Good or otherwise, Japanese food is hard to come by in East London – a remarkable failure of a food market that is so over-saturated that chefs are now setting up ‘residencies’ instead of restaurants.
And yet the only sushi around is likely to be part of a Sainsbury’s meal deal, or in Itsu or Wasabi’s duelling salmon boxes whose ubiquitous, marginally different characters evoke the Whopper/Big Mac rivalry.
On the other end of the inauthenticity spectrum, international giants like SushiSamba on the billionth floor of the Heron Tower offer a dose of vertigo with a £200+ bill.
But almost two years after it opened, the East End Review has discovered what might just be the only normal Japanese restaurant in East London.
Plus, as an added bonus, there are private karaoke rooms on offer for post-meal humiliation.
Sushinoen is easy to miss – tucked to the side just off an utterly chaotic junction in Aldgate.
Owner Shang admits that in the beginning, much of their custom came thanks to a buddy-buddy relationship with the Qbic Hotel next door, which has been sending over droves of hungry business travellers since it opened. But slowly a local crowd has caught on.
On a recent Tuesday evening the serene dining room was packed with suits, locals, and a reassuring number of people ordering in Japanese.
For the most part, Sushinoen, or ‘sushi in a garden’, is ultra-traditional with kimono-clad staff and low tables atop sunken floors for your legs – ancient custom for some, date-night novelty for others.
Classic starters like chicken gyoza, braised pork belly in Dashi soy sauce and miso-glazed aubergine are full of all the salty umami you could hope for.
As in so many Japanese restaurants, maki rolls are tarted up with the spicy mayo concoctions and artfully-presented special rolls (read: gigantic) cater to the Western expectation of intense flavour and hugeness.
But the real test is achieving the perfect simplicity of a plain piece of sashimi and nigiri. Sushinoen does this very well, with a selection of fish far more extensive than cult-favourite Dotori in Finsbury Park, which sticks to the basics.
Sushinoen boasts two types of salmon and tuna (fatty and lean), scallop, mackerel, yellowtail, octopus and sea bream, among others.
Most of the maki (rolls) we tried had lettuce rolled in, a surprisingly strong flavour when paired with delicate fish and rice, evoking a sandwich-y vibe I could have done without.
But regardless, for Japanese classics, you can’t go wrong.
Britain’s architectural elite are going head-to-head with Tower Hamlets Council over the planned demolition of a Brutalist-era housing estate.
The 213-apartment Robin Hood Gardens is set to be set to be razed to the ground to make room for a £500 million redevelopment.
The dilapidated site in Poplar has a ‘stigma’ attached to it according to some residents.
But high-profile members of the architectural community, led by Lord Richard Rogers and the Twentieth Century Society, have launched a last-ditch effort to stop the redevelopment which will see the end of Robin Hood Gardens.
Architects including Robert Venturi, Toyo Ito and Zaha Hadid have rallied round in support of the campaign. Completed in 1972, Robin Hood Gardens was designed around the concept of ‘streets in the sky’ by controversial New Brutalism pioneers Alison and Peter Smithson.
Centre Pompidou architect Lord Rogers has written to 300 members of the design world asking them to lobby heritage minister Tracey Crouch to give the site listed status, a bid English Heritage rejected in 2009.
Rogers wrote: “In my opinion, it is the most important social housing development from the post-war era in Britain.
“Two sculptural slabs of affordable housing create a calm and stress-free place amidst the ongoing modernisation of the London cityscape.”
Lord Rogers told BBC’s Today programme that he would “absolutely” live on Robin Hood Gardens himself, and has blamed the council for the neglecting the building.
In 2009, the site was given immunity from heritage listing for five years, a decision the Twentieth Century Society has called “unsound” in a recent report.
This immunity expired this year, and Tower Hamlets Council has approved demolition and a £500 million redevelopment by Swan Housing Association, which promises 1,575 homes, and a new mosque and community centre.
The vast concrete blocks have been criticised for a range of flaws in design and maintenance alike.
Residents have complained of awkward layouts, asbestos and leaky ceilings.
But Rogers and some residents insist that neglect by council is at fault for the poor upkeep of Robin Hood Gardens.
Resident Ruman Chowdury, 42, told the Telegraph: “The council just doesn’t maintain the building. The whole area is neglected.”
The council has said its consultation concluded 80 per cent support for the redevelopment.
A council spokesperson said: “Redevelopment was the overwhelming preference of the local community.”
There’s a buzz around Korean food in London today. Although the hub of Korean life is still in New Malden, a long way to the south west, we can spare ourselves the somewhat arduous journey, and explore local sources of this delicious food, influenced in some ways by China and Japan, but with a joyful identity of its own. Oriental stores stock the basic ingredients, and a visit to Yu Xiao in Kingsland Road, or the Longdan supermarket in Hackney will yield freshly made kimchi, some take-away items, and many of the strange and wonderful fish and plants that you need in order to try Korean food at home.
But since the cuisine depends so much on an assortment of different dishes that take quite a time to put together, it is a good idea to eat out to experience the delights of the full range. Hackney has a small, busy and friendly place in Shoreditch, On the Bab, and up the road in Finsbury Park is the legendary Dotori, a crowded little Japanese-Korean restaurant with a huge following, a contrast to the wide open spaces of Bibigo at the Angel, while Hurwundeki on Cambridge Heath Road offers a haircut as well.
Potted history
In spite of a long history of friendly and unfriendly contact with some of its neighbours (and the recent, unhappy division of the country), Korea has a strong sense of its individuality, with history, geography and various religious influences all shaping a vibrant and varied gastronomy.
You can see this all summed up in the pottery: not the (boring) elitist collectors’ pieces of greeny grey celadon or ghostly white porcelain or even the less posh buncheong stone-ware, but in the glorious range of everyday black-brown glazed onggi storage jars. They contain the country’s past and maybe its future – literally, for within these beautifully crafted forms lurk the essential elements of Korean cuisine. The jars and pots come in all sizes and various shapes, and until a few decades ago every household, in what was then a mainly rural society, would have an array of them clustered outside on terraces or rooftops. They held grains, especially rice, and water, wine, oil, vinegar and the defining condiments that enhance Korean food: soy sauce, brown soybean paste (denjang), fermented red chilli paste (gochu jang), and above all different kinds of kimchi: (salted and fermented vegetables with various flavourings, especially garlic and chilli). The beauty of these pastes is in their sweet, rich, dense flavour, not the amount of chilli in them. Never forget that chillies are enjoyed for flavour and not the macho impact of heat.
Kimchi
Kimchi evolved because things did not grow during the harsh winters, so preserving vegetables and fish was an essential domestic skill. This unique process, salting and fermenting, produces over 200 different kinds of kimchi, free of the harsh acidity of most European pickles. Every family had its own version. The fermentation process did not just make the stuff keep, it actually produced added nutrients, vitamins and minerals that make Korean food some of the healthiest on the planet. Kimchi has a clean, fresh-tasting zing and crunchiness. Different kinds can be served as side dishes, or it can be added to soups and stews.
The craftsmen who made the kimchi containers were socially inferior, their skills taken for granted, but every Korean family owned a range of their pots that survived generations of use, and the sensitivity and talent that went into their manufacture can perhaps now be seen in the cutting edge skills of modern Korean technology in other fields. The pots are now collected and treasured in museums, but also used for their original purposes. The Korean soul and genius is in these unique artefacts, the pots and what they contain, and eating the food is to enter into a world of innovation and tradition, of past history and a new future.
Korean meals
Another magic ingredient is Korean sesame oil. It works best as a condiment, sprinkled over a finished dish just before serving, or dribbled onto a salad, along with a few drops of Vietnamese fish sauce, transforming a banal mixture of lettuce, avocado and spring onions into an exotic treat. I don’t know what they do to make it so delicious, but there is no substitute. Seaweed gives flavour and texture, from slithery to crisp, and a big blast of umami. And tofu adds extra goodness.
A Korean meal might consist of rice, soup, stews, dumplings, pancakes and a lot of differently flavoured side dishes, something to eat out. But you can give your home cooking a Korean tinge by using the two densely flavoured pastes in fish and meat dishes, in soups and stews, and mixed with soy sauce, sugar and fish sauce to make dipping sauces and relishes.
Here are a few Korean-inspired recipes to try out at home:
Bibimbap
The endearingly named bibimbab or pibim bap has become an iconic Korean speciality. It began as a peasant dish, when a frugal bowl of rice had to be eked out with any raw or cooked vegetables and herbs that could be got hold of for free. Now it has become restaurant performance art, with the cooked rice brought to table in an almost red-hot iron bowl (together with the necessary health warning) sizzling and hissing as the other ingredients are stirred in, while the rice sticks to the bottom, forming a delicious crust. Ingredients can be luxurious (thin slices of beef, seafood) or simply sautéed vegetables, chopped kimchi, mushrooms, a sprinkling of dried seaweed, sometimes topped with a raw or fried egg, and of course the red chilli paste. It gets its name from bab or bap, a word meaning a dish of cooked rice. And that is exactly what this is: a recipe to do at home, using cooked rice and plenty of fresh and preserved stuff to give contrasting texture and flavour.
1 bowl of cooked rice per person
An assortment of things such as: sautéed shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced rump steak, an egg, raw or fried, thinly sliced crisp lettuce, Korean radish kimchi, raw bean sprouts, rinsed and dried, matchstick courgettes, raw or stir fried, chopped herbs (basil, coriander, mint).
Marinated Chicken
Chicken breasts and thighs
cut into pieces
Marinade: finely chopped ginger, garlic, spring onion, fresh green chilli,
soy sauce, sesame oil, a teaspoon of red chilli paste, a pinch of sugar,
all mixed together.
Rub the marinade into the chicken pieces and leave for an hour. Then put everything in a shallow pan with a little water and cook slowly until done, about 45 minutes, when the liquid should have evaporated. Taste for seasoning and add more chilli paste if you think it needs it. Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and a few drops of sesame oil and some rice and kimchi on the side.
Seaweed and Shellfish Soup
This is traditionally made with miyeok seaweed and oysters, and given as a restorative to women who have just given birth, three times a day for seven weeks! You do not have to suffer though to enjoy a version of this, and the iron, calcium and vitamins in the seaweed will do you lots of good. There is a legend that the Samsin Grandmother, a folk goddess, caused the blue marks on the buttocks of Korean babies by hastening them into this world with a good slap, and so is offered this nourishing brew in gratitude.
1 cup of dried miyeok (wakame) seaweed, soaked in cold water for half an hour
½ kilo each of mussels, clams, uncooked jumbo prawns
2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
Vietnamese fish sauce
Sesame oil
Cook the shellfish separately, covered, with the garlic and strain off the liquid, filtering it through muslin to keep out any sand or shell. Take the flesh out of the shells and put to one side. Tear the soaked seaweed into pieces and cook in water until soft and a nice dark green. Then add the shellfish, their juices, and season with sesame oil and fish sauce. Serve hot.
The Old Man of Artimino by Giovanna Garzoni, 1650. Courtesy of Galleria Palatina, Florence
If it wasn’t so inconvenient to bring a chunky hardback art book on an Easyjet flight, I’d suggest Gillian Riley’s Food in Art: From Prehistory to the Renaissance as a ‘top holiday read of 2015’.
A museum gift-shop buy with an academic styling, it doesn’t look or feel the part.
But what better than to read up on the origins of pesto while lazing on the Italian coasts, or peek inside the tomb of the wealthy ancient Egyptian scribe Nebamun (the real thing is on show at the British Museum), from the banks of the Nile?
Authoritative as it ought to be – Riley is a leading food writer and historian – this is a book about the mystery as much as the certainties of art’s centuries-old relationship with food.
With her guidance we discover what’s missing from our collective knowledge and the question marks over the meaning of the preparation, preservation and consumption of food in an array of artworks.
Few would be better placed than Riley to fill in the gaps using her expansive imagination.
Riley answers questions I never knew I had about the great larder of art history; such as why the men of ancient Mesopotamia drank their beer with a straw, or why the Renaissance botanist Ulisse Aldrovandi commissioned a portrait of his pet monkey clutching an artichoke.
And there are lessons aplenty to be learned, starting with the wisdom of Paleolithic cave painters; hunters for whom meat was never blindly taken for granted, but the subject of awe and intricate study in a time when “animals ruled the earth, and man was a puny creature”.
The Emperor Rudolph II, c.1590, Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Courtesy of Skoklosters Slott, Stockholm
Riley’s sixth book examines the countless layers of symbolism in the many meals of art history, as depicted in all forms from ancient wall paintings, fine art, mosaics, and frescoes to illuminated manuscripts and stained glass.
For those familiar with the author’s food columns in the Hackney Citizen, documenting intrepid culinary adventures in her Stoke Newington kitchen, expect the same hunger-inducing, poetic prose, and even more to learn here.
It’s a handy volume for those of us who need a narrow lens with which to recall forgotten history lessons, organised into snippets that can be dipped in and out of with ease.
Perhaps unwittingly, Riley’s descriptions of the micro-breweries of Mesopotamia offer much-needed perspective on contemporary foodie culture, reminding us that making your own beer is neither a laughable hipster fad nor a unique cultural advancement of our generation – it’s just something humans have done for thousands of years.
And as for the humble cabbage, its varied role as artistic muse deserves a chapter all of its own, as we discover its long lost identity as a celebrated preventer of hangovers. And, then, ridiculously, as temporary placeholders for the heads of the sick in 15th century psychological experiments – not to be tried at home.
Filtered through Riley’s irreverent, witty and ever-imaginative style, Food in Art is a guide through the sprawling past of art’s many interpretations of food, from the divine to the profound, and crucially the dark, humorous and absurd.
From the practicality of Ancient Egyptian illustrated breadmaking techniques, to the strange vanity of Roman mosaic floors designed to look covered in the remnants of a lavish banquet, mice and all, Food in Art calls for some self-reflection.
It’s a good opportunity to take a good long look at our ‘selfies with Spiralizer’, or the meaning behind Instagrammed kale salads of the 21st century. Rewriting Riley’s book in a thousand years’ time, what will the food historians make of us?
Surely, as ever, we’ll be seen as we are; very vain, a bit clever and somewhat ridiculous.
Food in Art: From Prehistory to the Renaissance is published by Reaktion Books. RRP: £30. ISBN: 9781780233628
We’re almost a year late to the party here, but it’s always important to check whether a place has let itself go with age.
Opened last April, Rotorino, a pedigree restaurant from The Dock Kitchen’s Stevie Parle, was ripe for re-inspection.
Sparkling with dimly-lit retro booths and cherry wood galore, it’s the kind of place Don Draper might eat, minus all the smoking. But when it comes to the actual food, the muse is more Italian grandma than Mad Men.
That means southern Italian cooking made with a cocky simplicity, and a staff that get lessons in caring about it very, very much.
Rotorino has mastered the art of the super-knowledgeable waiter. If it wasn’t so very passé, you might go so far as to call them ‘passionate’.
Fresh from a wine tasting and on her way to a work-organised visit to a buffalo mozzarella supplier in Naples, our waiter was a study in restaurant ambassadorship.
From flavour to provenance to ‘Where did you get these enamel plates?’ there wasn’t a question that stumped her.
“It’s nice that they care. Because in Italy, everyone cares,” points out my companion, our food writer Gillian Riley, describing Roman lorry drivers who would fight to the death in defence of their mothers’ tomato sauce.
Mad Men decor: Rotorino’s chic dining area
Settling in with a glass of Valpolicella – or ‘Valpol’ to those in the know – we were seduced by many things, but all of our waiter’s recommendations were, no hyperbole, outstanding.
We took a chance on oft-maligned brussel sprouts despite Gillian’s aversion, born of a Yorkshire childhood marked by overboiled everything. But this dish managed to single-handedly bring Gillian on-side.
No chance of soggy green orbs here – these ones are raw, and shaved so fine you hardly notice them among chunks of finocchiona (fennel-cured salami), slivers of pecorino and a sprinkling of hazelnuts, bound by a magical dressing I daren’t try to deconstruct.
Two shared pasta dishes were exquisite in very different ways, the flavours in each so distinctive it was hard to believe the two plates had come from the same kitchen.
The mussel casarecce (tight, chewy coils of pasta) was described by Gillian as “the best pasta dish I’ve ever had”. Perfectly al dente coils of pasta with wet strings of salty agretti and fat mussels, it really did taste of the sea – a joy if you’re into that sort of thing.
In stark contrast, a petite but beautifully rich bowl of pumpkin gnudi, (‘nu-dee’) sat the other side of the incredibly-good-pasta spectrum. Basically ravioli without the casing (or ‘nude’), this flesh-toned set of glorious little globes swimming in a butter sauce, topped with crispy sage, is full of plump softness and indulgently rich. Both are really, really excellent. But every restaurant has its bloopers.
We went rogue with the last-minute addition of fried artichoke and viola squash from the ‘stove’ section. That was a mistake.
Ignoring all sense of proportion, a small, badly-cooked artichoke was plopped on an intimidating mass of whipped veg and apparently some farro, all lost in the mix. More than the depths of southern Italy, it evoked an overworked curry, or maybe even refried beans left over from a platter of nachos.
But this minor car crash was washed away with a homemade rhubarb ‘cello’ (as in limoncello, but without the lemon), and came with a lesson: in this era of hyper-educated restaurant staff, pay attention to what they don’t recommend.
Choice is the hidden enemy. Just let them order for you.
Installation view of Voss from Savage Beauty. Photograph: Victoria and Albert Museum, London
It was the place to be in New York in 2011 and in case you haven’t heard, it’s the place to be now.
Round two of Savage Beauty, transplanted and expanded from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s legendary retrospective, arrived at the V&A this weekend in honour one of the East End’s greatest treasures, and its biggest fan, Alexander McQueen.
McQueen’s global reach can hardly be measured, going from his early-90s ‘bumster’ trousers to the late-noughties’ duck feather gowns and bejewelled head pieces — and back again, as McQueen-inspired bird prints appear on Zara dresses worn by Pippa Middleton, and polyester versions of his iconic skull scarf are worn by ‘edgy’ mums everywhere.
Installation view of Cabinet of Curiosities gallery. Photograph: Victoria and Albert Museum, London
One of the V&A’s most ambitious exhibitions ever, adjoining themed galleries compartmentalise McQueen’s wild imagination, charting the master tailor’s rise from exquisite early suiting that laid the structural foundations, literally, for his wildly ambitious later designs, using more and more material but still managing to flatter.
Scenes from Hieronymous Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights appears on a dress paired with ankle boots and a feather mohawk, and collections inspired by Darwin, primitivism and his fury over England’s relationship with Scotland show a man of many minds. But, as he made clear, the streets of East London inspired McQueen – a Stratford native – early and often.
“You take inspiration from the street, with the trousers so low. You don’t need to go to India. You can find it in places like Bethnal Green, or down Brick Lane. It’s everywhere,” he once said.
Butterfly headdress of hand-painted turkey feathers by Philip Treacy for Alexander McQueen. Copyright: Anthea Sims
McQueen, who committed suicide in 2010, left a large chunk of his fortune to his dogs, and £100,000 of it to the London Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green.
The retrospective received a warm welcome of 70,000 pre-sold tickets, a number which appeared to bring tears to the eyes of V&A director Martin Roth as he addressed the press preview last Thursday.
Tahitian pearl and silver neckpiece by Shaun Leane for Alexander McQueen Copyright: Anthea Sims
Several of McQueen’s financial enablers, American Express and Swarovski, took to the podium in the spectacular double-height Cabinet of Curiosities room, to claim
their due credit.
Nadja Swarovski of the Austrian crystal house told of introducing McQueen to crystal mesh; American Express’ rep strained so far in her speech as to say that McQueen (somehow) had inspired the Amex Gold Card — an unpleasant reminder that despite being surrounded by hats made of butterflies, gilets made of mussel shells and looping video of models who drag each other down runways topless, walk through water or teeter, never falling, on 30 centimetre ‘Armadillo’ shoes — we are not in a
dream after all.
Jacket by Alexander McQueen from It’s A Jungle Out There, A/W 1997–8. Photograph: firstVIEW
McQueen’s relationship with women has been subject to much curiosity, with examiners of his legacy digging deep to understand his apparently complex bonds with women both real (his mother, his dear friend Isabella Blow, Sarah Burton) and imaginary (the mythical creatures he made of models in runway shows).
Did he hate women? Fetishise them? McQueen certainly sits on the edge of any question you may ask about him, making him endlessly fascinating to talk about. But Savage Beauty offers something better than talking — a rare opportunity to shut up and just look.
Savage Beauty is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, SW7 2RL until 2 August
Seared scallops and chorizo with Jerusalem artichoke purée. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval
If you walked past Palmers restaurant on Roman Road, you might not make a point to dine there, not least because it’s often almost-empty.
But that would be your loss.
Unlike most new restaurants in East London, Palmers is better than it looks, not the other way round.
This place is decidedly substance over style. Located on the ground floor of a block of new-build flats in Globe Town, it could be mistaken for the dining room of a cheap hotel – cavernous and purely functional.
Large photographs of illuminated produce don’t do the place justice. A close-up of a jar of pickled onions look like a science experiment in preserving eyeballs; another of octopus tentacles illuminated red are actually quite frightening.
Run by a Czech father-and-son team, Palmers serves up modern British cuisine with a French twist – a suitably diverse combination for a neighbourhood restaurant in E2.
The ‘rustic’ food zeitgeist has led too many restaurants to think they can get away with anything as long as it’s served on a board. Thankfully, Palmers hasn’t caught on.
Nothing here is try-hard. Artfully-arranged seared scallops and chorizo with Jerusalem artichoke purée (pictured), and a difficult-to-master Bouillabaise are downright classy dishes, but big enough to be good value – and not a cheeseburger in sight.
Just out of reach of passersby buzzing below on the towpath, Palmers sits at street level near an intersection of the Regent’s Canal constantly traversed by weekend food explorers. In the search for a perfect Sunday roast, too many miss a trick by skipping Palmers out.
The Sunday feasts are a neighbourhood staple, filling the place at around £12 a head, and with portions far more generous than the sceney Empress across Victoria Park.
On a recent visit, a neighbouring diner was so enthusiastic about the beef she invited herself into our conversation to recommend it. She has it every Sunday without fail, apparently.
Beef being sold out, we sprung for the pork belly – a huge slab of the stuff with plenty of crackling and perfectly crunchy roast potatoes, topped with a tart cranberry sauce that should have been apple, but that’s by the by.
Michael Rosen seems to go out of his way to look silly.
A quick Google image search turns up thousands of results showing him puffing out his cheeks, poking his ears, opening his eyes as wide as possible. He speaks in playful sound bites – the kind journalists love – but look any closer into Michael Rosen and there’s no concealing that he is a very serious man, indeed.
The former Children’s Laureate, professor of education, broadcaster, poet and impassioned critic of Westminster’s education policies has made no secret of his disenchantment with government – but he has no intention of entering it. The frustrations would be far too great to balance the power one may have, he tells me.
“It’s that whole business of whether you want to be in the tent pissing out, or outside the tent pissing in. I’ll stick, for the time being, outside the tent,” he says.
Among his various methods of “pissing in”, Rosen sounds off his disapproval in his weekly Guardian column, Letters to Mr Gove, now addressed to the new education secretary Nicky Morgan.
In this summer’s cabinet reshuffle Morgan, who voted against gay marriage, was named minister for women and equalities, as well as education secretary – a contradiction in terms according to Rosen.
“It’s really quite outrageous that someone who’s in charge of schools which are committed to equal rights, in fact is opposed to gay marriage. This is a wonderful new civil right that is being won. We finally got here and there you are, the minister of education, opposing it.”
Throughout his career, Rosen has been called to the House of Commons to meet with ministers about his ideas on education. What’s it like to talk libraries and ‘reading for pleasure’ with the likes of Ed Balls, Nick Gibb and Margaret Hodge?
Rosen puts it frankly: “It’s been almost entirely worthless.”
When speaking on the politics of education, Rosen’s voice is filled with ire. But on the subject of learning itself, he visibly – audibly – bursts with excitement, regularly employing anecdotes from his own sprawling family to illustrate the fun that can be had through learning.
Having brought up seven children between the ages of nine and 37, Rosen calls himself the “longest running school parent in existence”. It is this, and other apolitical experiences, from which Rosen draws the wisdom in his latest book, Good Ideas – How to be Your Child’s (and Your Own) Best Teacher.
Here, in the interest of learning, Rosen ditches politics and schools altogether, and focuses on families, encouraging mutual fascination between parents and children, and an education led by investigating passing curiosities – in the car, in the kitchen, on the street – with rigour and enthusiasm, and responsible use of Google and Wikipedia.
“How do we learn how to analyse or how to interpret? How do we learn how to find things out for ourselves?” he asks.
Good Ideas is for parents, Rosen makes clear (“I wouldn’t want that to be misunderstood” he tells me).
But nevertheless, Rosen seems to have hit a nerve with teachers. Perhaps he illustrates the way they’d like to be able to approach their jobs, but can’t due to the constant pressure of curricula and exams.
“The whole of education is surrounded with a postponement of when you can really conduct original research,” says Rosen.
“In actual fact, any kindergarten teacher will tell you that you can do original research with four-year-olds. Take some four-year-olds around an aquarium with some snails in it, and you ask the children to observe and talk about the snails. That is original research.”
After all, it was teachers who dominated the Q&A session of his recent talk at Stratford Circus. One primary teacher from Stoke Newington described him as her “hero”.
Books have to be marketed to someone, of course, but it would be a waste for this book to be confined to the ‘parenting’ genre.
Yes, Rosen’s anecdotes of joyous shared learning between parent and child, filtered through a bit of cynicism could seem a bit unrealistic, or even utopian.
But we follow other people in striving for so many things – the perfect job, the perfect relationship, the perfect bum. Good Ideas makes a compelling case to try harder. As Michael Gove often said: aim high.
Headteacher Ms Smith talks to a pupil at lunch time. Photograph: Channel 4
What to do with a group of Year 9s who can’t get through a line of Shakespeare without erupting with laughter? How can you make GCSEs more important than a teenager’s first heartbreak? How do you convince a proud 13-year-old that a bad haircut isn’t an assault on his credibility? How do you carry on as normal with a girl whose mum is slowly dying?
It’s all in a head-spinning day’s work at Frederick Bremer School in Walthamstow, the latest stop after Essex and Yorkshire on Channel 4’s whistlestop tour of English schools.
Being a television programme, Educating the East End is a tear-jerking soap opera, edited for maximum drama. By no means is this a comprehensive portrayal of a school at work – by and large, this is a programme about behaviour, and a fascinating one at that.
With the exception of one episode in which well-meaning students make their election bids for head boy and girl, the lion’s share of attention in the programme, as in the school itself, goes to a handful of students whose behaviour is exquisitely bad.
Year 10 pupil Jebb put on quite a show in episode four with an incredible display of stubbornness. His apparent fearlessness of authority often leaves teachers, headteacher Ms Smith included, standing alone in corridors, watching him walk away, yanking at his blue messenger bag which he seems to use as a stress ball.
After refusing to respond, refusing to leave home and refusing to leave classrooms, his future at the school hangs in the balance. Jebb’s parents have split up, compounding his already-short tether.
On the day that Educating the East End aired Jebb’s story and that of his similarly short-tempered sister Summer, Sir Michael Wilshaw, Chief Inspector of Schools, released a report slamming schools around the country for “casual acceptance” of disruptive behaviour.
“Every hour spent with a disruptive, attention-seeking pupil” says Wilshaw, “is an hour away from ensuring other pupils are getting a decent education.”
Speaking to the East End Review, head teacher Ms Smith responds bluntly to these allegations: “I totally disagree that there’s a casual acceptance of bad behaviour in our school,” she says.
“Dealing with behaviour is a two edged sword – it’s both challenge and support.”
Refusing to engage with misbehaving pupils, she insists, “defers the problem”.
Having had a look inside Frederick Bremer School, it’s difficult to imagine things being handled any differently than they are.
At Frederick Bremer, adults have the official power. But when they want to be, these teenagers are masters of manipulation and wilful enemies of reason. They keep pushing and pushing until the disciplinarians set a foot wrong, and – poof – as if by magic, it’s all the teacher’s fault.
Gobby Year 9 Tawny’s ambition to attend the Brit School, and her secret rejection, was exposed by English teacher Mr Bispham in episode one.
Tawny’s persistent refusal to focus during a Shakespeare reading led Mr Bispham to call out to the class: “They wouldn’t have this at the Brit School, would they?” A humiliating assault, not least because few fellow students knew she’d applied, and been rejected. Her secret out, she had Mr Bispham grovelling by the end of the lesson. A masterstroke.
Soon after, in a game of spectacular hot-and-cold, the same raucous group did Mr Bispham proud by behaving impeccably during a lesson observation – apparently, says Tawny, “as a way of saying thank you”.
It seems incredible that any headteacher would want to put these challenges in the spotlight. But according to Ms Smith, Frederick Bremer fought for the privilege through months of consultation, weighing up the needs of the shy, the fame-seeking and the indifferent of her cohort; their uncertain parents, guardians, grandparents; and her staff. But this is a risk which could only have been evaluated in hindsight. Has it been worth it?
Apparently so, according to Mr Bispham, who spoke to the East End Review about life among the cameras.
“East London doesn’t get the best press” he says. “But the biggest effect was knowing that a national TV company wanted to film in our school. (The students) were walking two foot taller, they were so proud.”
Watching the aftermath on television is another matter. Teachers sing to themselves and students dance in corridors; democracy and anarchy reign in equal measure as free and fair elections collide with mini-revolts.
It’s all exposed a common humanity among everyone at Frederick Bremer. With a sigh, Mr Bispham concludes: “It’s been a real process of self-reflection.”
“I had to stand in front of 100 bankers and speak for six minutes about why they should give us money. It’s so not my bag though, I mean. I was so uncomfortable.”
For his six-minute live pitch, Steve Fisher won funding from Hackney Giving Live this summer to fund another term of KimNara Music, a music programme for teenagers with learning disabilities, autism and complex emotional needs.
But Fisher and his wife Tina Pinder, who founded the charity, are no strangers to discomfort. KimNara itself started with an unfortunate accident.
“We were both professional musicians, and then she (Pinder) got run over by a motor bike.” The accident destroyed the nerves that lift her right hand. Pinder, who trained as a classical pianist from the age of five, was told she’d never play again.
But one enterprising doctor at Homerton Hospital, in his spare time, built Tina a mechanical contraption using Meccano parts and elastic bands to spring her fingers back up when she pressed them down, allowing her to play music once again. In the process, her priorities had shifted a bit:
“After that, rather than being an egotistic musician — because all musicians are — she came out of that wanting to give everything back.” That was 2006.
Eight years later, Pinder and Fisher, who left a fifteen-year career as an “acoustician to the stars” to join the project, are still throwing everything into the programme. Pinder has taken on a master’s degree in music therapy, and lectures on the subject at universities around the country.
When they join the programme the young musicians generally have “no social skills to speak of”, says Fisher. The aim is to inspire self-confidence through creativity and teamwork, using original songwriting, performance, and an extensive kit including electric guitars, fuzz boxes, drum kits and violins.
On evenings during the school term, the musicians work from the Huddleston Centre youth club in in Clapton, writing, composing and performing original tunes like ‘Internet Killed the Video Star’, the enigmatic ‘I’ve Got a Saucepan, I Want to Cook for You,’ and a song about the Scottish referendum, ‘Let’s Be United’. “We have one student in particular who’s very adamant about that,” says Fisher.
Recordings of the group’s songs on Soundcloud display no shortage of confidence. “I can rock the world, yeah yeah” is the hook on the energetic ‘I Can Feel the Music’; “It’s so hot you’ll probably melt” another track warns, of itself.
KimNara takes on 7-9 young people per term, supervised by three musicians and a youth worker. The young musicians are well-behaved, but excitable, explains Fisher: “It’s like when a footballer scores a goal and rips his shirt off. They’ll get that from just hearing the right chord.”
Most of the musicians have been with the programme for several years, providing an alternative to conventional therapies that “haven’t really got them anywhere”, says Fisher.
If funding allows, the musicians put on an end-of-term show, which starts with raucous live performances and ends in a Q&A and jam session with the audience. Put simply, Fisher says: “Everyone that comes thinks it’s the best thing they’ve ever seen.”
According to Fisher, the unique benefits of making music has to do with connecting both sides of the brain.
“There’s one lad, probably the shyest one we’ve ever had. He stutters. And he just didn’t want to know… It got to be two weeks before the show and he came in and said, I’ve written a song. So we bashed the song together and did it for the show. And a week before the show he said, again stuttering, I’m gonna be the MC! We said, okay, you want to be the MC, you’re the MC. We got to the show, he got the microphone — didn’t stutter once.”
Finding money, finding venues and finding time are constant struggles for KimNara music, but in the rehearsal room they keep things simple with two rules for the workshops: don’t hurt anyone, and try to keep your clothes on.
