Gah!

a) Steven Moffatt, whose work I admire, is quoted in the Guardian as saying "Being perfectly honest, have you tried reading Dracula or Frankenstein? You'd be found dead of boredom. Fiction for a dustier age - stories that never had to compete with The X-Factor."
He is now relegated to the annoyingly large section of "People Who Think That Dracula and Frankenstein are much the same, despite one of them being written by a middle-aged jobbing thriller writer in 1897 and one by a teenage genius in 1818". I don't mind people being ignorant, but if they are ignorant I expect them to keep quiet rather than spreading their ill-informed views all over the weekend papers. For the record, Dracula is a rollicking rollercoaster of a novel, full of sizzling gypsies. Frankenstein is a work of genius, but a bloody awful read. OK, that's my opinion, and YMMV on the exact categorisations, but I defy anyone who's read both to put them in the same pigeonhole of "old, dull" (surely no-one who would could possibly get to the end of Frankenstein).

b) ENO is advertising its new production of Satyagraha as being "by Philip Glass: Oscar (TM) Nominated for Notes From a Scandal". Words fail me...

Top 5 meme again

Top 5 meme
Comment with the words "Top Ten" or "Top Five", and I will reply with a subject for which you will generate a top ten (or top five) list. Post the list and instructions in your own journal.

white_hart lumbered me with Top 5 Wikipedia articles, before relenting and substituting the more reasonable Top 5 Things About South London - by which time of course I'd thought about the Wikipedia thing, so here, eventually is a fairly random top 5 of my personal South London stuff (but not the whole of South London of course, just little bits of it).

In no particular order:

a) The Old Post Office Bakery on Landor Road. Clapham has at least 2 poncy organic bread stockists, and several delis who will also sell you an exorbitantly priced loaf that tastes .. erm .. challenging. But the OPOB is proper old skool Brixton, none of your poncy Clapham muck - it does organic bread for them as want it, but also basic veggy pizza slices, Jamaican patties and cartons of Just Juice for locals in search of a quick lunch. It also charges roughly the same as a posh supermarket loaf (the going rate for a loaf in Borough Market is 3 quid plus, and since BM only opens Thursday/Friday/Saturday, you'd have to put up with very stale bread for half the week). It also has the adverts for yoga and toddler singing classes that mark it out as a community hub - whatever time you call in, people are flowing in and out of the scruffy little shop to pick up a brownie here, a brie baguette there, or a loaf of their scrummy olive bread, and are never made to feel like they are intruding on the big orders they send out to Abel & Cole etc.

b) Lambeth Country Fair in Brockwell Park. Jousting, farm animals, sheepdog displays, veg and flower shows, bouncy castles and jumble stalls on behalf of the Scouts - the Lambeth Country Fair is essentially a reproduction of the Bath and West Show which was a highlight of our year at school. It enables me to fulfil my deranged ambition to give my kids the Famous Five country childhood that I feel is appropriate for children, regardless of our postcode.

c) Decent rubbish collection and recycling. The more I hear from other people about Refuse Collection Hell, the more I appreciate Lambeth on this front (heaven knows they have their flaws in other respects).

d) Horniman Museum and Gardens. Near my brother in Forest Hill, the Horniman Museum has an aquarium with blue tree frogs, a musical instrument gallery with things that toddlers can play, a stuffed walrus, and bizarre voodoo shrines. We love the Horniman. Plus, it's free (though it has a really good shop, so they usually make a few bob out of us).

e) Parent and Baby screenings at the Ritzy and the Clapham Picture House. Pretty much the highlight of my week during Small and Tiny's first six months - I would go every single week, regardless of what was on. Small and I may be the only people you know who have seen Alex Cox's Revengers' Tragedy on the big screen.