
This week’s Clapper is going like the clappers. Believe it or not, these stunning photos are from Clapham Common at the Toast Festival 2009 polo competition, the festival’s main highlight. From the first day, you can see South Africa vs Great Britain in the above picture. Great Britain won 7:6. Thanks to Eddie Clarke, who runs the Clapham Omnibus blog, for sending these in, see a selection of photos including the Umhlathuzi welcome singers in the rest of this post. Continue reading

Now for something totally random! BBC journalist, Maggie Philbin, and her sister Nickie are organising June’s Twitter Tweet Cookoff. What the tweet is that you ask? Well, each month a challenge is set for Twitter users to bake and post their photos of a certain dessert. Entries are then judged by the previous winner and local Clapham celebrity chef, Adam Byatt of Trinity London. June’s dessert is a “summer tart” and entries have to be in by Midday tomorrow, so get cooking! Last month’s winner, chosen by Nickie and Adam, was local Clapper, Edward Clarke – can Clapham claim the crown twice in a row?! Read on for further details. Continue reading

And so it begins. Last week the lorries moved in and now Clapham Common is even more equipped for festivals than Glastonbury (kinda). Toast Festival 2009 starts on Friday through to Sunday for music, BBQs and polo. Then the Abbeville Fete is on Saturday for stalls, food and entertainment. At the same time the Clapham Street Party will be partying hard down by Kaz Bar with celebs, performers and music. It’s all going off out there people! Continue reading

Take celebrity Australian chef John Torode, three horses, a flock of sheep and some scantily clad Antipodean dancers. Stick them altogether on Clapham Common, take a photo and BAM! There’s your perfect launch photo for the Toast Festival 2009 this weekend. Update: the competition is now closed, Love Clapham reader Richard Kellow is the lucky winner! Read on to learn about the Toast Festivals. Continue reading

In the summer Clapham is awash with sport, and our first report of the year is in. Earlier this week Clapham Common played host to the Supernova Korfball Club Tournament. What’s Korfball? In a nutshell, it’s a game with two teams, two zones and you score by getting the ball into raised rings with similarities to both basketball and netball. Supernova, a Clapham based club, holds the tournament each year. Continue reading

What is this? Clapham Common has four of these blighters and they’re clearly a part of a conspiracy. Someone on our forum suggested Victorian rubbish, another said more air raid shelters, a friend thought old basketball courts. Any clues?

The big news for Clapham Picture House this week is that tickets for the summer blockbusters Bruno and Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince have gone on sale already. Get in early by going to their website. Like opera or simply fancy pretending to be cultured? This week’s event is a live broadcast from the Royal Opera House showing La Traviata on Tuesday at 6.40pm. If you haven’t already, check out our interview with the cinema’s manager Mike Matthews to see pictures from the projector room and to learn more about the cinema’s future. Full cinema listings for next week are after the break. Continue reading

Two very exciting things happened to us at the same time this week. Before your imaginations run wild (they’re already running wild aren’t they?) the two things were: 1. going into a cinema projector room 2. meeting someone that has been on The Apprentice. This was accomplished by meeting Clapham Picture House manager and guest star of the 2008 Apprentice series, Mike Matthews, who took the time to speak to Love Clapham about the cinema’s history, its renaissance and its future moves into digital and 3D. Continue reading