Went to the library this morning and nearly got run over by a motorbike gyppo (that's a gypsy for you yanks reading), a classic feature of Thamesmead. This place is a bit of a haven for gyppos with the council conceding on the issue of giving them a camp and building a load of houses like a trailerpark for them 10 years ago, from which they terrorise the whole of Thamesmead. Nice...
Thamesmead has a funny old history. The history of Thamesmead probably begins with the draining of the marshland to build a load of low-cost (read "shoddy") concrete houses for the poor.
Since then the council has been consistently displaying it's sense of humour with "improvements" ranging from closing off SOuthmere Park, a huge field where people take their dogs for a walk, for no reason at all to installing 4 huge concrete blocks in the middle of the lake, ruining the otherwise perfect view.
Other hilarious practical jokes include the installation of metal gates on every single walkway to try to stop the aforementioned motorbike gyppos from causing havoc (it hasn't worked as you can tell - they just break them). This has had the adverse effect of making Thamesmead completely impossible to navigate by wheelchair and a nightmare for anyone with prams or bikes.
In addition to this, Thamesmeads esteemed council decided some years back, that as a deterrent to motorbikes getting onto Southmere park, they would block road access. This they done in possibly the most stupid way I can possibly think of. They dumped a huge pile of mud on the road, about 8 feet high of pure mud. Genius stroke.
This made it impossible for anyone, other than the motorbikes, to get into the park. The motorbikes probably loved it, as it was shaped just like a ramp. their strategy didn't work and now all good law-abiding citizens of Thamesmead are unable to use Southmere park. Legendary.
So obsessed have the council become with trying to pull the plug on these gyppo motorbikers that everyone else has had to suffer. And they wonder where they went wrong. Well I think I may have the answer.
Try that huge trailer park thing that you built for them you fuckwits. It's right next to your offices. Fucking idiots.
