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It’s the second weekend of the excellent Open House Festival and, feeling inspired by London’s mismatched mish-mash of architectural triumphs/failures following a late summer party boat on the Thames, I thought it worth flagging here again.

Camden has some absolute gems, of all shapes and sizes, that rarely get seen by the proverbial ‘general public’, so it’s a great opportunity to get inside and have a sanctioned nose around.

Among them is the Aga Khan Centre in King’s Cross, (from which I was lucky enough to snap the striking terrace vista above on the day it opened back in 2018, an image we subsequently ran as the front cover of then monthly local culture newspaper Gasholder). Fine Islamic geometry meets the irregular London skyline to great effect, don’t you think?

Less obviously grand, but equally big on pleasing perspectives are the various 1960s Neave Brown-designed social housing projects for Camden Council, which remain exciting and visionary to this day. Check out these lovely shots of Winscombe St for evidence, and see if you can grab the last few places on these or any of the other tours. Runs until Sun 22nd Sept.

GUEST INTERVIEW

Fancy a regular cash payout to do… whatever you like?

Regular readers will no doubt be aware by now that the return of this weekend’s HowTheLightGetsIn Festival is something we relish each year. Not only is it a mind-expanding bonanza with the bonus of a late-summer walk across the Heath, but it also means Camdenist get to speak with some seriously brilliant minds to help promote it.

This week, I had a chat with SOAS professor and UN labour economist, Guy Standing, who brings a rare clarity to complex global issues. His work encompasses the breakdown of the old class structure (now so many of us are dependent on debt), the plunder (and return of) the commons and, most provocatively, what he feels is the inevitability of some form of basic income, paid out regularly, unconditionally to all of us.

“I’ve been promoting the idea of a basic income for the past 30 years,” he says. “We formed an international network, and I’ve been very privileged, or perhaps stupid, to be involved in the design and implementation of pilots all over the world. The latest one, in Wales, concluded last month, and while I know the results, they are still confidential until the official repost comes out. But I say in my talks, please just watch my smile.”

With that, he beams at us across the Zoom call, before reeling off impressive statistics: over 200 such experiments taking place globally, 50 US mayors committed to introducing basic income in their cities, 34 UK councils too.

“And I promise you, three of the new Cabinet have told me to my face that the believe in a basic income, but they don’t yet have the backbone to come out and say it in public. Instead we get the promise of more fiscal austerity, so I’m not impressed by the current mood music.”

“We need a fundamental reset,” says Guy. “I believe that that a market economy is still feasible if you have the institutions to regulate it; to reduce the insecurities of the majority and to address the inequalities that otherwise can become explosive, as we saw with the recent rioting in the UK. We’re at a crisis point in our global transformation because democracy everywhere is dysfunctional. Labour had a ‘landslide’ victory with just 29% of the electorate, and it’s ridiculous. But basic income is about promoting the kind of justice, security and freedom that the current system fails to deliver.”

Of course, we have to ask Guy if he feels the march of AI potentially sucking up millions of jobs may force the issue on the current government within their current term, but instead he feels the tech won’t be the problem, it’s the current model of Capitalism that needs tackling.

“My view is that the AI is going to increase inequality, because it's strengthening rentier income going to the owners of the technology. I don't believe that we're going to run out of things to do. There's plenty of work. Every time there's a technological revolution, up jump the Jeremiahs saying we're going to have no jobs, and then there are more jobs than at any time in history before. That's the reality, again and again. But having said that, I'm not in favour of a jobs fetish. I’d love it if a politician would say, ‘my policies would reduce the number of jobs in the country by 10%!’, because actually, we want people to be able to do work that is not just ‘a job’. Things like caring for your loved ones, caring for the community, doing your allotments, learning to paint, whatever grabs your enthusiasm. There are lots of things we want to do, rather than sitting in an Amazon warehouse counting the minutes until the end of the shift. For 2000 years, work was regarded as something to be avoided, and being successful meant not having a job. Now it’s the other way around, so we need to be rethinking the way we want to live.”

Camdenist readers were cautiously positive about the idea of some form of basic income in the results of our poll question last month, so it’s certainly no longer seen as a utopian fringe theory. Covid furloughs demonstrated what an alternative to the daily grind might look and feel like, and to a certain extent, there’s no turning back.

Knowing the near impossible economics of many creative endeavours today all-too-well, we can only speculate at the delicious prospect of an explosion of cultural output that a touch of financial breathing space would engender.

Having give myself the foolhardy task of attempting to carve out a sustainable model for a new kind of culturally-focused local media with Camdenist, knowing there was a safety net would have allowed us to do so much more, and more quickly, without the distraction of stressing if we’d be able to survive another week.

On the day The Evening Standard prints its last daily edition after nearly 200 years, perhaps the local media landscape could soon see loads of talented creatives freed from the need to focus on jobs that ‘pay the bills’, thereby reversing the decline that began when digital first broke the revenue model.

But a basic income promises more than just the ability to write lovely editorial. “All the pilots I’ve seen have resulted in improvements in mental health,” says Guy, “and because parents are more relaxed and secure, that’s reflected in the heath of children, too, including school attendance going up. But the biggest improvement of all is in the status of women, and them having the capacity to move out of abusive relationships. That’s an incredibly healthy outcome for society. Plus none of this is a pipe dream. We’ve proved it’s eminently affordable.”

Guy Standing appears at HowTheLightGetsIn this weekend. See below for your exclusvice 30% off final tickets.

FOOD & DRINK

🛤️ King’s Cross: All Change Please!

After the early years of insisting on no cookie-cutter operations when building both the restaurant offering and the luxe Coal Drops Yard shopping district, King’s Cross seems to be maturing into a new era at the moment.

Yesterday saw the opening of the long-promised and huge branch of global powerhouse Uniqlo, in the site originally occupied by curated design collection store Wolf & Badger, with indie kitchen Hicce up on the terrace level. Now this historic industrial goods warehouse is crammed with the familiar racking of affordable parkers and clever ‘wicking’ underwear choices by the Japanese clothing giant.

As the brand’s new UK flagship, it is a stylish store nevertheless, complete with repair and recycling facilities, piles of impressive free in-house magazines and pops of street art colour courtesy of some new London Mural Festival commissions.

It does seem a shame to have lost the vaulted top floor and its well-appointed terrace as a dining spot though. Still, for those with long enough memories, the entire store will forever bring back memories of sweat-drenched walls and bug-eyed ravers in the heady days when it was Bagley’s nightclub. 😜

Elsewhere on the estate, The Ivy Collection are taking over the prime Pancras Square corner spot that was previously home to the troubled but very decent Vinoteca, with their Harry’s Dolce Vita brand. It’s far from an independent, but if the food and decor lives up to the Knightsbridge heritage, then it should be a hit.

Some people are noting that Covent Garden went through a similar process of the big operators gradually bumping out the original independent traders in the years after it was first turned into a retail spot. Perhaps this is all an inevitable part of the relentless urban renewal process, but either way, the arrival of more familiar names in the KX mix doesn’t look like it will do anything other than continue to cement the popularity of the area as a destination for an even broader range of visitors.

🍻 Oktoberfest kicks off in style tonight at The German Gymnasium with live Oompah from 5.30pm, special menus, imported biers and the return of their popular offer to show up dressed in your lederhosen and dirndl and they' promise to give you a stein, ‘on the haus’.

📊 This week's one-click poll

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MUSIC

🌳 Festi review plus local live gigs

🎹 The first ever Jazz Cafe Festival last week was a rather lovely end-of-summer occasion, with an atmosphere all its own. We rocked up in late afternoon and, despite moody skies delivering occasional flurries of warm September drizzle, there was no dampening the joy that such a well-curated line-up demonstrably brings London’s hordes of music headz.

Earl Sweatshirt had one tent positively overflowing with hip hop lovers from all sides, while Giles Peterson smashed out the full sonic smorgasbord during a 3-hour set in a beautiful 360 degree arena (pictured above), holding up the sleeves of classic records with glee for the most analogue of track ID-ing.

The in-the-round format, while great for the crowd vibes, made beat-matching on traditional vinyl very difficult indeed due to the delays, so the veteran DJ just let rip with a selection that spanned the world and was quality at every new turn.

Then German techno-pianist Nils Frahm topped things off on the main stage with his classical-piano-meets-electronic-loop crescendos which are quite simply otherworldly. Working up a sweat behind banks of crazy instruments, it was a fitting way to see this new festival carve out its creative niche and bring something a little different to the capital’s park-based music scene. We hope to see it grow…

🎻 Norwegian traditional fiddle and keyboard duo Nils Økland and Sigbjørn Apeland make their Kings Place debut on Thursday 26th Sept, bringing the sounds of the high mountains and fjords of their home country to the concert hall.

🧘🏻 It’s the annual roadblock party from local prog synth outfit Naked Yoga at MAP Studio Cafe on Friday 27th Sept, with some previews of their new LP alongside DJ and VJ sets.

🪕 King’s Cross music boozer The Harrison seems to have been saved via its successful recent crowdfunder (see poll results below) but the fund-raising wisely continues. Sunday 29th Sept sees an all-day Folk Festival around the corner at Jamboree.

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