Londoner Forever – Page 2

London 2005: City Walking, Earth From The Air, Fruitstock

Day Three: Saturday 6 August

While making breakfast I put on XFM and recoil at a sound so stomach-turning it can only be Coldplay’s new single. The lights may guide me home, Chris, but will they guide me to the pukebucket? I overcome this bad start by fleeing to Radio One, which is playing the far superior sounds of Atomic Kitten. Feeling whole again, I head out for the day.

I walk for the next 5 hours. This is the way I have always loved exploring London, not in walks from the nearest tube station to a desired destination, but in walks which span several tube stations in total, and enter none.

Temple, Blackfriars, Monument. The City is deserted and beautiful on a Saturday. I remember other Saturdays spent walking here. A nine-hour ramble with Russ, starting with lunch at Brick Lane, and walking through the City, along the Thames, through the Strand, to Chinatown for dinner at 10.30, and finally home to Fitzrovia. An hour with Alec in torrential rain when the skies opened as we walked to Borough Market. Newly and giddily in love, we were too stubborn to let the weather spoil our plans for the day.

The international financial centre’s just round the corner.

St Dunstan’s In The East is a stone’s throw from where Alec used to work. Wren did this one too, but unlike St Paul’s it sustained severe damage during the war and only the walls remained. Since then the tower has been restored, and climbing plants tumble over and through the walls encircling this tiny, wonderful park. One of my favourite places in London, and the world.

Gotta love the Hitler saucepan.

I skip St Paul’s, the Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern because they’re the bits I know best, and explore the bits I don’t know. This poster outside the Britain At War museum endears me immensely.

I snap little things that catch my eye without being able to figure out why they do.

Hobo wuz here.

Beer cans on a bench, sickly and incongruous in Saturday morning sun.

Miffy?

A lighting fixture on a wall makes me think of bunnies.

Map between your toes.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Earth From The Air photographs are on exhibition between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, accompanied by this huge map of the world for people to wander on.

Swimming to Mexico!

Kids have lots of fun with the map too.

Sleepy in Asia.

Though it gets a little tiring for some.

Rhapsody in blue.

One of the photographs against the glass facade of the building behind it.

Catch me if you can!

Children playing outside the Greater London Authority building. It’s a good day for someone who likes photographing kids and reflections of sky.

People lolling next to a large Working Environment sign

Lazy sunny Saturday environment.

It is at this point that I decide it’s time to get myself to Regent’s Park so I can do exactly the same thing as the people on the bench, except on grass, and with music, and smoothies, and thousands of other happy people.

The banner above the stage reads Hello Everyone

The main stage.

Welcome to Fruitstock, a master-stroke of marketing from the people at the Innocent smoothies company. London gets a free music festival, various worthy causes get to promote themselves to the thousands of people who come, and Innocent sell loads of smoothies (and give loads of free samples away too).

John squinting in the sun.

John has come from Cambridge just to meet me. Russ and Dave are here too, with lots of food. Soon after we settle down, Matt comes over and says hello. I find myself surrounded by friends on a beautiful Saturday afternoon at a free festival in the park. It doesn’t get much better than this.

The festival with everything.

I’d have taken the picture from the left side instead, but I didn’t want someone to jump on my back and shout giddy-up. Not that such a mistake would have been likely, given my height.

Fruitstock moments which quite possibly amuse only me:

John comes back empty-handed after going off in search of a smoothie. “You didn’t get a smoothie?” I inquire. “No, it was crowded and I couldn’t be arsed.” And joyfully, I crow, “Then it was a fruitless expedition!” As everyone else collapses onto the grass in agony, I sense John beginning to wonder if that train fare from Cambridge was well spent.
Wandering around with John, we come across a booth promoting the “eglu” – a self-contained contraption you can put in your garden and rear chickens in. “Looks a bit cramped to spend their life in,” I remark. “These ones look quite happy though,” John observes. I am derisive – “Well of course they’re happy today, they’ve been taken to a nice festival innit?” John just looks at me.

When Nitin Sawhney’s beginning to get a bit boring, we decide dinner is beckoning, and that Chalk Farm will probably have better food options than the Great Portland Street dead zone. We are not drawn to The Engineer, a packed noisy gastropub, La Superba, which looks mediocre, or a pub serving Thai food. (Well actually, I veto that because I refuse to pay London prices for Thai food when I’m on such a short holiday.) Things are looking despondent before we see what looks like a normal pub in the distance, and our spirits lift. Upon arrival I realize it’s the pub where Alec, Matt and me once spent a very happy Sunday afternoon with jazz and pork scratchings. Things just go right for me in London, somehow. The day ends with huge lamb and mint burgers, and pints of Staropramen.

London 2005: Dulwich, Peckham, Brick Lane Memories, Gig

Day Two: Friday 5 August

(As usual, click on the photos to see larger versions.)

I used to keep putting off a trip to the Dulwich Picture Gallery because it was too far out of central London (dahling), but now I’m staying in Wimbledon there’s really no excuse any more. And as usual, I arrive to find a gallery so charming it mocks me for my previous laziness. The last time I was in London this happened with the Sir John Soane museum, so there’s a nice serendipity in the discovery that Soane was the architect for this building as well. He designed it without charge out of friendship for its Bourgeois (yes, that’s his actual name) bequestor.

Tweewich

This isn’t the gallery, it’s a gatehouse at Dulwich Park nearby. Feel the twee!

Heading into central London, we have to drive through Peckham, and at times we fear we’ll never get out. Apart from the Stirling Prize-winning Peckham Library, which is very nice, we see rather more of Peckham than we really need to due to one-way street hell and a couple of bloopers.

Me, poring over A-Z: Turn into Mouth Road!
Russ, at the wheel: I don’t see that anywhere, we’re at Bournemouth Road now.
Me: Ah yes, the map cut the road name in two. Mouth Road is actually Bournemouth Road! Turn turn turn!

I even think we pass the VD clinic Alec brought me to on one of our first dates, thinking he was bringing me to an evening of theatre at the Old Vic. (It’s a rather long story, and contains too much sheer daftness to fit comfortably within this post, but perhaps I’ll write about it in future.) Several wrong turns, road closures and funny street names (Bird In Bush Road!) later, we finally claw our way out and Tower Bridge looms ahead, except it doesn’t, because things that loom are not usually welcoming and beautiful.

Foster family

We pass the Greater London Authority building and see the Swiss Re tower in the distance, and I muse on how Norman Foster should have given Singapore’s highest court of justice a cock or ball like these instead of a freaking UFO. (Yes, there are many cynical jokes to be made there. No, I am not about to make them.)

Russ drops me on Commercial Street and goes off to view another flat. The gig I’m attending at the Spitz only starts around 9, so I’ve got 2 hours free before that for visiting old friends – and by old friends I mean streets, vandalism and memories.

Hanbury Street:

The hardware slump

I discover a sad robot I haven’t photographed before. He’s my sixth.

Survival of the graffittest

Law of the concrete jungle or not, I still think a stencilled grizzly bear against a freehanded platypus isn’t really a fair fight.

The Old Truman Brewery car park:

Little pink Corvette?

I do a double take when I see that Banksy’s car is now shocking pink. In the midst of my surprise I am vaguely aware of another shocking pink object in my peripheral vision, moving rapidly towards me. It’s a brightly-turbanned Sikh on a scooter. I get out of his way, feeling insipid.

Anything but frigid

Under a flight of stairs, a friendly fridge!

An altered sign

I guess the London congestion charge isn’t working well enough yet.

Brick Lane:

Wrong way, turn back

“FRESH MAGIC MUSHROOMS” elude what appears to be a street art allegory of the yuppie mindset. Or something.

Philip Larkin stencilled on a club night banner

“I work all day, and get half-drunk at night”

Larkin’ Out Records are doing a party at the Vibe Bar tonight, and this is one of their promo banners. Along with stuff I photographed later in this holiday such as Norway’s fjords and Germany’s ruined castles, I think the picture captures something you don’t get in Singapore. (Another example is Time Out’s headline to its writeup for a documentary on the Hiroshima bombing: “Wave of mutilation.”)

I photograph a lavender Vespa outside The Ten Bells, Christ Church resplendent in the evening sun, a guy with a huge ginger ‘fro outside what used to be Eat My Handbag Bitch. I don’t trust memory alone to record this return. Over time, living in Singapore dog-ears and fades those memories till they feel like dusty offerings at an estate sale – someone else’s life, which I pretend was mine.

I sit in Cafe 1001, eating a crispy bacon ciabatta and reading Time Out, and this is when I start feeling morose. I look at everyone around me with so much envy, not because they all have company and I am sitting here alone (that never bothers me in London), but because they can call London their city, and without bending the facts, I no longer can.

It’s time for the gig, and the Chris Bowden Trio quickly pulls me out of my gloom by making me its bitch. This isn’t smooth hotel lounge jazz, it’s voluptuous outrageously confident music that struts coolly into the room and knows it has everybody’s undivided attention. I don’t always like Ninja Tune’s jazz acts, but it’s struck gold with Chris Bowden. Seriously, don’t pass up an opportunity to see this guy even if you’ve never been that drawn to instrumental jazz music or the saxophone. He could change your mind.

Broadway Project are up next. I suppose I haven’t kept up enough with Broadway Project since the first album, because instead of one guy with a sampler creating moody beautiful found sounds for quiet nights in when autumn’s on the cusp of winter, it now involves about five guys and fairly block rockin’ beats. Still, it’s pretty interesting to listen to after I get over the initial surprise, and they finish the set with the opening track of Compassion, bringing me right back to the wonder of my first encounter with Broadway Project, which is a great place to end.

Mark Rae’s finishing up the night with some good party tracks, but I go downstairs to join Russ and Dave in the bistro, and treat myself to my beloved Fruli. At the end of the evening, Russ drops me near Fleet Street, where I’ll be staying for the weekend in Nav’s flat while she’s off in Wales. I settle down there to plan the next day, write my journal, and count my blessings for generous friends.

I am so happy to be back here.

London 2005: Arrival, Kew, Curry, Change

Day One: Thursday 4 August

Dependable as always, Russ is at Heathrow to pick me up and drive me back to his place, where I’ll be staying for most of my time in London. As always, conversation is like we’d never been apart. I freshen up a little at his house and chat with his dad before we head out for the day.

Because I am a deeply cultural person interested in deeply cultural things, our first stop is H&M. I know, I know, I can hear all of you shrieking in disbelief even from here – “All this interminable whining about how much she misses London’s vibrant arts scene and rich history and robust system of civil and political liberties, and the first thing she does when she gets back is shop in a multinational chain store?” – but look, it’s near Russ’s house, and in my mad packing rush I forgot to bring any belts to prevent my ass crack from showing when I bend down. Also, I just fucking love H&M.

Alas, in my time away from England I’ve returned to my Singapore size, with the result that I try on 6 items of clothing and none of them fit right. I do, however, procure a nice green belt for £3.99, and avert builders’ arse for now.

Boots value meals in hand, we eat lunch under a tree in Kew Gardens and talk about everything. (Click pictures for larger versions.)

Gardener and his wheelbarrow, amidst tree.

We eventually remember the real object of our visit, which is to see Dale Chihuly’s glass sculpture installations.

Detail of Chihuly’s boat installation.

I have a feeling the sculpture in the coffee lounge of the Singapore Ritz-Carlton is also by Dale Chihuly. My friends and I usually call it the sperm sculpture. I don’t think I’m a big Chihuly fan, but it’s still interesting to see how the sculptures are incorporated into the landscape of Kew Gardens and its various greenhouses and conservatories.

Bit garish.

Russ is a little tied up with flat-hunting while I’m here, so we go from Kew to Hoxton to view a flat. It’s pretty grim. The current occupant’s desperate to rent it out so that she can go on holiday, and also because desperation is generally the most realistic attitude to take when attempting to rent out a flat like that one. We end up near Brick Lane for dinner, so of course I take Russ and Dave to good ol’ Sweet’N’Spicy.

I get a pang when I walk down the street where Alec lived and realize it’s changed so much that I can’t even recognize which door was his. But at least the chicken korma in Sweet’N’Spicy is as wonderfully creamy as it always was, the prices are as low, and the service as cordial. And of course, the seriously retro Turkish wrestler posters are still on the wall. In this timeless but ever-changing city, at least I can hold on to Sweet’N’Spicy. May their tables always be formica.

Never Surrender

I won’t lie about the stability of my mental state right now. I’m leaving for Sarawak early tomorrow morning to attend the Rainforest Music Festival, and am more than a little worried that someone could elbow me accidentally and split open my stitches.

And although this is obviously unimportant compared to everything else that happened today, it’s pretty rotten luck for me that just this afternoon, I have paid in full for a non-refundable, non-amendable return ticket to London, leaving 3 August.

The centre of the attacks is where I lived for four years. On any average day in London, I would have been more than likely to pass through Russell Square, King’s Cross or Liverpool Street (where Alec lived) tube stations, and walk past the British Medical Association on Tavistock Square, outside which a double decker bus exploded. Quite separately from the human aspect of the tragedy, watching the television footage I am again struck by the same feelings of anger and despair that I felt when watching the scenes of the fall of Berlin in Downfall – they are hurting a city I love.

Having said that, London has survived much worse and it looks like it’s handling this fine. I’ve checked and all my friends are safe, although of course my thoughts are still with any and every human affected, be they stranger or friend. London got bombed to bits during the Blitz, but while no one else dared to fight back against Nazi Germany Britain still said “We will NEVER SURRENDER” and thank God they didn’t.

I’ll have to make a decision over the next few weeks whether to go or not, and that will of course depends on what unfolds. I also have to consider the worries, perhaps exaggerated, of a mother who will be biting her fingernails the entire time I am away. Right now, I think I can only pray. Be strong, London. My heart never left, so it is there with you still.

I Have Never

Like most Londoners, I’ve rollerbladed, tossed frisbees, and played football in Hyde Park. On my 21st birthday, I was led across London blindfolded by my friends, who then brought me into the middle of Hyde Park and instructed me to count to 20, untie myself and find them in their various hiding places. I have not, however, played ultraviolet tag in Hyde Park, and though I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to before, I now feel the poorer for it.

I liked this observation in Londonist’s writeup:

Maybe this was Tomoko’s plan; the invitation to play games in Hyde Park was not a ruse designed to create art, but the art was a ruse to get a bunch of po-faced “sophisticated, refined urbanites” to come and play games in Hyde Park.

Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

London is the meanest ex ever.

I’ve spent the past year trying to get over our breakup, trying to convince myself that I’m happy with Singapore. Sure, this new relationship may not be as passionate or exciting or bloody-fucking-gorgeous as London was, and yeah there are still awkward silences on most of our dates even a year after we started going out, and yes it’s true that I spend most of my time and energy trying to avoid its hot sweaty hands, but at least Singapore is safe and reliable and it’s trying its best.

Who needs passion once you’re past a certain age anyway? You don’t need fire in your loins, you just need to be able to share a five room HDB flat¹ without killing each other. I can exist in Singapore. Who needs to live?

If I repeat this to myself several times a day I even begin to believe that I believe it. And then I find out that Battleship Potemkin will be shown on a huge screen tomorrow in Trafalgar Square, with a new soundtrack performed live by the Pet Shop Boys. For free.

I know London’s moved on and is having a great time without me, but this is really rubbing it in.

¹ Public housing

Football Isn’t Coming Home Just Yet And Neither, Sadly, Am I

The last time I watched a critically important England match, I was in a pub off Petticoat Lane crammed to the gills with people at 7.30 AM. We got tea and fried egg sandwiches from a caff round the corner, but of course much like all England matches since 1966, it wasn’t exactly destined to be the breakfast of champions. I had great fun nonetheless.

Either on that day or another close by, I tried to keep my jubilation discreet as South Korea beat Italy and Matteo and Emmanuelle collapsed in tortured disbelief onto the floor of the TV room. Leaving the hall shortly after to run an errand, a guy was jogging down Gower Street draped in the South Korean flag and I gave him a whoop and a thumbs up. He dashed across the road with a huge beam on his face and we exchanged a high-five.

In comparison, watching the match yesterday in my living room in the dead of night with only my Fairprice chicken cup noodles for company was rather less memorable. Remembering those halcyon¹ days and then looking at my life two years on is decidedly depressing.

¹ I realize I haven’t actually used the phrase “halcyon days” right, but I plead music wanker’s licence in support of the reference – I saw an Orbital gig the night England lost to Brazil.

Reunion

Finished the DipSing exams on Friday (passing, however, is a huge assumption I’m not willing to make right now), hopped on a plane that very night and have resumed my perfect London life right back where I left off. Saturday lazy lunch, Covent Garden girliness, coffee at Paul’s with Nav, dinner and drinks in Brixton with Nick; Sunday mass at Newman House, Spitalfields Market trawl, lazy afternoon in Hyde Park with Russ and Dave, Múm gig at night. London is as beautiful and bizarre and all-out wonderful as it has always been, and the part of me that loves comfort zones wishes I had just decided to spend the entire 15 days here instead of attempting to explore new parts of Europe I haven’t been to yet.

There’s so much more I was meaning to write today, but Russ is waiting patiently for our precious Russ’n’Michelle time to start, and I don’t want to lose any of that. I think we’ll do a Regent’s Canal walk today.

I’ve been told by other people who studied overseas and have since had to return to Singapore that as time passes, you gradually begin to accept that you’re back, and that part of your life is over, and Singapore isn’t really that bad. Unfortunately, this has obviously not happened to me yet. Being here only reminds me just how much Singapore sucks donkey bollocks in comparison. I have not felt so happy, so sad, so thoroughly alive for months. And Alec hasn’t even arrived yet! (Later today. I can’t wait!)

Harry Potter Can Kiss Their Arses

The books of The Borrible Trilogy (Michael de Larrabeiti) are full of theft, swearing, treachery and murder. Decapitation, electrocution, catapult blow to the head, crushing, burning, and innumerable stabbings are only some of the ways in which various characters, both good and bad, meet their deaths. And they’re among my favourite children’s books ever.

The London of these books is bleak, ugly, and riddled with decay and brutality. Borribles live in derelict buildings in rough parts of the city like Tooting and Peckham, and live off what they can steal. On their adventure, they travel by night, paddling up discoloured, viscuous rivers, wading through dank sewers, and seeking refuge in vast rubbish sites and industrial wastelands. It’s the London you glimpse through the window of the train half an hour before it pulls into King’s Cross, before you shudder delicately and return to your book. It isn’t the London I knew, but in my hopeless irrational love, even this London is intriguing.

Some points are perhaps made a little less subtly than some adults would like. As a child, I never picked up on the fact that the Rumbles of Rumbledom were a dark piss-take on the Wombles of Wimbledon Common, or that their arrogance, wealth and speech inflections (e.g. “I’m tewwibly sowwy, old bean”) were meant to satirize a certain class of English society. I also didn’t know enough about London to understand why the author chose to make the Borrible from Brick Lane a Bangladeshi, or the Borribles from Brixton black. (The German Borrible, for what it’s worth, is called Adolf.) Perhaps my political correctness hackles are supposed to rise in response to this, but they don’t, because none of these characters are ever confined to a stereotype, or a caricature.

There is no magic in these books. There is no train departing from platform 13 and a half at King’s Cross. The stories are as riveting as any good action thriller I’ve ever seen, and I remember many late nights spent as a wild-eyed hostage to distrust, suspense and genuine concern for the welfare of the characters, who live or die solely by their wits, courage and indomitable spirit. If the most recent children’s books you’ve read are the Harry Potter ones, step out of your comfort zone and meet the Borribles. Rated PG.

London Calling To The Faraway Town

I have a two week holiday between the end of my exams in late April and the return of my nose to the mooting grindstone in mid-May, and of course I’m making a beeline for London. (With a jaunt to Poland and the Czech Republic.) And even though it’s more than two months away, I can’t stop thinking about it.

There’s so much I want to cram into those precious few days there, but I can’t decide whether to spend the time revisiting what I already know and love, or to explore the vastness(es) I still didn’t get round to discovering even over four years there.

The tug of the familiar and beloved is difficult to resist – I want to stay in Bloomsbury, visit dear old Jeremy B (deceased) in the UCL building, buy too many CDs in Berwick Street, and check for new sad robot graffiti on Brick Lane. I want to attend mass either in Newman House or the noon one in St Anselm & St Cecilia with the amazing choir. I want to rollerblade in Hyde Park. I want to lose money at the greyhounds.

I want to have a leisurely breakfast (fry-up) reading the papers in Cafe Valencia on Marchmont Street, eat anything anytime in Savoir Faire, Song Que (yes, I obviously don’t need to go all the way to London for Vietnamese food, but the crispy pancakes, oh the crispy pancakes!), The Perseverance, Carluccio’s, South, Incognico before 7 pm, strawberry beer on a Sunday afternoon at The Spitz.

There’ll be an El Greco exhibition at the National Gallery. Roy Lichtenstein at the Hayward. I’m adamant on Jerry Springer The Opera. McLusky are playing The Garage on 6 May. I’m keeping an eye on the Do Something Pretty and Track And Field gig guides to make sure I don’t miss out on the small venue gigs Stargreen doesn’t list. (Incidentally, this is actually an exercise in agony, due to all the gigs I’ve found out I’ll be missing. The Shins are at the tiny beautiful Water Rats pub on 1 April, for which I reckon tickets will be all of £5, and Yo La Tengo have decided to deny me a third brush with gibbering ecstasy by playing the Shepherd’s Bush Empire a month before that. Insert profuse swearing here.)

And then there’s the other impetus – to do something new. I always meant to go to the Sir John Soane’s Museum but never got round to it. Same with the Dulwich Picture Gallery. And the view from Richmond Hill. And a Regent’s Canal walk. And meals at Andrew Edmunds and Frederick’s and Le Cafe Du Marche.

I haven’t even got to the human aspect of a London visit yet – all the dear friends I want to see again. Eep. Something tells me it’s going to be a very manic 5 days.