Four more years. Four more motherfucking years.
Shit.
Now the insanity will begin in earnest. Ragnarok is coming. The last four years was just the warm-up act.
This is a dark, dark day, with the Smiling Satanic Simian flinging faeces at us from his Big White House.
I am indescribably depressed at this news.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
War of the World
Ohio, oh-me-oh, oh-my-oh. Damn, this is a tight race. As tight as the garrotte pressing against the throat of our planet, a sliver of red spotting at the seam of tension from the coil of razor-sharp red tape. So tight that we all hold our breath waiting for the outcome and I, for one, am going blue in the face.
When I get home this evening, I’m going to dig out my unread copy of Jake Tapper’s Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency, (the exhaustive look at the dirty tricks behind the Bush-Gore 2000 Rumble) and my well-read copy of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.
Very, very exciting. The unfurling of history. But I don’t think there will be a definitive answer any time soon.
When I get home this evening, I’m going to dig out my unread copy of Jake Tapper’s Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency, (the exhaustive look at the dirty tricks behind the Bush-Gore 2000 Rumble) and my well-read copy of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.
Very, very exciting. The unfurling of history. But I don’t think there will be a definitive answer any time soon.
Friday, October 22, 2004
City Lights
The London Film Festival began on Wednesday.
I LOVE the London Film Festival. Two of my favourite things, London and Film, rubbing shoulders, ripping each other’s clothes off and violently bringing each other off in a fortnight of frenzied, hungry rutting, with blood, sweat and celluloid sprayed in all four corners of Leicester Square.
This is the first time in four years that I haven’t had press accreditation for the festival. I couldn’t really justify it with the new job and new baby. But I used to love the whole thing. In the lead up, there’s two weeks of back-to-back press screenings, three movies a day, starting at around 9.30am, leaving you on the verge of deep vein thrombosis by the late afternoon, squinting into the icy winter sky over the South Bank.
And then when the festival begins, there are more screenings. And interviews. And far too much coffee. And parties. And free beer. And you end up starting the day at 9am, and finishing at 3am in an after-hours dive in W1, arguing about movies with your peers, in slurred, nonsensical, fractured sentences. And sometimes, there’s a bit of journalism thrown in there too.
I’m going to miss it.
But to mark this occasion in my own special way, I’ve been reflecting on great London movies. And I’m struggling. It’s much easier to think of the London movies that suck.
Notting Hill is a bad, bad London movie. So is Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch. None of those films are any kind of London that I know. It’s dishonest fakery, a counterfeit London for an international audience who don’t know any better, and don’t care either.
And the Carry On films and the Ealing comedies and Brief Encounter are all interesting in an historical sense, or as entertainments, but it’s a London that predates me, and it doesn’t matter how much I like Sid James or Terry Thomas or Trevor Howard, these aren’t people I recognise from my London life.
So, here are the top three London films that I can think of at the moment:
An American Werewolf in London – It took the objective eye of the great and underrated (American) John Landis to conjure up this perfect confluence of horror and comedy. The gore and laughs are piled high to dizzying levels amidst some of the great London-on-film moments, like the werewolf’s-eye-view of a rampage around the London Underground, or the porn cinema showing “See You Next Tuesday”, where David is confronted by all his victims (in reality the now-closed ABC cinema on Piccadilly which is currently a ticket booth that I never, ever see anyone using), or the decapitated head bouncing down Piccadilly.
28 Days Later – Not strictly a London film, but this is up there for the startling opening shots of Cillian Murphy wandering around the abandoned zombie-ravaged capital, all shot on the fly, guerrilla-style, in the early hours of daybreak by Danny Boyle. Burning cars, littered streets, and toppled-over double-deckers. Just like the real London after the Poll Tax riots.
Dirty Pretty Things – “We are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms. And suck your cocks.” My favourite London film ever. Superficially, it’s a thriller. But it resonates because it's really about how we live our London lives today. Stephen Frears has a meticulous eye for detail, and every scene rings true. This film opened the London Film Festival a couple of years back. And I do believe that is where I came in...
I LOVE the London Film Festival. Two of my favourite things, London and Film, rubbing shoulders, ripping each other’s clothes off and violently bringing each other off in a fortnight of frenzied, hungry rutting, with blood, sweat and celluloid sprayed in all four corners of Leicester Square.
This is the first time in four years that I haven’t had press accreditation for the festival. I couldn’t really justify it with the new job and new baby. But I used to love the whole thing. In the lead up, there’s two weeks of back-to-back press screenings, three movies a day, starting at around 9.30am, leaving you on the verge of deep vein thrombosis by the late afternoon, squinting into the icy winter sky over the South Bank.
And then when the festival begins, there are more screenings. And interviews. And far too much coffee. And parties. And free beer. And you end up starting the day at 9am, and finishing at 3am in an after-hours dive in W1, arguing about movies with your peers, in slurred, nonsensical, fractured sentences. And sometimes, there’s a bit of journalism thrown in there too.
I’m going to miss it.
But to mark this occasion in my own special way, I’ve been reflecting on great London movies. And I’m struggling. It’s much easier to think of the London movies that suck.
Notting Hill is a bad, bad London movie. So is Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch. None of those films are any kind of London that I know. It’s dishonest fakery, a counterfeit London for an international audience who don’t know any better, and don’t care either.
And the Carry On films and the Ealing comedies and Brief Encounter are all interesting in an historical sense, or as entertainments, but it’s a London that predates me, and it doesn’t matter how much I like Sid James or Terry Thomas or Trevor Howard, these aren’t people I recognise from my London life.
So, here are the top three London films that I can think of at the moment:
An American Werewolf in London – It took the objective eye of the great and underrated (American) John Landis to conjure up this perfect confluence of horror and comedy. The gore and laughs are piled high to dizzying levels amidst some of the great London-on-film moments, like the werewolf’s-eye-view of a rampage around the London Underground, or the porn cinema showing “See You Next Tuesday”, where David is confronted by all his victims (in reality the now-closed ABC cinema on Piccadilly which is currently a ticket booth that I never, ever see anyone using), or the decapitated head bouncing down Piccadilly.
28 Days Later – Not strictly a London film, but this is up there for the startling opening shots of Cillian Murphy wandering around the abandoned zombie-ravaged capital, all shot on the fly, guerrilla-style, in the early hours of daybreak by Danny Boyle. Burning cars, littered streets, and toppled-over double-deckers. Just like the real London after the Poll Tax riots.
Dirty Pretty Things – “We are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms. And suck your cocks.” My favourite London film ever. Superficially, it’s a thriller. But it resonates because it's really about how we live our London lives today. Stephen Frears has a meticulous eye for detail, and every scene rings true. This film opened the London Film Festival a couple of years back. And I do believe that is where I came in...
Monday, October 18, 2004
Writer's blog
One of the advantages of the multifarious Sucker Punch, for me at least, is that it helps to kick loose the inarticulate, the inchoate and the incoherent from my seething psyche, and strings it all together into a series of sentences that perpetrate the idea that I am a witty and intelligent man. Sometimes.
This blog frequently helps me win the battle against procrastination and, that bane of all wordpeddlers, writer’s block. It can be a pretty handy warm-up before the more arduous workout of my “professional” writing: the film reviews, the feature articles and, when I’m really rolling sevens, the contributions to books. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing. But it ain’t always easy.
I can come on here and spray paint my graffiti on the electronic wall without any of the performance anxiety of the other writing in my life, and sometimes I surprise myself with stuff on here that is far superior to the supposedly “real” writing that I sign my name to. And I’ve been wondering why that is. Partly, I suppose it’s because there are no limitations here. I can write as much or as little as I want, as often or as infrequently as I want, about whatever I want, without the straightjacket of editors, or house style, or deadlines, or anxiety about my professional reputation (such that it is).
Another factor must be subject matter. On here, I invariably write exclusively about topics about which I have an opinion. With, for example, a film review, I sometimes find that I have nothing that I really need or want to say about a movie, but I still have 500 words that I have to fill, and I hate to just hack something out if I can avoid it, so I punch it repeatedly in my mind until it acquiesces and says something vaguely meaningful, informative or entertaining.
You see, lately, I’ve been able to come to the blog, write away happily, post an entry, and then I go off, fire up a Word document, and gaze at a white screen for a long time waiting for some kind of inspiration. Admittedly, the demands of fatherhood make it difficult to think clearly sometimes, but this is something I’ve noticed before the arrival of the little poo-factory Buttercup.
And in some ways, the blog becomes another avoidance tactic to postpone the other work clamouring for my limited mental attention.
Not sure that there is any conclusion or solution for this one. I’m just thinking out loud. But I really am going to go off and try to finish a feature article I should have put to rest months ago.
By the end of the week.
Maybe.
This blog frequently helps me win the battle against procrastination and, that bane of all wordpeddlers, writer’s block. It can be a pretty handy warm-up before the more arduous workout of my “professional” writing: the film reviews, the feature articles and, when I’m really rolling sevens, the contributions to books. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing. But it ain’t always easy.
I can come on here and spray paint my graffiti on the electronic wall without any of the performance anxiety of the other writing in my life, and sometimes I surprise myself with stuff on here that is far superior to the supposedly “real” writing that I sign my name to. And I’ve been wondering why that is. Partly, I suppose it’s because there are no limitations here. I can write as much or as little as I want, as often or as infrequently as I want, about whatever I want, without the straightjacket of editors, or house style, or deadlines, or anxiety about my professional reputation (such that it is).
Another factor must be subject matter. On here, I invariably write exclusively about topics about which I have an opinion. With, for example, a film review, I sometimes find that I have nothing that I really need or want to say about a movie, but I still have 500 words that I have to fill, and I hate to just hack something out if I can avoid it, so I punch it repeatedly in my mind until it acquiesces and says something vaguely meaningful, informative or entertaining.
You see, lately, I’ve been able to come to the blog, write away happily, post an entry, and then I go off, fire up a Word document, and gaze at a white screen for a long time waiting for some kind of inspiration. Admittedly, the demands of fatherhood make it difficult to think clearly sometimes, but this is something I’ve noticed before the arrival of the little poo-factory Buttercup.
And in some ways, the blog becomes another avoidance tactic to postpone the other work clamouring for my limited mental attention.
Not sure that there is any conclusion or solution for this one. I’m just thinking out loud. But I really am going to go off and try to finish a feature article I should have put to rest months ago.
By the end of the week.
Maybe.
Monday, October 11, 2004
You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly!
“Say, Jim! Whoo! That’s a bad outfit!”
Towards the end of 1978 and the beginning of 1979, I would have been in the early stages of my sixth year on the Planet Earth, around the time the last son of Krypton crash-landed into my life. Whilst my peers were obsessing over George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away, I was awed by a different fantasy. To this day, Superman remains the finest superhero movie ever made, and I’m convinced that, regardless of advances in technology, it will never be bettered.
From the jagged, opaque, crystalline refuge of his Fortress of Solitude, to the urban sprawl of Metropolis and the spinning globe atop the offices of the Daily Planet, everything was perfectly realised as a world just like ours, but not. And the moment that crackled along my synapses and irrevocably changed me, in the split-second when I pledged my heart to the cinema forever: The bumbling, well-meaning Clark Kent rips his shirt asunder to reveal that S, before diving into a telephone booth and appearing in the bold red, yellow and blues, his cape billowing in the city night. And then his feet leave the ground.
“Easy, miss. I've got you.”
“You, you've got me? Who's got you?”
Perfection.
And it wasn’t perfection because of the now-primitive special effects, or the word-perfect screenplay, or the confident, assured direction, or the all-star cast, or the point-of-view of a six-year-old boy witnessing miracles (although all those things played a part). It was all down to Christopher Reeve. He was Clark Kent. And he will always be my Superman.
For someone as insanely devoted to comics as I am, I’ve never been into Superman comics. The character on the page never did it for me. I was spoilt from a tender, young age, because I saw the real thing. A bulletproof man who could jump buildings in a single bound, and was more powerful than a locomotive. Part of me never stopped believing that Christopher Reeve was really Superman. Clark Kent was just another fake identity in Superman’s Russian doll identity. When you peeled off all the layers of artifice, Christopher Reeve was a genuine superhero.
In 1995, the man who could fly was no longer able to walk. When he appeared at the 68th Academy Awards ceremony on stage in his wheelchair, I cried in a mixture of delight, joy, and sadness. Since then, he fought tirelessly for medical research to help cure the causes of paralysis, with limited, but by no means insignificant, success, hamstrung by political bureaucracy.
And now he's gone. And I can't think of a suitable goodbye that will do him justice, or that won't sound trite. But maybe I'm just not ready to say goodbye to him yet. So I'll leave it with these words from Jonathan Kent to his adoptive son, that could just as well apply to this greatest of American heroes:
“You can do all these amazing things, and sometimes you think that you will burst wide open unless you can tell someone about it, don't you? There's one thing I know for sure, son. And that is, YOU ARE HERE FOR A REASON. I don't know what it is, exactly, but I do know this much: it's NOT to score touchdowns.”
Towards the end of 1978 and the beginning of 1979, I would have been in the early stages of my sixth year on the Planet Earth, around the time the last son of Krypton crash-landed into my life. Whilst my peers were obsessing over George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away, I was awed by a different fantasy. To this day, Superman remains the finest superhero movie ever made, and I’m convinced that, regardless of advances in technology, it will never be bettered.
From the jagged, opaque, crystalline refuge of his Fortress of Solitude, to the urban sprawl of Metropolis and the spinning globe atop the offices of the Daily Planet, everything was perfectly realised as a world just like ours, but not. And the moment that crackled along my synapses and irrevocably changed me, in the split-second when I pledged my heart to the cinema forever: The bumbling, well-meaning Clark Kent rips his shirt asunder to reveal that S, before diving into a telephone booth and appearing in the bold red, yellow and blues, his cape billowing in the city night. And then his feet leave the ground.
“Easy, miss. I've got you.”
“You, you've got me? Who's got you?”
Perfection.
And it wasn’t perfection because of the now-primitive special effects, or the word-perfect screenplay, or the confident, assured direction, or the all-star cast, or the point-of-view of a six-year-old boy witnessing miracles (although all those things played a part). It was all down to Christopher Reeve. He was Clark Kent. And he will always be my Superman.
For someone as insanely devoted to comics as I am, I’ve never been into Superman comics. The character on the page never did it for me. I was spoilt from a tender, young age, because I saw the real thing. A bulletproof man who could jump buildings in a single bound, and was more powerful than a locomotive. Part of me never stopped believing that Christopher Reeve was really Superman. Clark Kent was just another fake identity in Superman’s Russian doll identity. When you peeled off all the layers of artifice, Christopher Reeve was a genuine superhero.
In 1995, the man who could fly was no longer able to walk. When he appeared at the 68th Academy Awards ceremony on stage in his wheelchair, I cried in a mixture of delight, joy, and sadness. Since then, he fought tirelessly for medical research to help cure the causes of paralysis, with limited, but by no means insignificant, success, hamstrung by political bureaucracy.
And now he's gone. And I can't think of a suitable goodbye that will do him justice, or that won't sound trite. But maybe I'm just not ready to say goodbye to him yet. So I'll leave it with these words from Jonathan Kent to his adoptive son, that could just as well apply to this greatest of American heroes:
“You can do all these amazing things, and sometimes you think that you will burst wide open unless you can tell someone about it, don't you? There's one thing I know for sure, son. And that is, YOU ARE HERE FOR A REASON. I don't know what it is, exactly, but I do know this much: it's NOT to score touchdowns.”
Monday, September 06, 2004
Always Greener
Dammit, I can’t sustain the unfettered hatred. I almost enjoyed today. I spent my lunch break sitting in the park, the sun blazing down causing little trails of condensation to swirl down the side of my ice-cold Dr. Pepper, reading a book (Joe Queenan’s The Unkindest Cut, for those who care about such things). I was the only one in the entire park. Green Park, it ain’t. But I did like it. I was chillin’ like a villain.
But I have no doubt that today was an aberration brought on by a pleasurable weekend and the unseasonably awesome hot weather we are having.
Oh yeah, you should all go and see Spielberg’s The Terminal this week. There are loads of reasons for this, but you can discover what they are for yourselves. Go. Watch. Enjoy.
But I have no doubt that today was an aberration brought on by a pleasurable weekend and the unseasonably awesome hot weather we are having.
Oh yeah, you should all go and see Spielberg’s The Terminal this week. There are loads of reasons for this, but you can discover what they are for yourselves. Go. Watch. Enjoy.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Ballad of the Sad Café
With my days of indentured servitude here at the Big Bad Bullshit Business rapidly coming to a close, and with it my opportunities to go hog-wild in my favourite corner of the globe on a daily basis, I thought it was time to grab one last blow-out meal at the New Piccadilly on Denman Street.
The New Piccadilly will soon be going the way of deeley-boppers, videocassettes and Vanilla Ice. Apart from the fact that, y’know, the New Piccadilly is actually good and will be missed. The owner is hanging up his spatula, retiring and selling up.
It’s not just the quality of the food, the reasonably priced menu, the slightly-camp uniforms the waiters wear, the comfort in knowing that you can ALWAYS get a table, or the fact that both formica and cholesterol are in plentiful supply. All fine reasons for going there, but that’s not it. It’s the sad realisation that another part of My London is being shunted out of the real world and into the sepia-coloured contours of my memory.
My grandparents used to have a place like that. When they first came over from Cyprus, they had a greasy spoon on the Parkway in Camden. The floor was sheer geometric perfection, with black and white tiles from the front door to the kitchen. Then they had a place in Willesden in the late seventies / early eighties that I vividly remember. The ketchup dispensers shaped like big, red plastic tomatoes. My grandfather behind the counter cooking up the food, his beaming smile always visible through the fugue of greasy smoke, and my grandmother bussing tables with nothing but a stubby pencil, crumpled notepad and her ever-present hairnet keeping the thick, black strands of Mediterranean hair out of her face. I don’t think I ever saw her without that hairnet on.
I wish I valued the place whilst it was still there. To me it was just the place where my grandparents used to make me food. I remember that my brother and I always used to complain that we didn’t want to eat there. We wanted MacDonald’s…
That place was worth a million Big Macs.
For the record, I had a Mixed Grill (bacon, sausage, egg, chips, peas and steak), bread and butter, two large Cokes and a slice of apple pie with cream. I had a mad sugar jag and a bloated gut for the rest of the afternoon, but it was worth it.
The New Piccadilly will soon be going the way of deeley-boppers, videocassettes and Vanilla Ice. Apart from the fact that, y’know, the New Piccadilly is actually good and will be missed. The owner is hanging up his spatula, retiring and selling up.
It’s not just the quality of the food, the reasonably priced menu, the slightly-camp uniforms the waiters wear, the comfort in knowing that you can ALWAYS get a table, or the fact that both formica and cholesterol are in plentiful supply. All fine reasons for going there, but that’s not it. It’s the sad realisation that another part of My London is being shunted out of the real world and into the sepia-coloured contours of my memory.
My grandparents used to have a place like that. When they first came over from Cyprus, they had a greasy spoon on the Parkway in Camden. The floor was sheer geometric perfection, with black and white tiles from the front door to the kitchen. Then they had a place in Willesden in the late seventies / early eighties that I vividly remember. The ketchup dispensers shaped like big, red plastic tomatoes. My grandfather behind the counter cooking up the food, his beaming smile always visible through the fugue of greasy smoke, and my grandmother bussing tables with nothing but a stubby pencil, crumpled notepad and her ever-present hairnet keeping the thick, black strands of Mediterranean hair out of her face. I don’t think I ever saw her without that hairnet on.
I wish I valued the place whilst it was still there. To me it was just the place where my grandparents used to make me food. I remember that my brother and I always used to complain that we didn’t want to eat there. We wanted MacDonald’s…
That place was worth a million Big Macs.
For the record, I had a Mixed Grill (bacon, sausage, egg, chips, peas and steak), bread and butter, two large Cokes and a slice of apple pie with cream. I had a mad sugar jag and a bloated gut for the rest of the afternoon, but it was worth it.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Cheers
Coach: What's new, Norm?
Norm: I need something to hold me over until my second beer.
Coach: How about a first beer?
Norm: That'll work.
Lunchtime drinking always seems like a better idea before than it does after. Empty stomach, a five-minute walk over to The Glasshouse Stores on Brewer Street, and the cheapest booze in London. I can conclusively say that my productivity will be severely diminished this afternoon. Fuck it. What are they gonna do? Fire Me? (I love that – it never gets old.)
Trying to hide the evidence by shielding my dilated pupils and moving cautiously yet purposefully. Chugging Smints like a pill addict to hide the beery odour. Finally getting around to eating some lunch (something I really should have done beforehand).
Need to blast the fog from my mind by the end of the day. I’m going out for a session this evening as well. (Readers of the sublime Don’t Explain Don’t Complain will know this already). And if I remember my history, the potential for messiness is high.
Woody: Pour you a beer, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: All right, but stop me at one. Make that one-thirty.
Norm: I need something to hold me over until my second beer.
Coach: How about a first beer?
Norm: That'll work.
Lunchtime drinking always seems like a better idea before than it does after. Empty stomach, a five-minute walk over to The Glasshouse Stores on Brewer Street, and the cheapest booze in London. I can conclusively say that my productivity will be severely diminished this afternoon. Fuck it. What are they gonna do? Fire Me? (I love that – it never gets old.)
Trying to hide the evidence by shielding my dilated pupils and moving cautiously yet purposefully. Chugging Smints like a pill addict to hide the beery odour. Finally getting around to eating some lunch (something I really should have done beforehand).
Need to blast the fog from my mind by the end of the day. I’m going out for a session this evening as well. (Readers of the sublime Don’t Explain Don’t Complain will know this already). And if I remember my history, the potential for messiness is high.
Woody: Pour you a beer, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: All right, but stop me at one. Make that one-thirty.
Monday, July 19, 2004
Go get ‘em, tiger
What else? Saw Spider-Man 2 over the weekend. After my disappointment with the first film in the franchise, the sequel excelled. The CGI has improved, but it still isn’t quite there yet. I still don’t believe that a man is swinging through the valleys and canyons of New York. But, mad props to Sam Raimi - he has a firm grasp of just how important New York City is to the Spider-Man mythology, making it an integral part of the story. Not only that, he is making the most of the best rogue’s gallery and supporting cast in comics. Doctor Octopus, J. Jonah Jameson, Aunt May – it’s all so good. And very funny, too.
And make sure you come back tomorrow for some big, exciting news. (Well, exciting for me, anyway. It might mean absolutely nothing to you.)
And make sure you come back tomorrow for some big, exciting news. (Well, exciting for me, anyway. It might mean absolutely nothing to you.)
Thursday, June 24, 2004
The glass has got some water in it
I like to think of myself as, on balance, an optimistic person. Not that you’d know that from reading this blog recently. Everything seems to be getting on top of me recently, putting me in an increasingly frazzled and foul mood.
This blog is teetering dangerously close to really bad stand-up comedy. It’s not very constructive for me to rail about polyphonic ringtones, people with umbrellas or cigar smokers. Pet peeves don’t always translate into good writing. If I thought it was cathartic, I’d happily write about it. Just let it all explode onto the web in a gory mess of Travis Bickle bloodletting. But it doesn’t make me feel better. It just makes me stew for longer on things that don’t really merit so much scrutiny.
Some painful belt-tightening recently has resulted in me widening my outlook to find entertainment and distractions that fall between the posts marked “Cheap” and “Free”. I’ve found it difficult to devote time to simple pleasures in the last month or so. I miss reading uninterrupted for long periods of time. I miss the feeling of loosing my imagination free of its constraints to let ideas surge onto a page. I miss the ability to sit and watch a movie without feeling my eyelids fighting to stay open. And I miss the sensation of listening to someone talk without getting aggravated and confrontational. Sometimes, just stringing a coherent sentence together is an epic task.
Yesterday, it was clear that the good weather had well and truly passed for the time being. Good news for me, as it means my hay fever has gone on hiatus. Fed up of lunch breaks that consisted of sitting in St. James’s Square munching on sandwiches, Becket & I decided to go walkabout. We ambled down to the Mall, flicked through the overpriced magazines in the ICA bookshop for ten minutes, and then headed on over to the Horse Guards Parade. Over thirty years living in this city, and I’d never really seen it properly before. The rain whipped our faces as we checked out the big-ass cannons in the courtyard. It was great.
The rest of the hour was spent deliberately treading the back streets of the city up towards Leicester Square. Browsing the graphic novels in Comic Showcase up on Charing Cross Road. Stumbling upon out-of-the-way noodle bars in the alleys around Chinatown’s Gerrard Street. Amazing to think that where Dr. Johnson once convened with his Literary Club, you can now bag some Japanese pink mags and a copy of Battle Royale II on VCD. Now that’s what I call progress.
Best lunch hour I’ve had for a very long time. And the walk was more nourishing than any sandwich could have possibly been.
This blog is teetering dangerously close to really bad stand-up comedy. It’s not very constructive for me to rail about polyphonic ringtones, people with umbrellas or cigar smokers. Pet peeves don’t always translate into good writing. If I thought it was cathartic, I’d happily write about it. Just let it all explode onto the web in a gory mess of Travis Bickle bloodletting. But it doesn’t make me feel better. It just makes me stew for longer on things that don’t really merit so much scrutiny.
Some painful belt-tightening recently has resulted in me widening my outlook to find entertainment and distractions that fall between the posts marked “Cheap” and “Free”. I’ve found it difficult to devote time to simple pleasures in the last month or so. I miss reading uninterrupted for long periods of time. I miss the feeling of loosing my imagination free of its constraints to let ideas surge onto a page. I miss the ability to sit and watch a movie without feeling my eyelids fighting to stay open. And I miss the sensation of listening to someone talk without getting aggravated and confrontational. Sometimes, just stringing a coherent sentence together is an epic task.
Yesterday, it was clear that the good weather had well and truly passed for the time being. Good news for me, as it means my hay fever has gone on hiatus. Fed up of lunch breaks that consisted of sitting in St. James’s Square munching on sandwiches, Becket & I decided to go walkabout. We ambled down to the Mall, flicked through the overpriced magazines in the ICA bookshop for ten minutes, and then headed on over to the Horse Guards Parade. Over thirty years living in this city, and I’d never really seen it properly before. The rain whipped our faces as we checked out the big-ass cannons in the courtyard. It was great.
The rest of the hour was spent deliberately treading the back streets of the city up towards Leicester Square. Browsing the graphic novels in Comic Showcase up on Charing Cross Road. Stumbling upon out-of-the-way noodle bars in the alleys around Chinatown’s Gerrard Street. Amazing to think that where Dr. Johnson once convened with his Literary Club, you can now bag some Japanese pink mags and a copy of Battle Royale II on VCD. Now that’s what I call progress.
Best lunch hour I’ve had for a very long time. And the walk was more nourishing than any sandwich could have possibly been.
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