Public Toilet For Sale

The first photograph below is of a building that used to be a public toilet in Lower Sydenham. If it appears dark and lopsided, that is because it was taken in the small hours while I stood in the middle of the road.

The second photograph is of what used to be a public toilet in Penge. As you can see, it has been decorated in a somewhat eccentric or even psychedelic fashion and is clearly not for sale. It may be that it is currently being used as a store or something.

Public buildings aside, public toilets are a rarity nowadays. I remember when I was younger they were thicker on the ground, or even underground, and although they tended to be austere and not the sort of place any self-respecting heterosexual would hang around, they were a public service. Some even had attendants.

Something else that has all but disappeared is the public telephone, but as most of us are now walking around with phones in our pockets, that isn’t too much of an inconvenience.

I don’t know if that toilet in Sydenham will be sold, even though it is apparently under offer, but frankly I would like to see more of them, and a few other things that have vanished from our streets, from our society, since I was young.

The Death Of Trafalgar Square

I’ve written about this in previous years, but 2026 and it’s nearly time to sign the death certificate. Not only was most of the Square cordoned off but there was only one entrance, and the number of people who actually entered it was pitiful. The good news is that it was bad news for pickpockets – I have an anecdote about that you must ask me about sometime. Also, there was no crush, although I can’t say the same for the queue at Charing Cross Station when I got there well after 1am. And there was no queue for the toilets either, which has to be good news, but take a gander at the three photographs below which were taken within a few minutes of each other after 11.30. I’ve seen bigger queues in my local supermarket on a Sunday morning.

Will I go again this December 31? If I am still alive and at liberty. And if it is still there.

Sydenhamising The Intifada

The two photographs below were taken in my local high street, Sydenham Road, on Christmas Day. There are probably a fair number of leftists in Sydenham, I’ve met some of them, and laughed at them before. I made a short video about this in October.

I’ve lived here for four decades and apart from some graffiti and, if I recall, a broken window or two during the insane and contrived Black Lives Matter protests of the Summer Of Floyd, I don’t recall seeing any political activity with a capital A here. I hope things stay that way. There are a few Jews live here; a while back I saw a couple of Orthodox Jews working on a shop, refitting it or something.

There is also a road called Jews Walk where the youngest daughter of Karl Marx lived from 1895 until her suicide three years later. There is a blue plaque outside her house. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point one of these clowns doesn’t put a sticker or two on that, although Anti-Fascist Action are more likely to tear it off the wall.

Kimchi...Yuk!

Can I really have lived 69 years without hearing of kimchi? If you haven’t heard of it too, it is said to be a Korean superfood. I bought some the other week and ended up throwing away the entire jar. Yuk!

Having said that, I am sure I’ve actually eaten it before because certain noodles I’ve bought from a Vietnamese shop in Croydon and a shop I used at Peckham (when I visited Goodman) have that taste, only nowhere near as foul. It isn’t just the taste, it’s the red stuff.

I tried kimchi because I saw it featured in a few YouTube videos including one by a doctor whose channel has millions of subscribers. He also recommended sauerkraut, which he said is also a superfood. I’ve eaten sauerkraut before of course, but only in very small quantities. I bought a big jar of it and ended up throwing that away too. Utterly disgusting. I’ve been told it is an acquired taste. Many people say the same thing about beer; I never acquired a taste for that either.

The same people who tell us kimchi and sauerkraut are superfoods also tell us that highly processed foods like ice cream are bad for us. I really like vanilla ice cream, rather than being bad, it’s good for my palate, and frankly, at my age that is all I care about.

Fame, Fortune, And Failure

If you haven’t heard of the band featured on the screengrab below, they hail from Chicago and since 2017 have toured with Al Stewart. At some point, they became his backing band, performing a short set of their own then returning after the interval to play with Al. I saw them at London’s Cadogan Hall in October 2019 and October 2022. They may not be the best band in the world but they are a long way from the worst. Their lead guitarist Josh Solomon has written at least one classic song — Privatize The Profits; they have also had a Billboard Number 1.

On September 5, 2025, Al Stewart turned 80, and as part of The Farewell Tour, performed at the London Palladium on October 15. When I phoned the box office a week in advance, I was told there were only eight tickets left, and indeed, the concert was sold out, so how on Earth could the above video have been viewed only twice in eleven months? — asks the most shadow banned individual on the Internet! Sadly, it’s an old, old story — some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them, while some are born mediocre, achieve only mediocrity, yet are adored by millions.

There are many talented people out there in music, the arts, and other disciplines who should achieve greatness but have to settle for much less. I know, I’ve met some of them. They include Dani Clay — world famous in Brentwood, and an unknown Chinese computer technician whose cycling innovation went all but unnoticed. Best not to mention the mediocrities who fared far better than all the above.

Cousin Marriage, And...?

So we have had Pakistani grooming gangs, Pakistani jihadis, and now we have Pakistani first cousin marriages. These latter are a social problem because?

We are told they lead to genetic deformities and abnormalities, but do they? Let’s leave the statistics aside for the moment.

First though, if you find the subject of cousins confusing, here is a simple chart that explains it c/o FamilySearch dot org.

Queen Victoria married her first cousin; Albert gave her four sons and five daughters. Although she outlived four of her offspring, the only one who might have been considered physically disabled was Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany who died in 1884 at the age of 30; he suffered from haemophilia.

Studies in the UK and elsewhere show the prognosis for the offspring of first cousin marriages is only slightly worse than for non-cousin marriages. Leaving that aside, haven’t its opponents heard of amniocentesis? Iceland has virtually eliminated Down’s syndrome, so why can’t the world eliminate birth defects from cousin marriages? After all, we are constantly being told abortion is a right.

Leaving that aside, isn’t it better that Pakistanis in Britain and throughout the West marry among themselves, or do we really want their menfolk riding around with underage white girls in taxis à la Rotherham and elsewhere?

Psychic Confession

This is a documentary by a professional magician exposing a self-styled psychic. No, not James Randi this time, but Danny Korem, although Randi has also replicated Hydrick’s trick. More than three and a half decades on, Psychic Confession is also a tragic document, because it illustrates clearly what might have been.

James Hydrick had an appalling start in life, and it is little wonder that he ended up in prison. During that sojourn he pioneered an amazing magic trick; he was able to move the pages of a book or a pencil by undetectable but powerful blasts of controlled breathing. He palmed off this trick on a credulous and compliant media, using it to shoot to a fleeting fame as both a psychic and a martial arts instructor.

Sadly, it was not to last, and instead of developing a career in either martial arts or entertainment, he ended up back in prison for of all things receiving stolen guns. Why on Earth would he do that? Wherever and however he developed his martial arts talent, he had a lot of charisma and was no mean intellect. As a boy he was branded a retard (politely), and was either totally illiterate or semi-literate, but, he says, he learned to read while incarcerated, and prison could have been the making of him.

He was in prison when this documentary finished, by which time he had confessed his trick to Korem, having failed to replicate it under controlled conditions.

Sadly, things would get much worse. While he was also handsome, and could undoubtedly have found himself an upmarket girlfriend, Hydrick appears to be homosexual. Far, far worse than that, he is also a paedophile, and in 1989, he received a 17 year sentenced for abusing underage boys. Although he could have been parolled after eight and a half years, at the time of writing he is still behind bars, though in a hospital rather than a prison. So sad. On a lighter note, the classiest line in Psychic Confession goes to Hydrick’s mother. Speaking of his father she says “He was a good provider, he was a good husband, he just happened to be a wife-beater.”

[The above review should have been published by IMDb on August 5, 2025 having been submitted with two other reviews that were published the same date. It was held up for some reason but as far as I can see has not actually been declined. Having waited long enough and then some, it was published here as dated.]