Journalist, TV and radio presenter, author, and staunch Camden local all of his life, David Aaronovitch is particularly well suited to fill this week’s Guest Editor slot. He’s also a recent convert to the world of email newsletters, having departed his celebrated 18-year tenure as columnist at The Times, he’s since been enjoying “the complete, glorious editorial freedom” of publishing his own regular Substack. I caught up with him this week to discuss some of the world’s most pressing issues and - knowing that he’s born, bred and remains ‘proper local’ (he attended both Gospel Oak and William Ellis schools, (as I did…some years later) - why he loves it ‘round here so much.

“Not only am I ‘proper local’, but I am so in the most disgraceful kind of way, in that I actually only live about 40 yards from where I was born, in Hampstead.

This has got to be one of the great places in any city in the world. I didn’t expect to be able to stay here for this long, because the finances of property are so ridiculous, but due to a boring but fortuitous story, we ended up raising our own kids here, too.

The good old ‘Hampstead liberal’ is a bit of a mythology now, as it’s been many years since most of them sold up. There are quite a lot of banking people around these days, who are perfectly nice, but the proximity to Hampstead Heath is a premium not many others can afford.

I’ve always intended to do some writing about the extraordinary battle to maintain it back in the 1800s, the acts people took to save it, including the purchase of Kenwood for the public in 1928. I’ll be appearing in front of Kenwood House on three different stages at HowTheLightGetsIn on 21st-22nd September, and one of the reasons they get me to do a lot of sessions is because it doesn't cost them, as I just walk over the Heath from where I live.

I’m on a panel on ‘the rise and fall of the grand narrative’, which is something people at events like this have been obsessed with for at least 30 years. I don't remember a time when this wasn't a panel on the topic somewhere, but there's a good reason for that, which is the feeling that somebody somewhere ought to be giving you a lovely, great big picture of how society ought to be. Something that you can be passionate about.

I was brought up in a family that believed in a grand narrative, because my parents were Communists so I've experienced the desire for that kind of thing, but I’m planning on writing a piece for my Substack about how competence, frankly, is enough of an ideology.

Simply managing to govern well and in an enlightened way. I do not need some grand bloody narrative on how society should be. I don't believe in it. I don’t believe the people who try to sell it to me, and I'm not sure they believe in it themselves.

I want to stress the benefits of pragmatic politics. The last government of ours became a very, very bad government; incredibly short term and fixated on ideological objective. Nothing could be more so than ‘take back control’. It's an invitation to do the wrong thing, all the time.

Other speakers on the panel might take it to mean something entirely different, but I’ll probably turn it around and say, if you truly like moments of grand narratives, then the perfect example for you would be the German election of 1932 in which Hitler and the German Communist Party came first and second in the in that election, because that's really ideological.

I’m also talking on the global population crisis and the rise of the New Right; people like JD Vance, who are religious, nationalistic and believe in very homogenised societies. That think the more culturally homogeneous you are, the more cohesive you are, but it requires you to have more of your own babies. It’s ethno-nationalistic, which means its anti migrant, and now increasingly what we call natalist, too. In other words, let's try and talk women into having more babies, which is just such a waste of time.

We made a Briefing Room [David’s regular show on BBC Radio 4] about the population crisis a while back. Other than in parts of Africa, there are very few exceptions in the developed world where fertility is not now below the replacement rate. And it’s a fascinating topic, because of the different ways people look at that.

The Left tend to say that if we just gave people more money and more childcare, they'd have more children. Well, the evidence suggests that's just not true. Then you get people on the new Right who are saying we've got to return to old style family values, which always means ‘we'll get women to have more babies’.

But these are essentially lifestyle choices which people are making. It’s interesting that in countries like Italy, where you have a significant Catholic history that once would have signaled a higher birth rate, it just no longer is.

So, we face the problem of aging populations where the burden of keeping those societies going falls on an increasingly smaller proportion of the population. You can, I will argue, mitigate some of those problems in the medium term through migration, so we will need to become much more positive towards that. But in the longer term, we’re going to have to think about things like tax and how we work in difficult new ways.”

Subscribe to David’s Notes from the Underground Substack and come hear him speak on all these topics and more at Kenwood next weekend.

MORE FESTIVALS

Food, design and architecture pick up the baton

As the final flurry of street fairs and park festivals (see the Music section below for another very choice one) rolls out in the coming weeks, London’s appetite for a themed fiesta remains undiminished despite the nights beginning to draw in.

This week sees the likes of London Design Festival and the Open House Festival showing that there’s just as much festi fun to be had all autumn - here are some highlights to look out for.

🍴Foodies assemble! Wednesday 18th Sept sees the Fitzrovia Food & Drink Trail offering a for-one-day-only opportunity to eat and drink your way around Fitzrovia’s famous dining district, encompassing tasters at 52 different restaurants, coffee shops and bars across Charlotte Street, Great Titchfield Street, Warren Street and the surrounding areas. You’ll need to download an app, which is a minor faff, but it will then guide you through three different trails: Breakfast (8:30–10.30am), Lunch (midday–2:30pm) and Happy Hour (5–7pm), where all you have to do is tap in each time to get a tasty sample at every participating venue.

🔎 Fitzrovia also hosts a Design Trail that you can explore from tomorrow until Sunday 22nd Sept as part of London Design Festival. Alongside the neighbourhood’s rich architectural history, there will be 18 events, from furniture and jewellery showcases to tours and exhibitions.

📕 Over in Coal Drops Yard for LDF, look out for The Juicy Booth, a bright kiosk that offers passers-by ten-minute confessionals, using lights, music and displays to explore the complex world of our own shame. If all goes well, visitors should leave feeling brighter and unburdened from their deepest guilt and self-loathing.

🔓 The huge Open House Festival programme is also starting tomorrow until the 22nd, offering the rare chance to nose around hundred’s of the capitals best private buildings, from homes and offices to unusual urban architectural anomalies. Don’t worry about all the top ones being long booked-up, there are plenty of drop-ins to visit here in Camden (and beyond), including South End Green’s lovely Isokon flats, the KX offices of design supremos Heatherwick Studios, Bloomsbury’s imposing Senate House and Tufnell Park’s brutalist Acland Burghley School.

🐕‍🦺Dog shows are a regular fixture at many of the bigger street fairs we’ve mentioned over the summer, but it can all feel a little parochial and decidedly non-cultural for us to give them much newsletter attention (sorry Fido!). The Big Woof is probably the exception, as King’s Cross know how to glam up an otherwise familiar format. This Saturday and Sunday (14th & 15th) your pups can enjoy a free day of wellbeing activities including dog yoga, massage and sound baths, plus a big market including apparel, treats and accessories. There’ll also be shows, agility and scent courses, live dog sketching and even tarot readings for your pampered pooch.

🪑 The Camden Vintage and Furniture Flea takes place all-day Saturday 15th Sept, with a celebration of mid-century living from the 50s and beyond. You’ll find traders from all over the UK offering all kinds of treasures at Cecil Sharpe House in Camden Town.

Camdenist Culture Campaign Update

There are only 4 days left in the crowdfunding campaign to save King’s Cross backstreet grassroots music venue The Harrison. Donate here to help take them over the £20k total. The owners got themselves into a terrible lockdown-inflicted pickle with an unforgiving landlord, to boot. Still, the venue is playing on regardless, but it’s not safe yet…

📊 This week's one-click poll

STAGE

😲 Multiple dramatic lives laid bare on local stages

🫖Kelly Green shares chores, chat and mum dancing in her new work in progress show, born from a series of meetings with other mums in Camden and beyond. MILF - The Musical is a playful look at the ongoing learning of the job of being a mum, it’s on at Camden People’s Theatre Mon 16th and Tues 17th Sept.

🏳️‍🌈 Award-winning queer cabaret icon, Alex Green, has written and performs in Anyone Who Had A Heart, an inspirational world premier of his play about love and optimism prevailing in repressive 1960s Britain, when homosexuality was still a criminal offence. It’s at Phoenix Arts Club tonight, Fri 13th September.

🔭 Hampstead Theatre’s latest world premier is The Lightest Element, based on the true story of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Chair of Astronomy and the first woman to head a Harvard department. Only two things stand in her way: a covert investigation aimed at exposing her as a communist sympathiser, and the entrenched conservatism of her male colleagues. Runs until 12th October.

🐻 Chalk Farm’s newish basement venue The Libre Theatre Cafe hosts an absurd, dramatic and hopefully hilarious adaptation of Checkov’s The Bear and The Proposal in the immersive The Bear Proposal, running on select dates from Thurs 19th - Sat 28th Sept.

MUSIC

🌳 Beloved Camden venue goes outdoors down South

🎷After 35 years in it’s famous Parkway home, the Jazz Cafe is throwing its very first outdoor bash this Sunday 15th September, with the Jazz Cafe Festival - a worthy excuse for a trip out of Camden down to Burgess Park in Southwark. Expect four stages with live music from Nils Frahm, Earl Sweatshirt, Eliza and Buena Vista All Stars among the line-up, plus DJs like Giles Peterson, Soichi Terada and an as-yet unannounced very special guest.

🎙️The late, great Edwin Starr's original band The Team, who backed Edwin on all his shows are still intact, with his younger brother, Agelo Starr, now on lead vocals. Expect all the fantastic Edwin Starr classics, plus dynamic performances of some great Motown and Soul covers, on Tuesday 17th September at Pizza Express Live Holborn.

🖤 The popular black metal bonanza Cosmic Void Festival is back all weekend (Fri 13th - Sun 15th Sept) at multiple venues across this part of town including the Black Heart, Underworld and Electric Ballroom. Acts include Deitus, Aklash and Heathen Deity.

🎧 Camden Market are going big on late summer free outdoor music sessions at the North Yard Stables ‘amphitheatre’, with former Camdenist print edition stars BPM Collective taking over this Saturday, 14th Sept, from 4pm-6pm. Tickets are free but book to avoid being shut out if it reaches capacity.

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