Daily Photo: 15/02/2011 – Guy Awford at the Guildford

Greenwich.co.uk food columnist, Guy Awford, has been busy working on a brand new restaurant above the Guildford Arms and has shared this photo to show how it’s looking. It’s currently undergoing a soft launch and will officially open March 1st.

Review: Drings Sausage Workshop

Sausages.  Drings.  Drings Sausages.  The words roll off the tongue like National and Maritime.  I’ve heard the sausages lauded on Radio London by Drings regular Danny Baker, eaten them at scout barbecues and sampled the World Cup special variety created in the green, gold and black colours of the South African Flag.  The latter were superbly tasty, and I’m hoping they can be rolled out again for the Brazilian World Cup (only they’d have to miss out the black bits).  The creative team at Drings might be stretched for the Olympics and, perhaps, that’s why they are spreading their wings with a series of sausage making workshops.  Maybe they are looking for new ideas from their eager amateur sausage trainees for celebratory special editions, bangers to mark the opening of the Cutty Sark, chipolatas to slip into a toad in the hole for the completion of the foot tunnel renovation…I might be getting carried away.

With a little trepidation about the gory side of things, I joined the eager group of wannabe butchers who turned up for a Monday evening sausage workshop after a dull, February-grey working day.  The kitchens Drings were using were those of the Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency on the Greenwich Centre Business Park.  The facilities were first-class; the gleaming surfaces made us feel like real chefs.   The ‘sausagees’ were provided with aprons, although we had been warned to wear old clothes in case we got the odd bloodstain.  I’ve never been hugely keen at looking at large lumps of dead meat, but I became curiously sanguine when faced with a whole side of pig (organically reared Blythburgh pork).

Butcher and Drings owner Michael Jones’s enthusiasm was infectious; he started with a potted history and geography of the sausage covering, amongst other places, Iraq, South Africa and Northern Europe.  He took us through facts about sausages that appeared to have hitherto eluded most of the group and made us feel we were on the road to becoming sausage archivists.  It sounds odd but it was compelling stuff – but still the side of pork beckoned.  Health and safety and knife handling were all that stood between us, chasing down the ribs, de-boning the pork and having a bottle of beer.  The knives were razor sharp and Michael gave much excellent information about how to handle one; use a steel and get a knife ground.  Then we were let loose – suddenly the room went quiet as the group got down to work. With knives that were sharp and fingers that were hopelessly amateur there wasn’t much room for error.  Mercifully all went well and the group breathed again.

Michael’s partner in butchery for the evening was Andrew; they have worked together at Drings for two years creating their own sausages on site.  He produced a dozen bags of mince he ‘had prepared earlier’ for us to make our first unseasoned Italian sausages.  Handling the mixture was like kneading bread; a very therapeutic activity.  Instead of silence there was thumping, scraping and satisfied punching of the sticky mixture – who would have thought that releasing the protein could be so satisfying?  The machine for piping the sausage did look like a spaceship from Flash Gordon, all aluminum and hinges.  Although Andrew allowed the sausages to effortlessly gush in one long stream from the machine it wasn’t to be quite so easy when the amateurs took control.  Loading the machine and turning the crank had all the joy of playing the game Mousetrap – except with edible results.  The whole process was great fun, but looking two yards of sausage in the face was just the start of the trouble, and we were soon to learn the technical term for ‘trouble’; linking.

Linking was the highlight of the evening, it was like knitting with spaghetti, or, as my neighbour described it, balloon modelling with meat, and he nearly did make a poodle.  I can’t repeat the twisting and looping action that we learned, but Michael and Andrew nursed the group through it with care and enormous attention.  The sense of achievement that each member of the group felt was tremendous, comparing the size of each others sausages was, of course, a favorite occupation and ribald comment was the rage.  Now Michael and Andrew really cut us free with another 2kg bag of mince and a table laden with crumb, herbs, Meantime Chocolate Beer and so on. Our job was to concoct a sausage of our own to take home.  I quickly lost track of what I’d put in, but I know that chocolate beer, mace and apple played some part.  22 chains of sausages look very impressive, and that is what the group had made by the end of the evening.  The links had become more regular as time passed by and it all looked pretty professional, not bad for three hours work.

The evening concluded with Drings sausages in buns and Meantime Porter for refreshment, an almost perfect combination.  There wasn’t a dissatisfied customer in the kitchen.  If you want to know what goes into a sausage there’s no finer place to start – although Michael was curiously quiet on the subject of black pudding.  One of my fellow ‘sausagees’ was anxious to tell us how much better it was than the Red Letter Day experience he had been on.  That might be because Michael and Andrew weren’t just good teachers; they were great.  They were clear, interesting and fun – I suggest Drings put that in a sausage and sell it behind the counter.

I came home with my DIY haul feeling like the hunter-gatherer returning from a particularly good day on the Thames Estuary flood plain.  Now I’ve just to get them out of the freezer and test them on the family.

Michael will be running more sausage workshops, but his next venture is an evening of beef, provisionally booked for March 7th.  He’ll look at the whole animal, including cheaper cuts, so you might make your money back when you visit his shop. The price is £85, which might seem a lot, but I came home with plenty of meat, had food, a good time and was genuinely impressed by the art of sausage making.  You can follow Drings on Twitter as well as contacting them at Info@drings.co.uk.

University of Greenwich student murdered

A “popular and able” student from the University of Greenwich was murdered close to Penge East railway station on Saturday night.

Samuel Guidera, 24, died from a knife wound after being found in the street at the junction of Bailey Place and Newlands Park, SE26. Police believe Samuel may have been the victim of a robbery as he made his way from the railway station to a bus stop in Newlands Park.

Samuel was studying history and politics at the University of Greenwich’s Greenwich campus.

A statement on behalf of his family reads,

“Samuel was a hard working man, who was passionate about his studies. He was also very family orientated. We are devastated and cannot understand why this has happened. We would appeal to anyone who has information about our son to contact the police.”

A spokesperson for the University of Greenwich commented:

“Everyone at the University of Greenwich will be shocked and saddened by this terrible news. Samuel was a first year History student at the University of Greenwich. He was part of the university’s School of Humanities & Social Sciences, based on the Greenwich Campus.

“Samuel was a popular and able student who had made excellent progress in his studies, achieving very good grades. He earned  the respect and affection of his tutors and fellow students and  will be sadly missed by those who taught and knew him.”

An incident room has opened under the Homicide and Serious Crime Command

Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, said:

“Mr Guidera had spent the day watching football with friends. He travelled on the 21:17 train from Bickley to Penge East. We are keen to speak with anyone who remembers seeing him either on the train or getting off just after 21:30.

“Mr Guidera, who was carrying a pink T-mobile carrier bag, crossed the footbridge over the railway to the Newlands Park exit en route to meet a friend. He went into the local convenience store before walking towards the bus stop on Newlands Park where he was attacked. We are considering a number of possibilities, but believe this may have been a robbery. There would have been a number of people in the area and we are keen to speak with them.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact detectives on 020 8721 4205 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Daily Photo: 14/02/2011 – Google Street View car

Google’s car was out and about in Greenwich on Saturday collecting new images for its Google Maps Street View feature – thanks to Alex Brooks for sharing this picture he took.

Movement planning application submitted

A planning application for a large development of new apartments, hotels and student accommodation at the corner of Greenwich High Road and Norman Road has been submitted.

Proposals for the mixed use development, named The Movement, include 181 residential apartments, 358 student accommodation units, a 104 bedroom three star hotel and a 30 bedroom boutique hotel.

The site of the proposed development is the Greenwich Industrial Estate which fronts onto Norman Road and is adjacent to the North Pole pub.

The plans also include space for shops, a health club, a nursery, cafe and office space with a dedicated business start up area.

The number of student accommodation units and residential apartments is less than was first suggested in the scoping report for this development that Greenwich.co.uk first reported on back in August 2010.

The developer behind the proposal is Cathedral Group – the same developer that redeveloped Devonport House into a hotel and student accommodation and is working on the large “Deptford Project” regeneration.

House fire in Fingal Street

A house in Fingal Street was damaged last night after a fire broke out

Six fire engines and 30 firefighters attended the blaze after after a call was made to the emergency services at 8pm. The occupants – two adults and one child – had already evacuated the two storey mid terrace property by the time firefighters arrived at the scene.

Paul Ryan, a Watch Manager at East Greenwich Fire Station who attended the incident, said: “Firefighters worked hard to prevent the blaze from spreading to the neighbouring properties. When the fire was out, we visited other homes in the area and checked that they had working smoke alarms. The affected property had a smoke alarm on the ground floor but not on the first floor where the fire started. It’s always best to have a working smoke alarm on each floor of your home so that alarm can be raised as soon as the fire starts.”

Daily Photo: 10/02/2011 – The 108 to Lewisham

Thanks to George Austin for emailing this photo of the 108 to Lewisham with the Canary Wharf skyline in the background. The 108 route started in 1914 and is described on Wikipedia as being “agonisingly slow”.

Review: The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Greenwich Theatre

The playwright Brecht’s artistic vision was to address issues of huge significance and confront the audience with them – in short, to make the audience think.  Blackeyed Theatre’s production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, currently running at Greenwich theatre, does fulfil this aim successfully and in doing so marries the play’s historical setting with current affairs.  Director, Tom Neill, begins by confronting the audience with an energetic debate as villagers aggressively invade the auditorium to argue about land ownership shouting over the audience’s heads; from then on we know we’re going to have to sit up and pay attention.  In this moment the ensemble convey successfully the tensions of all land disputes from the neighbour’s fence to the problems in the Middle East.  This level of topicality is sustained throughout the evening and the story resonates with the big issues of the day on many levels.  Images of today’s politicians, protests and riots are projected onto the walls of the set. I found this quite effective, but at times lost track the thread of the visual argument.

The set is simple, yet everything is significant, and there is no starker image than the noose that hangs over the stage.  During the play the noose also becomes a mountain and a river across which one of the characters makes a perilous journey.  Part of the excitement of the evening was to see how the props that littered the stage were going to be used, and then reused to create a new scene or image.  Every element is imaginatively used in a production that is endlessly inventive.   The use of a violin as the baby at the centre of the story had a real poignancy, and the fragility of the instrument that, like a baby can scream pretty loudly, was delightful.  I did wonder if, as the baby grew, the violin would transform into a viola and cello, and I was rather sad when it didn’t.

The ensemble consists of five very talented actors, but on occasion it is stretched to convey the numbers of characters that Brecht creates.  This leads to an awkward ending where the child at the centre of the story is literally pulled between his birth mother and foster mother.  No matter how inventive the direction there is no getting away from the fact that a good deal of the impact of the moment is lost is having one character play both roles – however true to Brechtian intent the action might be.  In other respects Anna Glynn’s performance, the actress who played both parts, was the highlight of the evening.  She moved between the grotesque masked character of Natella and the more sympathetic Grusha with real ease.  I was moved by the contortion of her body that created, at times, genuine shock and despair.

It’s important to say that the evening was also fun – the ballad singing of Paul Taylor held the story together with an easy charm and the musical accompaniment was both witty and had punch.  Many of the characters, no matter how grasping or revolting, had a comic sensibility and laughter was not in short supply.

As the story developed I felt the pace of the action dipped slightly in the middle of the second half, but I was impressed by the ability of the actors to drive the story forward and it wasn’t long before the two intertwining stories grasped my attention again.

‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’ is a play of enormous scope and creates a huge vision of the interplay between individual and the state.  Blackeyed Theatre’s production is one of the most successful productions of the play that I have seen.  It remains true to those elements of theatre practice that Brecht was particularly known for, and as such it was also a real education for the audience and the many students watching.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle runs at Greenwich Theatre until Saturday 12th February.

Daily Photo: 09/02/2011 – Geese on the heath

Thanks to Lorraine from the Greenwich Communication Centre for this photo she sent me.

Daily Photo: 08/02/2011 – Greenwich Park this morning…

It’s been a beautiful day and Andy Williams took these stunning photos in Greenwich Park this morning. Many thanks to Andy for allowing me to share them with Greenwich.co.uk readers here.

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