It’s really lovely how many people I speak with regularly out there have nice things to say about this newsletter. Thank you!

From a slightly rudderless post-lockdown neighbourhood guide (here’s the first, long-forgotten print edition from 2021, which was delivered through every residential door in the Borough with some really big partners), this feedback has helped steer the publication in direction it now takes.

The writing is far more personal, expansive and opinion-driven, since that’s what resonates best across all media today. But it’s not my natural inclination to be ‘the face’ of Camdenist, and I do enjoy handing the reigns over to good guest writers (we’re lining up another season of really interesting ones right now), to add in some different voices and thinking.

Saying that, this is now definitely my soapbox, and I’m chuffed that some of the things I bang on about here every Friday morning are so well-received.

Over the years, the newsletter has developed a particularly passionate core readership, who really do make time for Camdenist as a part of their weekly routine, which I find fairly amazing in our content-saturated scrolling era.

There’s a hardcore who seem to vote on the poll almost every week, while others open each email within minutes of it landing in inboxes, and some of you even upgrade to support all this financially, for which I’m beyond grateful.

The vast majority of you are Camden-based, and clearly as enthusiastic about the area as each other, but despite this geographical and social closeness, the isolating tendencies of city life means it’s hard to talk of there being a real ‘readership community’.

So therein lies a new project.

Bigger, better-resourced media, and creatives/artists with varying degrees of fandom, are able to build thriving online communities around their shared interests. In recent years, of course, a lot of this has happened on the big social networks, and has been subject to the well-documented issues that come with running passionate groups on unpredictable, attention and metric-hungry commercial platforms.

What would be preferable is a digital extension of the local pub, community centre, gig venue, club or place of worship, certainly not just another profile in a shouty social media feed.

Camdenist readers are a hyperlocal shared interest community by default, and clearly would have much to gain from more opportunities for quality discussion, advice and connection on all things local culture. But the time investment for setting something like that up and then keeping it active (and good) has previously been too much for my limited bandwidth/bank balance.

Intriguingly now though, beehiiv, the platform that we use to publish Camdenist both as a newsletter and website, have just announced brand new community features built-in, which remain all our own, not part of some algorithmically driven monster. So what do you reckon, should we give them a try?

Obviously, reaching the critical mass of participants which make any such community feel lively enough to want to join takes time, so rather than just opening it up and seeing what happens (everyone takes a look around, it’s quiet, they never return), I’m going to invite only the Camdenist superfans to be the first VIP members.

If they adopt using it enthusiastically, creatively and regularly, (and I’m predicting they’ll be the readers most likely to do that), we’ll open it up to more people, and develop all kinds of interaction, feedback and perks for participation.

I’ll be sending out personal invites to the top Camdenist readers next week. If you receive one of these invites, you’re someone who either opens the newsletter very regularly, interacts with thing like our polls, or is a paid upgrade member (thanks again, you extra special people!).

Feedback will be the name of the game, and once again, I’ll need your valued input in steering how we best make use of the platform on the website, and how it develops Camdenist into active community that we can say really does exist.

There’s a certain joy in using digital tools that are so intrinsically global in their scale and reach, to simply arrange a nice high street meet-up, share a tip about a new local opening or debate a topic with neighbours you’d never have an opening to speak with otherwise. With the backlash against the worst excesses of online interaction, it feels like something is shifting, and it’s exciting to see if we can work out how that might play out to deliver something more valuable here.

I hope whatever emerges to be the antithesis of the moans and crime alerts on Nextdoor, the cliquey tribalism of Facebook Groups or the disposable chatter of comments-for-clout on Instagram and Substack Notes.

Let’s see what happens…

Next week we’ll also be launching the Camden Fringe Advisor, a nifty new free tool on the website to cut through the noise of having 400+ exciting shows taking place in the area’s many venues throughout August, with the aim of quickly helping you find the one (two, or even three) that you’ll most likely enjoy. More info next time.

And if you are a Camden Fringe performer, venue or company, and would like to find out about the very affordable promo packages that will put your shows in front of thousands of locals, reach out to [email protected] quick, before all the slots are gone. 😉

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The press got a bit excited on Tuesday to see last week’s Camdenist cover star and outgoing PM, Sir Keir Starmer, propping up the bar back at one of his favourite local hangouts, The Grafton in Kentish Town.

He’d also brought a load of his Downing St gang along, including deposed chancellor Rachel Reeves, for an end-of-an-era jar or two, and there was even ‘a rumour’ about a staff karaoke party upstairs, later on.

I always respected seeing Starmer kicking back in local pubs before he became PM, or trudging up the road in the pissing rain to his surgery in Queen’s Crescent as on one particularly gruesome but dedicated occasion, so it was clearly something he couldn’t wait to return to (the pub, not the pissing rain walk) after his premature ousting as leader.

Interestingly, it was exactly two years ago that I wrote the Camdenist article What will happen now a local has the top job?, which was full of optimism for Keir bringing some of the best bits of the spirit of this Borough to the nation, indeed the world.

Sadly, with the spectre of Farage casting his endless shadow, such progressive ideals never really surfaced in Starmer’s Labour. We’ll have to wait for the memoirs to find out the decision-making and struggles that really went on, but it’s a credit to this area that the first thing the Honourable Member for Holborn & St Pancras wanted to do, when it all fell apart, was to get back into the community and return to one of his regular social haunts.

Yes, it was neatly orchestrated and yes, he and Reeves haven’t exactly done the wider pub trade too many fiscal favours, but at a most human level, after being on the world stage, nothing quite compares with a cold pint at a decent Camden boozer.

MUSIC: 🔊 By all accounts, last week’s launch of a new season of Jazzie B’s Back to Life Café was a big hit with local music-lovers drawn to the impressive stage setup in the public square Hawley Wharf. It’s back tonight, Fri 24th Jul from 5-8pm, when the Soul II Soul founder is joined by Greg Edwards for more after-work socialising and pre-weekend dancing with friends and neighbours.

NIGHTLIFE: 🎛️ After a warm-up with Camden legend Jazzie, hop over the high street to catch Detroit’s own techno legend, Carl Craig, at the Jazz Cafe. He’s there to play an all-night-long set that promises to move between club music, jazz, soul and orchestral composition, plus the thundering techno which his home city gifted to the world. Fri 24th Jul.

POP-UP: 👠 Eastenders scriptwriter and vintage clothing enthusiast, Yasmeen Khan, ran a popular 80s-themed fashion pop-up on Chalk Farm Rd last year, (complete with a recreation of her childhood bedroom including Smash Hits posters and Sony Walkman cassette collection). It went so well she’s back again, offering even more authentic 80s memorabilia and vintage fashion at Yasmeen’s Time Machine 80s Pop-Up - catch it daily at The Koppel Project until Sun 9th Aug.

FESTIVAL: Tucked away in its awaiting-major-redevelopment underpass, the Camley Street Festival is a proper local community gathering, with live music, the usual kids activities, free food (for the first 150 people) alongside skateboard workshops and bike repair this Sat 25th Jul. It’s also a chance to find out about grants of up to £6k that are currently being applied for if you’ve got ideas that will make a positive impact on people living nearby.

SHOPPING: 🫟 There are, somewhat inevitably, more chain store outlets arriving in Coal Drops Yard these days, but it’s still good to see that the 14th branch of the locally-founded, family-owned success story, Cass Art, opening up in a large unit now dedicated to colourful painting and drawing supplies.

ART: 🧑🏼‍🎨 The second edition of the Camden Biennale sees art from every school in the Borough on display at Granary Square’s Lethaby Gallery, plus a 2D sculpture park out front to Sun 26th Jul.

FESTIVAL: 🪷 You’d be right in thinking that the big annual Camden Mela was a couple of weeks ago, however colourful sister event, the Camden Market South Asian Mela, continues the month-long cultural heritage festivities. You’ll find giant walkabout puppets, live music and dancing, streetfood, workshops and more along the canalside this Sat 25th Jul.

STAGE: 🎭 All The Things We Can’t Explain kicks off the 15-day Kilburn High Road Festival with a new play dedicated to the changing face of the area, performed by a cast of 80, ranging in age from 6-88. Catch it at the Kiln Theatre from Fri 31st Jul - Sat 1st Aug.

MUSIC: 🎤 Local troubadour Brave New Broken Hearts Club, brings his signature London vocal style and emotionally intelligent songwriting to Water Rats in King’s Cross on Thurs 29th Jul with a solo acoustic set of new songs and old favourites.

FOOD: 🫓 Covent Garden’s uber-popular, very stylish Korean matcha house, Tokkia is opening a new bakery, Tokkia Soho, this Sun 26th Jul with a special £5 launch offer on their salt breads with a classic matcha for just a fiver (until Tues 28th). Expect the obligatory queues down Berwick St.

Japanese military sci-fi sensation, Gundam, which if you haven’t a clue, like me, is all about giant robots, long-running anime TV series and collectable plastic figurines, is the latest such brand to open a big, dedicated emporium in Camden, inside the Grade II-listed Provender Building. Signalling the unstoppable rise of anime and all things Japanese, Korean and culturally Asian, here’s excitable YouTuber @animeintheuk doing a deep-dive into it all.