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4 Frognal Close, Hampstead classic Bauhaus hideously disfigured by neglect of its abstentee owner.

This historic family home - 4 Frognal Close, Hampstead in London NW3 - is finally on the market after 15 years in a tragically sorry state from neglect by its' owner George Michalias who had merely to keep paying some utility bills to maintain its order since his purchase in 2009.

The ‘09 sale was a desperate one being as it was at the height of the disaster of the Great Financial Crisis - no prospective buyer could get a mortgage not even the well-heeled families who were keen to move in and make a home. The then owners who had lived there for 40 years were pressed by probate circumstances, the huge anxiety of collapsing world markets and the credit crunch to sell to a quick cash buyer. Enter Mr Michalias, showing no interest in the classic design although, in fairness, his visiting family did appear to. It takes a certain kind of contempt for a property of this ilk to be left to deteriorate so catastrophically in wealthy London. But that's what privateer landlords, landgrabs and expensive lawyers, can render in this day and age. Even squatters wouldn’t touch the house except the cannabis farmers who managed to break in and set up shop. They were evicted a couple of years ago. Squatting does if nothing else benefit the building per se. Private property ownership in this country should come with more robust legal commitments as exist in Australia and elsewhere. The EDMO (Empty Dwelling Management Orders) of local councils are simply toothless. After many years of neighbour complaints, Camden Council could only oblige George Michalias to 'clean up' the front of the house which he did by felling the entire front garden (including a decades-old wisteria and beautiful rambling roses) and erecting a side fence to prevent interlopers (ho ho!)

The wooden window frames of the living room date from the original 1960's refit.

There are zero photos of the interior in the 2024 brochure because what's left is appalling. Original 1930's and 1960's parquet flooring gone, walls and ceilings collapsed. A once-cherished garden left to revert to wilderness.

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There are two hundred ageing dams in California. Never mind the rest of the USA. None are more than a century old. As if proof were needed that major dams projects have a very short shelf life indeed, barely three or four generations of people have benefited from these monumental constructions which are now being dismantled. Indigenous cultures don’t experience this sort of problem because they know how to work with the land - not over it.

Corporation of London’s £23 million Heath Dams Project is a colossal waste of resources. The ecological holocaust they have unleashed will take decades to heal.

Our vigilant female lifeguards manning the decks at the mixed pond during women-only hours have observed through their high-end binoculars the slippery shenanigans of Bam Nuttal’s useless subcontractors.

Two big construction faux pas.

One: surreptitiously dumping soil at the edge of the drainage bank thinking nobody would notice or mind the muddy mound protruding through the water’s surface.

Two: not securing the new pilings set in around the reconstructed drain thus causing leaks. Pretty damn obvious thing to do.

And this just at the mixed pond which is under constant observation. The water there is not good quality. I keep getting scratches from detritus when I swim. Every week, more skin damage.

Who knows what’s happening at other ponds. The Boating Lake seems to be at an impasse. Men in big machines just pushing soil around to no apparent end.

Jennifer Woods, project manager of the heath holocaust, having received complaints from our dutiful lifeguards has now vowed to rectify the problem at the mixed pond. But the list goes on….

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More from Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Women’s post-show interactive.

The NW3/N6 Heath women’s pond scarf begins its’ world tour at UCL Anthropology Dept. Bloomsbury, London on international women's day, March 8th, 2016

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Hampstead Women’s Pond swimmers brought the now 750 feet scarf to a special International Women’s Day event at University College London’s Anthropology Department. Artist Marisa Carnesky and her merry band of menstruants’ reimagine women’s ritual power through the practice of public performance, in this case with cabaret antics, spoken word and video art.

Fortuitously, this year’s #IWD fell on DARK MOON - the very time when women, historically and mythologically, would retreat in to menstrual seclusion, bleeding quietly and communally in their sacred menstrual huts, their lunar lodge.

The Rainbow Snake, a common feature of ancient tribal myths worldwide but especially in Australian Aboriginal culture, symbolises unity between heaven and earth as made manifest in women’s clever lunar cyclic menstruation, fertility what else. http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/syllabus/incredible-bleeding-woman-cabaret-performance

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All welcome at this special International Women’s Day event at University College London, Bloomsbury. Bonus add-on: A re-enactment of the Hampstead women’s pond January closing party. The now famous 575ft scarf will be unfurled again in front of a 200 seater audience. May be breathing room only. Stay on for the post-cabaret discussion group with a mini-presentation from some pond swimmers including Dr.Ruth whose idea it was for the massively popular scarf knit-a-thon

Future suggested ceremonial scarf unfurling locales include:- + Central Park, Hudson River NYC + Sydney Harbour with The Buckettes - a local Ozzie women’s swimmer group

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Gilbert and George - the gay duck duo by A-T-E-L

Lovingly anthropomorphised by our aesthete lifeguards, these two little darlings bring male homo pair-bonding in to real life at the women’s pond, Hampstead. Will they still be there when we return in May after reconstruction? Or will the hardhatted, arse-cracked, macho, monster, bulldozing builders put them off? Maybe they’ll just go Village People on us, instead. A quacked version of YMCA, if we’re lucky.

Further reading on queer monogamy in birds and other non-humans:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zsv9qty?intc_type=singletheme&intc_location=homepage&intc_campaign=iwonder&intc_linkname=guide_monogamousanimals_contentcard8

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Reeling out the enormous scarf on Flickr.

Scarf’s true length exceeds all guesstimates - by a long shot!

It is, in fact, a whopping FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE FEET!! Nearly double what it looked like stretched across the meadows and pathways of the women’s pond. Still, there are some items knitted and as yet unstiched to the total!

For now, the luxuriously long and emblematic scarf is being housed under the eaves of the women’s changing room at the mixed pond - our temporary home until the builders shifty outta our own pond.

Big news! In the wake of our saucy sauna salons at the lido during that interstitial week when the women of the heath had no post-prandial pond to swim in, (1st week in Feb, 2016 - see previous post), a bid was tentatively submitted to certain important people to have our own wilderness-appropriate winter sauna at the refurb’d women’s pond. The initial answer is YES. We will build, design, and possibly even pay for it. But a proper survey of many more swimmers and the KLPA (Kenwood Ladies’ Pond Association) needs to happen first.

Dreaming of a yogini tantric priestess’ rounded temple SLASH thirteen moons menstrual lodge SLASH sybarite's sloth zone SLASH anything goes why not with lots of foresty bits.

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Recently, calls for the City of London to be relieved of their duty to ‘manage the Heath’ are gaining traction. Bob Warnock, the much disliked Superintendent and non-pond swimmer, claims the City have spent £50 million in the last 5 years - ON WHAT? It only costs an estimated £4.8 million per year to run. So where has the other £25-8 million gone? That be the dams, then? As stated in the Camden New Journal article above, a new culture of unfettered corporatisation has infected the consultation committee proceedings which the City is obliged by law to participate in with their fellow managing cohorts, charities mostly. They clearly view such meetings as mere window-dressing. The concept of public interest is no more.

We are tired of fighting these people. So tired. Everything is a battle with them. Because all they want is to protect their financial interests. Their assault on the ecology of the ancient heathland is an assault on humanity because fundamentally we don’t exist in their mind’s eye.

The Heath cannot nor ever should be a book keeper’s ‘performing asset’. The City of London (Square Mile Squadron) behaves like a dysfunctionally bereaved widower who can’t accept his wife’s death and so leases out all her secured unindebted assets to gain financially to cover and disguise the unbearable emotional pain of her loss. Somethings you just can’t monetise.

For those wishing to investigate, it is well documented that The City has embedded its’ Vatican-style financial hegemony, during the past one thousand years of its’ shady history, by resorting to all sorts of chicanery, arcanery, money laundering and harbouring of tyrants’ (plural!) ill-gotten gains. The list goes on, no less so in its’ dealings as ‘Manager of Hampstead Heath’. Case in point: A family whose house and garden abuts the South End Green pond, were bullied by the City into forfeiting part of their land to the new dam works because they had, several years previously, almost been flooded. Emphasis on almost. In fact, what had happened during a series of heavy storms, (probably 2005/6?) the water level had risen to such an extent that their garden was becoming quite damp. The clever rangers from the Heath quickly realised the pond’s drainage valve was blocked and so waded in with their shoulder-high gumboots to clean out the problem area manually and with great dexterity. Lawn dry. No insurance claim required. End of. And sure enough, the heat of following years would have evaporated any excess water thereafter. (#see below). But the City wouldn’t let the story go. Like a demented dog with a bone, gnawing psychotically. They employed all sorts of legalese to withhold putative insurance payments on any future flooding (according to some meteorologists’ worst case scenario, a 1 in 400 year occurrence) unless the owners relinquished part of their garden to the monstrous £23 million dam works. This, the family in question, duly did knowing what complications there would be with future valuations and resale of their property. Sans a sorry cheque from the City. It is, of course, sheer folly to build bricks and mortar so close to so much water but people will be romantic. Nevertheless, they’d be selling a property smaller to what they had bought.

To add some sense of scale to the phenomenal wealth of The City, citizens should note that the FOREX market computers are housed within its’ famous Square Mile. Those machines trade $2 trillion per day! A tiny tiny tax on those transactions (similar in logic to the Robin Hood Tax being touted) would more than cover the so-called running costs of the Heath. Sack the constabulary for starters as they are fast exhibiting their knee jerk fascist tendencies which can only get worse once, as feared, they have powers to dispense ‘on the spot’ £300 fines to cyclists and to register dog walkers for license fee payments.

Pay the rangers and lifeguards better - they’re the people who do actual physical work to make the Heath the very thing we need it for. Last year, their discontent was made manifest politically in a mass boycott of the Christmas company lunch at Guildhall which anyway they’re obliged to pay £15 to enjoy. Is it normal to pay these days? Thought such meals were meant to be a perk. Like pensions are meant to be a kinda deferred salary payment.

Please can we get rid of these ghastly managers. Even if it takes 30 years, it’ll be in my lifetime probably.

And so worth it if the public can once again can feel some sense of ownership of its’ own land which is all the more important in the climate of acute housing precarity now afflicting London.

There are alternative management structures we could implement but the public must agitate and argue for them. Loudly.

(# Just like it did in ‘75 when Gospel Oak got a bit flooded, kids had to wear gumboots to school for a couple of days and then the heatwave of ‘76 caused the aquifers to dry out, thus balancing out risk, actuarial or otherwise)

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At the women’s pond closing party, Hampstead Heath. Sunday afternoon, January 31st, 2016

Ceremonial scarf unfurling

Women swimmers (their friends and mothers) spent 3 weeks knitting a 300 foot ‘peace and protest’ scarf for when the pond would be forcibly closed for the building works of dubious necessity.

At our high-octane closing party, we unfurl the scarf and wrap it protectively around our beloved pond to insulate her from the Corporation of London’s over-zealous concrete and wire dams redevelopment. The women’s pond is, in effect, unconsecrated Holy Ground. Many swimmers’ ashes have been, over multiple decades, sacramentally scattered amongst her herbaceous borders and across her muddy green waters. Some form of exorcism may need to take place on our return in May (probably June) 2016, to banish the bad energy created by the monstrous disruption and burial disturbances.

For blog polemics on the Hampstead Heath Dams Project horror show read: http://www.tessies-hope.tumblr.com December 2015 entries onward.

A tale where capitalist corporate imperatives tragically trump ecological necessity.

Low quality interim video on Youtube. Vimeo hi-end quality due next

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Ceremonial scarf stretching by A-T-E-L Closing party. Women’s pond. 31st Jan, 2016.

Picture gallery of day's event now online. Click on image to access.

Video of all 300 feet of scarf coming soon.

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VIDEO: Hampstead Women’s Pond Choir (non-KLPA affiliated) North London, England

At our closing party, January 31st 2016.

“We are the weavers…” Old folk protest song from Greenham Common days. Old as in 30 years ago!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenham_Common_Women%27s_Peace_Camp

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AUM chanting across the water. Women’s pond closing ceremony. Jan 31st, 2016.

Actually, we chanted the word ‘Pond’ in ‘Aum’ stylee but I missed recording the opening consonant so it sounds more like ‘aum’

May the healing vibes resonate powerfully over our dear pond while we are banished during the wicked wicked dam works.

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Naughtiness at the women’s pond closing party by A-T-E-L Via Flickr: The notorious graffiti which the local rag, Ham & High, (Hampstead and Highgate Express) in their slavish adherence to bourgeois politesse, would not publish.

Certain women were intent on daubing our soon-to-be-demolished walls with naive genitalia pictograms, so the above seemed like a happy compromise between the differing sensibilities of the swimmers. Yeah, seems….

Could someone please explain “Last day at little school”. Ta.

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KLPA Chair, Mary Cane speech. by A-T-E-L Via Flickr: Wedged between two luscious mermaids, Mary delivers a rousing call to arms at the women’s pond closing party last Sunday. “The struggle continues…” she proclaimed. Spoken like a true revolutionary, Mary! Is that, in fact, the word ’revolution’ spray painted behind her? Or maybe the word ‘forever’ as in… ‘our pond forever’ as in ‘we cannot be kept down’? Either way, formidable was definitely the theme of the day.

KLPA stands for Kenwood Ladies Pond Association - a kind of pressure and support group for 1000′s of our women swimmers.

http://www.klpa.org.uk

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Closing time at Women’s pond, Hampstead, London on Flickr.

January 31st, 2016. Shutters came down for the very last time on our beloved hut. Dusk of an old era. Demolition at dawn tomorrow.

Mad party antics on our last day.

Pics soon online of skinning dipping, naked promenading, ceremonial scarf stretching, choral singing, ‘uninvited art’ activism, boating for beginners, lifeguard antics, great ethnic cuisine, pastries galore and the rest - including a video following all 300 feet of the unfurled scarf.

Amazing commemoration.

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Better shape up - the scarf standard bearer has arrived. by A-T-E-L Via Flickr: Just arrived today - amazing hand-stitched imagery. Latest addition to the peace and protest scarf. Now reaching 200 feet.

Women’s pond closing party. All day until 2.30pm Sunday 31st Jan, 2016. Hampstead Heath. North London.

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Six million vintage bathing hats. Choose one.

For the women’s pond closing party, Jan 31st, 2016 Hampstead Heath.