EOTL03: March 02nd 2010: Have you ever been to a Harvester before?

[David Scott]

Pictures

There are three things I want to say about Ealing.

The first is that you shouldn’t get your hopes up on the famous residents front. I’ve tried my best with the EOTL03 video collection but beyond Matt Munroe and John Sargent there’s really not much to talk about. Ealing Film Studios is there of course but Alec Guinness & co. seem to have jumped on a train home to High Barnet or wherever at the end of the day. Rentaghost was based in Ealing but again Molly the McWitch Weir and the rest lived elsewhere.

My second point is that Ealing can only loosely be described as ‘On the Edge’. I mean look at the map:

Now compare this to say, High Barnet:

You get my point I think.

Its nearness to London however, probably explains why arriving at Ealing Broadway is such a gloriously metropolitan affair. You pass by clusters of coffee and pasty shops before even getting off the platform. Outside the station Ealing Central models itself more on Shoreditch than Cockfosters.

(In addition to being culturally quite edgy and geographically not very edgy, Ealing Broadway tube station is, in EOTL terms ‘Double Edgy’ [Footnote #1]. The question of how ‘On the Edge’ Ealing is therefore isn’t a straightforward one.)

I met Biggs in a bar called the North Star. It’s only seconds from the tube station and serves up dirty music and smooth cocktails to a smart young set. Many of them wear thick black glasses and sit around reading post-structuralist texts.

“I need to get a picture of that,” Biggs said, pointing at one such bloke who was lounging beneath the pubs large windows.

“He’ll think you’re after him.”

“No he won’t.”

“Wait ‘til we’re on the way out... Look I’ve got some ideas about where we can go.”

“Whatever you want. You should view this as your EOTL.”

That’s the third thing I meant to say about Ealing: I used to live there. It’s where my wife and I fell in love. I first met Judith fourteen years ago in a dive bar in a West end town (it was called the Dive Bar and in the West End; they played a lot of Pet Shop Boys songs). I was at the end of a flatshare at the time and being reckless she said that I could stay with her in East Ealing. We got on. A year and a half later we'd be signing up to mortgages and other adult stuff in Islington but for that year and a half we just enjoyed ourselves and bathed carefree in the East Ealing sunshine.

“There’s a Nepalese curry house over the road,” I said to Biggs. “We could have a quick curry there and then head east by the Common for drinks. There’s a pub...have you ever been to a Harvester before?”

“A Harvester?”

“Yes”

“A rubbish beer and all the shit food you can eat, Harvester?”

“This is a very special Harvester.”

“Really?”

“Judith and I used to go there all the time. The last time we were there we were filtering through Dulux colour cards, planning our new home in Islington. It’s a very special place.”

“Fine, let’s go.” I could tell that Biggs wasn’t convinced.

“You’ll like it, I promise.”

“It’s your EOTL”

“You'll like it, really. Don’t forget your picture.”

I waited while Biggs explained to the chap beneath the window that someone had marked out a penis on the glass above his head and that he Biggs would like to capture the moment for an EOTL scrapbook.

Twenty minutes later we arrived at the far side of the Common to find...nothing. The Harvester had been demolished. In its place was a low cost housing scheme . Biggs seemed undisturbed by this, grateful even. By the time we had settled down in Jono’s Irish pub across the road his spirits seemed inappropriately high.

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[Footnote #1] ‘Double Edgy’: an EOTL term referring to the fact that a station terminates more than one line. Ealing Broadway could for example be viewed as both EOTL03 & EOTL04 since it terminates both the Central and District lines. Biggs says this would just be kidding ourselves though.

[David Wright]

There was a penis. Unfortunately, my photograph didn't turn out that well due to the lighting (rather than my crap photography skills). One of the men at the window kindly added some additional touches to the window art, too...

[Marion de Voy]

Are we going to see a photo of the penis? Was there a penis, or was that just a ploy? I think double- edgy works, personally. Look forward to EOTL05.

[David Wright]

I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised by the success of the Homes Not Harvesters campaign. And Jono's was a fine pub.