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Just down the road from Hither Green lies Kidbrooke, and what's left of the Ferrier Estate. Built in the 1960s-70s, it's now in the process of being "developed" – development, in this case, meaning knocking much of it down and starting again. Many of the buildings are now sitting empty, windows smashed out, Sky dishes aiming pointlessly up, wet curtains billowing in the wind. Plants are even beginning to grow into and over some blocks.

It's an interesting place. On one hand, its current state of delapidation is almost epic, and past residents have written of its numerous problems: crime, gangs, rats, water supply problems and ants (see comments here). The buildings, created from huge slabs of concrete, have not aged well, and have a depressingly monolithic look to rival the kind of Soviet housing you see in much of Eastern Europe.

But despite all that, take even a quick glance at what's left of the Ferrier Estate and you see what the GLC was aiming for when it constructed it. The huge low-rise blocks were to provide large quantities of much-needed social housing, set in landscaped grounds rather than rows of terraced blocks like those near Waterloo, and with communal spaces even above ground level courtesy of the walkways – a bit of classic modernism.

A huge boiler was to provide heat and hot water for all, and there were schools on-site. These pictures from the time show the estate as it was when newly constructed – it's unclear whether these were posed, but even if so you get the idea of what the GLC was aiming for.

And, of course, it all fell apart. The boiler system failed, the covered car park shown in the second photo above had to be removed for security reasons, and the open walkways were divided off. Now, 40 years on, the whole thing's about to be taken down.

With 20/20 hindsight it's easy to judge this kind of project harshly. It'll be interesting, though, to see what people are saying about the new, replacement housing that's due to be built after it's been up for 40 years – and if it even lasts that long.

The colour photos here were taken yesterday – more can be found in my Flickr set. The black-and-white photos were taken around the time the estate was built by the GLC Architects' Department, and are reproduced here from Iqbal Alam's excellent Flickr set, which also contains some excellent information about the Ferrier Estate and the GLC. These photos are presumably copyrighted, but it's unclear as to who owns those rights now.

Somewhere in deepest darkest Greenwich, out near the Millenium Dome, lies an Odeon multiplex cinema. Formerly a Filmworks, it's the shape of a huge bucket and holds 18 screens including, since December, an IMAX theatre.

How, I wondered, can you cram an IMAX screen into an existing cinema without ripping a good half-dozen other screens out? The answer is that, as it turns out, you don't. You stick a smaller screen in, slap a big IMAX badge on the outside and a few extra quid on each ticket.

Look on the web for information on the Greenwich IMAX and you'll find that IMAX has been outfitting cinemas with a system completely different to its traditional "build a screen the size of Jupiter and project 70mm film on it" setup for some time. Some people are very angry with the fact that the new, identically named, IMAX system is obviously inferior to the original as it uses a far smaller screen and relatively low-spec projectors (two 2K, rather than 4K, models). You'll also find an Odeon website blathering about "floor to ceiling screens" and "theatre geometry", while a local newspaper report shows four kids with an oversized ticket and the rather grainy picture of the screen I've reproduced above.

Nothing on the web, though, could tell me what I needed to know: should we pick an IMAX showing of the film (conforming entirely to stereotype, we wanted to see Star Trek) at Greenwich or the slightly cheaper 35mm screening next door? So, dear Google indexing robots and those who may be searching for the same information, here's my two cents.

The IMAX screen (9) is, appropriately, one of the biggest – almost 240 seats in three banks. Most of the central bank are "premier" seats that cost extra. We were on the aisle on a side bank about two thirds of the way up, and the view was fine – the rake's quite steep, so you can see clearly over those in front. The screen itself is nowhere near IMAX size, but large enough for the auditorium and, yes, almost floor to ceiling, while the sound system is impressive if terrifyingly loud. The image in our showing was brilliant for roughly two hours of the film, but marred by annoying blue stripes for about two minutes near the start – whatever caused these, they were fortunately banished.

So, is this new, smaller IMAX a con? Possibly – it's certainly confusing. Is it worth a fiver per ticket if you know it's not proper IMAX, though? I'd say so: short glitch aside, the picture is better than most that I've seen in UK multiplexes lately, so you're paying a bit more for a high quality digital screening. And, as an added bonus, there's very little pre-film advertising to suffer through – just a few IMAX idents and two of the dumbest trailers I've ever seen (Transformers 2 and, honestly, GI Joe The Movie). Go, gawk, enjoy – just don't cough up any more for the Premier seats.

Oh, and Star Trek is really rather good. Thanks for asking.

We found out that Boris had won – or was pretty much guaranteed to win – at about 3pm yesterday when Paddy Power paid out winnings to those who had bet on him winning. How depressing. In the immortal words of Kent Brockman: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: democracy doesn't work.

And so we enter four years of floppy-fringed fascism*. I think London should sit on the naughty step until it learns a little about democratic responsibilities such as actually examining manifestos and not believing everything printed in the Baby Mail, which showed its true colours over the past few weeks.

On a local level, though, there were reasons to be both cheerful and horrified:

Good news: the vast majority of the turnout goes to serious parties that had considered policies for the key issues in the city (although these policies obviously varied in merit): Labour, Tories and the Lib-Dems. Also, good news from my perspective: Labour hold the area.

Bad news: eight and a half thousand people – or 5% of voters – in my area saw fit to vote for the National Front. In nearby Bexley and Bromley (easily won by James Cleverly, a Conservative) the NF candidate took over 11,000 votes. Almost 20,000 people in South East London, then, chose to vote NF.

The NF isn't, like UKIP, simply a party of anti-federalists and simpler "save the pound, God save the Queen" types united in a dislike of Europe – it's a party that wants, according to its website, "Britain to remain a white country". Some of the votes it has gathered might be a mere protest against the three main parties – but wouldn't those who simply want to protest against perceived Westminster cronyism vote UKIP, who also ran in the area?

Although this election shows an obvious swing to the right across the board, almost certainly courtesy of petrol pump paranoia (again, no thanks to Dacre and co) and Northern Rock, I'd be surprised if former Labour voters would swing much further than Cameron's Conservatives out of some generalised fear of an economic malaise or simpler dislike of Gordon Brown. Similarly, although some right-wing Tories might want to move away from Cameron and his hoodie-hugging (he hasn't caught me yet, fortunately) I can't see them moving further than UKIP.

And so we're left with the prospect that thousands of people in this city genuinely want a political party that actually wants to deport non-white people from the UK (or "repatriation of all coloured people currently resident here" as it puts it). And that – however it might be caused – is both a terrifying and depressing prospect and something that needs to be addressed. Given Mr Johnson's past I'm not entirely convinced that he's the right man for the job, but this is something that should concern him and his supporters just as much as it does those of us to his left.

* Yes, I'm aware that Boris isn't a fascist, but I adore asinine alliteration.