Elizabeth Dirth views East London through the eyes of a stranger and questions whether enough has been done to prepare the deprived area for the millions of eyes that will see it in 2012.

Out of the bus window on my last trip away from Stratford on the #25 I [...]]]>

Elizabeth Dirth views East London through the eyes of a stranger and questions whether enough has been done to prepare the deprived area for the millions of eyes that will see it in 2012.

Out of the bus window on my last trip away from Stratford on the #25 I haveI saw a body bag, police tape, and two police cars along the canal two streets down from my house. I always knew that it wasn’t the safest area, but after seeing this murder scene the sirens I had gotten so used to hearing throughout the night sounded a little different in my memory. These conditions are not just on the doorstep of my old home, but they are on the doorstep of one of the main Olympic venues for 2012.

With the new Olympic Stadium within view from my living room, it was a matter of days before skepticism about the London 2012 Olympics set in. The major question lurking around the topic of the Olympics is not about funding, but whether or not the world is ready for the Olympics in East London… or even more poignant, is London even ready for the Olympics in East London?

The world’s image of London does not include sweatshops in the basements of early 20th century council buildings, hundreds of people who don’t speak any English, a persistent smell of dried piss, bad milk and vegetable oil, grimy gum-speckled sidewalks, an overcrowded and sweaty bus system, and enough broken glass to punch holes in the bottoms of every plimsole treading the streets. When people think of Britain they think of history, culture, architecture, legacy and the crown, but the culture of the East End is the summation of a story of immigrants struggling to enter British society and to a large extent failing. The East End is outcast from peoples’ perceptions of London and of Britain.

A large part of the Olympic development was supposed to be a clean up and regeneration of Stratford and the East End in general. This has been achieved by building a shopping center adjacent to the tube station, numerous new high rise apartment buildings, and a new rail service that goes straight from the commercial center of the city to Stratford station. This development will help the area to prosper until shortly after the Olympics; at this time there will no longer be an influx of tourists to pour their money into the area’s goods and services. This area will see harder times after the Olympics than before. A new shopping center is nothing without new consumers to keep it running.

What are the Olympics really doing for London? They are shedding a light on the boil of London’s limestone face, an area that has been hidden from international eye will now be the center of it. By doing this, they are reinforcing the problem of immigration and the failure of the welfare system to the inhabitants of the rest of Britain and the world.

By Elizabeth Dirth

Photography by Kaamil Ahmed

“People in the office joke about it now and say; ‘it’s really hard working with someone who has principles.’
Dan Walker is the new presenter of Football Focus, the BBC’s Saturday lunchtime football show. He is lucky [...]]]> Football focus presenter Dan Walker talks to Think Growth’s Saad Noor about balancing his religion and work.

“People in the office joke about it now and say; ‘it’s really hard working with someone who has principles.’
Dan Walker is the new presenter of Football Focus, the BBC’s Saturday lunchtime football show. He is lucky that the programme is aired live on a Saturday because of his faith. Dan, a devout Christian, is a regular at Amyand Park Chapel in Twickenham where he lives with his wife Sarah and his two daughters.

His first foray into broadcasting came while at Sheffield University where he and some friends set up a radio station and he hasn’t looked back since, securing jobs at Sheffield’s Hallam FM, Manchester’s Key 103 station followed by television jobs at ITV and, now the BBC.
His Christian faith means he doesn’t work Sundays, an admirable decision that has been ridiculed by many, sneered at by others and laughed at by the rest but he is comfortable with the choice he has made.
He said: “Over my career I have seen how God has opened so many doors for me and closed others.”

“The fact that I don’t work Sundays annoys some people, some people think I’m an idiot because you’re limiting your career by what you’re doing so I’ve had to turn down opportunities because of it. I wouldn’t be the person I am if I started doing it (working Sundays) and if it means that I achieve only 60 per cent of what I could have, I’m happy with that.”

“I’m enjoying the job I’m doing, I work with some fantastic people and it’s a job that I thought I would never get without working on a Sunday, and somehow I’ve managed to get in here and I think that’s down to God’s providence and how God directs our lives.”

Walker feels his faith has helped him through tough times and made him the person he is today and he uses it to guide him in his daily life. “People say how much does your faith influence your work and it does, hugely. As a Christian, I try to glorify God in everything that I do that’s why I put 100 per cent into everything. I want each show to be the best show, not so everybody says ‘you’re brilliant and the show’s brilliant’ but I feel that’s the right way to work, to try your best in every situation.”

But Dan has been fortunate that the show is aired on a Saturday and he can have his sacred Sundays off. He said with a throaty laugh: “Someone said to me this is probably one of the only jobs you can do in the BBC and get away with it, and they might be right because Wimbledon finishes on a Sunday, Grand Prix is on a Sunday, so is the Six Nations and the final day of the golf is on a Sunday but having said that, I’ve worked on Wimbledon and I’ve worked on the golf and the editors have been brilliant with me.”

But it’s not all rosy on the Football Focus sofa as he continues: “It does make my job harder in certain aspects; I’d take the World Cup as an example.

“Usually the Football Focus presenter goes out to the World Cup and does whatever it is out there but I’m not sure whether I’ll go yet because how they’ll fit me into the schedule without working Sundays.

“So I’m not going to go to them and say, ‘you have to take me, I’m really important’ because I know again, that my choice has made that a more difficult decision for them. So, my position is: I’ll do the best job that I can do, I’ll do it to the best of my ability and if that’s good enough for me to go to the World Cup without working Sundays then great but if not, then I’ll do something else,” he explains matter of factly.

Unprompted, Walker explains what he prefers to do on a Sunday: “On a Sunday all I want to do is do things with my family and do things a bit differently, and set it aside because I see it as a day which God has given us not to just do whatever we want but to act differently and for me that involves going to church twice on a Sunday.

“It’s not having the TV on all day, it’s not talking about things that I talk about on the other six days, it’s just about thinking about what really matters, spending time with my family, having people round for dinner and talking about things of real importance rather than talking about someone who’s 2-0 down and comes back to draw 2-2.

“I love football, I love sport generally, I love talking about it, I love playing it, I love watching it but Sunday is a day that is set aside and if you ask me what my favourite day of the week is, it would be Sunday.”

“My first job in local radio was in 1999”, recalls Walker.

“And ten years later, I’ve somehow managed to make it here- I don’t know how.” The answer is clear: Walker’s attitude and ability has seen him recognised with countless awards and his career continues to go from strength to strength.

You can see Dan on Football Focus every Saturday at 12.15pm on BBC1.

By Saad Noor

On the 22nd October 2009, hundreds of protestors took to the street outside the BBC’s Television Centre in White City. The consequent clashes with police to get into the studios, made headline news that night. Their aim? To prevent the leader of the [...]]]> Will this be the era that Britain finally succumbs to the far-right?

On the 22nd October 2009, hundreds of protestors took to the street outside the BBC’s Television Centre in White City. The consequent clashes with police to get into the studios, made headline news that night. Their aim? To prevent the leader of the British National Party (BNP), Nick Griffin, from appearing on Question Time that night.

Despite these very open and vocal forms of protest, the BBC stood by its decision to give the BNP a platform for its racist, intolerant views and lend them much-needed credibility.

The time honoured practice of belittling the BNP is now redundant.
And whatever the argument about free speech and democracy, the bottom line is this: Griffin’s appearance on Question Time led to the ‘biggest recruitment night ever’ for his distasteful party. The BNP claimed 3000 new members signed up after watching their leader’s somewhat mediocre performance on TV.

It does seem, that the far right are getting far more support than what should reasonably be expected for a ‘fringe party’. With the recession, and our wars and wild stories of MP’s expenses, this may be expected…but two MEPs on the European parliament? They’re even representing Britain on a global scale now!

Historically of course, Britain has been surprisingly resistant to far-right tendencies. Straight after the mauling of the Great Depression, for example, when many prominent European nations were falling to right extremists, Britain was able to curb it. The leader of the far right at the time, Oswald Mosley, was even imprisoned, after the authorities decided he would be a risk during the war effort.

Even during those eras were one would expect racism levels to run high- like the times of the Brixton riots for example, the far right was not so established as it is today.

They are not only a danger to establishment- something that their youth wing is eager to promote- but also a danger to civil liberties and to Britain itself.

Although the party sees itself as a cure for the disease of supposed ‘mass immigration’ into Britain, it is the party itself that appears to be an ever-growing, infectious tumour, rotting away the core of British society. It is high time that this was stopped. Perhaps not allowing it quality PR time, on a channel that the taxpayer pays for would be a step in the right direction.

The film’s raw documentary style creates a sense of realism achieved by the directors’ choice [...]]]> Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani’s film set in the impoverished Ajami neighbourhood in Jaffa seeks to expose a darker side of Israel. A brutal area, tensions between its Christian, Muslim and Jewish residents constantly lie on a knife edge.

The film’s raw documentary style creates a sense of realism achieved by the directors’ choice to use local residents and unknown actors. This realism is further enhanced when the directors beautifully portray Ajami’s cultural melting pot through the constant flitting through Arabic and Hebrew throughout the film.

The directors followed the unconventional method of breaking the film into 5 chapters, in a style akin to films such as Babel whose unconventional timescale gives depth and texture to the film.

Ajami opens powerfully, subtly introducing us to a calm familial scene, which is suddenly shattered as a young boy is shot in cold blood in front of his own home. The creates a palpable tension that is ever present throughout the opening chapter, this lifestyle of fear, danger and the looming spectre of death casting the sun drenched scenes in swathes of darkness. The opening chapter explores negotiations, pleas and area politics, showing how, in Ajami, fear is instilled and power controlled by an unstoppable and irrational enemy.

With such a promising opening I was disappointed by the splintering of chapters, it removed the tension, slowed the pace and set the film onto a course that was most certainly unexpected, but not in a good way. From being a study of an area rife with tension the film regressed into a knotty crime film along the veins of ‘Get Rich or Die Trying’ or ‘New Jack City’ (without the rappers). The lofty aspirations and keen insight became lost in the mire of new and undercooked characters and a story that included star-crossed lovers, random drug overdoses, grudges and crooked cops (or are they?).

I found my biggest grievance was in the filmmakers desire to explain every minute detail the narrative structure left in limbo, leading to me questioning the relevance of this structure. Surely a film that was more linear and instant would show the danger of such an area more effectively? This structure alluded to worthy intentions (see Babel) that were not fulfilled and the languid pace of the final three quarters was a direct result of this.

The jarring juxtaposition of pace and characters created a frustrating experience, which exasperatingly was not paid off by the finale that revealed twist after twist after twist, none of which having been given any development throughout the course of this film.

The film turned into what it appeared to be a rejection of, the minimalistic style and raw performances became entirely undermined by a plot full of excess and lack of depth.

I would recommend this film on the first 40 minutes alone, especially if you are looking for the display of amazing tension that permeated the screen, vibrant characters and sharp observations, however unfortunately the rest of the film could not keep up and turned into a beautifully shot, superbly acted, bloated attempt at a crime epic.

By Femi Anderson