oh, go on then. another post on my sojourn, or adventure, look you see, to london. well, my most recent of such, and whoever knows perhaps final of sorts. and why not.
it would be both fair and safe to assume (or presume) that my more regular readers would be quite fed up of the subject of london, since that is what seems to have dominated posts this month. with such in mind, i will do what i can to make this a final one. that may mean this is longer than usual, so to speak. also, quite a few selfies (of course featuring moi), but that is fine as little damage shall be done if fewer of you are reading it.
to the many pictures of me here that shall feature, well, what could i say or ask. should you ever for any reason feel compelled to pause and reconsider me, then remember me this way. or, forget it all ever happened, whichever is the easiest.
hopefully i shall be able to recall where all these pictures are. this one above, at the least, i can most assuredly confirm, is outside of kings cross, having a cigarette having just completed a surprisingly pleasant and (almost) mostly stress free trip down.
for those not in the now, our English trains are generally regarded as a complete pile of sh!t. in optimal conditions they are prone to delays and cancellations for no given reason, and are staffed by people who are extremely strike friendly. the miracle of my journey is that it actually happened, despite two massive storms on the weekend before and on it, planned and "unplanned" maintenance work, and a mystery stop in, of all places, Grantham, where the train driver managed to "correct" the issue with the train. right after some people who had got on the train with "split tickets" as far as Grantham but hoped to see london were invited to leave. had we broken down in Grantham forever, it might not have been so bad, i would have just gone and looked for where Bad News did their gig in the Bad News Tour documentary.
my thoughts on kings cross? i was quite annoyed that the usual food market was not on, as i had hoped to pick up some biltong and drywors for the family from it. the failure to do so undoubtedly provoked even more hatred and contempt towards your humble narrator from my (considerably) better half than is usual, which is an achievement i suppose. beyond that, there was a significant and visible increase in the number of people rough sleeping, and a remarkable number of people who thought that i was some sort of free cigarette dispenser, which i am not.
off from kings cross and on to the magic of the tube system, then. and it really is quite remarkable. whilst i appreciate that familiarity breeds contempt, all them london types what moan about the tube and the buses really need to go out to the provincial areas and see how they get on without.
here i am, then, at shepherd's bush. no, i didn't get off here, so to speak. my memory suggests that this is where one would depart to go to the old bbc centre, which they took off them and moved them to manchester which they sulk about. also, in terms of rock and roll, i do believe that it was "the bush" what was considered the stomping ground of the likes of the who and indeed status quo. so maybe i should have gone for a gander, see if there was any tribute to such.
and speaking of tube stations and rock legend, hammersmith.
well, i think (or am at the least fairly sure) that is me outside one of the hammersmith tube stations, for so rock and roll is the place they have at least two that i am aware of. maybe more but i have only used the two, so i can only speak of them.
oddly, and this rather gives details of where and when i was away, whilst there in hammersmith i could have gone and seen eric clapton do a one off gig tribute to ginger baker. the tickets for this were a modest £750 at the cheapest, which i simply did not have to hand, or at all.
some rock myths and legends are truly baffling. in regards of clapton, i have heard several stories of him apparently throwing his guitar down in disgust as some other guitarist was better than him. usually it is hendrix cited, but there have been others. why the pick on clapton for these tales is rather unclear, even if he was for some reason a trifle miffed that hendrix appeared to be a better guitarist than him then surely this is not a small number of people for which this is true.
yes, well done for scrolling down and finding a picture in which i, me (moi) does not feature. once again it does feel somewhat like any commentary i could add in words is superfluous or just plain unnecessary, but sure, that is a statue of Monty.
no, not Monty Python or Full or any other Monty other than Viscount Montgomery. one of the men and women who led us to victory in the war, and secured our freedom. a freedom which some, of course, choose to be critical of those who led us to victory, but that is what freedom is. the ability to say what you will. you just have to accept there are consequences for what you say.
speaking of which, Sir Winston, who is in the statue above. a rather strange thing. in these enlightened, informed times, where perhaps there is some distance from events and none of us can really comprehend it all, there are those who suggest that Sir Winston was some form of war criminal, that he was a bad man. going on various reliable accounts, he was a questionable man in a personal capacity, for sure. but he stood up against tyranny and vowed to defend freedom to the death when so many were pressuring him to capitulate. i am not a clever person so do not know exactly what the word means, but i suspect it is ironic that Sir Winston is the one who led the way to assure people had the freedom to call him whatever they so wished to.
any other statues in and around london? goodness me, yes, lots of them. some of them will feature below, of course. if you are not all that keen on statues, then, you may want to give the rest of this something of a miss.
yes, the reason i have included the above is because of the manner in which it has been defaced. them twats off of "extinction rebellion" went right ahead and carved their odd, peculiar, wonky egg timer logo on it. i am sure they feel justified in doing so, due to whatever it is them what did this statue did to destroy something they have a passing value for, or stole dreams, or what have you.
did i by any chance once again go past the magnificent statue of Madiba? why yes, of course, since i was there. no doubt, with the time that i had, if i wasn't right there then i would probably have made the effort to go.
this really is a superb statute, honouring a truly great man who very few are critical of in any substantive or objective way. should you be wandering around parliament square wondering where exactly this statue is, simply look for the biggest crowd, as normally that crowd is gathered around this Madiba statue.
how about a slight break from statues? i appreciate that they are exciting and interesting things, but there is only so much i can write of them in such a space. also, one or two of you in particular, i know, prefer (or have simply gotten used to) me going non-linear with things.
yes, the thames. it would be amiss, i suppose, for me to do any sort of sequence of posts on london and not have it feature. what with, you know, all the history, the iconic status and what have you.
i am reasonably sure (certain) that there is nothing i could say of the thames which is not covered in a much, much better way in the song Waterloo Sunset off of The Kings. a song which, for me, is the most beautiful, inspired homage to a place that i have heard. many will have a different song for a different place in mind, but there you go, that's the beauty of how we each experience music in our own ways.
again, sorry for not reversing (or "flipping") the picture, but for some reason it doesn't feel quite right when i do. maybe it is all that biology and perception stuff about how our vision actually works, i am not sure i didn't pay attention and it was quite a while ago that i was in such a class where i may have learned all about it.
there are a number of people who will need no clarification at all as to why i took the above. yes, indeed, i did just take a tube from where i wanted to be to tottenham court road just to take this picture. i then hopped back on the next one to be at where i wished. although of course i very much wished to be here.
why? more recently (as in the last 20 or 25 or thereabouts years) because in the fabulous Why Bother recordings, it is here that Sir Arthur went for a swim at the YMCA. but, more importantly, because that scene in An American Werewolf In London took place at this very tube station. and the image below, i think, was taken at the same.
now that i think on, perhaps i should do one of those infrequent "classic cinema" posts what i used to do on An American Werewolf In London. it is, after all, a masterpiece. debate to this day, for instance, remains over whether it is best to describe it as a comedy-horror or a horror-comedy. as it is in equal measure one of the most terrifying and funniest films you could see, there is no clear cut answer.
it was most ace to be able to have the time, and indeed opportunity, to visit this most celebrated of tube stations. on other visits to london i did not, for the most part, have the time to do so. well, on one visit i did, but it was closed for some maintenance work or something. but, made it there in the end. yes, i had been before, back in the 80s, on a school trip. maybe we attempted to recreate the scene out of An American Werewolf In London and perhaps we got knacked, both for doing it and for having quite intimate knowledge of a film we were too young to have seen at the time.
back to leicester square, then. i believe it was from there that i travelled up to tottenham court road and back for the above, so returning to the subject of the place now is, i guess, in a very real (or pretend) sense non non-linear.
to return to something else, in respect of the Why Bother recordings, i am, alas, unable to confirm what Sir Arthur said about crack cocaine being a lot cheaper in leicester square. cheaper than where, i do not know, as i have no idea how much the stuff costs. or where to get it. and it is not like anyone walked up to me and said "hello there, how would you like to buy some crack?". or maybe they did but i did not hear them.
yes, a return to statues too. this one is indeed, if for some reason not clear, of william shakespeare, and is of course to be found in leicester square. presumably, or it is nice to know, that bill shakes was quite the admirer of leicester square too.
auberon waugh once wrote something along the lines of how william shakespeare was the shadow under which all other English writers wrote. whilst auberon was known to be quite mischievous in what he wrote from time to time, perhaps not so here. it's all eye of the beholder, etc, in terms of what anyone thinks makes the "best" of anything, but foolish it would be to suggest that many if any hold his influence.
for those who have not encountered the spear of shake and thus do not believe they are aware of his influence or shadow, think not such. his plays have provided the very basic structure for any narrative since, with particular emphasis on how stories are told in films.
i cannot for any reason think of why one would want, wish for or need a selfie of me (moi) before the statue of shakespeare, but should i be wrong (frequently, i am), there you go above.
are there any other statues in the leicester square part of leicester square? yes.
there be the most splendid one of charlie chaplin for you. which, as point of fact, from what i can remember (at least), is the only other statue i saw.
make no mistake, and don't get me wrong (actually you can if you so wish), the idea of a chaplin statute is a really splendid and ace one. it's just that if they are going to go full tilt and have statues of celebrated actors (presumably of an English or perhaps British heritage), then why just charles "charlie" charles, and not some of the others.
in days gone by, and i speak of the 80s and early 90s here, one saw people stood around in leicester square dressed in all sorts of costumes, or done up as clowns. from what i remember, and this could be wrong, a condition of joining an actors' union (probably equity) was having to perform for x amount of hours in public. standing around dressed as a clown for a few hours in leicester square would tick that box.
no, that is not quite what i was doing in the above picture, but if any sort of actors' union card turns up in the post as a consequence i shall be sure to let you know.
would that now be "it" for updates from leicester square? kind of, sort of, yes. rather than take the tube, or spend an enormous sum of money on one of them "cheeky" black london cabs, i strolled from leicester square towards piccadilly. which meant a walk past chinatown.
the people what do the news and that had reported chinatown had been all but abandoned, due to fear over this coronavirus thing. from what i recall they even had footage of that nice jeremy corbyn bloke stood there all alone. going on what i could see, perhaps that image of jeremy was one rather like that time he did that thing where he sat on the floor of a train a while ago.
did i not have any fears or concerns surrounding possibly catching or being infected with this splendid virus? partially, i suppose. you have to remember by this stage it was so that my kidney (or kidneys, i suspect one has two) had went f****d, so it wasn't all that much of a risk. besides, who knows, every cloud, etc, so maybe coronavirus fixes kidney(s) issues whilst killing you.
but i did not dwell in chinatown too long. certainly not long enough for anyone to approach me about something what Spiros told me one of his business associates told him. apparently, according to him, one can briefly employ a lady in chinatown to do a sort of "job" with her "hand" for the fee of £5. this claim is one that i am tres skeptical of, for i find it very hard to believe that anything in london can be obtained for a fiver or less.
piccadilly, then, with the welcoming site of the eros statue. quite strange, once again. what with it being rule under the English way of doing things that we are expected to be prudes, and all shy and coy and not interested in that sort of thing that we should then go and prominently erect a statue to the god of passion and physical desire. very much that sort of thing.
generally, i do like being here (there) in piccadilly, near or around the statue. maybe that's because i most certainly do not hide away from my enjoyment, appreciation and delight of that sort of thing, who knows (or cares). however, on this instance there were quite a few buskers setting up, playing and trying to sell discs, so i moved on. well, yes i listened for a bit and most were smart, but i wished to have some dinner, and get to Fortnum & Mason.
but of course i did pause to pose for a selfie by the eros statue, as seen above.
any regrets or wishes unfulfilled from my trip to london? well, there are one or two friends i have down there that i don't seem to get to see when i go. also, briefly, i considered going somewhere random, like high wycombe or similar, for a coffee or something. doing so, however, would have taken away time that i could spend in Fortnum & Mason, and indeed with my chum Spiros.
phew. more or less all done, then. if for some reason you felt a need to read all (or most) (or even just some) of this, many thanks indeed.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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