literally another aussie in london

life in peckham

Due to test match sofa’s move to Nunhead, I’ve been spending more than a few moments in Peckham.

It is truly an urban wonderland.

Peckham is largely a market pretending to be a suburb.

The smell of rotting food is right there in the evenings, and disgustingly in the mornings so is the stench of fresh food.

At night the foxes eat out of the bins.

There are usually seventy different kind of bananas on show.

And the place is always packed with people.

One day, on a particularly people heavy day, I saw someone walking up the footpath with what looked like a large shopping trolley with a dead body in it.

It wasn’t, it was just a trolley of meat.

Now this was just a normal shopping trolley that could have been used by any supermarket in the world, and instead some butcher type fellow was transporting uncovered meats around the streets of peckham.

It was mad, and yet glorious.

I’m not sure how many vegans live in Peckham, but it would have been worth following this guy around just to see if one walked past it, shrieked and ran away.

Perhaps the fresh air from the 14 buses that drive through there smokes the meat.

It was big chunks of meat of too, like limbs of lamb or something.

The other moment I cherished was when the service finished one morning at the Peckham Rye Lane Chapel.

A weird little place wedged into Peckham between cheap phones and cheap booze.

I must have timed it perfectly as all the men from the church came out.

All old black dudes, all dressed like they were about to head to a Harlem speak easy in the 30s.

I’ve never seen so many classy hats in one place.

Almost everyone of them had a three piece suit on, and several were sporting very pimp daddy walking sticks.

I can only assume this was a men’s only service, or even a mens breakfast.

I’m not sure how I would go about getting invited into this, but I want it, and then I want to know where they all buy their clothes and hats.

On top of meat and well dressed spiritual men, Peckham also has a miracle centre, and not enough suburbs do.

October 14, 2010 Posted by Jrod | living in london | meat, peckham | Leave a Comment