This weekend is Baishakhi Mela, the Bengali New Year Festival, and once again the East End will be the site of Europe’s largest open-air Asian festival. A quarter million people are expected to descend on the area around Brick Lane known as Banglatown for the tenth annual festival.
Continue reading for the thirteen best things to do at the festival this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
Rick Castro takes you on a frenetic, music-video style tour of the texture of East London.
Katmaidog says: This is my first edited movie; made with Windows Moviemaker, and it depicts the London that I know. It was filmed in 2005/2006 in and around the Whitechapel area of East London, where I live (with the exception of the busker, who was filmed last weekend in the London borough of Greenwich.)
All of the music (with the exception of the title and credits tracks) was as is, part of the scene.
I’m forever blowing bubbles
Pretty bubbles in the air
They fly so high
Nearly reach the sky
Then like my dreams they fade and die
Fortune’s always hiding
I’ve looked everywhere
I’m forever blowing bubbles
Pretty bubbles in the air.
(full lyrics here)
Billy Bragg discusses his new book: The Progressive Patriot
What’s it really like living on an East London estate? This film was made for the council to get the kids and older residents talking!
In 1978 the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order converted what was once a Victorian Fire Station in the East End into what is now the largest urban Buddhist Centre in the West.
Over the intervening years, the London Buddhist Centre has worked tirelessly to bring Buddhist teachings and concepts to greater London, and is now at the center of a wide community of Buddhist outreach, educational and business concerns in the East End.
The best introduction to the London Buddhist Centre, and those who study in and benefit from it is their 53 minute introductory video.
Most interesting, to me at least, of all of the effects that the Centre has had in East London, is the growing “Buddhist Village” area of Tower Hamlets, made up of businesses dedicated to practicing “right livelihood”.
Based firmly in Buddhist ethics, the businesses are run co-operatively with people being paid according to their needs rather than as a reward for their contribution. Profits from the businesses are either re-invested or given away. They include a Bookshop, a vegetarian restaurant, a Yoga studio, a wholefoods shop, an arts centre, a gift shop and a secondhand charity shop.
I will be covering each of these businesses individually soon.
To visit the London Buddhist Centre and the “Buddhist Village”, alight at Bethnal Green Tube station and walk East along Roman Road. The Centre is at the corner of Roman Road and Globe Road, with the entrance on Globe Road.
The Buddhist Village businesses mentioned dot the area around the Centre; on Globe Road, Roman Road and Morpeth St.
The borough is gearing up for the biggest ever protest as part of a huge community uprising over plans for a prison in Rainham. Early estimates are that 5,000+ people will march on April 14th, organized by Rainham and Wennington Councillor Jeff Tucker, who said:
It’s definitely going to happen and is going to be the biggest march Havering has ever seen - it will close off the whole of Rainham.
“The prison is the last straw. Rainham gets an unfair deal and the people will protest.
“I’m anticipating 5,000 people turning out and I am personally paying for no less than 50,000 leaflets to be printed.”
He formally received the backing of Havering’s largest community action group - Adamsgate - who represent thousands of residents in Rainham and South Hornchurch.
Their campaigns manager Graham Williamson said:
“We are officially supporting the protest and asking people to lend their support. I am sure it will gather pace.”
In addition, Hornchurch MP James Brokenshire launched a petition against the prison and has announced details of a public meeting on Friday, March 9, in the hall of Our Lady of La Salette Catholic Church, Rainham Road, Rainham, between 7pm and 9pm.
He said:
“People are very angry that Rainham may get dumped on yet again, this time with convicted murderers, robbers and rapists.”
