Wansteadium

Suki Orange – Wansteadium’s food blogger – writes:
The Guardian (the real one, not the Wanstead one) has published a map of all food hygiene ratings in England, and as far as the eateries on Wanstead High Street are concerned it’s looking pretty good. Only two restaurants seem to have failed to get a 5 rating (ie full marks) – and they were the little lamented Bipasha on Nightingale Lane, which has now become Deshi Spice, and Purbani on the High Street which is still open but scored a 2 in the tests. It’s fair to say the tests are somewhat historical, having been conducted in 2011, but all the information comes from the Food Standard Agency.

Wansteadium reader Dan Lane emailed to say: “Naturally, I checked out the places along Wanstead high street first and I’m please to say pretty much everyone scored a five. The only place to fail was Purbani with a score of two, which is ironic as it always smells of bleach whenever I go in.”

You can have a good rummage round for yourself at the Guardian Datablog here.

Our man who walks without question writes: “Wanstead 1st XI took full advantage of their visit to Buckhurst Hill who have been having an uncomfortable season, recorded a convincing win, and retained hopes of retaining the the league title. Skipper Arfan Akram UEL MCC TDND* led from the front with 62 unbeaten runs.

Mahesh Velani weighed up the opposition total, displayed the ample breadth of his bat, and biffed 94 copious runs in the 2nd XI win over Hornchurch.

Mehad Khan’s 8 for 11 off 11 overs tells the complete story of the 3rd team overwhelming Hainault & Clayhall. This side must entertain hopes of winning the league.

In contrast, the 4th team who also may have fancied themselves for the league, were forced to cling on for a draw against a strong Upminster challenge.

Hainault & Clayhall could not mount much of a challenge to Wanstead’s 5th team, whose former opening bowler Michael Griesel is proving a most successful opening batsman.

The 6th team subsided against a superior Wickford XI, 50 runs from Aman Ali notwithstanding.

*Top-Drawer Name-Dropper

Geoff Wilkinson writes on Wanstead Daily Photo: “You must remember the thunder and lightning of last Monday night – who could have missed it? I was in the garden around 10pm and I looked up and saw this cloud formation around the moon. It looked so dramatic and threatening I just had to take a picture. However, as for the actual thunder and lightening Mrs Wilkinson says I slept peacefully through the lot!”

The milk crash on the Redbridge roundabout which happened on Friday lunchtime. Jon Fentiman, Wanstead’s comedy impresario, was the man with the camera – but the punchlines are as yet unwritten.

Wansteadium hivemind – do your worst.

Attention, good people of Wanstead. Are you weary of forever wishing that, if only such-and-such a thing happened in Wanstead, it would be really cool? Do you find yourself looking at other, more funky, areas of London, and thinking ‘That could be Wanstead, if only…’ Have you ever lusted after someone else’s vibe?

Well help is at hand – or, to put it more accurately, self-help.

Wansteadium has very great pleasure in announcing that the first ever Wanstead Fringe will be held this year, between Saturday 7 and Saturday 14 September – that’s the week leading up to the Wanstead Festival on Christ Church Green.

The fringe will consist of a variety of events – including COMEDY! FOOD! DESIGN! PHOTOGRAPHY! MUSIC! BAKING! CYCLING! RACONTEURS! (how classy is that?) and REAL ALE!

This website will be revealing more details in the coming week, but there is one very important message that we would urge all readers to bear in mind: this fringe is self-organised. It’s just ordinary Wanstead folk deciding to do something practical to help make Wanstead better.

Which is where you come in. Would you think of organising an event yourself? There are six weeks in which to get stuff set up – which is do-able if you start now. And if you want to be involved but don’t think you can arrange an event, will you help with one of the other events? Or maybe you’d help with telling other people about the fringe?

Watch this website for more details about how to get involved in the days to come, and in the meantime, if you want to let us know that you’re interested, send your details using the form below.

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