Category: London

Onward and upward

On By Laura MorganIn London, Music, Reasons to be cheerful

Dang. I was so close to being right about Holland winning the World Cup! But I’m glad Spain won it, because they deserved to, and because I have more Spanish than Dutch friends. Although I have just inspected my bank balance and it turns out the cash I would have won had Holland beaten Spain would have been very useful (payday is Thursday). Oh well.

Anyway, I’m going to move on and pretend none of it ever happened, and I’m going to start looking forward to the event of the year, the Lambeth Country Show at Brockwell Park this weekend. The Lambeth Country Show is worth our council tax on its own. There’s live music, actual animals, jousting, fruit and vegetable shows, craft stalls, cake, cider, a funfair and sheep-shearing demonstrations. It is the most fun in the world, and it’s all free and on my doorstep. Who needs holidays?

Lost in translation

On By Laura MorganIn Language, London

The beloved and I took a speedboat ride up the Thames yesterday evening. I would heartily recommend it – it’s very exciting – but it does do interesting things to your hair. There were only six of us on the boat, plus a captain and a guide, and once we got past Tower Bridge we went super-fast, accompanied by the theme tunes from Baywatch and then James Bond. It was brilliant, and I was only a tiny bit scared.

Then we ate at Caffe’ Vergnano on the South Bank. I really like it there, but it’s somewhere I have usually gone before a film or a show, so I tend to go early and it’s always fairly empty. Last night we were there later on, and it was very busy. Halfway through our meal they seated a couple so close to us that it was nearly impossible for me to leave my seat without crashing into their table. It added an element of challenge to the evening, but it also gave us the chance to listen in to their conversation. Actually we had no choice: she was more or less completely silent, but he had a great booming voice that drowned out the sound of the trains just feet above our heads. Sadly they were speaking a language I didn’t recognise – I don’t speak many languages, but I can recognise the sound of a lot of them, and this wasn’t one I knew. It might have been Portuguese, or one of the eastern European languages that has nothing to do with Russian.

Anyway, I don’t know how much I would have enjoyed listening to him had I known what he was saying, but listening with no idea what he was talking about was great fun. He had a peculiarly mirthless laugh with which he punctuated every sentence. Because I didn’t recognise the words he was using, I have attempted to reproduce them phonetically, to give you an idea:

Amazon turquoise Lithuanian bathtub. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Malevolent projector foolproof simian pilot. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Christmas fettucine bones, bananas and bra. Ha. Ha. Ha.

It was disconcerting, but also kind of fascinating, and loud enough that it was easier for us to listen to him than attempt a conversation of our own. She sat in silence opposite him, occasionally joining in with the solemn laughter. I tried to imagine what he might be saying. The tone implied that it was probably something like

We have trapped your father in a dungeon. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. If you do not tell us where the jewels are he will die. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. We will show him no mercy. Ha. Ha. Ha.

But I think that was just the way he spoke. He was probably saying

Look at these jokers next to us. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. They are listening to me instead of having a conversation of their own. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. And they both have hair that points vertically upwards. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Sunshine in Bermondsey

On By Laura MorganIn London1 Comment

It was both discourteous and misguided of me, I now realise, to assume that it’s always raining in Bermondsey. Yesterday was our final rehearsal for the wedding that we’re playing music at this weekend, so back we all trooped to the Bermondsey Trading Estate, which this time around was bathed in bright sunlight:

bermondsey trading estate

The equipment stood there for about five minutes, while we waited for a cab. When we picked up the keyboard, it was almost too hot to hold. It’s good to have new experiences from time to time.

Bookshop dilemma

On By Laura MorganIn Books, London2 Comments

A new bookshop has recently opened in Herne Hill, which has for the first time caused me to question my highly successful “no new books” policy. We already have an Oxfam shop with a good selection of books, and I am a library member and anyway have a pile of about thirty unread books sitting in the flat, all of which are good reasons for not buying any new books at all, let alone new books at full price, which in Herne Hill Books they mostly are.

And yet. I’d like them to do well, and not have to close down in six months’ time because everybody thinks the same way as me. Apart from anything else, you can’t give library books or Oxfam books as presents, so it’s useful to have somewhere nearby available for emergency birthday purchases when I’ve left it too late to go anywhere else.

I solved this dilemma temporarily today by buying a copy of East of Acre Lane, which since it’s set locally seemed an appropriate purchase, even though it broke the rule. And I think I have a good ongoing solution too, which is to order my book club books from there, since they are exempt from the rule, being too hard to find by other means. I just have to remember not to accidentally buy a pile of four extra books each time I go in to place an order. I will let you know how I get along.

But right now, I have to go: it’s Ronnie O’Sullivan v Mark Williams in the snooker semi-final. Shh.

Goodbye to Peckham

On By Laura MorganIn London1 Comment

Tomorrow sees the consolidation of my stuff and the beloved’s into a single location. I love my egg, and I’m delighted that we will be able to stop having the “Where are we going tonight? Is there any food at your place? I’m not sure I’ve got clean socks there” conversation, but I will miss being a part-time courtesy Peckham resident. Here, as a goodbye, are my favourite things about Peckham:

  • Peckham Library is a beautiful thing, and really the heart of the town centre in a way that the architects must have hoped for but couldn’t have predicted. Peckham is slowly, stealthily, undergoing a gentrification of the subtlest kind, and the library is the best and biggest symbol of it. It is also the site, approximately, of the Sunday farmer’s market, source of excellent meat and veg.

  • The all-night off licence on Asylum Road: the source not merely of late-night emergency wine, but of really nice late-night emergency wine, because the owner is a wine enthusiast and specialises in buying the last few bottles in discontinued lines, so that he gets them at a knockdown price which he then passes on to his customers.
  • Morrison’s supermarket. I am not a Morrison’s connoisseur so perhaps they’re all like this, but Peckham Morrison’s is so big and glossy and colourful that it’s more like a proper American supermarket than the inferior English version. They sell everything you could think of, and plenty that you couldn’t. I think I could live for a year in Peckham Morrison’s and eat something I’ve never tried before every day.
  • The neighbours on the road we will shortly be departing are almost uniformly friendly and charming. This is unique in London, in my experience. At least, I had very nice neighbours in Dulwich once, but Dulwich is different. Plus, they were ladies of a certain age who were more or less guaranteed to give no trouble, whereas there’s much more of a mix here. But people say “hello” as you walk past them, and put Christmas cards through the door, and yesterday one said “let me know if you need any help moving; I’m really good at packing boxes!”. What nice people they are. What a shame to leave them behind.

Our neighbours in Herne Hill, on the other hand, do at least provide excellent anecdote material.

The TfL graffiti challenge

On By Laura MorganIn London, Public transport

TfL is running a poster campaign as part of its Art on the Underground initiative. It consists of a series of quotes which, according to the website, “provoke thought on life in the city”.

One of these is a quote from Gandhi, which I’ve seen proudly displayed at various points along my commute to work. It reads

“THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN INCREASING ITS SPEED”

As I spilled off my overcrowded Jubilee Line train after waiting an unfathomably long time at London Bridge, and squeezed my way on to the Central Line only to spend five minutes sitting in a tunnel, it occured to me that the expression of this particular sentiment is rather brazen on TfL’s part. I am very well-behaved and couldn’t possibly consider breaking the law myself, but I hereby offer £20 cash money to the first person to send me photographic evidence that they have found one of these posters and added the line

“ON THE OTHER HAND, IT WOULDN’T BE A BAD PLACE TO START”

Lilies

On By Laura MorganIn Flowers, London1 Comment

I can perceive intellectually that lilies are attractive; I just can’t bring myself to believe it in my heart. The problem is one of association. Just as meeting a lovely Nigel can convince you that it’s a nice name when it plainly isn’t, lilies’ ability to give me an instantaneous, powerful and lasting headache prevents me from appreciating their aesthetic charms.

That this is a minority opinion is borne out by the two – two! – women who separately got on to my train this evening carrying large bunches of lilies. The first landed at the other end of the carriage, but the second came and sat next to me. The journey only takes ten minutes,  but I knew that was long enough, so I got up and perched myself close to the door, breathing fresh air for as long as I possibly could before it slid shut.

I felt a bit bad for the woman. I wanted to explain, but my bad feeling for the woman was trumped by my wish not to have people thinking I was a madwoman on a crowded commuter train.

Fortunately, as I was leaving the train I caught a potent whiff of essence of male armpit, which put all thoughts of lilies – which put, in fact, all thoughts – immediately out of my mind.

Erratum

On By Laura MorganIn Architecture and design, London, Other cities

When I said

Paris does human-scale street life better than any city I can think of off the top of my head, with the possible exception of Beijing.

What I really meant was

Not including London, Paris does human-scale street life…etc etc.

London is bigger, so there are more places where it doesn’t happen, but when it does, it’s as good as anywhere else’s. I was reminded of this yesterday coming through Brixton Market, which is still the most interesting place I know in London.

Olympics site

On By Laura MorganIn Architecture and design, Buildings, London

I forgot to mention an inadvertent bit of tourism which I did on the way to Norfolk: at Stratford station we spotted what can only have been the 2012 Olympic village.  It’s in the very early stages of being built, but the scale of it is awesome already. If you can find an excuse for going to Stratford, go there sooner rather than later.

In praise of Croydon

On By Laura MorganIn London, Other cities, Public transport

I found myself in Croydon town centre a week or two back for the first time in years.  It’s de rigueur to deride Croydon, and I expect you think I’m still going to, but whenever I’m there I remember why I think it’s got one of the best-designed centres of any town I know.  It’s not wildly pretty, true, but it has its moments (the old hospital on the corner of the high street and George Street is one; the station at East Croydon is another), and most of all, it just works.  Whether you come in on foot, in a car or by public transport the system is designed to get you to where you want to be quickly and with the minimum of fuss.  The high street is pedestrianised along most of its length, and there are two indoor shopping centres (the Whitgift is older and a little more run down; Centrale, which replaced the old Drummond Centre, has a silly name but almost all the shops anyone could want to visit), so that it’s an uncomplicated and stress-free place to shop whatever the weather or time of day.  The main car parks are just behind or under the high street and cars are deposited there via a system of bypasses and tunnels, so that pedestrians and vehicles rarely meet one another, which can only be a good thing.  And the public transport is a dream: there are three mainline stations, countless buses and a speedy and reliable tram network (run by those good folk at TfL).

And it still has an Allders.   Bromley’s Allders, where you could buy almost everything, became a giant Primark.  Croydon’s goes from strength to strength.  Sometimes all you need is a shop with a really good haberdashery department.