This, for example.
Sitting on a two-seater sofa with the girl with the freckle on her nose; two young people alone late at night, necks craning backwards over the low headrest, eyes on each other’s eyes.
Recounting in slow, trembling detail the plot of the movie Ring (the Japanese original), a movie that the girl with the freckle on her nose insists she will never watch.
Hearing your own voice with a clarity that seems uncanny--the sound of water flowing between rocks, somewhere high up; threads of crystal ringing in empty air. You and her and your wellspring of words alone in the electric half light.
Coming to the part of the movie that you love: the death of the hero. (This part is especially good because he is not the hero, and his death is pointless, unwarranted, unfair.)
Slowing down, lingering over morbid details.
Feeling tears in your eyes, as on the rare occasions when you say nice things about a friend behind his back.
Knowing that the girl with the freckle on her nose can see the tears.
Knowing that you will never be closer to her, or need to be.
Showing posts with label Autobiographical Waffle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autobiographical Waffle. Show all posts
Monday, 6 September 2010
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
In the Dream
In the dream, I am sitting in a classroom. The classroom is L-shaped, and I am located at the far end of the shorter leg; the person teaching the lesson is out of sight around the corner. I am sitting not on a chair but on my bed, and next to me, also on the bed, is a naked woman. She is young and voluptuous.
The lesson is on Percy Bysshe Shelley. Although I would like to learn about Percy Bysshe Shelley, and to demonstrate the little that I already know, I am distracted. The naked woman keeps talking to me and flirting mildly. After a while it occurs to me that I should share my duvet with her, so that she can preserve her modesty, but she interprets this gesture as a come-on. She snuggles up next to me and starts to massage my genitals, which makes it very difficult to concentrate on what the invisible teacher is saying.
At some point, the world begins to end. Spaceships or meteorites appear in the sky, bearing down on us with murderous intent. There are also volcanoes. The prospect of learning about Percy Bysshe Shelley seems less and less appealing, the prospect of having sex with the naked woman more and more so. She confides in me that she is a porn star. We leave the classroom and rush across the city, which is tumbling down around us, in search of a good hotel. I am worried about the cost of the room.
Finally, we find a hotel, but there is an enormous queue of refugees at the front desk. Before we can check in, we are suddenly Ghostbusters, fighting a predator in the Arctic with the aid of a team of samurai. The predator wins: I have been cock-blocked by my unconscious fixation with '80s sci-fi movies.
The lesson is on Percy Bysshe Shelley. Although I would like to learn about Percy Bysshe Shelley, and to demonstrate the little that I already know, I am distracted. The naked woman keeps talking to me and flirting mildly. After a while it occurs to me that I should share my duvet with her, so that she can preserve her modesty, but she interprets this gesture as a come-on. She snuggles up next to me and starts to massage my genitals, which makes it very difficult to concentrate on what the invisible teacher is saying.
At some point, the world begins to end. Spaceships or meteorites appear in the sky, bearing down on us with murderous intent. There are also volcanoes. The prospect of learning about Percy Bysshe Shelley seems less and less appealing, the prospect of having sex with the naked woman more and more so. She confides in me that she is a porn star. We leave the classroom and rush across the city, which is tumbling down around us, in search of a good hotel. I am worried about the cost of the room.
Finally, we find a hotel, but there is an enormous queue of refugees at the front desk. Before we can check in, we are suddenly Ghostbusters, fighting a predator in the Arctic with the aid of a team of samurai. The predator wins: I have been cock-blocked by my unconscious fixation with '80s sci-fi movies.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
The Will to Power Nap
For the last three days workmen have been excavating the flat adjoining mine, using what sounds to me like a tunnel boring machine. Short burst of cacophonous grinding are followed by the noise of plasterwork crashing to the floor; hammers beat without rhythm on groaning walls and drills growl a feral call-and-response. Occasionally, all grows peaceful, but then a muffled bang will send the settled air flying up like plaster dust. A man will moan in pain and another man will laugh.
What are they doing over there? Should I be concerned? The “coalface” seems to be the very wall against which my head rests as I lie in bed; I keep imagining that a sledgehammer is about to smash a hole in the brickwork, or that a drill bit will burst through, spearing my skull and liquefying my brain matter with its frantic revolutions. All very vexing.
At the same time, the disruption seems like a fine excuse to stay in bed: at moments the noise level becomes almost unbearable, and my refusal to rise takes on a heroic aspect. Who else could withstand six hours of such torture, climbing out of bed only once the workmen have surrendered for the day at five o’clock? A lesser man would get up extra early to avoid this discomfort, but I am made of sterner stuff. And if I can take a lie-in in what amounts to a construction site, think what else I can achieve!
The final lines of Kipling’s poem “If” come to mind: “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it/And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!” At last, I think I know what that means. Thank you, you fucking noisy asshole bastards.
What are they doing over there? Should I be concerned? The “coalface” seems to be the very wall against which my head rests as I lie in bed; I keep imagining that a sledgehammer is about to smash a hole in the brickwork, or that a drill bit will burst through, spearing my skull and liquefying my brain matter with its frantic revolutions. All very vexing.
At the same time, the disruption seems like a fine excuse to stay in bed: at moments the noise level becomes almost unbearable, and my refusal to rise takes on a heroic aspect. Who else could withstand six hours of such torture, climbing out of bed only once the workmen have surrendered for the day at five o’clock? A lesser man would get up extra early to avoid this discomfort, but I am made of sterner stuff. And if I can take a lie-in in what amounts to a construction site, think what else I can achieve!
The final lines of Kipling’s poem “If” come to mind: “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it/And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!” At last, I think I know what that means. Thank you, you fucking noisy asshole bastards.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Two Fragments from the Recent Past
Tonight Y commandeers every toast made, orally anointing all those present in his own name. He starts an argument with a solicitor in which he repeatedly threatens to push her down the nearest set of stairs. He drinks heavily, takes coke and talks shit about sex, race and the easiest way to break a person’s collar bone, all of it with the intensity of a man speaking in tongues at a Pentecostal ceremony. At one point he even gets me in a sleeper hold and chokes me into unconsciousness. So why do I like him so much?
Maybe it’s the spontaneous acts of largesse: the rounds bought, the cigarettes given away; he spends 10 minutes arguing with the manager of a club over whether he can buy one of the barmen a drink. Maybe it’s the strange (and distinctly homoerotic) displays of tenderness: he drags me out on to a balcony for a smoke, and when he sees that I’m cold he puts his mouth on the top of my spine and warms my back with his breath.
Then again, maybe it’s just because he carries off a pinstriped suit jacket, green keffiyeh and purple beanie with such panache. I should have learned long ago not to underestimate the extent of my own shallowness.
Two hepatitis injections and a blood sample. The nurse delicately inserts the small needle at the point where my forearm and biceps meet; red-brown liquid shoots down the cannula so fast it looks like a movie jump cut. She says sorry for about the fifth time and I tell her that I’m okay, but the truth is I feel surprisingly queasy; it’s unsettling to learn that your bodily fluids are so eager to get away from you. After filling three collection tubes she removes the needle and presses a cotton pad against the puncture; I hold the pad in place while she turns around to get some tape. Then I black out and have an intensely violent dream.
It’s hard to tell exactly what the dream involves—aliens, fist fights, explosions?—but it seems to be rendered in the crude, brightly coloured graphics of an 8-bit videogame. When I regain consciousness my vision is dominated by a beautiful and vaguely familiar face; it takes me a while to realise that it’s the nurse, because I’m convinced that my visit to the clinic took place several weeks ago. She asks me again and again if I’m okay and I tell her each time that I am, although this is primarily a reflex action. Apparently I banged my head on the desk and she thinks I’m going to have a bruise, but when I reach up and touch my face I feel no pain. My body is tougher than it looks, and it never stops reminding me how little I deserve it.
Maybe it’s the spontaneous acts of largesse: the rounds bought, the cigarettes given away; he spends 10 minutes arguing with the manager of a club over whether he can buy one of the barmen a drink. Maybe it’s the strange (and distinctly homoerotic) displays of tenderness: he drags me out on to a balcony for a smoke, and when he sees that I’m cold he puts his mouth on the top of my spine and warms my back with his breath.
Then again, maybe it’s just because he carries off a pinstriped suit jacket, green keffiyeh and purple beanie with such panache. I should have learned long ago not to underestimate the extent of my own shallowness.
***
Two hepatitis injections and a blood sample. The nurse delicately inserts the small needle at the point where my forearm and biceps meet; red-brown liquid shoots down the cannula so fast it looks like a movie jump cut. She says sorry for about the fifth time and I tell her that I’m okay, but the truth is I feel surprisingly queasy; it’s unsettling to learn that your bodily fluids are so eager to get away from you. After filling three collection tubes she removes the needle and presses a cotton pad against the puncture; I hold the pad in place while she turns around to get some tape. Then I black out and have an intensely violent dream.
It’s hard to tell exactly what the dream involves—aliens, fist fights, explosions?—but it seems to be rendered in the crude, brightly coloured graphics of an 8-bit videogame. When I regain consciousness my vision is dominated by a beautiful and vaguely familiar face; it takes me a while to realise that it’s the nurse, because I’m convinced that my visit to the clinic took place several weeks ago. She asks me again and again if I’m okay and I tell her each time that I am, although this is primarily a reflex action. Apparently I banged my head on the desk and she thinks I’m going to have a bruise, but when I reach up and touch my face I feel no pain. My body is tougher than it looks, and it never stops reminding me how little I deserve it.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's a Hat Stand
I’m watching cartoons with two doctors in the early afternoon. In the present one, two children, a boy and a girl, are accompanying their granddad on a mission to prevent a man with a gold mask from obtaining a 5000-year-old Mayan sword. They’re concerned that he’ll use it to enslave the human race. The boy has a watch that enables him to turn into a variety of powerful animals; right now he’s a frog. The granddad has a “plumbing” suit with rockets in the feet. The girl makes sassy comments.
The doctors know this cartoon well. They remark on its inferiority to a certain alien-themed spin off. During the ads, we see a trailer for yet another spin off: a live-action TV movie. Both of the doctors are excited. They order pizza and fried chicken, but I can’t eat any because last night I mixed every alcoholic drink known to science, plus cocaine.
The three of us are sharing an enormous blanket. Initially, one of the doctors had it to himself, but then the other one commandeered it in the name of the common good. I sit still and upright, so that my innards don’t fall out on to the floor.
It’s strange when you get into a life that you’ve previously seen only from the outside. When you become party to the secret banality of another person’s existence. Strange and sad and reassuring. I walk home in the rain; there’s too much pain in my stomach to think about.
The doctors know this cartoon well. They remark on its inferiority to a certain alien-themed spin off. During the ads, we see a trailer for yet another spin off: a live-action TV movie. Both of the doctors are excited. They order pizza and fried chicken, but I can’t eat any because last night I mixed every alcoholic drink known to science, plus cocaine.
The three of us are sharing an enormous blanket. Initially, one of the doctors had it to himself, but then the other one commandeered it in the name of the common good. I sit still and upright, so that my innards don’t fall out on to the floor.
It’s strange when you get into a life that you’ve previously seen only from the outside. When you become party to the secret banality of another person’s existence. Strange and sad and reassuring. I walk home in the rain; there’s too much pain in my stomach to think about.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
So, Recently...
It’s only the second night since Nick arrived, completing our south London triumvirate, and we’re already flagging. Rather than going out to a secret, subterranean club full of coked-up fashion designers and moviemakers, where we might pick up half-crazed androgynes for combative, drug-fuelled sex romps, we decide to stay home and watch a movie. One I’ve already seen, actually.
We figure that this course of action requires alcoholic enhancement, and launch an expedition to the local Threshers. As we enter, a woman’s trying to pay with a fake Scottish note, which the middle-aged guy behind the counter cheerfully exposes using the shop’s black light. This revelation provides him with the opportunity to launch into a lengthy monologue on suspicious foreign currencies, eliciting occasional grunts of acknowledgement from the woman. By the time she manages to reach the door he’s talking about the treacherousness of Irish pounds, at which point she cuts him off mid-sentence with an emphatic “Thanks, bye!” and exits. He echoes her farewell without missing a beat.
A few moments pass while the three of us choose some cheap beers, but when we approach the counter he just picks up the “conversation” where he left off, as though, in his mind, all customers represent a continuous organism.
“It’s a good bit of kit, this,” he says, gesturing to the black light. “Shows up fake notes…and fake IDs.” He smiles maniacally. “Speaking of which, I’m going to have to ask you guys to show me some.”
“Sure,” I say, trying to seem as amiable as possible. I can well imagine this guy affecting the same sunny demeanour while popping my testicles with his bare hands. I pass over my driving licence and he scrutinises it briefly.
“Thanks!” he says, handing it back.
The card machine seems to take an age, and he keeps talking throughout. “We’re really clamping down these days. Going the American route: no ID, no service. It’s even stricter in Scotland.”
Nick chips in, for which I’m grateful. “There’s a place in Glasgow where they won’t even accept driving licences, only passports.”
“Really?” I say.
“Oh yeah,” replies the guy behind the counter, as though he knows all about this already.
Before we leave, the guy calls us back. “Give me your licence again.” I hand it over and he slides it under the black light, exposing the previously invisible watermark. “Look at that,” he says. He seems tremendously pleased.
We figure that this course of action requires alcoholic enhancement, and launch an expedition to the local Threshers. As we enter, a woman’s trying to pay with a fake Scottish note, which the middle-aged guy behind the counter cheerfully exposes using the shop’s black light. This revelation provides him with the opportunity to launch into a lengthy monologue on suspicious foreign currencies, eliciting occasional grunts of acknowledgement from the woman. By the time she manages to reach the door he’s talking about the treacherousness of Irish pounds, at which point she cuts him off mid-sentence with an emphatic “Thanks, bye!” and exits. He echoes her farewell without missing a beat.
A few moments pass while the three of us choose some cheap beers, but when we approach the counter he just picks up the “conversation” where he left off, as though, in his mind, all customers represent a continuous organism.
“It’s a good bit of kit, this,” he says, gesturing to the black light. “Shows up fake notes…and fake IDs.” He smiles maniacally. “Speaking of which, I’m going to have to ask you guys to show me some.”
“Sure,” I say, trying to seem as amiable as possible. I can well imagine this guy affecting the same sunny demeanour while popping my testicles with his bare hands. I pass over my driving licence and he scrutinises it briefly.
“Thanks!” he says, handing it back.
The card machine seems to take an age, and he keeps talking throughout. “We’re really clamping down these days. Going the American route: no ID, no service. It’s even stricter in Scotland.”
Nick chips in, for which I’m grateful. “There’s a place in Glasgow where they won’t even accept driving licences, only passports.”
“Really?” I say.
“Oh yeah,” replies the guy behind the counter, as though he knows all about this already.
Before we leave, the guy calls us back. “Give me your licence again.” I hand it over and he slides it under the black light, exposing the previously invisible watermark. “Look at that,” he says. He seems tremendously pleased.
Sunday, 27 September 2009
So, Recently, Again...
I go to see a band that someone I used to know at sixth form plays in, and once we’re through catching up I chat to several of his partner’s attractive female friends. One of them is called Martina; she tells me that her mother is half-Greek, half-Swiss and her father is German, but she was born and bred in London. She tells me that she wasn’t sure what she was doing for a while, but now she’s going to Brighton to study Interior Architecture. She has a stud in her nose and she’s wearing a black hat that’s almost but not quite a beret. She just came from her first belly dancing lesson and claims to be unpleasantly sweaty. She has beautiful skin. It occurs to me that I’m attracted to her. We talk for about five minutes, during which time I briefly try on her hat, although she protests that her hair is gross. Then we go upstairs to watch the band play. She leaves immediately afterwards.
I talk to other people for a while, including a girl named Serena who discusses London’s vermin problem with me. She quotes the famous phrase about how no one is ever more than two metres from a rat, and I hypothesise the existence of a small but dedicated team of rodents that rush around at breakneck speed so as to fulfil this statistic. Then I add weight to my argument by citing the movie Aliens, in which a handful of xenomorphs are made to seem like a huge swarm through careful camerawork and editing. The way she pretends to be impressed is quite endearing. Meanwhile, my sixth-form friend, by whose side I stand throughout, fields the criticisms of a tall blond guy who thinks that the band lack stage presence. This guy looks like someone who’s twenty but looks older; after a while I notice that he’s wearing what appears to be a wedding ring.
On the way home the tube is full of couples. Or maybe I just imagine it.
I talk to other people for a while, including a girl named Serena who discusses London’s vermin problem with me. She quotes the famous phrase about how no one is ever more than two metres from a rat, and I hypothesise the existence of a small but dedicated team of rodents that rush around at breakneck speed so as to fulfil this statistic. Then I add weight to my argument by citing the movie Aliens, in which a handful of xenomorphs are made to seem like a huge swarm through careful camerawork and editing. The way she pretends to be impressed is quite endearing. Meanwhile, my sixth-form friend, by whose side I stand throughout, fields the criticisms of a tall blond guy who thinks that the band lack stage presence. This guy looks like someone who’s twenty but looks older; after a while I notice that he’s wearing what appears to be a wedding ring.
On the way home the tube is full of couples. Or maybe I just imagine it.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
So, Recently...
Lulworth House in the London borough of Lambeth. A five-storey, brown-brick structure comprising ex-council flats, which they’re now calling "ex-authority" or something—one of those periodic lexical switcheroos that keeps things from sounding too grim, like "Sellafield" for "Windscale".* This grubby top-floor apartment is now the base of operations for my conquest of London, or it will be, just as soon as it has electricity and an Internet connection. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
To be frank, I’m not feeling all that imperious right now. The latest session with the letting agents has sapped away the little energy I can bring to bear on a Monday morning; I’ve just signed more documents than it takes to condemn a man to death in some countries—that’s how it is when property is involved. Moreover, I’ve arrived at the flat to find that it’s in exactly the same condition as it was when I looked at it three weeks ago, and since I just signed a form to confirm that the property has been professionally cleaned that makes me what they call a "sucker". The landlord hasn’t even installed a shower unit, which was the one and only stipulation that I could think of when I first put in an offer, even though most of the locks are broken, the wallpaper is coming off in foot-long strips and there’s a hole in the bathroom sink. On the plus side, the lounge boasts a mirror that’s at least six feet across, and someone’s left a complimentary umbrella on the coat stand.
I claim the solitary bedroom with a working lock, not because it provides an additional layer of security—it’s only one of those miniature sliding bolts you get in bathrooms, a modesty lock—but because I want to know that I have a place to masturbate without fear of interruption. Or, who knows, maybe even have sex. I then set about scavenging the best furniture from the rest of the house, as per SOP; I find a small desk and a rickety office chair with wheels. By the time I’m finished, my room is looking damn near palatial. I’m so overcome by the sight of it that I have to lie down on the flabby mattress for about two hours, which doesn’t quite fit in with my programme of rigorous self-improvement. Still, there’ll be plenty of time to build Rome later.
It’s about one-thirty in the afternoon when I finally rouse myself, and I decide that it’s time to get moving. It doesn’t even matter where; the important thing is to establish some momentum. I can figure out what to do with it afterwards. On the way down the stairwell I run into the perfect stereotype of an Afro Caribbean man: dreadlocks, unkempt beard, bloodshot eyes. He politely gives way, allowing me to pass. This is necessary because he’s carrying a small canoe. The car park is full of Audis and BMWs, which I find reassuring: if people who are richer than me live here, then I won’t be an obvious target for burglary. I count about half-a-dozen luxury cars, maybe a quarter of the total vehicles. They can’t all belong to drug dealers, surely?
I go north—that’s where the action is. An anonymous driver does his best to mow me down outside Vauxhall Tube, deliberately accelerating when he sees me stepping out, but I manage to leap clear. After crossing the river at Vauxhall Bridge I stop and turn around to check out the scenery I’ve left behind: on one side lies the MI6 building, which is a fantastic, nonsensical edifice straight out of a sci-fi comic; it looks like the imperial palace of some extra-terrestrial despot, or perhaps an inter-galactic colonial headquarters—the sort of thing that appears on the covers of Ayn Rand books. It also reminds me of the anthropomorphic cities from the Transformers cartoon.** On the other side of the road is a collection of glass-and-steel structures know as St. George’s Wharf. By day these buildings appear to be typical examples of the sort of futuristic corporate architecture that’s recently been metastasizing throughout major cities the world over, but at night, illuminated by points of coloured light and the reflections of the shimmering Thames, they take on the quality of gigantic exposed circuit boards, slotted into the protesting earth by some divine computer engineer.
Rather than heading north to Victoria, I turn right and make my way along the river bank. I walk straight past the Tate, then double back, feeling guilty about my philistine indifference. During the nine months I spent in Bloomsbury in 2004/5 I failed to visit a single gallery or museum; this time it’ll be different, or so I tell myself. Unfortunately, it turns out that I’m still as nonplussed by the visual arts as ever. After wandering around for twenty minutes I head for the gift shop, where I realise that I am capable of enjoying paintings, but only when they’re reproduced as 4x6 postcards. It’s just like browsing record sleeves.
There’s an ice cream van in the park next to the Houses of Parliament, but it seems to be unoccupied, and the man standing in front of it is being questioned by two police officers. I hang around for a while, holding out hope for a mid-afternoon breakfast of Mr Whippy, but the interrogation continues for at least fifteen minutes, after which I move on. By way of compensation, I treat myself to a meal at a subterranean McDonald’s, which is populated entirely by foreign tourists and guys with muscles and tribal tattoos. I sample the new M, a ciabatta sandwich with Emmental cheese that somehow conspires to be more flavourless than the average white-bun burger. I’m genuinely surprised by how poor it is, even considering the low expectations attendant to any McDonald’s purchase; all the same, I enjoy it immensely.
I see a man wearing a PayPal T-shirt. I hear another man, plump and middle-aged, telling his pre-pubescent son what to do if someone makes trouble for him. "Take them out",*** he says, to which the boy sensibly replies that he’s too small and weak to incapacitate an adult. His dad tells him to use his knees, or maybe he tells him to go for their knees; I can’t say for sure, but I’m reminded of my own father’s perennial advice to "go for the eyes", which I tried once with mixed success. In HMV I find an espionage novel written by Hugh Laurie and an unauthorised biography of Danny Dyer, "Britain’s toughest star". Later, I witness a young Asian guy doing a walk that I've never seen before. It demands a name, so I christen it the "Macho-Man Mince". It’s probably a pretty good reproduction of the way tough guys move around in prison the day after they’ve been sodomised.
*Clear evidence for the unsung optimism of British culture; would Chernobyl have retained its name to this day if it had been situated in Cumbria?
**Viewed from the north side of the river, the head is clearly visible: a recessed, semi-circular chamber in the centre of the building, flanked by two stratospheric towers that evoke hideously protruding shoulder blades. Decorative crenulations run along its top, giving the impression of a crown.
*** The gender-neutral pronoun evinces a pleasingly progressive attitude towards violence.
To be frank, I’m not feeling all that imperious right now. The latest session with the letting agents has sapped away the little energy I can bring to bear on a Monday morning; I’ve just signed more documents than it takes to condemn a man to death in some countries—that’s how it is when property is involved. Moreover, I’ve arrived at the flat to find that it’s in exactly the same condition as it was when I looked at it three weeks ago, and since I just signed a form to confirm that the property has been professionally cleaned that makes me what they call a "sucker". The landlord hasn’t even installed a shower unit, which was the one and only stipulation that I could think of when I first put in an offer, even though most of the locks are broken, the wallpaper is coming off in foot-long strips and there’s a hole in the bathroom sink. On the plus side, the lounge boasts a mirror that’s at least six feet across, and someone’s left a complimentary umbrella on the coat stand.
I claim the solitary bedroom with a working lock, not because it provides an additional layer of security—it’s only one of those miniature sliding bolts you get in bathrooms, a modesty lock—but because I want to know that I have a place to masturbate without fear of interruption. Or, who knows, maybe even have sex. I then set about scavenging the best furniture from the rest of the house, as per SOP; I find a small desk and a rickety office chair with wheels. By the time I’m finished, my room is looking damn near palatial. I’m so overcome by the sight of it that I have to lie down on the flabby mattress for about two hours, which doesn’t quite fit in with my programme of rigorous self-improvement. Still, there’ll be plenty of time to build Rome later.
It’s about one-thirty in the afternoon when I finally rouse myself, and I decide that it’s time to get moving. It doesn’t even matter where; the important thing is to establish some momentum. I can figure out what to do with it afterwards. On the way down the stairwell I run into the perfect stereotype of an Afro Caribbean man: dreadlocks, unkempt beard, bloodshot eyes. He politely gives way, allowing me to pass. This is necessary because he’s carrying a small canoe. The car park is full of Audis and BMWs, which I find reassuring: if people who are richer than me live here, then I won’t be an obvious target for burglary. I count about half-a-dozen luxury cars, maybe a quarter of the total vehicles. They can’t all belong to drug dealers, surely?
***
I go north—that’s where the action is. An anonymous driver does his best to mow me down outside Vauxhall Tube, deliberately accelerating when he sees me stepping out, but I manage to leap clear. After crossing the river at Vauxhall Bridge I stop and turn around to check out the scenery I’ve left behind: on one side lies the MI6 building, which is a fantastic, nonsensical edifice straight out of a sci-fi comic; it looks like the imperial palace of some extra-terrestrial despot, or perhaps an inter-galactic colonial headquarters—the sort of thing that appears on the covers of Ayn Rand books. It also reminds me of the anthropomorphic cities from the Transformers cartoon.** On the other side of the road is a collection of glass-and-steel structures know as St. George’s Wharf. By day these buildings appear to be typical examples of the sort of futuristic corporate architecture that’s recently been metastasizing throughout major cities the world over, but at night, illuminated by points of coloured light and the reflections of the shimmering Thames, they take on the quality of gigantic exposed circuit boards, slotted into the protesting earth by some divine computer engineer.
Rather than heading north to Victoria, I turn right and make my way along the river bank. I walk straight past the Tate, then double back, feeling guilty about my philistine indifference. During the nine months I spent in Bloomsbury in 2004/5 I failed to visit a single gallery or museum; this time it’ll be different, or so I tell myself. Unfortunately, it turns out that I’m still as nonplussed by the visual arts as ever. After wandering around for twenty minutes I head for the gift shop, where I realise that I am capable of enjoying paintings, but only when they’re reproduced as 4x6 postcards. It’s just like browsing record sleeves.
There’s an ice cream van in the park next to the Houses of Parliament, but it seems to be unoccupied, and the man standing in front of it is being questioned by two police officers. I hang around for a while, holding out hope for a mid-afternoon breakfast of Mr Whippy, but the interrogation continues for at least fifteen minutes, after which I move on. By way of compensation, I treat myself to a meal at a subterranean McDonald’s, which is populated entirely by foreign tourists and guys with muscles and tribal tattoos. I sample the new M, a ciabatta sandwich with Emmental cheese that somehow conspires to be more flavourless than the average white-bun burger. I’m genuinely surprised by how poor it is, even considering the low expectations attendant to any McDonald’s purchase; all the same, I enjoy it immensely.
I see a man wearing a PayPal T-shirt. I hear another man, plump and middle-aged, telling his pre-pubescent son what to do if someone makes trouble for him. "Take them out",*** he says, to which the boy sensibly replies that he’s too small and weak to incapacitate an adult. His dad tells him to use his knees, or maybe he tells him to go for their knees; I can’t say for sure, but I’m reminded of my own father’s perennial advice to "go for the eyes", which I tried once with mixed success. In HMV I find an espionage novel written by Hugh Laurie and an unauthorised biography of Danny Dyer, "Britain’s toughest star". Later, I witness a young Asian guy doing a walk that I've never seen before. It demands a name, so I christen it the "Macho-Man Mince". It’s probably a pretty good reproduction of the way tough guys move around in prison the day after they’ve been sodomised.
*Clear evidence for the unsung optimism of British culture; would Chernobyl have retained its name to this day if it had been situated in Cumbria?
**Viewed from the north side of the river, the head is clearly visible: a recessed, semi-circular chamber in the centre of the building, flanked by two stratospheric towers that evoke hideously protruding shoulder blades. Decorative crenulations run along its top, giving the impression of a crown.
*** The gender-neutral pronoun evinces a pleasingly progressive attitude towards violence.
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