Moving On Up

WE move out of our office on Friday. Ok, so it’s only to the fourth floor – we’re currently on the first.
Its been dark in there these days so we’re all looking forward to the promise of loftier sights above.
But it’s all a bit surreal at our place at the moment - somehow sparse and dishevelled at the same time.
Bits of desk have already been stolen from us and carted off to Basildon for reasons unexplained.
And thankfully, most of our recycling has been dumped, after we all got on our hands and knees a couple of weeks ago and filled sacks with yellowing council documents and the like.
The de-junk part is starting to feel a bit cathartic.
But our desks are in disarray.
I can’t see our editor, Gary anymore from where he sits a row behind me, for all the papers and stacks of crates srouding me into my corner.
And my desk, has managed to take on an even heavier cloak of chaos than is cope-able with.
But Gary’s hanging onto his nerves and chugging out his four titles for deadline with admirable fervour, and we’re following suit.
We’ve been banished from the office on Friday morning so that he can direct the removal men with us “crazy cats” as he calls us out of the way.

Daylight Street Stab Death in Edmonton

A SECOND teenager was stabbed to death in Edmonton yesterday – in broad daylight this time.
And kebab-loving, I’m-scared-of-the-dark, home secretary Jacqi Smith wants schools to install metal detectors in schools to stop youths carrying knives (see the nationals for more).
I’ve no idea what the answer is to put an end to all of this youth-on-youth crime.
Enfield police told me in an interview that knife crime is going down, and the figures show this to be true.
But they also admitted that Edmonton is a hot-spot problem area.
It’s time to stop sticking to stats and look at the underlying issues.
No one’s asking why a growing trend for teenage violence is sweeping across London at such a rapid rate.
Since most knife attacks happen outside of school, it makes more sense for the focus to be on the streets. And for energies to be spent on investigating what’s making youths want to carry a knife in the first place.
Rather than simply prosecuting them when they do.

Knifed in the New Year

LONDON’S first stabbing of the year took place on our patch – in Edmonton, Enfield.
I say first because regrettably if last years number of 27 teenagers killed in violent attacks is anything to go by, there will be more.
In 2007, eight victims were shot, one was beaten to death and most of the rest were stabbed.
Last week, I reported on a stabbing (not fatal) that happened on a bus on an afternoon just three days before Christmas.
Today, I dashed down to the crime scene on the way to the office to get the news on the latest incident, spoke to residents, got the quotes and filed for tomorrows Gazette.
Henry Bolombi, was on a night bus, returning home with a bunch of nine friends from a new year party. He was 18.
The group was chased by a gang of youths after stepping off the bus before the murder at about 6:30am.
This is London in the 21st century.
It’s shocking and not so shocking at the same time.
As much as London is a paranoid city wedged within a neurotic country harbouring a society under constant surveillance courtesy of CCTV cameras, we’re are in turn a society sick with an infectious virus – the desire to kill by violence.
The reason behind what drives such attacks – many of them carried out by criminals that are getting younger and younger is incomprehensible.
As journalists we must get on with the job of reporting the facts.
I won’t doubt that it’s not exciting running around in the middle of live events that turn into breaking hard news.
But it’s not true that doing it day in day out toughens our skins beyond feeling.
On my own way home tonight, I started thinking about our editor Gary O’Keeffe who’s cousin, Stuart was murdered two years ago.
It’s horrid, heartbreaking.
Here’s a link to him talking about it on his blog on Stuart’s anniversary last month:
http://blog.enfieldadvertiser.co.uk/archives/2007/12/a_life_lost_ove.html