Londoner Forever

I haven’t managed to get to a computer since I flew in early on Saturday morning, but have been recording snippets of clarity (or not) on my Handspring, which has also been a darling in facilitating my Making Of Lists and resultant (surprising) efficiency these few days.

So. Here be randomness, made marginally less random by chronological arrangement.

* * *

When most of your packing is incomplete and you’re on a flight in three hours, the most important thing you need to be doing is probably not arranging and re-arranging tacky metal letters on a tacky leather strap to see what words you can make, but this is, of course, what I found myself doing on Friday evening. My sister bought me a bag when she went to China recently. It was in almost all respects a very nice bag, except for the fact that on its front, shiny metal letters strung on a leather strap screamed MOSCHINO. After unpicking the strap and removing M,I, C and H thinking they might come in useful some time, I was left with O, S, N and O, which I fiddled around with a bit before settling on SNOO, which somehow appealed to me. Enigmatic. Fun to yell.

* * *

The in-flight entertainment on the plane wasn’t particularly promising this time – nothing I particularly wanted to watch except for stuff I’d already seen, but I couldn’t resist Coming To America, which I know in such frightening detail that it was a real effort restraining myself from joining in at “Freeze, you diseased rhinoceros pizzle!” The audio track to Moulin Rouge got inexplicably mixed up with the audio track to A Knight’s Tale, so after watching people doing the can-can to We Will Rock You for a few minutes (strangely appropriate, actually) I decided, and I maintain, only after all this, to switch to Bridget Jones’ Diary, for the nth time. With my Handspring, foldable keyboard and a dry martini on the table in front of me, and Colin Firth a foot away on the screen, I almost forgot I was flying economy class.

* * *

(written in absolute joy on Saturday morning)

I’m in my hall, sitting next to the window in my room, and despite having just gotten off a thirteen-hour flight with very little sleep and hauling my gargantuan suitcase across London and up three flights of stairs (with help from Justin, who thankfully responded to my unsubtle hints about men being strong and him being a Real Man), right now I feel like I want to sweep all of London up in my arms and kiss everyone hello.

The airbus from Heathrow was almost empty, which you’d expect at 6.34 am, and I sat on the top deck right in front, not caring that the sun was shining into my eyes because the vapour trails in the sky were worth risking blindness for.

(note to self, though: readjust paranoia from rock-bottom Singapore level to reasonably high London level. When probably-well-meaning guy helps you lug your suitcase onto the bus and remarks that it’s very heavy, replying “Well, it’s got my entire life in it!” is perhaps not the best of responses, given the slim but ever-present possibility that probably-well-meaning guy might turn out to be fucking-arsehole-thief guy.)

I got into the hall and my room, freshened up a bit and decided that morning mass would be a good thing to do. Finding out I was the only congregant put me on tenterhooks for a while (what if I suddenly forget the Hail Mary? what if I don’t stand up and sit down when I’m supposed to when I can’t just follow what everyone else is doing?) but everything went well, and I managed to make the minor liturgical re-adjustments from Singapore to London (“sins” -> “trespasses”, “do not bring us to the test” -> “lead us not into temptation”, which I vastly prefer) without any major mishaps.

After mass there were familiar faces at breakfast, familiar Saturday papers reminding me how London is teeming with things to do, familiar toast-burning toaster…and through all this I was feeling like I couldn’t stop smiling, that there was nothing I didn’t feel like doing, no one I wouldn’t be happy to see, that everything, at least right now, is as good as it gets.

Oh, something I’ve kept on forgetting to mention, which is surprising considering the loud Wahoooooey! I screamed out into the night on finding this out last week: my exam results.

Regular readers will be aware of this traumatic exam, in which I contemplated first incontinence and then bestiality. Happily, my performance in it was apparently worth a first, as was my criminal law exam. Contract and Tort, as well as property, got 2-2s, which is wonderful given that I was expecting third classes or fails for those. (first=A, 2-2=C)

I’m obviously incredibly relieved at this, but I can’t help thinking I’ve snatched undeserved achievement from the jaws of just deserts, yet again. I seem to have been doing this for much of my life, and I can’t remember any exam I’ve done where I actually thought I got what I deserved. Based on the amount of work and commitment I put in, I only ever deserve to fail.

But! Next year will be different! I will put in Sustained And Conscientous Effort and DESERVE my first (oh please, please, please) or my second-upper (I’ll settle for that, I guess, but no lower, no lower, no lower!).

Life right now is almost the stuff of trite summer London tourist brochures, and it’s wonderful.

Monday was meant to begin with swimming, but ULU decided to close the pool for repairs till July on the very day I’d resolved to start a fitness regimen. The afternoon was Requiem For A Dream at the Prince Charles Cinema (admittedly not quite the feelgood hit of the season, but I loved it), me dragging ever-patient Russ with his gym bag around HMV, and overpriced chai and priceless conversation at Essence.

Dinner with various hallmates was creamy pasta, chicken kievs, Savoy cabbage garnished with bacon bits, fried onions and sweetcorn (my contribution), and peaches with Neapolitan ice-cream. We washed up to the sound of other hallmates singing Gretchaninoff’s Cantate Domino, in four-part harmony. Noelia sashayed downstairs, having embarked on intensive post-exam drinking much earlier in the day and now trying to recover from a hangover at 9.30 at night. Artem the mad Russian was laughing maniacally at Running Man in the TV room.

I spent the rest of the night in my room, listening to the CDs I’d bought at HMV (Copland, orchestral works; Sibelius, Symphony No 2 and Jascha Heifetz playing the Violin Concerto in D; Yehudi Menuhin playing the Beethoven and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos) and trudging through Underworld, which is getting increasingly tedious two thirds of the way through, and eventually put me to sleep.

* * *

Tuesday was for reading. I spent three leisurely hours in the UCL library, now almost empty because everyone has either finished exams or is studying outside on the grass. I joined them there later, with my little pile of books (Steppenwolf, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, Made In America, Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

Next stop was Waterstones, when summerness had started to be a bit of a pain in the arse. I’m a Waterstones skimmer and Borders reader, so the next hour was spent without really committing myself to anything, but flitting from section to section. Sputnik Sweetheart, English Passengers, The Death Of Vishnu, poetry by Kenneth Patchen, Arthur Rimbaud (in translation), the new Seamus Heaney, Nigella Bites, a book about Francis Bacon, and after Francis Bacon I felt like going back out into the sunshine, so I did.

Back at home, we went through the draft copy of our hall yearbook, ostensibly to check for errors (we corrected “bollix” to “bollocks”), but more so that we could scribble comments like “Let’s go, grrrls!” and “Phhhhwwwwoaaaarrr” under people’s entries.

* * *

Wednesday was time for some practicality again, and the afternoon was spent with Luke trying to plan our upcoming jaunt up the UK, which involved a fire alarm at Borders, brochure hoarding at the British Tourist Office, the recently shrunken fiver lunch at Belgo’s, the grass at Soho Square, swing dancing with Jitterbugs at the Notre Dame, and the generally loony exuberance that is Luke’s company.

* * *

And today? Today is gorgeous and zingy, and it’s all gonna be great.

FREEDOM.

And now the hedonism begins. No fits yet, Mum, hedonism my style is ridiculously tame.

Friday was lots of Japanese food (girly lunch at Ikkyu with Victoria and Jolene, exorbitant dinner at Yo!Sushi with Russ, Gareth, Matt, and assorted friends of Gareth and Matt), some forgettable pub in Soho, and the ever-reliable Gallery at Turnmills, which yielded an excellent set from Anthony Pappa, and further addition to the growing body of evidence that my hair is too butch (picked up/groped by: 3 girls versus 1 guy. No fits here either, Mum, this cold bitch never reciprocates). Getting accosted and followed by Eurotrash from Tottenham Court Road to my doorstep while walking home alone around 5 am after parting with Russ and Gareth was rather unsettling, and, I suppose, more Mumfit-worthy, but thankfully he didn’t try to follow me in.

Saturday was quiet and practical. I woke up at four, did extensive grocery shopping and laundry, cooked a cabbage-dominated dinner aimed at stopping exam-related scurvy in its tracks, and spent the rest of the evening making a sprawling Things To Do, Places To Go and People To See list and reading the Hieronymous Bosch book I bought in Madrid last year and hadn’t got round to looking at yet. Incidental music: Dan the Automator hijacking Xfm, Modest Mouse, and Elgar. Some time after three, I put on Joyzipper (a band, not a sex toy), curled up with Love In The Time Of Cholera, and eventually drifted into sleep, refreshingly dreamless after a week of three nightmares.

And there you have it. Hardly hedonism.