The 12 rays of Christmas

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it" John 1:5 (Christmas Day Gospel) * The Aldgate Bus Depot proposal (see below: the three blocks) goes to the City Planning Committee.
1. The Beetham Organization is a “a privately owned pioneering UK property development and investment company with a focus on prime city centre real estate”.

2. Mrs Rina Begum is a Bengali single mother who has lived in her flat on the ground floor of the Guinness Trust flat in the ward of Portsoken in the City of London since 1994. Portsoken is on the Eastern fringe of the City bordering Tower Hamlets.

3. The Beetham Organization, based in Liverpool, wants to expand its property portfolio. Beetham have taken on development projects in Birmingham, Manchester and South London. To be considered one of the big boys they want a site in the City of London.

4. Rina has five children. Her next door neighbour, Ariful Nessa, also has five children. Her upstairs neighbour, Ayesha Azad, has four children. Two of Rina’s children go to the Sir John Cass’s Primary school, five minutes walk on the other side of the ward, through the Aldgate bus depot.

5. In April 2003 the Beetham Organization buys from another developer, called Hammerson, the freehold of the block of flats where Rina Begum lives, along with the bus depot (Hammerson is one of the big boys.)

6. Rina gets a bus from the depot once a week to buy her fruit and vegetables from Watney Market along the Commercial Road in Tower Hamlets. Although she has to spend £2 on her bus fare to get there, and £2 back, she says that it is worth the trip. She can get a bag of seven or eight green and red peppers for £1.20 and six or seven bananas for £1. In the Aldgate each banana cost 50p.

7. In August 2005, the Beetham Organization proposes a £700M office cluster for the Aldgate bus depot, introducing “more than one million feet of prime office space to the City of London.” The proposed buildings will be 12, 15 and 23 storeys high – three times the current capacity. It will include “active retail frontages helping to animate the pedestrian environment”. The buildings are to be “environmentally friendly” running on “energy efficient technology that retains heat in winter and cools buildings in summer.” It is a “regeneration project in a run down area of the City.”

8. Rina lives directly beneath one of the proposed buildings, along the route where the busses will pass from their garage onto the Aldgate roundabout. She is worried about the impact on her children of the pollution and the impact of the loss of light on her flat. She will lose sight of the sky. She doesn’t want to be overlooked.

9. The developer is proposing an extension to her flat in order to mitigate some of the loss of light. They have offered to pay £4,000 as a “one off” disruption payment while her family are moved out for ten weeks. The Guinness Trust reports that the Beetham Organization will withhold the money from anyone who objects to the flat extension or office proposal. The extension will mean she loses part of her garden.

10. Rina speaks to the Planning Committee when the application goes to the City Corporation: "I am Rina. I have lived on the estate since 1994. I have five children. The developer has told us to move out for the big development. We are not happy. After this development our homes will be dark, we will see no sky. We will lose our gardens. I love my garden. The developer has said they will give us money to move out. We don't want money. We don't want to move out."

11. In his report, the Planning Officer writes: “The residents of the adjoining Guinness Trust Estate will be impacted by the development through loss of daylight, sunlight, noise, increased massing and overlooking, servicing and in the construction phase . . . However, it is appropriate for a local planning authority to weigh the various planning considerations and to come to a conclusion that the development complies with the Development Plan in the light of the whole Plan.”

12. The Planning Committee, just before Christmas, decides, “in the light of the whole plan”, Rina and the other residents should be cast into darkness.

Having a bit of a beef

"He said also to the one who had invited him, 'When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you . . .'"
Luke 14: 12-14 (morning office, Last Sunday after Trinity) * Banquet at Guildhall in honour of State visit of the King of Saudi Arabia (31 Oct)


I was a little concerned that the banquet in honour of King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud was going to be a dry affair. What's a banquet without booze? I needn’t have worried. It was just that there weren't going to be any toasts. We were not going to be invited to raise our glasses of Château Langoa Barton (1997) to King Abdullah, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. I guess I can see why that may have been a bit tricky.

At Guildhall, it is the Remembrancer of City of London who looks after these ceremonial details. In consultation with the Foreign Office and the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, the Remembrancer arranges the guest list and the seating plan; he convenes the Reception Committee; he sends out briefing notes to the entire Court of Common Council (all of whom, through being elected members of the City of London Corporation, attend these state banquets); he monitors the diplomatic and business success of the evening.

The menu itself has to be co-ordinated with Buckingham Palace, where the visiting head of state will have dined on the previous evening. It is considered, for example, unacceptable to repeat dishes. On this occasion, Her Majesty was proffering ‘Noisettes of Venison’ with a ‘Panache of Root Vegetables’ for King Abdullah’s eating pleasure. And so, at Guildhall, we had gone for British beef and roast potatoes.

The Saudi Embassy was not as efficient as the Office of the Remembrancer. They had failed to supply a comprehensive guest list until the very last minute. Consequently there were gaps in the seating plan. I had no idea, for example, who was to be sitting on my left, other than this person was to be a ‘guest of the Saudi Embassy’. I usually like to google my dinner companions in advance in order to marshall some preparatory small talk.

The Saudi guest turned out to be a man from the Embassy itself, now retired. Over the Smoked Garlic Tobouleh, I asked him about his family. He told me that he had settled in Salisbury with his English wife, sending his children to Marlborough College. “Is there an imam at Marlborough?” I asked. “My boys are not that interested in Islam. You have to let them make their own mind up,” he said. It is true he didn’t touch the Château Barton, but he didn’t seem too hard line to me.

It was all going OK, though I have to say we were both finding the beef a bit tough. He was looking at his ‘Tournedos’ quizzically. Maybe he was wondering whether the meat was ‘halal’. We continued with our small talk: “I wonder, do you live anywhere near Bemerton, just outside Salisbury, where George Herbert was the priest?” I asked. “We don’t live very near Bemerton, but I think we may know the Herberts,” he said.

There were maybe a few misunderstandings, but we seemed to be getting on fine, so I ventured from small to slightly larger talk: “King Abdullah’s visit has not been uncontroversial,” I said, not uncontroversially, “There has been quite a lot in the papers about the Saudi human rights record. Have you noticed?” - “I have noticed,” he said tersely, “And I am appalled at your country’s level of ignorance and rudeness.”

Should I swallow and just move on? I decided, instead, to keep chewing: “I think it is just that we find things like public beheadings difficult to accept.” - “Well, we find homosexuals marrying in Westminster Parliament difficult to accept. It is completely disgusting. It’s like a death to us.”

I wouldn’t say it was exactly a diplomatic incident, but it did feel as though an unwanted guest had just appeared at the banquet. The exchange sat in my stomach like an undigested piece of steak. Our conversation shrunk to pleasant reciprocities.

The speeches offered an opportunity to relax as White Chocolate Panacotta and a luscious Rutherglen Muscat, tasting of toffee, relieved our palates. King Abdullah invited the assembled company to take advantage of the Saudi market for commercial investment and joint venture possibilities. London, he said, was a natural partner. The Lord Mayor responded by reminding us all that the Saudi economy was the largest in the Middle East, that it had sound monetary policies and a stable regulatory infrastructure. He then welcomed the Saudi delegation to the throbbing heart of the British economy and reminded them that London was a leader in Sharia compliant financial products. Islam, he added, was a religion of peace. There was purring all round.

In the end, however, I was not the only one with indigestion. A few days later Members of the Court of Common Council were circulated a note about the Banquet: “The Remembrancer would like to confirm that the beef was wholly unacceptable and the caterers would not be paid for it.”