OR DON'T

By Emmanuel 'Mustafa' Goldstein.

Pollution is the issue of the day, so pages 1 and 7 address it. I've actually taken to escaping London at every opportunity because coughing my lungs out is not what I signed up to when I was accidentally born in Islington then moved to Well Walk, aged one. Having been demoted to Arkwright Rd, the epicentre of that ridiculous school-run, well, it's positively Chokestead around here.

   

Ah, the Joy of Gridlock! Even the Heath seems to be overrun with parky-tractor-traffic these days. And if we can't even go on the Heath without a diesel exhaust in our faces then, yes, society has completely lost the plot. 

   

It's one reason I'm encouraging people to vote for Tulip Siddiq (Lab) in this last-minute General Election: her opponent, Claire-Louise Leyland (Con) foolishly voted in favour of the Heath Dams and, in-so-doing, has placed herself firmly in that room, for which there is no key - because surely all true Heath loving Hampsteadites will have chucked it into the Ladies' Pond.

Talking of the Ladies Pond, one of its regulars Karla Le Pond Antoinette will be joining me on this blog from this day forth. Indeed, all being well, she'll probably completely colonise it. We need doers in this movement (Brian) and let's be honest, I've been neglecting my blogging duties of late. You may know Madame Antoinette from our Pond Life page and it cannot be a bad thing to have a little more feminine energy flowing through the Hampstead Village Voice's veins. 

The new edition is in the shops and, befitting it's 10 year anniversary status, it's bigger and better than ever. But oh no! It now costs £2.50... then again, surely we're allowed to put the price up every ten years.

Viva Hampstonia and Toodle Pip!

Emmanuel 'Mustafa' Goldstein,

Editor voting for Tulip Siddiq.

   

WHOOPS! BRITS SEND MISSILE TO FLORIDA BY MISTAKE AND LONDON AIR UNBREATHABLE

So much for sensible EU directives

Dearest Hampsters,

If you can see this post through the London pollution then, may I ask, why isn't the Mayor of London doing what they do in Paris and order private citizens to stay out of their cars for a day? And why does the British government not apply EU directive 2008/50 which halts all major construction whilst air pollution is at a very dangerous level? 

   I'll tell you why. Because this country's full of selfish, ignorant, money-grubbing arseholes who put their comfort and industry before the breathing of fresh air, that's why.

   "Children's lungs? Fuck 'em! We've got cash to make and huge SUVs to ponce about in!" 

   We may as well all be living in Trump's Brave New World... Oh shit, we are.

The good news is that the new Hampstead Village Voice is here to save our Hampstead spirits from the filth and corruption of Big Brother Trump and his new Airstrip One poodle Theresa Maybe.

   If it's not too passé by then, we'll get Ken Pyne to sharpen his 'poodle bashing pencil' and furnish our new political correspondent Helmut 'Schmidty' Schmidt with a cartoon for the Spring edition, which will be out in May, Theresa.

   That's if a Trident missile hasn't accidentally bombed Florida and caused all out war between Britain and the United States. Oh wouldn't that be a laugh! Imagine it: our armed forces accidentally bombing the USA. 

   As Mr. Withnail once famously yelped from the front seat of an old Jag, "Go and get your new Hampstead Village Voice now darlings... you haven't got a chance!"

Toodles!

Emmanuel 'Mustafa' Goldstein.

Enemy of Big Brother.

WINTER EDITION AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!

HURRAH! The Winter Edition (HVV29) of the Hampstead Village Voice has, after much toil, flu and caffeine, been sent to the printers. Here's its intestines.... It should be out before the 1st of Feb 2017 if Trump's 'TOTALLY BIGLY DÉJÀ VU' (page 34) hasn't nuked us all by then.

Yours,

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein,

Enemy of Big Brother - more than ever!

FOREIGN SALES SOAR!

The Winter 2016 Edition

Not content with spreading the gospel of the Hampstonian People's Un-popular Front to the exotic lands of Belsize Parkistan, Golders Green Already, Whampers and Al Highquaida, the Hampstead Village Voice is now available in, of all places, St. John's Wood A.K.A. The Wood of Singeon: the news-stand outside St. John's Wood tube station and the legendary Peirera News at 35 St. John's Wood High Street, to be precise.
   Yes even the hearts and minds of The Wood are now to be conquered and the Hampstonian People's Un-popular Front will not rest until Big Brother's evil empire is quashed forever and Hampstonia can again be happy, joyous and free as it was during the Cold War. Oh, how we miss the cold war... You knew where you were back then. Duck and Cover and Mutually Assured Destruction all day long. Ay, them were't days!

Viva Hampstonia!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein.
Enemy of Big Brother.

AUTUMN EDITION OUT 15/10/2015.

We've managed to get edition 24 of the Hampstead Village Voice off to the printers. No small feat, I can tell you. The cover of the this autumn's edition features Hampsteadites, Jon Moss (Culture Club) and Robert Powell (actor of numerous roles, not least Jesus of Nasarath) protesting against the ridiculous and un-called for 'parkification' of the Vale of Health on Hampstead Heath: the result of a most dubious dam building project on three [alleged] 'reservoirs' and eight, very small, ornamental ponds. We've seriously ripped into those responsible ie. the Government (DEFRA), City of London Corporation, The High Courts, Camden Council and the Atkins/AECOM consortium in this edition. The truth will out and, as the old saying goes, let's publish and be DAMMED!

There's also mention of the City of London Corporation's (CityCorp) new attempt to commercialise the Heath, namely its new Open Spaces Bill. We're going to have to look into this because, according to the CityCorp's website, this will result in "residential, commercial and other use" of park-keepers' lodges, toilets and other existing Heath buildings. And we can't have that! It's The Heath not a park and if CityCorp can't be trusted to look after it properly, they'd better sod off and hand it over to someone who can. 

Meanwhile, having been a great help in raising awareness of the scandalous events surrounding the tenure of the dam project by civil engineering firm Atkins, our friends over at the Ham&High (as Jeremy Corbyn might put it) have now managed to cut our 6,000 strong petition to Tulip Siddiq MP and Elizabeth Truss in half. This they have achieved by mounting posters everywhere announcing only 3,000 Heath Lovers signed the petition. D'uH! So much for accurate reporting. If they had to get it so very wrong, couldn't they at least have printed 9,000?

Viva Hampstonia and Toodle Pip!

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein

Editor-in-hot-pants.

DAM-AGE LIMITATION: THE SAVE THE VALE OF HEALTH CAMPAIGN

The Vale of Health: muddy and that's how we like it. Its a Heath not a park.

Too little too late? Possibly. But all the earlier campaigns having been ignored by the authorities, to do nothing now would be worse than the City of London Corporation, Camden Council and a High Court Judge allowing themselves to be hoodwinked by Atkins/AECOM, the consortium that stands to benefit from the dams' construction. 

    According to sources, Atkins is on 15% of the total bill that has recently risen from £17m to £23m. Meanwhile, its strategic partner, AECOM, landed the job of 'independent' advisor to Camden Council landing itself £18k for a 37 page report. A tidy sum considering it misled the authorities, public and press into thinking it was 'independent'. How could it be independent if it formed a consortium with the dams' designers and sales people, Atkins, in 2012? A 'three year strategic partnership' is what it says on an Atkins press release. And the result, exactly 3 years later - a huge contract to destroy the Heath.

    It makes my blood boil that, of all things, Hampstead Heath has fallen pray to these vultures. Companies that have instilled fear of flooding from some fictional storm as a ruse in order to, as director of Atkins, Andrew Hughes, put it, 'put Atkins back into the first division of dam builders'.

   Can we save the Vale of Health and, by the way, deny Atkins and Bam Nutall (the contractors) any payment for a job that simply doesn't need to be done? Can we hold to account the incompetence of Camden Council which failed to properly vet its 'independent' advisors? And can we force action against AECOM for misleading 10 elected councillors into believing they were receiving impartial, independent advice?

   If Elizabeth Truss, the Environment Secretary and, for that matter, Tulip Siddiq MP, pull their fingers out and convince parliament to overrule this miscarraige of justice - both at High Court and Camden hearing level, maybe we can.

Please sign the petition now: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-hampstead-heath

 

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein,

Editor, Hampstead Village Voice.