Getting locked in the park....

Well, got myself locked in the park this evening. Obviously I got out or I wouldn't be writing this, unless I stole someone's red anorak and laptop and am really still in the park! Hey! hey! ...not really.

It usually closes at 9pm and tonight for some apparent reason shut at 7:45pm. So along with other gym bunnies, who also looked worried, we tried to find a way of the place by jogging around the park. Eventually I was directed to an exit by one of the park rangers. Thankfully I was able to get out and not scramble over a 7ft spiky iron gate (and not being 6ft tall... bit of a problem) like I used to have do in another park, which I used to live by. Or sometimes you'd get some kindly soul who would have a Uri Geller moment and bend the iron bars so you could squeeze yourself out. In those situations either a good pair of boots, or trainers and a long leather coat were very helpful.

As I jogging around the park muttering obscenties trying to find a exit. I was kinda struck by the fact that Bromley Council (scum-bag Tories) and London Development Agency are selling off pockets of land in this gorgeous park to fund regeneration. Between 140-170 "luxury villas" will be built costing a mere... £1m each! Affordable housing it aint. And it has also been green lighted by, what's his name, you know, who once had lefty political principles and ran the GLC in the 80s.... oh yeah, Ken Livingston. I moved here around a year ago and got involved in the campaign to stop development as it just appalling to build flats (sorry... villas) on green spaces and where will people go? It will destroy the environment, the geography and the scenery. Parks serve a useful social function and this park is rich with history. Public spaces are so precious in London.

Crystal Palace Park was developed by Joseph Paxton and it still has remnants of the old Crystal Palace. The famous dinosaurs sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in 1854 are fantastic to look at scattered around the pond and need constant preservation. It will be a tragedy if any of this goes in favour Yuppie villas.

So, if I get trapped in the park near the yuppie villas, will the bourgeois fuckers set the dogs on me?