I had a visit to Camberwell, days ago, after a long while. I kept an ear out for its liveliness. The buzz felt the same after at least a year since last visiting. I found its park especially light of people in the autumn calm. I took a good short video shoots as well.

Camberwell, in South London, is a borough of Southwark; not a long shot from the City of Charing Cross. I hear it comes from the ancient word ‘Cambrewelle’ (from the word Cumberwell or Comberwell); meaning Well of the Britons.

Camberwell Green was a former traditional green on which annual ancient fairs were held.  

I’m sharing a short clip, 25 seconds of the sights and sounds of this ancient city, all captured with my phone camera and then uploaded onto the video-sharing section of the GTI Platform. The old meets the new. Behold, the ancient, historic, and commercial town of Camberwell! 

 Music so interesting from the famous award-winning group...

‘Africa: A Moral Outrage’ – Tony Blair (Part 2) by Yemi Ogunshola

In Perspective

Anthropologists say that Africa once enjoyed a time of greatness that helped to bring about the civilization of the Western world: a period of scientists, sailors (as in Mansa Musa’s time), scholars, historians, astrologers, mathematicians,and philosophers. In ancient Ghana, then the Gold Coast, you could keep your gold at the village square and return a long time afterward to find the precious metal at the same spot. But it was also a place that provided strong slaves for the plantations of Europe and the Americas.    

Anthropologists say, too, that the concept of trading, negotiation (as in barter), science, sociology, new-age engineering and reconstructionism  spread out of Africa. Northern Africa also had a taste of Roman civilization, spreading down to wealthy Egypt and her neighbouring states.    

Not only was the first university in the world located there, it was also in Africa that modern warfare and the use of guns originated. Alas, the guns have now been developed and re-sold to the old country so political factions could kill each other.  A friend asked recently: “Given the wealth and beauty of the African past, how then did all the good things suddenly go sour?”    

‘Africa: A Moral Outrage’ – Tony Blair  (Part 1) by Yemi Ogunshola

The black Blues

“Europe is not a bad example of how things can change…Europe was at war; Europe was subject to the most terrible resignation…” Words very well put by Mr. Blair at a world press conference in 2005, to which Good Times International (GTI) was invited.

Europe’s is a history fraught over many centuries with uncertainty. It has endured wars, poverty, and pestilence. Britain has had its share of these, battling internal strife, two world wars, general discontent and hardship. More than once the country has experienced royal discontent as feuds rent apart members of the ruling families, for instance, during the period of the Plantagenets. Nor was the nation exempt from disasters: some 70,000 lost their lives to the famous plague. Then in 1666, as in Nero’s Rome, a great fire seared through the city of London, destroying buildings and sending terror into the hearts of inhabitants. It was, as one historian wrote, ‘…a place of fear and flames.’    

Yet, the people picked themselves up and rebuilt anew, as they did after the terrible destruction of World War II.