This week, I’ve been thinking about the problematic and generally overlooked concept of “community”, and if it can ever be declared inclusive, or is in fact exclusive.

The answer - as with most nuanced (if algorithmically simplified) hot button topics - is that it can be both.

Living in the London Borough of Camden, it’s all too easy to feel like our take on the true essence of Community is some kind of forward thinking, place-based love in, incorporating a diverse rainbow of ethnic, social, religious, gendered, sexual and political types.

Yet the wider world, with its exclusionary/Reformey/ICEy rhetoric (now featuring the occasional state-sanctioned murder) suggests that our urban utopia might actually be a hellhole myopic bubble. Who knew?!

The central problem is that, in order to define what a community is, you must inherently define what it is not. The warm embrace of inclusion requires the equally cold grimace of exclusion, most of the time.

When the terms of being ‘a part of it’ are little more than living, working or loving a neighbourhood, the barriers to entry, and valid participation in the community, are mercifully, productively loose. When inclusion has a hard border - perhaps even an unsolicited one, such as being declared a member of ‘the Muslim community’ - it lumps millions of completely different people, cultures and practices into a sweepingly homogeneous nonsense.

Attempts to mitigate this in-or-out absolutism, such as creepingly inclusive/exclusive acronyms like LGBTQA+, end up defining an ever more specific-yet-broad range of participants, to the unfortunate befuddlement of those who can’t keep up.

It’s obviously vital to be able to identify like minds and establish genuinely safe spaces together, but brilliant allies come in all shapes, sizes and definitions, so any community will benefit hugely from having generously elastic terms of membership and participation.

I hope that means that more straight and cisgendered culture-lovers will attend the Camden & Islington LGBT+ History Month events taking place throughout February, (see below for details). I also hope we can look at what belonging really means in these sad times where artifices such as ‘nation’ and ‘race’ are being wielded so effectively by grasping political shysters, making life less harmonious for us all.

I’ve always wanted Camdenist to represent community in the broadest sense; a weekly publication that’s accessible to as many locals (and lovers of local) as possible, without financial barrier. However, I see that belonging to/supporting such a broad community can also sometimes benefit from a healthy dose of exclusivity, to make it zing, too.

With that in mind, look out for some new VIP perks just for premium Camdenist members on the way soon, which will offer extra value, secrets and a sense of belonging to those that contribute via a subscription or a micro-purchase, while not excluding those that don’t/can’t from also feeling full agency as part of this growing community.

As ever, your feedback on this is welcome and hugely valued, ‘cause that’s community in action, innit…

🎧 Kaiho is a newish Japanese-style vinyl listening bar, sushi and sake joint on the Caledonian Road canal side, that’s looking like a great 2026 hangout for something a little different. This Sat, 31st Jan, DJ, record collector, and author of Mates’ Crates, Andrei Sandu. will be sharing the stories behind the records as he spins as he drops a carefully curated selection of city pop, funk, jazz, and deep-cut gems straight from the pages of the book.

🥂 The boozy work lunch may yet be reborn?! Chalk Farm Road’s seafood soul food spot, Trap Kitchen, is reinventing itself with a musical twist, as Rebelle, where bottomless brunches don’t just dominate the weekends, they’ll be available throughout the week too. But if guzzling prosecco on a Monday lunchtime isn’t your vibe, expect live music and DJs by night, with a focus on a private VIP space where you can gather a crew to enjoy the food, dance or even choose to get up on stage yourself.

🦆 Queues round the block come rain or shine have defined Dim Sum Duck on Pentonville Rd for many years now. So it’s exciting to hear that they are to open a second restaurant really nearby in February. The affordable Cantonese duck specialists are busy refurbing the former Meat Houser just up the road, to expand their capacity to feed those insatiable diners.

🌈 Camden & Islington’s joint LGBT+ History Month begins on Sunday, accurately enough being the 1st Feb, and there’s bucketloads to check out. Here’s the full programme in a slightly awkward PDF format, and below are our highlights from the first few days.

TALK: 💬 Warren Street’s queer and gay fine art, photography and culture hub, Boys! Boys! Boys!, (main pic above) is hosting a series of talks every Wednesday, with the LGBT History Month season kicking off on Wed 4th Feb as Beckham-baiter and proudly sober scene DJ, Fat Tony, prepares to dish more dirt at this informal chat.

CINEMA: 🎞️ Fabulous little silver screen, The Garden Cinema, opens it’s season with British coming-out 90s drama Beautiful Thing (1996) on Thurs 5th Feb, followed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s dark comedy, Fox and His Friends (1975), screening on Sun 8th.

BOOK: 📚 It’s waitlist only already at Housmans Bookshop on Thurs 5th Feb for the launch of The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened with tales of the switchboard which operated out of the shop premises for many years told by the authors, who discovered in a stash of forgotten, handwritten notes from that definitive era.

WORKSHOP: 🧵 Permanent King’s Cross museum space, Queer Britain, hosts Stitching Our Queer Stories, a craft workshop drawing on the AIDS Quilt display that opens at the museum this month as creative inspiration for your own textile-based art on Sat 7th Feb.

STAGE: 🎭 Guidelines is a live haunting for the social media age, showing 3rd - 14th Feb at Euston’s New Diorama Theatre. Highly topically, it explores the dark side of growing up online, summoning the internet as the deep dark woods of our cultural imagination for a shapeshifting journey through cached nightmares, a conjuring in the comments section, and all the things you were too young to see or understand.

CLUB: 🎛️ Glasgow techno pioneers Slam have been big in the game for over 30 years, and bring thier thundering live show to The Jazz Cafe tonight, Fri 30th Jan.

MUSIC:🎤 Following their recent reopening, Lockside sees ska, reggae and afrobeat from Papa Nui, alt-pop electronica from Velvett and indie vibes from Jumping the Gun on Fri 6th Feb for the venue’s first big live event since the refurb.

COMEDY: 😂 Expect new and classic comedy as British eccentricity meets Scandinavian hilarity when English comedian and Netflix star, Tom Houghton, hosts Norway finest stand-up, Vishal Joneja, for one night only as England v Norway at Camden Comedy Club tonight, Fri 30th Jan.

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