Lowri Griffiths Visits the Neighbour Borough and Returns With Observations About Oat Milk, Planning Applications, and the Specific Self-Satisfaction of People Who Describe Themselves as East London

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

By Lowri Griffiths | The London Prat

I went to Hackney on Tuesday for a meeting about something to do with community engagement, which is the category of event in which North and East London overlap sufficiently that we can share a venue without ideological incident. I had not been to Hackney since before Christmas, which is approximately six renovations of the average Hackney cafe, and I want to report the following.

One: The Oat Milk Situation Has Escalated

I asked for oat milk in a cafe on Broadway Market and the barista said, with the patient resignation of someone explaining gravity to a tourist, that they have four kinds of oat milk. Four. Standard, barista, organic barista, and “full fat oat” which I did not previously know was a category of oat milk but apparently is now and apparently costs 60 pence more than the regular oat milk, which is already 50 pence more than regular milk. I asked what the difference between organic barista oat milk and regular barista oat milk was. She looked at me the way baristas in Broadway Market have looked at people asking this question for three years now, with a combination of weary patience and quiet superiority, and explained that the organic version is sourced from certified farms. I ordered the regular barista. I could not afford the principles.

Two: There Are Now More Planning Applications Than Buildings

The lamppost notice board on my route to the meeting had, by my count, eleven planning application notices. Eleven. One building site appeared to have four overlapping applications on the same lamppost, creating a palimpsest of planning bureaucracy that required a torch and a degree in local government procedure to parse. I understand that development in Hackney is contested and that community consultation is important, but eleven planning notices on a single block of street suggests that either Hackney Council is unusually thorough or the block in question is unusually subject to change, and from what I could see it was both, because two of the buildings being applied for were directly adjacent and appeared to be in an architectural disagreement about whether the street should have a period conversion or a glass extension. Bohiney Magazine’s planning satire covers this phenomenon comprehensively.

Three: Someone Is Selling Fermented Vegetables From a Stall and It Is Going Extremely Well

A market stall was selling fermented vegetables. Not just kimchi — fermented vegetables generally, in jars, with handwritten labels describing the fermentation process with a specificity and enthusiasm that I have previously only seen applied to single malt whisky. I spoke to the operator. He had previously worked in finance. Of course he had. The fermented vegetables were very good. I bought a jar. It cost twelve pounds. I have eaten worse for twelve pounds at restaurants with menus.

Four Through Seven: The Usual

A man in his fifties wearing paint-splattered dungarees and a hat that communicated “I have stopped caring about appearance in a way that requires considerable effort to achieve.” A dog, very large, impeccably groomed, wearing what appeared to be a small jacket. A pub that was open at 11am, playing Spotify jazz at a volume carefully calibrated to say “we are open” without saying “we are trying.” A mural on a wall that had been painted over another mural in a way that incorporated the previous mural’s colours, which is either a statement about artistic continuity or someone who didn’t buy enough primer. More from London’s boroughs at The London Prat.

Conclusion

Hackney is, as ever, exactly what Hackney is. The meeting was about community engagement. The community appears to be engaged with fermented vegetables, planning applications, and four kinds of oat milk. This may be what community engagement looks like now. I will report back.

More laughs at The Daily Mash and NewsThump.

What This All Adds Up To

North London in 2026 is a city within a city within a crisis, and living in it requires a specific combination of resilience, dark humour, and the ability to find joy in things that are technically fine — an on-time train, a good sandwich, a flat viewing that went moderately well. I have lived here long enough to know that the standard of “fine” adjusts continuously downward in response to baseline conditions, and that the joy is genuine despite being calibrated to a low benchmark. The rental market is breaking people’s financial plans. The buses are philosophical. The coffee is excellent and expensive and I will continue to drink it with the slight guilt of someone who has thought carefully about their principles and then ordered the oat milk flat white anyway. More from North London next week, assuming I survive the commute. More from across London at Bohiney Magazine. More irreverence, always, at The London Prat.

Personal Note

These observations are, of course, entirely personal, entirely North London in their register, and entirely the product of a person who has lived here long enough to know that the complaining is a form of love. You don’t complain about places you don’t care about. You don’t notice the coffee being both excellent and too expensive unless you are buying it regularly, which means you have chosen to live in the place where it costs this much, and that choice is a statement about values whether you frame it that way or not. I love North London in the way that you love things that are imperfect and expensive and occasionally very beautiful, and I am grateful for the platform at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat that lets me write about it every week. The next piece will be about the Overground. It will run late. The piece, not the train. Actually, possibly both.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/hackney-london-observations-lowri-griffiths/