February 20, 2005

MY FAVOURITE HOUSE IN LONDON

The Holly lodge saga continues...

We first squatted this house in 2003 and the council were kind enough to leave us there for a year. We were the cause celebre of both local papers. Thanks to them our eviction was covered by ITV and BBC news.

A year later I squatted the place with a different group of people who had loud parties on the roof and fights with the neighbours in the street. We quite deservedly got a "Squatter hell in Highgate" article in one local paper. (the Ham and High)

North London squatters know each other, and it wasn't long before the guys were in again. The local paper which leans more to the left (the camden new journal) sent a reporter up who met some irate neighbours and an old squatting friend of mine who err.. isn't media friendly. They wrote about how wonderful we were and what a shame this bunch weren't so nice. The Ham and High met Frank, Dave Blond and co and wrote a really nice article.

The CNJ obviously read it and not wanting to appear to be to the right of the ham and high apparently sent an editor up to apologize who wrote this.

It's not difficult getting good publicity squatting in affluent areas, if the neighbours like you so do the papers. No one even cares if you admit to being an ex-fucking bogus asylum seeker do they Frank?

Frank Stucik, 29, who works as a handyman for a photography studio, moved into Holly Lodge with his girlfriend Valerie Manning. He has squatted buildings across Camden since he moved from the Czech Republic nine years ago.

I'm not sure what either paper would make of Socialist Wanker

3 comments:

I.:.S.:. said...

We first squatted it in 2002, motherfucker.

I.:.S.:. said...

Two other things: where you link to ITV and BBC news stories, put in (parentheses) that they are links to Quicktime movies.

And you neglect to mention that the journalist they sent up to apologise was the second-in-command of the whole operation, Andrew Johnson (I believe) the deputy editor, or whatever they call him. Someone also told me the guy was the chief editor but I'm not sure. He was the deputy editor when I last spoke to him, back in 2003 I think, during the first, true and most glorious batch of squatters.

I.:.S.:. said...

You know actually that Andrew Brightwell or whatever his name was said he'd looked at Socialist Wanker...