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Sophie's world<br />
Photo: Claire Lawrie<br />
There's hidden vitality and inventiveness going<br />
on behind every dilapidated ancient facade.<br />
I'm not talking about the City, though there is<br />
undoubtedly all sorts of creativity in accounting<br />
going on behind those glass doors, but to what<br />
end? I suppose it enables the people of younger<br />
Chelsea to exist another day to argue with their<br />
neighbours over their much-needed basement<br />
pool extensions, thus making them feel busy. The<br />
idle rich from Russia to Paris (see War and Peace)<br />
have always been good at appearing occupied.<br />
But when will they understand that going to the<br />
hairdressers or telling someone else to cook<br />
their dinner Is Not Work, however exhausting it is<br />
having a personal trainer?<br />
Real work is what people do in the courtyards<br />
and old warehouses along the canals of Hackney<br />
Wick and Bethnal Green. There are the craft<br />
beer brewers and gin distillers with matching<br />
bars crammed with people loving the real thing.<br />
There's the Yard Theatre, ice cube producers,<br />
engineering works, salmon smokeries, couturiers<br />
– small businesses old and young beavering away<br />
to a waiting audience. The life-drawing classes<br />
for professional artists or ogling amateurs, or the<br />
supper clubs serving dinner to half-naked bathers<br />
in hot tubs might be hilarious to watch, but<br />
somebody loves these mad ideas.<br />
Sophie at her East End club, Vout-O-Reenee's<br />
The inventiveness and<br />
vitality of the East End is<br />
something we must hold on<br />
to, says Sophie Parkin<br />
Walking through this hive of industry last week<br />
in the sunshine reminded me that the Chelsea<br />
I knew when I was growing up was like this,<br />
too. It's now drained of energy and full of gated<br />
communities.<br />
Poverty might be the mother of invention, but<br />
keeping the inventions coming and keeping<br />
the poverty away is the answer to securing the<br />
energetic hub. Remember, it's the things you<br />
don't start-up that you regret.<br />
Be careful what you wish for. Like all things for<br />
sale, Made in Chelsea comes with an expensive<br />
price tag.<br />
I love throwing a great birthday party. We do a lot<br />
at Vout-O-Reenees. My mum's 84th will be a great<br />
bash of fun. One thing I've learnt from parties is<br />
that youth is nothing to do with appearance, and<br />
that's what I love about old East London, too.<br />
Sophie Parkin is an author and owner of<br />
vout-o-reenees.com<br />
14 LOVEEAST
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