"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" - Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four.
Amongst all the pasties and photography opportunities that a trip to Cornwall affords you, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Jo had secured, in keeping with her culture-vulture status, two tickets to an open-air performance of The Death of Sherlock Holmes, courtesy of the county's Miracle Theatre company. As a former board-treader myself (my favourite role being that of the Reverend John Hale in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, probably the best play of the twentieth century) I was excited about how the troupe could utilise the beautiful setting of Pendennis Castle as the backdrop to a tale of Victorian mystery and intrigue. With the circus at Eden a letdown, I felt this was Cornish culture's change to shine.
We arrived about thirty seconds before the performance took place, owing to tactical errors regarding choices of ice-cream at the Tesco Express on the way, and the fleece-covered woman manning the makeshift box-office certainly couldn't hide her inner tuts of irritation with her smile. No matter - in true outdoor theatre style we pulled out blankets and towels, readied our box of Cadbury's Giant Buttons and began work on our Soleros, just as the usual announcements about mobile phones and flash photography brought us back to earth. The stage was amateur dramatics personified - little more than a wall and a floor but with tricks and secrets enough to transport the audience from 221B Baker Street to the Horsham Spiritualist Society and back again. The cast numbered merely five, with multiple roles for all except Holmes and the utterly brilliant Watson, who delivered an impeccable performance combining just the right amount of straight and slapstick.
I don't intend to use this post as a formal review of such, but needless to say I was hugely surprised by the talent and professionalism on display. The story was average-to-middling, a fairly liberal take on Conan Doyle's 'The Final Problem' combined with some frankly farcical meta-fictional elements (in one scene Conan Doyle talks to his own fictional creations and tells them how they will be written out to save him the pain of continually writing stories for his adoring public). The acting, though, was top-notch all around, with some brilliant comic moments in the second half, including what appeared to be some truly inspired improvisation, and the canned music added depth without distraction.
At the interval, approaching the Castle on a clear, chilly Thursday night, the setting certainly looked spectacular. Standing aloof on verdant hillocks of green, the building looks proud and detached from afar but more homely and modest up close, despite its original purpose of defending the Carrick Rhodes. At night, with the ever present ships floating like monoliths on the water, lights twinkling like earthbound stars in the black, the whole scene is imbued with a romantic intrigue, a world surrounded by history and mystery. During the interval I wandered closer to the dark to fully drink in the faint outline of the Cornish coast, and felt an immense sense of belonging. All appeared at peace, and it was impossible not to feel wrapped up in warmth despite the chill of the descending dark. It was almost a shame to return to the play, with so much drama displayed all around me.
All in all, it seems bizarre that a small bunch of actors, albeit Arts Council-funded, were far more convincing and entertaining than a massively promoted circus at Eden. I wish them all the best of luck in future tours, and I would urge you all to catch them if you can.
Wednesday 31 August 2011
Tuesday 30 August 2011
Days 29 and 30: Eden Project
Slapped wrists all around - the pace of my entries for this blog has predictably slackened of late. My trip to Cornwall has been something of a double-edged sword, as while it's been wonderfully relaxing and reinvigorating, I've unfortunately not been involved in anything so exciting or amazing that regular readers would really want to hear about them. The half-way house I'm therefore adapting is just to pick up on a couple of highlights from my trip, sparing my readership my thoughts on the advantages of a chicken pasty over a steak, or Harbour Lights' fish 'n' chips over Rick Stein's.
Early on in the holiday, once Jo and I had packed our hire car and moved base from the gorgeous sea-side town of Falmouth to the more metropolitan county town to Truro, we had tickets for the Eden Project, the famous collection of golf-ball shaped 'biomes' nestled deep within a former clay mine near St. Austell.
Our main motivation, however, was the evening's entertainment, the mysteriously named Labyrinth presented by the enthusiastic UK-based circus company NoFit State. The prospect of a Cirque du Soleil-style show in the exotic surroundings of the Rainforest Biome certainly sounded appealing, and who couldn't be excited at the prospect of the combination of scantily-clad acrobats and tropical vegetation?
The actual Project itself is unfortunately very much an attraction worth visiting exactly once. It's acreage may be expansive but unfortunately there's not a great deal to see. The biomes are huge but once you have seen one giant fern and another giant banana tree, you have pretty much seen them all. It's certainly interesting to feel you are visiting a equatorial climate (complete with stifling heat and humidity) but you cannot escape the feeling that the whole biome is stage-managed to the extent that it's halfway between reality and fantasy. You know that somewhere out there coffee plants, mango groves and eucalyptus bushes are growing in a climate far, far away, but in the context of a golf-ball in south-west Cornwall, such exhibits might as well be in the Natural History Museum. Add the fact that there is precious little interaction in each biome, and I ended up leaving the exhibition with little more knowledge than I came in with. That said, children will love the wondrous variety of fauna and from the expressions of infants and toddlers around me, I could see their enjoyment etched on their faces.
I was therefore quite looking forward to the distraction of the circus, as the sun became to set and the mercury began to lower. Once the plebs had been ushered away at closing, the privileged few with the right colour armbands gathered at an innocuous hill high above the biomes, where scaffolding had been sneakily erected in the background. After some preamble involving a monologue from a mad accordionist and some rather disappointingly perfunctory health and safety instructions from a steward (we would see much more of him later), four acrobats began some trapeze work, with some silly banter about having to get on to the real show. I find it difficult to appreciate trapeze. What the clowns were doing no doubt takes years of training, and nerves of steel, but there seemed to be so little variation in their act that I felt I was applauding the same thing over and again for twenty minutes. All well and good for me to criticise of course, but I'm sure if I spent five minutes on a trapeze, I'd have more broken bones than I'd had hot dinners.
The second phase of the evening began with the crowd cattle-herded through narrow paths to the Mediterranean biome, with the promise of a more open-ended exhibition, where we could wander around and view various acts hidden amongst the olive and fir trees. The acts ranged from an incredibly boring monologue punctuated by a woman gyrating on a metal hoop suspended from the ceiling (with the joke being that she had to constantly cover herself with every spin and fall to protect her modesty, which was of course already adequately protected anyway) to a genuinely impressive man in a linen suit performing gravity-defying acts of athleticism on a Chinese pole. The concept sounds liberating in theory, giving the audience the freedom to experience the acts they want, but in practice the whole thing was shambolic. The ever-present stewards marched the crowd from place to place, there was little or no signal that an act had finished and where another one had started, and the uneven nature of the structure of the biomes meant that it was far too easy to end up viewing the back of someone's head rather than the gymnastics.
The final act was a finale within a specially constructed big-top, complete with live music and what we thought would be a story. The story, unsurprisingly, turned out to be nonsensical semi-poetic musings that functioned as little more than a frame for the continuing acrobats, and the live music crashed between post-rock riffing and Arcade Fire-style heavy pop that, whilst occasionally jarring, did contribute to the atmosphere. But that atmosphere was constantly broken by those infuriating stewards, who insisted every five minutes on pushing, pulling, splitting, joining, fragmenting and uniting the crowds, to make way for the various acts. I saw two poor wheelchair users who looked exhausted by the constant haranguing. I could see the potential, but if a circus insists on a reverse-round style where the actions takes place around and above the audience, it must construct the show to make use of the space and not constantly change its mind about where it wants to take place.
We left twenty minutes early feeling exhausted. It wasn't the inventive circus action that had taken our breath away - we'd seen pretty much everything before bar the linen-suited Chinese pole artist - but the constant shifting and craning our necks. The Eden Project should be praised for championing UK-based shows, and for reviving a frankly dying art, but any kind of outdoor event will struggle with the Eden layout. A shame, really - this had so much potential.
Early on in the holiday, once Jo and I had packed our hire car and moved base from the gorgeous sea-side town of Falmouth to the more metropolitan county town to Truro, we had tickets for the Eden Project, the famous collection of golf-ball shaped 'biomes' nestled deep within a former clay mine near St. Austell.
Our main motivation, however, was the evening's entertainment, the mysteriously named Labyrinth presented by the enthusiastic UK-based circus company NoFit State. The prospect of a Cirque du Soleil-style show in the exotic surroundings of the Rainforest Biome certainly sounded appealing, and who couldn't be excited at the prospect of the combination of scantily-clad acrobats and tropical vegetation?
The actual Project itself is unfortunately very much an attraction worth visiting exactly once. It's acreage may be expansive but unfortunately there's not a great deal to see. The biomes are huge but once you have seen one giant fern and another giant banana tree, you have pretty much seen them all. It's certainly interesting to feel you are visiting a equatorial climate (complete with stifling heat and humidity) but you cannot escape the feeling that the whole biome is stage-managed to the extent that it's halfway between reality and fantasy. You know that somewhere out there coffee plants, mango groves and eucalyptus bushes are growing in a climate far, far away, but in the context of a golf-ball in south-west Cornwall, such exhibits might as well be in the Natural History Museum. Add the fact that there is precious little interaction in each biome, and I ended up leaving the exhibition with little more knowledge than I came in with. That said, children will love the wondrous variety of fauna and from the expressions of infants and toddlers around me, I could see their enjoyment etched on their faces.
I was therefore quite looking forward to the distraction of the circus, as the sun became to set and the mercury began to lower. Once the plebs had been ushered away at closing, the privileged few with the right colour armbands gathered at an innocuous hill high above the biomes, where scaffolding had been sneakily erected in the background. After some preamble involving a monologue from a mad accordionist and some rather disappointingly perfunctory health and safety instructions from a steward (we would see much more of him later), four acrobats began some trapeze work, with some silly banter about having to get on to the real show. I find it difficult to appreciate trapeze. What the clowns were doing no doubt takes years of training, and nerves of steel, but there seemed to be so little variation in their act that I felt I was applauding the same thing over and again for twenty minutes. All well and good for me to criticise of course, but I'm sure if I spent five minutes on a trapeze, I'd have more broken bones than I'd had hot dinners.
The second phase of the evening began with the crowd cattle-herded through narrow paths to the Mediterranean biome, with the promise of a more open-ended exhibition, where we could wander around and view various acts hidden amongst the olive and fir trees. The acts ranged from an incredibly boring monologue punctuated by a woman gyrating on a metal hoop suspended from the ceiling (with the joke being that she had to constantly cover herself with every spin and fall to protect her modesty, which was of course already adequately protected anyway) to a genuinely impressive man in a linen suit performing gravity-defying acts of athleticism on a Chinese pole. The concept sounds liberating in theory, giving the audience the freedom to experience the acts they want, but in practice the whole thing was shambolic. The ever-present stewards marched the crowd from place to place, there was little or no signal that an act had finished and where another one had started, and the uneven nature of the structure of the biomes meant that it was far too easy to end up viewing the back of someone's head rather than the gymnastics.
The final act was a finale within a specially constructed big-top, complete with live music and what we thought would be a story. The story, unsurprisingly, turned out to be nonsensical semi-poetic musings that functioned as little more than a frame for the continuing acrobats, and the live music crashed between post-rock riffing and Arcade Fire-style heavy pop that, whilst occasionally jarring, did contribute to the atmosphere. But that atmosphere was constantly broken by those infuriating stewards, who insisted every five minutes on pushing, pulling, splitting, joining, fragmenting and uniting the crowds, to make way for the various acts. I saw two poor wheelchair users who looked exhausted by the constant haranguing. I could see the potential, but if a circus insists on a reverse-round style where the actions takes place around and above the audience, it must construct the show to make use of the space and not constantly change its mind about where it wants to take place.
We left twenty minutes early feeling exhausted. It wasn't the inventive circus action that had taken our breath away - we'd seen pretty much everything before bar the linen-suited Chinese pole artist - but the constant shifting and craning our necks. The Eden Project should be praised for championing UK-based shows, and for reviving a frankly dying art, but any kind of outdoor event will struggle with the Eden layout. A shame, really - this had so much potential.
Thursday 25 August 2011
Days 27 and 28: Falmouth
“You’re in Cornwall now, it will get done when it’s done” – Anonymous
How to describe Cornwall for those who haven’t been there, without recourse to stereotypes? I’d never even thought about visiting the county prior to meeting Jo (whose immediate family reside there) – the closest I’d ever come to the South West was three years in Portishead and even then I was dimly aware of Cornwall’s existence, in the same way that I was aware of Antarctica, or Alpha Centauri. I’ve since visited three or four times and have gradually fallen in love with the place, not just because Falmouth is about as far away from London as you can be without either being in Scotland or in the sea, but mainly because of its attitude.
Time slows in Cornwall. There’s no rush, no anxiety, no smog, no skyscrapers, no Tube, no pressure, and no desire to have to be in three places at once. The biggest decision you might have to make on a particular day is whether your pasty will come from Rowe’s, Philps’, or Warren’s (but not obviously from Oggy Oggy), or whether that beach on the south coast is more attractive than the one on the North. Falmouth itself is a beautiful seaside town packed with cobbled streets, and boutique galleries, and yet even on weekends and evenings the pace is palpably slackened, with people’s minds more on a peaceful picnic at Pendennis rather than which glamorous superclub they might want to be spotted in that night. It’s impossible to feel anything other than relaxed – even the Cornish tongue, a tripping, sing-song brogue, slips out more slowly than any other English accent I can think of.
Having arrived late on Friday, I slept peacefully, the window open to let in the clear Cornish air, and woke early on Saturday. The plan was to take a boat ride from Falmouth docks, across the Carrick Rhodes and along the River Fal to the county town of Truro, for lunch and a wander. The comfortingly Cornish pilot chugged the boat slowly through the August morning, past gigantic cargo ships marooned in the water, and platforms of ropes mysteriously dangled silently in the water (I later learnt they were mussel farms). Unlike the Hampton Court Palace river trip, we were the only tourist boat in sight, surrounded by endless water and trees and sky, bouncing from small coastal Cornish villages where small groups of tourists embarked and disembarked.
At one point we passed the grandly named King Harry Ferry, a chain ferry that takes twenty minutes to haul its cargo of cars one mile across the River Fal, to cut out a twenty-seven mile journey around the coast. More than a hundred years old, it is a traditional part of Cornish history and completely embodies travel in the county – slow, gentle and with affinity for the landscape. In London, we’d have just plonked a steel bridge over the banks, no doubt sponsored by some corporate giant, and charged a tenner a journey.
And so as we wandered around the lovely town of Truro – I’ll write more about the town in a later post, but as a summary it’s kind of South-West version of York with more pasties and cider – I once again to feel at home in this strange county. As far as Cornwall is from my home town, I feel its spirit and its attitude to life is far more in harmony with my own. Sure, Cornwall can do excitement just like anywhere else, but right now I’d take a beach, a cider, and a Roskilly ice-cream any day of the week.
Tuesday 23 August 2011
Days 25 and 26: Road Trip
"And this was really the way my whole road experience began, and the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell." - Jack Kerouac, On The Road
**Author’s Note – As I am currently sunning myself in Cornwall I will be backdating a number of these posts as and when I get time to write – thanks for your patience and I hope you continue to enjoy my writing while I am away!**
Who doesn’t get excited at the prospect of a road trip? I remember back in sixth form days, where my entire class were competing to become the first to turn their driving licences from green to pink, and those who were triumphant scrabbling down the backs of their sofas and buying as flashy a car as their £100 or so could muster. Unsurprisingly the school car park was filled with old Escorts and Skodas, those you could find the odd shiny Ford Ka for those pupils whose parents were so proud of their little Sam or Samantha that they shelled out for a brand new model for their pride and joy to scratch and smash to oblivion within weeks. One particularly wealthy father even thought plumping for a new Beamer for their seventeen-year-old son was completely sensible.
Unfortunately I was never able to join that prestigious club of car-owning teenagers. My grandparents very kindly provided me with funds enough for fifty or so hours with BSM, but I took to driving about as well as a duck takes to an oil slick. Early on I let slip to my long-suffering instructor Martin that I was a pianist, and he seized on this admission to such an extent that he insisted on using pedalling and keying analogies for every gear-change, reverse-around-a-corner and parallel park I had to undertake, with a beguiling combination of genuine enthusiasm and appalling inaccuracy that led me to become utterly confused with the simplest of driving tasks. I did claw my way to a stage where I took my test, where I had the pleasure of chauffeuring the examining equivalent of a stone golem who occasionally barked instructions that led me along the deepest, darkest stretches of tarmac in Wakefield. I failed fairly spectacularly, despite perfect parking, and was so disconsolate I refused to take the test again, using my fast approaching transition to Durham for my Fresher year as an excuse. Now I live in London, I have convinced myself that being able to drive is for the moment an exercise in futility, a money pit I can ill afford, but I know deep down that despite excuses about lack of funds or availability or public transport, I’m actually just terrified of sitting behind that wheel again.
My inability to drive myself, though, does not detract from my general enjoyment from being a passenger on long trips, and Jo and I were about to embark on a particularly lengthy journey – about 260 miles from Surbiton to the lovely Cornish town of Falmouth. As the co-pilot, I was given a number of non-driving tasks – firstly navigator (though Jo had made the journey a number of times and so had no need of my admittedly limited map-reading skills), secondly provider of nutritional sustenance (which translated as Hula Hoops and Haribo) and thirdly the car’s personal disc jockey. I particularly rose to the challenge of the last point, asked as I was to produce a decent mix of songs that “weren’t just indie rubbish”. I eventually created three CDs’ worth but for the edited highlights, head over to this Spotify playlist to see what I eventually came up with.
I won’t bore you with the details of the trip itself, but I did want to settle on one half-hour of the journey, where we stopped at Exeter Services for refreshments and refuelling. Service stations resonate deeply with me. My childhood is punctuated with frequent roadside stops, particularly scarfing down Olympic Breakfasts in deserted Little Chefs at eight in the morning, gentle sunlight glinting over the clouds and sparkling onto the tarmac of whatever motorway we were crawling along. Nowadays, whenever we pull into a Welcome Break or Granada Services, I take in the crowds of weary travellers, often parents dragged by exuberant children in desperate need of their next sugar rush, and wonder idly where they are all headed. For a few minutes, hundreds of humans have congregated at one location, united in their desire for food, coffee and perhaps a new tape/CD for the car, and then just as quickly the crowds disintegrate and splinter apart, individuals once again on their journeys along seemingly never-ending stretches of tarmac. Just briefly, I feel like Sal Paradise in On The Road (a novel I deliberately took with me) hitching from one gas station to another, with nothing on his mind but the next destination, the next segment on his great voyage across America.
We had timed our pit stop, it seemed, with that of a coach-load of Sea Cadets from Poole, swarming over the facilities and inundating the staff of Burger King with confused, chaotic orders for various forms of grease and salt. Black-shirted and arm-banded, standing jovially in loose clumps, the cadets jumped and smiled and hugged randomly across the station forecourt, and despite the fact that they were a not inconsiderable barrier between me and my burger, I couldn’t help but feel their infectious enthusiasm seep within my veins, reminding me that travelling, whether from New York to Denver or from London to Falmouth, is a time for feeling, as Kerouac himself called it, “the ragged and ecstatic joy of pure being”. As the evening started to chase us away from Devon and into the beautiful pastures of Cornwall, I felt more free than I had at any other point in my Forty Two days. This was going to be a good holiday.
Thursday 18 August 2011
Day 24: Final Fantasy XIII
"How can there be any meaning in the memory of such a being? What I have shown you is reality. What you remember - that is the illusion". - Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII
**Author's note - I have refrained from revealing anything in this post that could be construed as spoilers. The opinions here are based on the first fifteen hours of gameplay**
A while or so ago I posted a quasi-diatribe on how video games are too often tarred with the brush of distrust and disdain, with commentators preferring to focus on the putative links between the increasing realism of certain titles and the inevitable rise of violent crime. I offered as a counter-example the excellent Portal 2, a game that offered an intoxicating blend of exploration and puzzle-solving with a top-class script, beautifully realised world, and characters you genuinely cared about.
Since then, I have been slowly working my way through my (very small) library of existing games, given I made a solemn promise to my girlfriend, like a guilty ten-year old, that I would finish what I already owned before I bought any further titles. Whilst I'm afraid I've played nothing as absorbing and satisfying as Portal 2, I have singled out two I believe warrant further discussion - L.A. Noire, that I'll post about at a later date once I've finished it, and Final Fantasy XIII, a game that, in my opinion, almost single-handedly destroys the reputation the series has been trading on for over twenty years.
A quick word on the legacy of the sequence so far. For those who believe that Final Fantasy is just the pseudonym for Owen Pallett (whose Heartland record is excellent, by the way), the Final Fantasy series is a collection of Japanese role-playing games, characterised by incomprehensible plots, characters with angular hair-cuts and nonsensical names like "Cloud" and "Quistis", and battles that are conducted via selecting various exotic options from detailed menus rather than performing attacks in real-time. To the seasoned Call of Duty veteran such a protracted experience would seem ludicrous, but whilst on paper playing such a game sounds about as exciting as, say, grouting your bathroom, or re-alphabetising the DVDs, I haven't yet mentioned the rich worlds, the satisfying character development, the fantastic open exploration and the fact that for £40 or so you are buying a game that could easily last fifty hours or so, perhaps double if you are prepared to perform the side missions.
To place the series in context - thirteen years ago, the phenomenally successful Final Fantasy VII was released in Europe on the Playstation. It has since become revered to the point of idolatry by legions of fans who were bowled over by its incredible story, terrific (for its times) graphics, and focus on exploration and discovery in a dystopian world in which you could easily lose yourself. It is still one of the finest games I have ever played and reminds me of a golden era where graphics were still rudimentary enough to require some absorbing action behind them.
Fast forward to March 2010 - Final Fantasy XIII is released on the Playstation 3 and, surprisingly, the Xbox 360. With the extra processing power of the updated hardware, and thirteen years of building and refining, I expected an absolute tour de force, with film-quality graphics, a gigantic open world ripe for exploration, and an absorbing story with characters I wanted to understand and explore in great detail. Of that triumvirate of triple-AAA characteristics, I found one.
In his terrific Zero Punctuation series of review, which are so entertaining I would argue you don't need to be interested in games to enjoy them, Yahtzee Croshaw describes the game as "a painting of a firework display", and I have yet to hear of a better description. It looks beautiful, the lore is appealing, and it has explosions and SFX in all the right places, but look to either side and you realise that what's missing is depth. It's not extraordinary to find that you don't take to one or two characters in a game, but to hate them all? To really care not a single jot about their motivation or their background? To sigh every time another blasted cut-scene plays (fortunately they are skippable) where two characters will chat about nothing in particular for hours? That's quite something. One character, a "lovable rogue" called Snow, seems to have nothing in his dialogue beyond the word "Sarah"; the main character takes sullen animé angst to a new level, and the obligatory jailbait teenage girl, Vanille, seems to be on a completely different plane of reality to any of her companions, laughing and joking for no reason whatsoever.
As for the open world, I know for a fact that the final third of the game lives up to the expectation from previous series, where you can wander the world to your heart's content before tackling the main challenge. It's a shame then, that the first fifteen hours is a series of narrow walkways, punctuated by repetitive fights, boring cut scenes and the occasionally gigantic boss that completely floors you first time around before thinking better of it the second time and offering itself up for slaughter. Though the argument that such an arrangement adds forward momentum to the plot and ensures the player is suitably prepared for the more challenging second half, the opening act needs a complete rehaul before it can bear the Final Fantasy badge with pride.
I'm fully prepared to revisit my opinions once I have completed the game, which will probably take me another year given my upcoming schedule, but for the moment, I am extremely disappointed. Games are far more like films than any critic will credit - it's all very well throwing 3D and incredible big-budget effects at the viewer, but if ultimately you don't care about the what's going on, or the people involved, it just becomes a sequence of noises and colours. Maybe this betrays my English Literature roots, but for me the character and the story reign supreme, and perhaps the sudden explosion in high-definition remakes of classic games is in part propelled by the discovery that the mod-cons of current generation gaming are not always all that they are cracked up to be.
**Author's note - I have refrained from revealing anything in this post that could be construed as spoilers. The opinions here are based on the first fifteen hours of gameplay**
A while or so ago I posted a quasi-diatribe on how video games are too often tarred with the brush of distrust and disdain, with commentators preferring to focus on the putative links between the increasing realism of certain titles and the inevitable rise of violent crime. I offered as a counter-example the excellent Portal 2, a game that offered an intoxicating blend of exploration and puzzle-solving with a top-class script, beautifully realised world, and characters you genuinely cared about.
Since then, I have been slowly working my way through my (very small) library of existing games, given I made a solemn promise to my girlfriend, like a guilty ten-year old, that I would finish what I already owned before I bought any further titles. Whilst I'm afraid I've played nothing as absorbing and satisfying as Portal 2, I have singled out two I believe warrant further discussion - L.A. Noire, that I'll post about at a later date once I've finished it, and Final Fantasy XIII, a game that, in my opinion, almost single-handedly destroys the reputation the series has been trading on for over twenty years.
A quick word on the legacy of the sequence so far. For those who believe that Final Fantasy is just the pseudonym for Owen Pallett (whose Heartland record is excellent, by the way), the Final Fantasy series is a collection of Japanese role-playing games, characterised by incomprehensible plots, characters with angular hair-cuts and nonsensical names like "Cloud" and "Quistis", and battles that are conducted via selecting various exotic options from detailed menus rather than performing attacks in real-time. To the seasoned Call of Duty veteran such a protracted experience would seem ludicrous, but whilst on paper playing such a game sounds about as exciting as, say, grouting your bathroom, or re-alphabetising the DVDs, I haven't yet mentioned the rich worlds, the satisfying character development, the fantastic open exploration and the fact that for £40 or so you are buying a game that could easily last fifty hours or so, perhaps double if you are prepared to perform the side missions.
To place the series in context - thirteen years ago, the phenomenally successful Final Fantasy VII was released in Europe on the Playstation. It has since become revered to the point of idolatry by legions of fans who were bowled over by its incredible story, terrific (for its times) graphics, and focus on exploration and discovery in a dystopian world in which you could easily lose yourself. It is still one of the finest games I have ever played and reminds me of a golden era where graphics were still rudimentary enough to require some absorbing action behind them.
Fast forward to March 2010 - Final Fantasy XIII is released on the Playstation 3 and, surprisingly, the Xbox 360. With the extra processing power of the updated hardware, and thirteen years of building and refining, I expected an absolute tour de force, with film-quality graphics, a gigantic open world ripe for exploration, and an absorbing story with characters I wanted to understand and explore in great detail. Of that triumvirate of triple-AAA characteristics, I found one.
In his terrific Zero Punctuation series of review, which are so entertaining I would argue you don't need to be interested in games to enjoy them, Yahtzee Croshaw describes the game as "a painting of a firework display", and I have yet to hear of a better description. It looks beautiful, the lore is appealing, and it has explosions and SFX in all the right places, but look to either side and you realise that what's missing is depth. It's not extraordinary to find that you don't take to one or two characters in a game, but to hate them all? To really care not a single jot about their motivation or their background? To sigh every time another blasted cut-scene plays (fortunately they are skippable) where two characters will chat about nothing in particular for hours? That's quite something. One character, a "lovable rogue" called Snow, seems to have nothing in his dialogue beyond the word "Sarah"; the main character takes sullen animé angst to a new level, and the obligatory jailbait teenage girl, Vanille, seems to be on a completely different plane of reality to any of her companions, laughing and joking for no reason whatsoever.
As for the open world, I know for a fact that the final third of the game lives up to the expectation from previous series, where you can wander the world to your heart's content before tackling the main challenge. It's a shame then, that the first fifteen hours is a series of narrow walkways, punctuated by repetitive fights, boring cut scenes and the occasionally gigantic boss that completely floors you first time around before thinking better of it the second time and offering itself up for slaughter. Though the argument that such an arrangement adds forward momentum to the plot and ensures the player is suitably prepared for the more challenging second half, the opening act needs a complete rehaul before it can bear the Final Fantasy badge with pride.
I'm fully prepared to revisit my opinions once I have completed the game, which will probably take me another year given my upcoming schedule, but for the moment, I am extremely disappointed. Games are far more like films than any critic will credit - it's all very well throwing 3D and incredible big-budget effects at the viewer, but if ultimately you don't care about the what's going on, or the people involved, it just becomes a sequence of noises and colours. Maybe this betrays my English Literature roots, but for me the character and the story reign supreme, and perhaps the sudden explosion in high-definition remakes of classic games is in part propelled by the discovery that the mod-cons of current generation gaming are not always all that they are cracked up to be.
Wednesday 17 August 2011
Day 23: Westfield
"We used to build civilisations. Now we build shopping malls." - Bill Bryson
When I was very young indeed, the concept of buying clothes was completely alien to me. I used to wonder why a country-wide uniform hadn't been imposed on us from on high, We-style, that would have relieved us all of the stresses and strains of having to choose clothes that not only could we afford, but also looked vaguely stylish and, most importantly, actually fit me. I've since realised two things - that we're not actually as far from the uniform idea as I thought (pick any commuter train and you'll see the same suits, shirts, tie, cufflinks, shoes, belts and iPads throughout the carriages), and that I'm not as averse to shopping as I thought I was.
At some point at the turn of the millennium, some bright spark decided that whilst London certainly boasted a good deal of historical monuments and cultural attractions and all that, what it definitely needed was a million square foot of places for people to buy things, presumably because the city could up till then only boast such pathetic shopping precincts as Oxford Street, Regent Street and Knightsbridge. The opening of Westfield in 2008 passed me by somewhat - I'd already experienced the likes of Meadowhall and White Rose and wasn't particularly keen to visit a London version, believing it would simply be a hyper-inflated, ultra-expensive shopping Mecca that had far too many pilgrims already without me joining the queue. I relented last Christmas though, deciding to go on the proviso that I arrived early, in the middle of a working week. In a state of panic a month beforehand I had booked an entire week to do my Christmas shopping, a ridiculous decision in hindsight, but somehow I ended up completing the whole lot in three hours, a feat seemingly unthinkable on the train to Shepherd's Bush with a bulging wallet and a seemingly never-ending list of gift ideas.
Since then, Westfield has become a failsafe destination for me. Go in all guns blazing without a clue about what you want or need, and you'll be overwhelmed, if not by the layout then by the crowds that will inevitably gather around you, but with a couple of obvious tricks you can make a mockery of a potentially horrendous shopping experience.
To start with, travel on a Tuesday or Wednesday and avoid, for the most part, hordes of screaming teenagers or toddlers, and dithering couples wandering zombie-like through the arcades. Then, arrive early - ideally at 9 o'clock - and head straight for Ca'ppucino. Whilst I don't enjoy coffee, I do enjoy comfortable chairs, excellent tea, granola with yoghurt and berries for breakfast, and, crucially, silence (the place is usually empty, even during lunchtime). You've got time to spare - I wouldn't leave until ten at the earliest - so enjoy the quiet and prepare mentally. Perhaps you have a list of items you need to purchase. No? Then make one - borrow the waitress' biro and use a napkin if you need to. Otherwise, I just read - I'm particularly enjoying Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire, all the more ironic for a pre-shopping experience given the author's fixation on money's incredible effects on society.
I fortunately only needed to purchase a pair of trousers, which I found relatively speedily and cost twice as much as I thought they would, and satisfied myself with a cursory glance in Foyles and HMV before realising I needed to cool my credit card before making any other purchases. It only remains for me to provide my final tip - get out of there before lunchtime. Not only will the crowds rise and swell uncomfortably about you, but in general the food court is overpriced and generally average quality. After all, if you are celebrating a pain-free shopping experience, you may as well enjoy a decent meal back at home.
When I was very young indeed, the concept of buying clothes was completely alien to me. I used to wonder why a country-wide uniform hadn't been imposed on us from on high, We-style, that would have relieved us all of the stresses and strains of having to choose clothes that not only could we afford, but also looked vaguely stylish and, most importantly, actually fit me. I've since realised two things - that we're not actually as far from the uniform idea as I thought (pick any commuter train and you'll see the same suits, shirts, tie, cufflinks, shoes, belts and iPads throughout the carriages), and that I'm not as averse to shopping as I thought I was.
At some point at the turn of the millennium, some bright spark decided that whilst London certainly boasted a good deal of historical monuments and cultural attractions and all that, what it definitely needed was a million square foot of places for people to buy things, presumably because the city could up till then only boast such pathetic shopping precincts as Oxford Street, Regent Street and Knightsbridge. The opening of Westfield in 2008 passed me by somewhat - I'd already experienced the likes of Meadowhall and White Rose and wasn't particularly keen to visit a London version, believing it would simply be a hyper-inflated, ultra-expensive shopping Mecca that had far too many pilgrims already without me joining the queue. I relented last Christmas though, deciding to go on the proviso that I arrived early, in the middle of a working week. In a state of panic a month beforehand I had booked an entire week to do my Christmas shopping, a ridiculous decision in hindsight, but somehow I ended up completing the whole lot in three hours, a feat seemingly unthinkable on the train to Shepherd's Bush with a bulging wallet and a seemingly never-ending list of gift ideas.
Since then, Westfield has become a failsafe destination for me. Go in all guns blazing without a clue about what you want or need, and you'll be overwhelmed, if not by the layout then by the crowds that will inevitably gather around you, but with a couple of obvious tricks you can make a mockery of a potentially horrendous shopping experience.
To start with, travel on a Tuesday or Wednesday and avoid, for the most part, hordes of screaming teenagers or toddlers, and dithering couples wandering zombie-like through the arcades. Then, arrive early - ideally at 9 o'clock - and head straight for Ca'ppucino. Whilst I don't enjoy coffee, I do enjoy comfortable chairs, excellent tea, granola with yoghurt and berries for breakfast, and, crucially, silence (the place is usually empty, even during lunchtime). You've got time to spare - I wouldn't leave until ten at the earliest - so enjoy the quiet and prepare mentally. Perhaps you have a list of items you need to purchase. No? Then make one - borrow the waitress' biro and use a napkin if you need to. Otherwise, I just read - I'm particularly enjoying Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire, all the more ironic for a pre-shopping experience given the author's fixation on money's incredible effects on society.
I fortunately only needed to purchase a pair of trousers, which I found relatively speedily and cost twice as much as I thought they would, and satisfied myself with a cursory glance in Foyles and HMV before realising I needed to cool my credit card before making any other purchases. It only remains for me to provide my final tip - get out of there before lunchtime. Not only will the crowds rise and swell uncomfortably about you, but in general the food court is overpriced and generally average quality. After all, if you are celebrating a pain-free shopping experience, you may as well enjoy a decent meal back at home.
Tuesday 16 August 2011
Days 20, 21 and 22: Yorkshire
"What do yer want to go to London for? It's nowt but twenty Doncasters end to end" - Derek Garrett
Any right-minded born-and-bred Yorkshireman, a leashed whippet in one hand and a pint of Tetley's in the other, would sooner swim the River Calder then pronounce me a bona fide son of the White Rose. I don't have the doughty demeanour, the taste for real ale, the fanatical interest in Rugby League, or the unmistakable (and occasionally impenetrable) accent. Or, if you prefer stereotypes - my extended family don't live within five miles of the street I was born in, I've never eaten chips with gravy, I don't own a tweed jacket or cap and I've never been found comatose halfway along the Westgate Run. Everything about me is the antithesis of an authentic (as opposed to a stereotypical) Yorkshireman, but the county is my home, and Wakefield, even if some commentators would consider it more a primordial soup than a city, is my home town.
I left London early on a Saturday morning. Once again I had to brave the never-ending tunnels and ever-present rabble of fellow escapees at King's Cross, but by eleven I was at Wakefield Westgate station. For all the flak that Wakefield has to take from seemingly more highly esteemed cities, the rail approach to Wakefield is still quite something, with a great view of the lovely cathedral as the ageing East Coast trains wheeze over the bridge. Plus, as the station boasts only two platforms, there's no confusion over whether you might have accidentally boarded the train to Edinburgh instead of Eastbourne. Going to London? Platform 1. Leeds? Platform 2. Clearly laid out and easily understood - not characteristics you would normally associate with Yorkshire.
I'd actually travelled oop North to go walking my Dad, something I do frighteningly irregularly given how much time he spent trying to interest me in the great outdoors and in rambling in general. I'd purchased some walking shoes (in the sale, mind) only 24 hours previous, much to the chagrin of the sales assistant who was extolling the virtues of weatherproofing and breaking in and other such outdoors-y things I had neither the time nor the inclination to deal with. Fortunately, though, my Dad decreed that the walking would not commence until Sunday, as England were about to complete a thumping of the Indians at the Test Match, and gleefully we sat drinking tea (not coffee for us Yorkshiremen, you see) and waiting for the inevitable crushing victory. If sitting at home with your family, drinking tea and watching your country's cricket team top the world rankings isn't the best way to spend a Yorkshire Saturday, then I'd like to hear what is.
Our destination on Sunday was the village of Bradfield, a classically Northern parish outside Sheffield. I imagine that if you were a fly on the wall on one of David Cameron's Big Society briefing meetings, you would see the greatest social pioneers in the country prostrated, in wonder and amazement, before a framed photograph of Bradfield in the summer. Village green? Check. Beautiful Gothic church? Try classic 15th century. Quiet but well-appointed pubs? More than you could shake your cap at. And for bonus points, there were pensioners stood Last of the Summer Wine-style in groups, bridges over gently rippling streams, and cricket and bowls matches in progress. With the pictures of the devastating London riots still fresh in my mind, I must admit I thought of tearing my return ticket in two.
Dad and I walked about fifteen miles in all over six hours. I'm certainly no Wordsworth - the peaty soil of the Peak District moorland did not appear to me "apparell'd in celestial light" - but to breath Northern air, to walk on open moorland and vault narrow stiles and intrude on fields of confused sheep, I felt half a world away from the rat race. It didn't really matter that my feet were blistering with every step in those accursed boots, and that the last mile was a horrific ascent that worked the calves far harder than any resistance exercise in the Kingfisher Leisure Centre, I was truly grateful for the chance to break out of the M25 and explore on a far greater scale than I've tried in these past few weeks of freedom.
At King's Cross the next evening, tired and incredibly stiff, the barriers didn't accept my ticket, I hauled myself yet again through more ridiculous tunnels, and waited in vain for a train from Vauxhall that didn't turn up. Much as I love London, and couldn't for the moment see myself anywhere else, sometimes I wish the South was just a little more like the North.
Any right-minded born-and-bred Yorkshireman, a leashed whippet in one hand and a pint of Tetley's in the other, would sooner swim the River Calder then pronounce me a bona fide son of the White Rose. I don't have the doughty demeanour, the taste for real ale, the fanatical interest in Rugby League, or the unmistakable (and occasionally impenetrable) accent. Or, if you prefer stereotypes - my extended family don't live within five miles of the street I was born in, I've never eaten chips with gravy, I don't own a tweed jacket or cap and I've never been found comatose halfway along the Westgate Run. Everything about me is the antithesis of an authentic (as opposed to a stereotypical) Yorkshireman, but the county is my home, and Wakefield, even if some commentators would consider it more a primordial soup than a city, is my home town.
I left London early on a Saturday morning. Once again I had to brave the never-ending tunnels and ever-present rabble of fellow escapees at King's Cross, but by eleven I was at Wakefield Westgate station. For all the flak that Wakefield has to take from seemingly more highly esteemed cities, the rail approach to Wakefield is still quite something, with a great view of the lovely cathedral as the ageing East Coast trains wheeze over the bridge. Plus, as the station boasts only two platforms, there's no confusion over whether you might have accidentally boarded the train to Edinburgh instead of Eastbourne. Going to London? Platform 1. Leeds? Platform 2. Clearly laid out and easily understood - not characteristics you would normally associate with Yorkshire.
I'd actually travelled oop North to go walking my Dad, something I do frighteningly irregularly given how much time he spent trying to interest me in the great outdoors and in rambling in general. I'd purchased some walking shoes (in the sale, mind) only 24 hours previous, much to the chagrin of the sales assistant who was extolling the virtues of weatherproofing and breaking in and other such outdoors-y things I had neither the time nor the inclination to deal with. Fortunately, though, my Dad decreed that the walking would not commence until Sunday, as England were about to complete a thumping of the Indians at the Test Match, and gleefully we sat drinking tea (not coffee for us Yorkshiremen, you see) and waiting for the inevitable crushing victory. If sitting at home with your family, drinking tea and watching your country's cricket team top the world rankings isn't the best way to spend a Yorkshire Saturday, then I'd like to hear what is.
Our destination on Sunday was the village of Bradfield, a classically Northern parish outside Sheffield. I imagine that if you were a fly on the wall on one of David Cameron's Big Society briefing meetings, you would see the greatest social pioneers in the country prostrated, in wonder and amazement, before a framed photograph of Bradfield in the summer. Village green? Check. Beautiful Gothic church? Try classic 15th century. Quiet but well-appointed pubs? More than you could shake your cap at. And for bonus points, there were pensioners stood Last of the Summer Wine-style in groups, bridges over gently rippling streams, and cricket and bowls matches in progress. With the pictures of the devastating London riots still fresh in my mind, I must admit I thought of tearing my return ticket in two.
Dad and I walked about fifteen miles in all over six hours. I'm certainly no Wordsworth - the peaty soil of the Peak District moorland did not appear to me "apparell'd in celestial light" - but to breath Northern air, to walk on open moorland and vault narrow stiles and intrude on fields of confused sheep, I felt half a world away from the rat race. It didn't really matter that my feet were blistering with every step in those accursed boots, and that the last mile was a horrific ascent that worked the calves far harder than any resistance exercise in the Kingfisher Leisure Centre, I was truly grateful for the chance to break out of the M25 and explore on a far greater scale than I've tried in these past few weeks of freedom.
At King's Cross the next evening, tired and incredibly stiff, the barriers didn't accept my ticket, I hauled myself yet again through more ridiculous tunnels, and waited in vain for a train from Vauxhall that didn't turn up. Much as I love London, and couldn't for the moment see myself anywhere else, sometimes I wish the South was just a little more like the North.
Saturday 13 August 2011
Day 19: Proms Redux
"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'"
- Shakespeare, Henry V (III.i.1-34)
After yesterday's rather somber post about the labours of dragging a body accustomed to action through the tension and discomfort of relaxation, I'm glad to say I was somewhat more animated on Friday. Two days of R&R had proved more than enough, and now a wall of errands of admittedly varying levels of dullness stood before me, the pith and peel that required careful and methodical unwrapping before I could get at the juicy flesh - pizza at the amazing Rossopomodoro, and the hugely anticipated Film Music Prom at the Royal Albert Hall (my third this season).
I will spare you the details of my multiple voyages to Kingston, to attend the gym and to find some walking shoes for my weekend in Wakefield, and of my haircut in Surbiton - if you are desperate to hear the ins and outs of these trivialities then you can always find me on Twitter. I did, however, enjoy the feeling of once again being busy, of performing tasks and enjoying their results, even if those tasks were hardly Herculean labours. Striding from house to town to bus with the Test Match in my ears and what I liked to think was a steely visage of determination on my face, time ticked quickly and fruitfully, so much so in fact that before I knew it I was in Covent Garden, mooching slowly around the various shops and stalls awaiting my slightly-delayed girlfriend. By this point, with only a hastily consumed Waitrose salad inside me, I was ravenous.
I never cease to witter on about Rossopomodoro (on Monmouth Street) to everyone I know. It is the most authentically Italian restaurant I have ever visited in London - in that the service is attentive yet incredibly patchy. I asked for two beers, yet received only one glass. I gave our usual pizza order to one waiter, who shrugged in what I believed was grudging acknowledgment, before his colleague returned in five minutes to say could we please repeat our order as he seems to have forgotten it already. Once your mains have arrived you are condemned to restaurant limbo, so that you have to practically wave your wallet in someone's face before you are allowed to pay.
All of this sounds awful, but they are just some of a number of reasons why this place is so real, so authentic. We English Londoners, used to clipped confidence and smart service, visit Rossopomodoro and experience a new methodology, one where patience and humour is required, because the staff are simply enjoying their jobs, having fun, and smiling and joking with regular customers (many of whom appear to be Italian). And once you have sampled their simply divine La Verace pizza - for which all ingredients, including the water for the dough, come from Naples - then you won't care an ounce about what hurdles you may have had to leap to get that far.
Dinner digested and, eventually, paid for, we took a Number 9 Routemaster bus, one of the few still working in London and as such a gloriously retro experience, and sauntered to the Royal Albert Hall. We arrived perhaps a couple of minutes before 7, to be greeted with a ringmistress of a ticket inspector who insisted we marched on the double to our seats as the performance was about to commence. I had rather banked on a gin and tonic and a peruse through the programme first, having mistakenly believed the concert wasn't due to start until 7.30, but instead we were herded like disobedient sheep to our 2nd Tier box just as the conductor made his way onto stage.
The concert itself was mixed but on the whole extremely successful. It tried to cover almost every base imaginable, and couldn't help falling flat at times (including a particularly turgid performance of Walton's Henry V suite, which despite stirring narration from Rory Kinnear of the key scenes, sounded woefully out of place), but overall it was a real triumph of a night. The usual favourites were all out in force - Star Wars, Psycho, Murder on the Orient Express, the main themes from Out of Africa and Schindler's List - but two other arrangements really stood out.
Firstly, and rather surprisingly given I've read none of the books, was the performance of Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter (I'd previously confused Hagrid and Hegwid before, much to Jo's consternation), which is a real masterpiece of mystery and suspense. John Williams' haunting opening melody, chimed gently on celeste, is magical enough, but the swooning string scoring and staccato brass betray a real sense of ingenuity in the construction of the score.
Secondly was a rousing collection of highlights from the James Bond films, with all the main themes covered, but what struck me was how much the BBC Concerto Orchestra really seemed to be enjoying themselves - at one point, during a particularly important mid-bar rest, the string players as one twirled their instruments full circle before continuing as if nothing had ever happened. I was in fits of laughter at its sheer audacity and comic timing.
As I've said before, the Proms should be praised for consistently aiming away from of elitism and cultural snobbishness and instead embracing allcomers to appreciate top-class music making. Yesterday's concert was simply another example of that theory being put effortlessly into practice.
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'"
- Shakespeare, Henry V (III.i.1-34)
After yesterday's rather somber post about the labours of dragging a body accustomed to action through the tension and discomfort of relaxation, I'm glad to say I was somewhat more animated on Friday. Two days of R&R had proved more than enough, and now a wall of errands of admittedly varying levels of dullness stood before me, the pith and peel that required careful and methodical unwrapping before I could get at the juicy flesh - pizza at the amazing Rossopomodoro, and the hugely anticipated Film Music Prom at the Royal Albert Hall (my third this season).
I will spare you the details of my multiple voyages to Kingston, to attend the gym and to find some walking shoes for my weekend in Wakefield, and of my haircut in Surbiton - if you are desperate to hear the ins and outs of these trivialities then you can always find me on Twitter. I did, however, enjoy the feeling of once again being busy, of performing tasks and enjoying their results, even if those tasks were hardly Herculean labours. Striding from house to town to bus with the Test Match in my ears and what I liked to think was a steely visage of determination on my face, time ticked quickly and fruitfully, so much so in fact that before I knew it I was in Covent Garden, mooching slowly around the various shops and stalls awaiting my slightly-delayed girlfriend. By this point, with only a hastily consumed Waitrose salad inside me, I was ravenous.
I never cease to witter on about Rossopomodoro (on Monmouth Street) to everyone I know. It is the most authentically Italian restaurant I have ever visited in London - in that the service is attentive yet incredibly patchy. I asked for two beers, yet received only one glass. I gave our usual pizza order to one waiter, who shrugged in what I believed was grudging acknowledgment, before his colleague returned in five minutes to say could we please repeat our order as he seems to have forgotten it already. Once your mains have arrived you are condemned to restaurant limbo, so that you have to practically wave your wallet in someone's face before you are allowed to pay.
All of this sounds awful, but they are just some of a number of reasons why this place is so real, so authentic. We English Londoners, used to clipped confidence and smart service, visit Rossopomodoro and experience a new methodology, one where patience and humour is required, because the staff are simply enjoying their jobs, having fun, and smiling and joking with regular customers (many of whom appear to be Italian). And once you have sampled their simply divine La Verace pizza - for which all ingredients, including the water for the dough, come from Naples - then you won't care an ounce about what hurdles you may have had to leap to get that far.
Dinner digested and, eventually, paid for, we took a Number 9 Routemaster bus, one of the few still working in London and as such a gloriously retro experience, and sauntered to the Royal Albert Hall. We arrived perhaps a couple of minutes before 7, to be greeted with a ringmistress of a ticket inspector who insisted we marched on the double to our seats as the performance was about to commence. I had rather banked on a gin and tonic and a peruse through the programme first, having mistakenly believed the concert wasn't due to start until 7.30, but instead we were herded like disobedient sheep to our 2nd Tier box just as the conductor made his way onto stage.
The concert itself was mixed but on the whole extremely successful. It tried to cover almost every base imaginable, and couldn't help falling flat at times (including a particularly turgid performance of Walton's Henry V suite, which despite stirring narration from Rory Kinnear of the key scenes, sounded woefully out of place), but overall it was a real triumph of a night. The usual favourites were all out in force - Star Wars, Psycho, Murder on the Orient Express, the main themes from Out of Africa and Schindler's List - but two other arrangements really stood out.
Firstly, and rather surprisingly given I've read none of the books, was the performance of Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter (I'd previously confused Hagrid and Hegwid before, much to Jo's consternation), which is a real masterpiece of mystery and suspense. John Williams' haunting opening melody, chimed gently on celeste, is magical enough, but the swooning string scoring and staccato brass betray a real sense of ingenuity in the construction of the score.
Secondly was a rousing collection of highlights from the James Bond films, with all the main themes covered, but what struck me was how much the BBC Concerto Orchestra really seemed to be enjoying themselves - at one point, during a particularly important mid-bar rest, the string players as one twirled their instruments full circle before continuing as if nothing had ever happened. I was in fits of laughter at its sheer audacity and comic timing.
As I've said before, the Proms should be praised for consistently aiming away from of elitism and cultural snobbishness and instead embracing allcomers to appreciate top-class music making. Yesterday's concert was simply another example of that theory being put effortlessly into practice.
Friday 12 August 2011
Days 17 and 18: R&R
"Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are" - Chinese Proverb
After two days of being on the road, or more precisely on the railroad, I decided to take it easy for a couple of days. After all, I left my last job because I was constantly travelling, and here I am recording for posterity the minutes of voyages around the country, when I should be lounging in a deckchair and ordering in the Tequila Sunrises. Travel is mentally as well as physically exhausting - the brain needs a number of sleep cycles to process the new information received and create new paths and thought branches that allow us eventually to accept changes of environments. Though I'd hardly become Ranulph Fiennes overnight, voyaging as I had as far as the mystical lands of Nuneaton and Cambridge, I still felt I was owed a couple of days to myself to relax and to recuperate - finally finish Mass Effect 2, actually practice some piano, cook some amazing food, all those kinds of things we like to do when we are enjoying precious time off.
However, I was surprised by just how impossible I have found it to "relax" in the last two days. As I have a long-standing agreement with Jo that I would continue to produce tea and breakfast for her in the mornings while she showers (one of the few things that make me worth living with), I find myself, at 8.30 in the morning, in the uncomfortable position of being all dressed up (admittedly in pyjamas) with no place to go. Normally I would have thought that my body would allow me to return to bed, perhaps with a paperback and another cup of English Breakfast, and gently while the morning away. But even attempting to lie on the sofa for a few minutes felt weirdly uncomfortable. TV became unpalatable (there really is nothing on, even with Sky, during the day), the Internet unappealing, even reading was somehow unsatisfying.
Instead, the last two days have passed somewhat in a blur. I haven't quite relaxed, yet neither have I achieved anything. I have move from distraction to distraction, from piano to console to computer to kitchen to TV to book to radio to phone, and found I could spend no more than ten minutes on one activity before tiring and moving on. Almost at the midpoint through the journey of my days of freedom, I became panicked that without the shadow of work constantly threatening me, the light of rest and relaxation couldn't shine.
Perhaps I have spent so much time convincing myself that these forty-two days would be filled to the brim with ceaseless personal activity and constant growth - every second of every day packing in all the wonderful things I wanted to do that I couldn't before because of work. But what I have learnt now is that, just like good cannot exist without evil and black is useless without white, work is only a grind when you can't relax, and relaxation is only a joy when you know that work is around the corner. Quasi-work such as a quick trip to see relatives in Cambridge will not fool my body into thinking it has earned a day or so of hard nothing. As long as I remain in a state of employment flux - technically jobless but with a start date, a contract and pension forms to fill in - I'm condemned to remain in a parallel relaxation flux.
To those of you who can switch off, lean back and have nothing but your thoughts about you, I salute you. Either your work-life balance is perfect, or you are just very, very lucky.
After two days of being on the road, or more precisely on the railroad, I decided to take it easy for a couple of days. After all, I left my last job because I was constantly travelling, and here I am recording for posterity the minutes of voyages around the country, when I should be lounging in a deckchair and ordering in the Tequila Sunrises. Travel is mentally as well as physically exhausting - the brain needs a number of sleep cycles to process the new information received and create new paths and thought branches that allow us eventually to accept changes of environments. Though I'd hardly become Ranulph Fiennes overnight, voyaging as I had as far as the mystical lands of Nuneaton and Cambridge, I still felt I was owed a couple of days to myself to relax and to recuperate - finally finish Mass Effect 2, actually practice some piano, cook some amazing food, all those kinds of things we like to do when we are enjoying precious time off.
However, I was surprised by just how impossible I have found it to "relax" in the last two days. As I have a long-standing agreement with Jo that I would continue to produce tea and breakfast for her in the mornings while she showers (one of the few things that make me worth living with), I find myself, at 8.30 in the morning, in the uncomfortable position of being all dressed up (admittedly in pyjamas) with no place to go. Normally I would have thought that my body would allow me to return to bed, perhaps with a paperback and another cup of English Breakfast, and gently while the morning away. But even attempting to lie on the sofa for a few minutes felt weirdly uncomfortable. TV became unpalatable (there really is nothing on, even with Sky, during the day), the Internet unappealing, even reading was somehow unsatisfying.
Instead, the last two days have passed somewhat in a blur. I haven't quite relaxed, yet neither have I achieved anything. I have move from distraction to distraction, from piano to console to computer to kitchen to TV to book to radio to phone, and found I could spend no more than ten minutes on one activity before tiring and moving on. Almost at the midpoint through the journey of my days of freedom, I became panicked that without the shadow of work constantly threatening me, the light of rest and relaxation couldn't shine.
Perhaps I have spent so much time convincing myself that these forty-two days would be filled to the brim with ceaseless personal activity and constant growth - every second of every day packing in all the wonderful things I wanted to do that I couldn't before because of work. But what I have learnt now is that, just like good cannot exist without evil and black is useless without white, work is only a grind when you can't relax, and relaxation is only a joy when you know that work is around the corner. Quasi-work such as a quick trip to see relatives in Cambridge will not fool my body into thinking it has earned a day or so of hard nothing. As long as I remain in a state of employment flux - technically jobless but with a start date, a contract and pension forms to fill in - I'm condemned to remain in a parallel relaxation flux.
To those of you who can switch off, lean back and have nothing but your thoughts about you, I salute you. Either your work-life balance is perfect, or you are just very, very lucky.
Wednesday 10 August 2011
Day 16: Cambridge
"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on a foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land" - G. K. Chesterton
I have been lucky enough, or unlucky depending on your point of view, to have lived all over England. My Dad often need to travel with the bank (when I was younger, "the bank" was an omnipotent demi-god that controlled all it surveyed) and every three years or so we would embark on that well-spun merry-go-round: new house, new school, new friends, new surroundings. As an impressionable young boy I was convinced that such perpetual motion was merely human nature, and that being in the same house for more than a few years at a time was at best laziness and at worst stagnation. There would be periods of readjustment, certainly - friends would fade out of the metaphorical rear-view mirror, and be replaced by more exciting friends on the horizon - but I think I was young enough to take such cycles of uprooting in my stride.
In the course of my Forty Two Days (now elapsing at a worrying rate) I plan to revisit as many of these places as I can. For some I was young enough to have no permanent recollection (Cambridge, Ipswich, St. Ives), and for others I was old enough to know they are worth revisiting (Wakefield, Bristol, Durham). Having already conveniently ticked off Durham for the wedding, and reminded myself of quite why I enjoyed my life there so much, an opportunity arose to visit Cambridge when I found out my Mum was there visiting her sister and my Nan. A mere forty-five minutes from my favourite train station, I was delighted to tag along.
We lived just outside Cambridge, in Milton, for three years while I was attending primary school. Whenever I think of the city, I always think of a static photograph in my mind of the street where we lived (though I can't remember the house itself, nor my school, for the life of me), or visiting the good chunk of family that both my parents have stationed here. There was an annual ritual that continues to this day where we would haul a bootload of Christmas presents in whatever car my Dad had at that point (I always remember the Vauxhall Cavalier most clearly), drive along seemingly endless motorway and tour Cambridgeshire. We would stop at various relatives' houses to exchange presents and to gulp down tea or ham sandwiches, catching up on news and views and chattering excitedly about how much they've grown or what GCSEs they're taking. Through my teenage years I was reluctant to undertake this annual pilgrimage but now in my mid-twenties I look back on those times fondly - you only really appreciate family to the fullest when you realise how rarely they touch your life.
Pulling up to the station and being met by mother, grandmother and aunt, I was immediately at home. The fact that I only really saw that station platform, the road, and my Nan's house didn't matter a jot. Sitting in the sunshine with bacon rolls, Chelsea buns (as opposed to splodges) and tea made with love and care, chatting to family I hardly ever see, I was completely carefree. The world was outside somewhere - for one afternoon, at least, I could forget the riots and the unrest that are plaguing London, and relax where everybody knew my name. I can't wait to go back.
I have been lucky enough, or unlucky depending on your point of view, to have lived all over England. My Dad often need to travel with the bank (when I was younger, "the bank" was an omnipotent demi-god that controlled all it surveyed) and every three years or so we would embark on that well-spun merry-go-round: new house, new school, new friends, new surroundings. As an impressionable young boy I was convinced that such perpetual motion was merely human nature, and that being in the same house for more than a few years at a time was at best laziness and at worst stagnation. There would be periods of readjustment, certainly - friends would fade out of the metaphorical rear-view mirror, and be replaced by more exciting friends on the horizon - but I think I was young enough to take such cycles of uprooting in my stride.
In the course of my Forty Two Days (now elapsing at a worrying rate) I plan to revisit as many of these places as I can. For some I was young enough to have no permanent recollection (Cambridge, Ipswich, St. Ives), and for others I was old enough to know they are worth revisiting (Wakefield, Bristol, Durham). Having already conveniently ticked off Durham for the wedding, and reminded myself of quite why I enjoyed my life there so much, an opportunity arose to visit Cambridge when I found out my Mum was there visiting her sister and my Nan. A mere forty-five minutes from my favourite train station, I was delighted to tag along.
We lived just outside Cambridge, in Milton, for three years while I was attending primary school. Whenever I think of the city, I always think of a static photograph in my mind of the street where we lived (though I can't remember the house itself, nor my school, for the life of me), or visiting the good chunk of family that both my parents have stationed here. There was an annual ritual that continues to this day where we would haul a bootload of Christmas presents in whatever car my Dad had at that point (I always remember the Vauxhall Cavalier most clearly), drive along seemingly endless motorway and tour Cambridgeshire. We would stop at various relatives' houses to exchange presents and to gulp down tea or ham sandwiches, catching up on news and views and chattering excitedly about how much they've grown or what GCSEs they're taking. Through my teenage years I was reluctant to undertake this annual pilgrimage but now in my mid-twenties I look back on those times fondly - you only really appreciate family to the fullest when you realise how rarely they touch your life.
Pulling up to the station and being met by mother, grandmother and aunt, I was immediately at home. The fact that I only really saw that station platform, the road, and my Nan's house didn't matter a jot. Sitting in the sunshine with bacon rolls, Chelsea buns (as opposed to splodges) and tea made with love and care, chatting to family I hardly ever see, I was completely carefree. The world was outside somewhere - for one afternoon, at least, I could forget the riots and the unrest that are plaguing London, and relax where everybody knew my name. I can't wait to go back.
Tuesday 9 August 2011
Days 14 and 15: Hampton Court/Nuneaton
"Keep calm and carry on" - British Second World War Poster
As London implodes around me, my indulgence of freedom as I enter Week 3 must remain unfettered - I don't intend to let the horrific actions of an imbecilic few keep me locked in my flat, and in any case South West London seems to have escaped the majority of the trouble. So in a bid to escape the Armageddon-style glut of rolling news and harbingers of doom, my itchy feet continue to direct me well away from my home, and in the last forty-eight hours I've taken in the glorious historic attraction that is Hampton Court Palace, and the slightly less glorious and palatial but still highly enjoyable Nuneaton.
The journey to the former was made by boat. I'm not known, frankly, for my love of water - I like looking at it, but am less keen on interacting with it - but I was pleasantly surprised by the serenity of the service from Kingston Pier to Hampton Court. Frankly, with the choice being between a uninspiring ten-minute Southwest train journey, or a leisurely half-hour cruise along the river, past astonishingly large houses and pretty bank-side pubs in Thames Ditton, I think we made the right decision. As boats of all sizes, from tiny punts to gleaming white yachts, sailed past us, they all without fail waved at us as we cut a path towards the Palace. Sometimes, when the TV is angrily declaiming the end of civilisation as we know it, falling back on these seemingly inconsequential details renders their verbiage flat and lifeless.
Being cheapskates and penny-pinchers we didn't actually go in to the court itself, simply wandering the informal grounds (the "Formal Grounds" were behind the paywall) and taking in a summer Sunday. I couldn't help notice that the head of one of the statues in the rose garden was covered in rather un-Tudorish clingfilm (or was Henry VIII simply very much ahead of his time?) but the place really was a perfectly encapsulated time-warp. It would be difficult to state with a straight face that, at the time of the construction of the palace, England was settled and stable, but even a cursory wander allowed us to be transported away from financial meltdown, civil unrest and political rebellion.
The next day, I had an unmistakable sense of "deja vu". I woke up early on a Monday morning, left the house before my girlfriend, and fought my way past commuters to Euston from where I was going to take a Virgin train to the north. If I'd been on auto-pilot, I would have quite easily mistakenly climbed into First Class on the next train to Preston, instead of cattle to Rugby, but fortunately I had my wits sufficiently about me to remind myself I was simply heading out for the day to visit a good friend of mine from university days, now living in Nuneaton.
I didn't see a great deal of the town itself, as Dave decided wisely instead that we should see a little of the Midlands countryside. Indeed, tramping past the quarry at Hartshill and along narrow, winding canals (I of course took the opportunity to wave at more boats), we managed to visit three separate counties - Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire. I was at times hopelessly lost underneath the canopied forests and the endless rolling hills, but my guide knew his way expertly, even if the odd wrong turning (leading to another hill) occasionally flummoxed us. There was even a time for a quick visit, in the name of amateur dramatics, to Tamworth Castle, to scout out potential rooms for a production Dave will be involved in for Hallowe'en. Overall it was wonderful to escape into the countryside, as even in Durham I was still technically in a city, and while I'm no Wordsworth, I believe it is only possible to enjoy nature to the full when you have experienced so much contrasting urbanity that you feel suffocated by its weight.
Fortunately we managed to counteract the healthy exercise and appreciation of God's green earth with a couple of ciders in Spoons and a chicken kiev dinner at the Old Malt Shovel. Life is, after all, about balance.
As London implodes around me, my indulgence of freedom as I enter Week 3 must remain unfettered - I don't intend to let the horrific actions of an imbecilic few keep me locked in my flat, and in any case South West London seems to have escaped the majority of the trouble. So in a bid to escape the Armageddon-style glut of rolling news and harbingers of doom, my itchy feet continue to direct me well away from my home, and in the last forty-eight hours I've taken in the glorious historic attraction that is Hampton Court Palace, and the slightly less glorious and palatial but still highly enjoyable Nuneaton.
The journey to the former was made by boat. I'm not known, frankly, for my love of water - I like looking at it, but am less keen on interacting with it - but I was pleasantly surprised by the serenity of the service from Kingston Pier to Hampton Court. Frankly, with the choice being between a uninspiring ten-minute Southwest train journey, or a leisurely half-hour cruise along the river, past astonishingly large houses and pretty bank-side pubs in Thames Ditton, I think we made the right decision. As boats of all sizes, from tiny punts to gleaming white yachts, sailed past us, they all without fail waved at us as we cut a path towards the Palace. Sometimes, when the TV is angrily declaiming the end of civilisation as we know it, falling back on these seemingly inconsequential details renders their verbiage flat and lifeless.
Being cheapskates and penny-pinchers we didn't actually go in to the court itself, simply wandering the informal grounds (the "Formal Grounds" were behind the paywall) and taking in a summer Sunday. I couldn't help notice that the head of one of the statues in the rose garden was covered in rather un-Tudorish clingfilm (or was Henry VIII simply very much ahead of his time?) but the place really was a perfectly encapsulated time-warp. It would be difficult to state with a straight face that, at the time of the construction of the palace, England was settled and stable, but even a cursory wander allowed us to be transported away from financial meltdown, civil unrest and political rebellion.
The next day, I had an unmistakable sense of "deja vu". I woke up early on a Monday morning, left the house before my girlfriend, and fought my way past commuters to Euston from where I was going to take a Virgin train to the north. If I'd been on auto-pilot, I would have quite easily mistakenly climbed into First Class on the next train to Preston, instead of cattle to Rugby, but fortunately I had my wits sufficiently about me to remind myself I was simply heading out for the day to visit a good friend of mine from university days, now living in Nuneaton.
I didn't see a great deal of the town itself, as Dave decided wisely instead that we should see a little of the Midlands countryside. Indeed, tramping past the quarry at Hartshill and along narrow, winding canals (I of course took the opportunity to wave at more boats), we managed to visit three separate counties - Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire. I was at times hopelessly lost underneath the canopied forests and the endless rolling hills, but my guide knew his way expertly, even if the odd wrong turning (leading to another hill) occasionally flummoxed us. There was even a time for a quick visit, in the name of amateur dramatics, to Tamworth Castle, to scout out potential rooms for a production Dave will be involved in for Hallowe'en. Overall it was wonderful to escape into the countryside, as even in Durham I was still technically in a city, and while I'm no Wordsworth, I believe it is only possible to enjoy nature to the full when you have experienced so much contrasting urbanity that you feel suffocated by its weight.
Fortunately we managed to counteract the healthy exercise and appreciation of God's green earth with a couple of ciders in Spoons and a chicken kiev dinner at the Old Malt Shovel. Life is, after all, about balance.
Sunday 7 August 2011
Day 13: Tagine
I wouldn't, at a guess, have though that Kingston-upon-Thames would immediately be associated in general with North African food. But interrupting a shopping trip (where I was practically forced at gun point to buy this bag) for lunch, we happened upon a lovely market just off Eden Street, where a rather gruff man sold me a wonderful wrap stuffed with marinated Moroccan chicken and a surprisingly moreish salad. Taken together with a mint tea that was literally hot water and green leaves, and served in a pretty glass mug, I was transported back to a trip to Damascus where I remember eating baba ghanoush and falafel for about 50p a serving, revelling in the simplicity of good food made simply, lovingly and incredibly cheaply.
In honour of our Moroccan lunch we decided to make chicken tagine, and though I'd never attempted to cook such a dish before, I was salivating at the prospect. Who can resist slow-cooked, aromatic meat, richly spiced with ginger and harissa and doused in thickened, honeyed tomato sauce and garnished with chickpeas and served with zingy couscous? Anyone with a moderately stocked spice rack and a few vegetables on hand can make this with modest expense, and I feel the results were so successful that I'd like to share the recipe here. I wouldn't dare try to undercut the professionals to produce an authoritative recipe with ingredients and methods and so on, so I've stuck, Nigella-style, to prose, but if you try it, do let me know what you think.
First of all, you need to marinate your meat. We used chicken thighs, skin and bone retained, and covered with a combination of olive oil, harissa, ground ginger, crushed cumin seeds, cinnamon, paprika and ground coriander (I would imagine you could substitue certain spices with whatever you have in the cupboard, but I feel at least the harissa, whilst the most obscure, is probably the most important). Once suitably bathed, we browned the thighs on a hot heat in a decent pan, and set aside.
Next up, the sauce. As with most dishes, it seemed appropriate to first chop a couple of red onions and garlic cloves and soften in the same pan used for the chicken, with more spices chucked in for good measure. Then add a good dose of tomato paste, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of chickpeas and a few spoonfuls of set honey. Fill the empty tin of tomatoes with water and throw in, then return the chicken thighs to the pan. A quick season and you can put a lid on, reduce the heat to low and simmer for as long as you can stand to wait. We waited an hour or so, I reckon you could get away with thirty minutes, but as seems to be the case with all tomato sauces, the longer you wait the better.
Then it's a case of finding suitable side dishes. We plumped unoriginally for couscous - cooked in boiling chicken stock and seasoned with lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper. We didn't have any flatbread to hand, but white pitta, brushed with oil and griddled on a hot pan (and rubbed with a cut garlic glove if you're so inclined) made a suitable substitute.
Weekends are made for experimenting in the kitchen, and with a bit of inspiration and a couple of Google searches, we ended up with a recipe that worked and was uniquely ours. I'm inspired now to push on to other global cuisines - if they work out, I'll share them here. Happy eating!
Saturday 6 August 2011
Day 12: A Tale of Two Postcodes
"East London is a vampire,
It sucks the joy right out of me"
- Bloc Party, Song for Clay (Disappear Here)
Over the last couple of days, partly because of rain and partly because of an increasing personal sense of laziness, I've been rather immobile of late (although I must guiltily admit that Commander Shephard has now clocked up a few thousand light years in saving the galaxy from those nasty Reaper types). While I have various travel plans for next week, all of them are out of town, and with my quest to explore London still a bold-type heading in the Freedom Manifesto, I resolved to place another pin in my mental map of my hometown, and headed East.
East London is a bit of a question mark for me. Friends of mine have spoken of its ramshackle markets and trendy bars as a veritable treasure trove fit for Ali Baba's thieves - others would sooner hang themselves than be seen on any street with an E in the postcode. I myself must confess that I only really know Dalston, an area being "regenerated" within an inch of its life and witnessing hordes of sharp-suited professionals homogenising the streets left, right and centre, but beyond snippets of Hackney and a little Canada Water, I'm clueless. Besides, I'm sure my daily wardrobe wouldn't pass muster in even the least exclusive of Hoxton's cocktail bars.
In a flash of inspiration, I thought of Brick Lane - surely one of the most famous streets in London (of course I'd never been there). Home to 93 Feet East, Rough Trade Records and more curry houses than you can shake a peshwari naan at, I headed directly there, though the journey from quaintly genteel Surbiton was hardly straightforward. Stepping after an hour of underground and overground hell out of Shoreditch High Street, where I could already feel my street cred rising rapidly, I passed along Quaker Street (spotting a hilariously formal "No peeing" sign outside an otherwise innocuous wall) before turning onto Brick Lane itself.
The moment I hit the street I received a woefully poorly timed phone call from my gym asking if I was at all interested in their incredible Customer Referral Scheme. As if my magic, effortlessly coolly dressed teenagers sauntered casually past, staring incredulously at this shorted-and-T-shirted suburbanite shouting down his iPhone, as if I wasn't already feeling markedly out of place. However, things picked up as I strolled past the old Truman Brewery, and passed onto the curry house battleground. It's clear that this a dog-eat-dog world for any aspring restauranteur, with multiple banners exclaiming why a tourist should part with their cash for a phaal at their place rather than the outwardly identical house next door. The poorest advert I could find was a particular establishment proudly declaiming that its chef was "runner-up in the Brick Lane Curry Festival"...in 2005.
Before I knew it I reached Whitechapel Road, and in the distance I saw the faceless giants that are the skyscrapers of the Square Mile. It seemed only minutes ago that I was fighting past groups of laughing students outside All Star Lanes, and suddenly I was a banker's briefcase's throw from the City. I couldn't resist the temptation to revisit, if only briefly, the streets that had been part of my working life every since I moved here, and so E1 bled smoothly into EC3, the rough-hewn newsagents and stalls of Brick Lane replaced by airbrushed, overpriced bars and restaurants.
Yet immediately, the tension, even unease I felt in such a culturally significant part of London melted away. Walking down Leadenhall Street, poking briefly into its famous Market before shaking my head at the ugliness of the Lloyds building, the metallic buildings and the sanitised streets imbued a sense of familiarity and comfort. I walked almost automatically, ticking off places I'd visited in what I now regard as a previous life (Caravaggio, Abacus, the old Fuzzy's Grub that still hasn't been replaced), and chided myself for feeling that the cool austerity of EC3 could warm me more than the fierce independence of E1.
But this is the London I know, that has made me who I am today, and for all the time I have dedicated to pushing my personal boundaries, it was ironically soothing to return to the postcode that has chewed up and spat out so many before me.
It sucks the joy right out of me"
- Bloc Party, Song for Clay (Disappear Here)
Over the last couple of days, partly because of rain and partly because of an increasing personal sense of laziness, I've been rather immobile of late (although I must guiltily admit that Commander Shephard has now clocked up a few thousand light years in saving the galaxy from those nasty Reaper types). While I have various travel plans for next week, all of them are out of town, and with my quest to explore London still a bold-type heading in the Freedom Manifesto, I resolved to place another pin in my mental map of my hometown, and headed East.
East London is a bit of a question mark for me. Friends of mine have spoken of its ramshackle markets and trendy bars as a veritable treasure trove fit for Ali Baba's thieves - others would sooner hang themselves than be seen on any street with an E in the postcode. I myself must confess that I only really know Dalston, an area being "regenerated" within an inch of its life and witnessing hordes of sharp-suited professionals homogenising the streets left, right and centre, but beyond snippets of Hackney and a little Canada Water, I'm clueless. Besides, I'm sure my daily wardrobe wouldn't pass muster in even the least exclusive of Hoxton's cocktail bars.
In a flash of inspiration, I thought of Brick Lane - surely one of the most famous streets in London (of course I'd never been there). Home to 93 Feet East, Rough Trade Records and more curry houses than you can shake a peshwari naan at, I headed directly there, though the journey from quaintly genteel Surbiton was hardly straightforward. Stepping after an hour of underground and overground hell out of Shoreditch High Street, where I could already feel my street cred rising rapidly, I passed along Quaker Street (spotting a hilariously formal "No peeing" sign outside an otherwise innocuous wall) before turning onto Brick Lane itself.
The moment I hit the street I received a woefully poorly timed phone call from my gym asking if I was at all interested in their incredible Customer Referral Scheme. As if my magic, effortlessly coolly dressed teenagers sauntered casually past, staring incredulously at this shorted-and-T-shirted suburbanite shouting down his iPhone, as if I wasn't already feeling markedly out of place. However, things picked up as I strolled past the old Truman Brewery, and passed onto the curry house battleground. It's clear that this a dog-eat-dog world for any aspring restauranteur, with multiple banners exclaiming why a tourist should part with their cash for a phaal at their place rather than the outwardly identical house next door. The poorest advert I could find was a particular establishment proudly declaiming that its chef was "runner-up in the Brick Lane Curry Festival"...in 2005.
Before I knew it I reached Whitechapel Road, and in the distance I saw the faceless giants that are the skyscrapers of the Square Mile. It seemed only minutes ago that I was fighting past groups of laughing students outside All Star Lanes, and suddenly I was a banker's briefcase's throw from the City. I couldn't resist the temptation to revisit, if only briefly, the streets that had been part of my working life every since I moved here, and so E1 bled smoothly into EC3, the rough-hewn newsagents and stalls of Brick Lane replaced by airbrushed, overpriced bars and restaurants.
Yet immediately, the tension, even unease I felt in such a culturally significant part of London melted away. Walking down Leadenhall Street, poking briefly into its famous Market before shaking my head at the ugliness of the Lloyds building, the metallic buildings and the sanitised streets imbued a sense of familiarity and comfort. I walked almost automatically, ticking off places I'd visited in what I now regard as a previous life (Caravaggio, Abacus, the old Fuzzy's Grub that still hasn't been replaced), and chided myself for feeling that the cool austerity of EC3 could warm me more than the fierce independence of E1.
But this is the London I know, that has made me who I am today, and for all the time I have dedicated to pushing my personal boundaries, it was ironically soothing to return to the postcode that has chewed up and spat out so many before me.
Friday 5 August 2011
Day 11: House husbandry
"A place for everything, and everything in its place" - Isabella Beeton, from Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management.
From the outset of my short career, I travelled. It was par for the course - time in your home office, whether that was London or elsewhere, was generally limited to a Friday, and for the rest of the working week, you were expected to schlep your way to wherever your client was based. The firm took great pains to let their graduates know that this was normal behaviour, that personal mobility and flexibility was a given, and I inked my name of the dotted line fully expecting to spend my life on the road.
I know former colleagues who went to great pains to chain themselves to within the Square Mile, shaking their heads at fantastic roles outside of the M25, and I know those who have racked up so many airmiles that they were practically on first name terms with Border Control. Some people had family lives they wished to protect, others openly believed that London is the centre of the universe (clue: it isn't, by any stretch of the imagination) and couldn't believe that business could possibly be conducted outside of the capital. Still others grasped the opportunity to see the world on the company dime and worked in Spain, the Czech Republic, India, even Australia.
Me, I was somewhere within the middle, fortunate enough to mix time in London with time away, but at one point, I visited the London office three times in six months, as I worked my way along the South Coast (a far from unpleasant experience in the summer of '09). I stayed in ten different hotels in that period, always aiming for small independent boutiques (within budget of course) rather than the faceless chains that knew you by number rather than by your favourite gin, and I would be lying if I said I didn't rather enjoy the plumped up pillows, the attentive service, and the endless, needless supply of three-course dinners.
But I was coming home every Friday night, shattered from another two-hour train-plus-tube journey from Cosham or Totton or Worthing, and finding that my housemates were becoming increasingly, worryingly accustomed to my absence. I'd be left out of house dinners, not maliciously, but simply because I wasn't expected to be available. I'd wake up on a Saturday morning and find a fully stocked wine-rack, but no bread in the cupboard. I'd be faced with the choice of either braving the Holloway Road on a Saturday and raid the supermarket, or eat out, or worse convince myself that I didn't even really need to three proper meals a day. I'd try to do my laundry, and find that my housemates had already block booked the machine throughout the weekend. I'd be invited out to dinner and resent the fact that this was something I'd actually have to pay for myself rather than simply waving a corporate credit card. I'd be invited to a gig or play on a weeknight, and would have to reluctantly turn the opportunity down as I knew I would be in a hotel room instead, either working, eating, or sleeping.
In short, I was slowly, but surely, forgetting how to live life.
Fast forward to the present day, where Jo now quite reasonably assigns me tasks to carry out during the day while she is actually earning money. She asked me to wash the towels - I managed to wash none of the dirty ones and all of the ones she had washed the week before. She asked me to cook fajitas - I'd have to check with her exactly how long rice took before it became edible and not toxic. I've taken on, willingly, the mantle of house husband, but I'm about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
Fortunately, I'm learning, and I have an extremely patient girlfriend who is dragging me back to the real world. I'm determined to stay there, and earn my keep.
From the outset of my short career, I travelled. It was par for the course - time in your home office, whether that was London or elsewhere, was generally limited to a Friday, and for the rest of the working week, you were expected to schlep your way to wherever your client was based. The firm took great pains to let their graduates know that this was normal behaviour, that personal mobility and flexibility was a given, and I inked my name of the dotted line fully expecting to spend my life on the road.
I know former colleagues who went to great pains to chain themselves to within the Square Mile, shaking their heads at fantastic roles outside of the M25, and I know those who have racked up so many airmiles that they were practically on first name terms with Border Control. Some people had family lives they wished to protect, others openly believed that London is the centre of the universe (clue: it isn't, by any stretch of the imagination) and couldn't believe that business could possibly be conducted outside of the capital. Still others grasped the opportunity to see the world on the company dime and worked in Spain, the Czech Republic, India, even Australia.
Me, I was somewhere within the middle, fortunate enough to mix time in London with time away, but at one point, I visited the London office three times in six months, as I worked my way along the South Coast (a far from unpleasant experience in the summer of '09). I stayed in ten different hotels in that period, always aiming for small independent boutiques (within budget of course) rather than the faceless chains that knew you by number rather than by your favourite gin, and I would be lying if I said I didn't rather enjoy the plumped up pillows, the attentive service, and the endless, needless supply of three-course dinners.
But I was coming home every Friday night, shattered from another two-hour train-plus-tube journey from Cosham or Totton or Worthing, and finding that my housemates were becoming increasingly, worryingly accustomed to my absence. I'd be left out of house dinners, not maliciously, but simply because I wasn't expected to be available. I'd wake up on a Saturday morning and find a fully stocked wine-rack, but no bread in the cupboard. I'd be faced with the choice of either braving the Holloway Road on a Saturday and raid the supermarket, or eat out, or worse convince myself that I didn't even really need to three proper meals a day. I'd try to do my laundry, and find that my housemates had already block booked the machine throughout the weekend. I'd be invited out to dinner and resent the fact that this was something I'd actually have to pay for myself rather than simply waving a corporate credit card. I'd be invited to a gig or play on a weeknight, and would have to reluctantly turn the opportunity down as I knew I would be in a hotel room instead, either working, eating, or sleeping.
In short, I was slowly, but surely, forgetting how to live life.
Fast forward to the present day, where Jo now quite reasonably assigns me tasks to carry out during the day while she is actually earning money. She asked me to wash the towels - I managed to wash none of the dirty ones and all of the ones she had washed the week before. She asked me to cook fajitas - I'd have to check with her exactly how long rice took before it became edible and not toxic. I've taken on, willingly, the mantle of house husband, but I'm about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
Fortunately, I'm learning, and I have an extremely patient girlfriend who is dragging me back to the real world. I'm determined to stay there, and earn my keep.
Thursday 4 August 2011
Day 10: Retrospective #1
"'I don't have time to sharpen the saw,' the man said emphatically. 'I'm too busy sawing!'" - attributed to Steven Covey, from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
At my old firm, we had a strange fascination with the concept of "Lessons Learned". After a particular project or phase of work, enlightened managers would ask the more junior staff to gather together their thoughts on what had been successful, and what had, frankly, been a bit of a disaster. We would toddle off and produce an exhaustively peer-reviewed, smartly formatted document or "deck" (PowerPoint presentation to most mortals), deftly presented to our bosses and our bosses' bosses using terms such as "joined-up approach" and "enhanced collaboration". Copies would be distributed to the team, efficiently filed in a detailed folder structure on a shared network drive, and we would pass serenely on to the next phase of work.
And we would make the same mistakes again.
I'm perhaps slightly over-dramatising for effect, but the core concept holds true. The world turns at such a terrific rate of knots that we have neither the time nor the inclination to reflect on what we have achieved - or to use Covey's analogy, we continue to labour through our wood-cutting without resting to sharpen our saw. These "Lessons Learned" dossiers were a good start, if overly formal and sanitised, and I only wish that on my particular project we took that process further.
So as the beautiful sunshine London has enjoyed this week makes way for torrential downpours, and as I realise I have reached the quarter-way mark of my allotted period of freedom, I feel I should act on my own advice. So, what do I feel I have achieved since I woke up on Monday 25th July and foolishly set out for that first run?
At my old firm, we had a strange fascination with the concept of "Lessons Learned". After a particular project or phase of work, enlightened managers would ask the more junior staff to gather together their thoughts on what had been successful, and what had, frankly, been a bit of a disaster. We would toddle off and produce an exhaustively peer-reviewed, smartly formatted document or "deck" (PowerPoint presentation to most mortals), deftly presented to our bosses and our bosses' bosses using terms such as "joined-up approach" and "enhanced collaboration". Copies would be distributed to the team, efficiently filed in a detailed folder structure on a shared network drive, and we would pass serenely on to the next phase of work.
And we would make the same mistakes again.
I'm perhaps slightly over-dramatising for effect, but the core concept holds true. The world turns at such a terrific rate of knots that we have neither the time nor the inclination to reflect on what we have achieved - or to use Covey's analogy, we continue to labour through our wood-cutting without resting to sharpen our saw. These "Lessons Learned" dossiers were a good start, if overly formal and sanitised, and I only wish that on my particular project we took that process further.
So as the beautiful sunshine London has enjoyed this week makes way for torrential downpours, and as I realise I have reached the quarter-way mark of my allotted period of freedom, I feel I should act on my own advice. So, what do I feel I have achieved since I woke up on Monday 25th July and foolishly set out for that first run?
- Blog: You may have gathered that I love writing, and the desire to keep posting interesting and thoughtful entries has motivated some of the activities I've been undertaking these last few days. I'm extremely grateful for the comments I've received so far, and for those who have taken the time to read this - thanks for your interest!
- Gym: I wouldn't want to bore my readership with tales of squats and lat pull-downs, but I've rather bizarrely enjoyed rejoining a gym and dedicating time each day to put myself through pain and misery on various torture devices.
- Travel: I've been out and about more than I thought I would when I was first dreaming of my freedom a few days before I resigned - Durham, Wimbledon, the O2, the Proms, plus that brief but fulfilling visit to South Bank. I have more exploration planned, as I persist in believing that only through widening horizons can you hope to understand yourself and others.
And what has not gone so well?
- Piano: I stated in my first post that I want to take my Grade 8 exam in November, but these first few days I have done barely anything to make that ambition reality. I've braved some of the easier scales, and looked at some of the pieces, but if I took the exam tomorrow I'd be laughed out of the room. Must. Try. Harder.
- Spanish: I also wanted to start learning a new language. No progress on that front either, although I'm starting to think that with my new-found enthusiasm for the gym, and the piano exam looming, I may be biting off more than I can chew. Still, half an hour day is surely achievable, especially if the rain continues to pour.
- Cooking: My girlfriend will certainly testify to the fact that I have not spent enough time sharpening my culinary saw (a kinfe?). The Chelsea Splodge aside, I resolve this week to push on with this - I'm no Heston Blumenthal but I'm sure I can make a curry.
Those are my 'lessons learned' for the first ten days of my freedom. But overall, I'm enjoying every minute of being away from work and I'm in no hurry to return - that at least goes some way to validate that decision to "strike the board and cry, 'No more!'"
Wednesday 3 August 2011
Day 9: Pink Floyd
"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
The time has come,
The song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say..." - Pink Floyd, Time
In 1995, two seemingly unrelated events took place. My school in Bristol started giving me 'prep' (homework to pretty much every other school in England) and my loving parents bought me a Sega Saturn for Christmas. (A Sega Saturn! What a way to show my age!) I'd never owned any previous consoles, having only experienced them wonderingly at neighbours' and friends' houses, but as the occurrences of the first event became rather more regular as the school year dragged on, I found myself unable to enjoy the second event as much as a ten-year old boy should. When you have a demon of a maths teacher like Mr. Evans, you don't dare turn in your algebra a day late just because you were trying to set the Mountain course record in the Lancia Delta in Sega Rally.
However, by pure accident, I managed to combine the two. The Saturn was stationed in the 'playroom' by a charmingly clunky Acorn CRT monitor, a hangover from our old Atari ST, not far from a battered old sofabed which I would wearingly unfurl every evening and cover with old-fashioned exercise books and ring binders. One evening, when I was particularly frustrated with an English essay that had started but simply refused to end, I took a break and started rooting around the desk, toying with the idea of taking on that ridiculous fifth boss from Panzer Dragoon again. (I was so close!)
Instead, though, my eye caught a glimpse of a CD cover lying on the desk. I hadn't remembered putting it there, and had only vague memories of my Dad mentioning it. It simply bore a stylised ray of light shining into a glass prism and refracting into a rainbow. It was undeniably striking, especially to a ten year-old, but it didn't even reveal the artist or the album title. Intrigued, I turned the Saturn on, let it run through to what was then the thoroughly modern CD screen and slipped the disc into the tray. I pressed C on the joypad and returned reluctantly to the essay.
That night was the first ever time I had listened to music on the Saturn, and it became a ritual that I adhered to for as long as I remember grappling with homework. I eventually added other CDs to the roster - Billy Joel's An Innocent Man and its brash reworking of soul and Stax; Dire Straits' easy-listening giant Brothers in Arms - but those records were in the rather unfortunate position of having to follow Dark Side of the Moon. I'd never before heard alarm clocks or cash registers or disjointed voices layered together in music. I'd never heard an instrumental, much less one with a single female voice improvising a horrendous yet melodious cry to heaven (or with titles like "The Great Gig in the Sky"). And I'd never heard anything so fatalistic and final as the closing song cycle of "Any Colour You Like", "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". My small childish brain was simply blown away by what I still consider the greatest (non-classical) album ever committed to disc, and I have spent the rest of my life trying to find something to equal it (and have some fairly close with The Who's Who's Next and the Floyd-esque Ten Silver Drops by Secret Machines).
I had the opportunity to revisit those early memories when my girlfriend surprised me with tickets to see Brit Floyd at the London O2 yesterday evening. Various extenuating circumstances meant we could only see the first half, but they were note perfect from the outset, sensibly dividing guitar and vocal duties across the band and keeping the inter-song chat to a minimum. Particular highlights were the monolithic "Welcome to the Machine" and a sensitive, studied "Us and Them", although both Jo and I found the visuals, while appropriate, slightly disconcerting at times.
I left feeling as if I had rediscovered a small part of myself, reaffirming my faith in music and its power not only to delight in the present but also to transport to the past as well as any sepia-toned photo album or battered train ticket. My Saturn may have bitten the dust a long time ago, but it opened the door to my current obsession with music, and to lose that would be to lose a part of me too precious to replace.
The time has come,
The song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say..." - Pink Floyd, Time
In 1995, two seemingly unrelated events took place. My school in Bristol started giving me 'prep' (homework to pretty much every other school in England) and my loving parents bought me a Sega Saturn for Christmas. (A Sega Saturn! What a way to show my age!) I'd never owned any previous consoles, having only experienced them wonderingly at neighbours' and friends' houses, but as the occurrences of the first event became rather more regular as the school year dragged on, I found myself unable to enjoy the second event as much as a ten-year old boy should. When you have a demon of a maths teacher like Mr. Evans, you don't dare turn in your algebra a day late just because you were trying to set the Mountain course record in the Lancia Delta in Sega Rally.
However, by pure accident, I managed to combine the two. The Saturn was stationed in the 'playroom' by a charmingly clunky Acorn CRT monitor, a hangover from our old Atari ST, not far from a battered old sofabed which I would wearingly unfurl every evening and cover with old-fashioned exercise books and ring binders. One evening, when I was particularly frustrated with an English essay that had started but simply refused to end, I took a break and started rooting around the desk, toying with the idea of taking on that ridiculous fifth boss from Panzer Dragoon again. (I was so close!)
Instead, though, my eye caught a glimpse of a CD cover lying on the desk. I hadn't remembered putting it there, and had only vague memories of my Dad mentioning it. It simply bore a stylised ray of light shining into a glass prism and refracting into a rainbow. It was undeniably striking, especially to a ten year-old, but it didn't even reveal the artist or the album title. Intrigued, I turned the Saturn on, let it run through to what was then the thoroughly modern CD screen and slipped the disc into the tray. I pressed C on the joypad and returned reluctantly to the essay.
That night was the first ever time I had listened to music on the Saturn, and it became a ritual that I adhered to for as long as I remember grappling with homework. I eventually added other CDs to the roster - Billy Joel's An Innocent Man and its brash reworking of soul and Stax; Dire Straits' easy-listening giant Brothers in Arms - but those records were in the rather unfortunate position of having to follow Dark Side of the Moon. I'd never before heard alarm clocks or cash registers or disjointed voices layered together in music. I'd never heard an instrumental, much less one with a single female voice improvising a horrendous yet melodious cry to heaven (or with titles like "The Great Gig in the Sky"). And I'd never heard anything so fatalistic and final as the closing song cycle of "Any Colour You Like", "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". My small childish brain was simply blown away by what I still consider the greatest (non-classical) album ever committed to disc, and I have spent the rest of my life trying to find something to equal it (and have some fairly close with The Who's Who's Next and the Floyd-esque Ten Silver Drops by Secret Machines).
I had the opportunity to revisit those early memories when my girlfriend surprised me with tickets to see Brit Floyd at the London O2 yesterday evening. Various extenuating circumstances meant we could only see the first half, but they were note perfect from the outset, sensibly dividing guitar and vocal duties across the band and keeping the inter-song chat to a minimum. Particular highlights were the monolithic "Welcome to the Machine" and a sensitive, studied "Us and Them", although both Jo and I found the visuals, while appropriate, slightly disconcerting at times.
I left feeling as if I had rediscovered a small part of myself, reaffirming my faith in music and its power not only to delight in the present but also to transport to the past as well as any sepia-toned photo album or battered train ticket. My Saturn may have bitten the dust a long time ago, but it opened the door to my current obsession with music, and to lose that would be to lose a part of me too precious to replace.
Tuesday 2 August 2011
Day 8: Wimbledon
"The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club...reserves the right to refuse entry to anyone adopting unreasonable social behaviour..and/or commits any action against the spirit of The Queue" - AELTC Wimbledon Website
In this inter-connected, smart-phone-dominated world, it amazes me how much sway paper still has over the national consciousness. As the summer holidays grind into gear, and thousands of families flock to airports, Dad might at the check-in desk smugly whip out a tablet that contains the flight tickets, the boarding passes, the travel insurance and the kids' dental records, but they'll still all need to glumly root through their oversized baggage to track down the tiny red book that ultimately grants passage through Terminal 5. All the technology in the world can't help you if your passport is still in the sock drawer.
I remark on this because yesterday saw the official opening of the All England Lawn Tennis Club Public Ballot for Wimbledon 2012. Being unemployed and a (gentle)man of leisure, I thought I could probably clear a few minutes in my packed calendar to fill in the online application form. Except, I couldn't find one. I couldn't even find a link to download a PDF, or, heaven forbid, an RTF file. It turns out that the first stage in applying for the ballot is to send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to a PO BOX address in SW19. The gentry at the Club will then check that the envelope is the correct size and of the self-sealing variety (those AELTC tongues have far more important things to do than lick your SAEs), that the address is legible, that the stars are aligned, and then they might, MIGHT send you a form. And all this to qualify for a glorified raffle, with the prize being the chance to give a tennis club a lot of your money.
What I thought would take a few minutes eventually took a morning, as I scoured the flat for envelopes, broke two biros, covered myself in ink as I resorted to fountain pen to scrawl my address, and then trudged to Sainsbury's to buy stamps. It says something about our current attitude to letters, too, that at the checkout the lady was so surprised that I wanted stamps she had to ring a supervisor and ask him to unlock a drawer within which the offending bits of gummed paper lived. I hadn't realised that in the eyes of supermarkets, stamps were now controlled goods.
But in the end, I had to give the Wimbledon people credit. After all, we are the only country in the world that believes that the queue to witness a particular sporting event is as enjoyable as the event itself. In an age where buying a flight to New York would take less than five minutes, I applaud the organisers of one of the most well-respected tournaments in the world in standing by their old-fashioned yet quintessentially English processes, and insisting that for attending one of their tennis matches, obeying paper-related rules is as important as handing over the cash.
So taken was I with this wonderfully traditional process that I decided to spend the afternoon in Wimbledon itself. I'd never been before, though I have friends who love life there, and thought this was as good a time as any to pay my respects. Outside the train station, it seemed that the area hadn't completely escaped the onslaught of modernisation, as Alexandra Road was covered for half a mile in extensive roadworks, but fortunately I'd heard good things about the Village, so I hurried my way there first. Climbing Wimbledon Hill Road, I could indeed feel the crowds of Frappucino-slurping students and honking car horns behind me, and I reached the quaint High Street in good spirits.
As I approached Wimbledon Common, however, I could see that the searingly hot sunshine that day imbued the whole place with a kind of stale, staid immobility. The grass was faded to a limp straw colour, there were small clumps of teenagers slumped sweatily here and there, and even a group of enterprising Frisbee players looked lethargic and defeated. The paths around the Common were little more than dirt, and in the oppressive heat the stones and pebbles seemed to glint and shimmer. I didn't last long before I turned around - I'd spotted a Pain Quotidien on the High Street and lurked there for an hour or so with tea and a tartine.
Mid-sip I was struck with a sense of familiarity. Just as the hill lead to a beautiful High Street and untamed Common, so did Holloway Road lead to Highgate Village and Hampstead Heath, my favourite stomping grounds of a few months ago way up in N6. London may be a patchwork of many patterns, but look closely and you'll see the same cloth repeated over and over again. Perhaps I'm starting to make sense of this city now - starting to make the connections. If days of freedom aren't intended for us to make sense of the world we live in, I'm not really sure what they're for.
In this inter-connected, smart-phone-dominated world, it amazes me how much sway paper still has over the national consciousness. As the summer holidays grind into gear, and thousands of families flock to airports, Dad might at the check-in desk smugly whip out a tablet that contains the flight tickets, the boarding passes, the travel insurance and the kids' dental records, but they'll still all need to glumly root through their oversized baggage to track down the tiny red book that ultimately grants passage through Terminal 5. All the technology in the world can't help you if your passport is still in the sock drawer.
I remark on this because yesterday saw the official opening of the All England Lawn Tennis Club Public Ballot for Wimbledon 2012. Being unemployed and a (gentle)man of leisure, I thought I could probably clear a few minutes in my packed calendar to fill in the online application form. Except, I couldn't find one. I couldn't even find a link to download a PDF, or, heaven forbid, an RTF file. It turns out that the first stage in applying for the ballot is to send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to a PO BOX address in SW19. The gentry at the Club will then check that the envelope is the correct size and of the self-sealing variety (those AELTC tongues have far more important things to do than lick your SAEs), that the address is legible, that the stars are aligned, and then they might, MIGHT send you a form. And all this to qualify for a glorified raffle, with the prize being the chance to give a tennis club a lot of your money.
What I thought would take a few minutes eventually took a morning, as I scoured the flat for envelopes, broke two biros, covered myself in ink as I resorted to fountain pen to scrawl my address, and then trudged to Sainsbury's to buy stamps. It says something about our current attitude to letters, too, that at the checkout the lady was so surprised that I wanted stamps she had to ring a supervisor and ask him to unlock a drawer within which the offending bits of gummed paper lived. I hadn't realised that in the eyes of supermarkets, stamps were now controlled goods.
But in the end, I had to give the Wimbledon people credit. After all, we are the only country in the world that believes that the queue to witness a particular sporting event is as enjoyable as the event itself. In an age where buying a flight to New York would take less than five minutes, I applaud the organisers of one of the most well-respected tournaments in the world in standing by their old-fashioned yet quintessentially English processes, and insisting that for attending one of their tennis matches, obeying paper-related rules is as important as handing over the cash.
So taken was I with this wonderfully traditional process that I decided to spend the afternoon in Wimbledon itself. I'd never been before, though I have friends who love life there, and thought this was as good a time as any to pay my respects. Outside the train station, it seemed that the area hadn't completely escaped the onslaught of modernisation, as Alexandra Road was covered for half a mile in extensive roadworks, but fortunately I'd heard good things about the Village, so I hurried my way there first. Climbing Wimbledon Hill Road, I could indeed feel the crowds of Frappucino-slurping students and honking car horns behind me, and I reached the quaint High Street in good spirits.
As I approached Wimbledon Common, however, I could see that the searingly hot sunshine that day imbued the whole place with a kind of stale, staid immobility. The grass was faded to a limp straw colour, there were small clumps of teenagers slumped sweatily here and there, and even a group of enterprising Frisbee players looked lethargic and defeated. The paths around the Common were little more than dirt, and in the oppressive heat the stones and pebbles seemed to glint and shimmer. I didn't last long before I turned around - I'd spotted a Pain Quotidien on the High Street and lurked there for an hour or so with tea and a tartine.
Mid-sip I was struck with a sense of familiarity. Just as the hill lead to a beautiful High Street and untamed Common, so did Holloway Road lead to Highgate Village and Hampstead Heath, my favourite stomping grounds of a few months ago way up in N6. London may be a patchwork of many patterns, but look closely and you'll see the same cloth repeated over and over again. Perhaps I'm starting to make sense of this city now - starting to make the connections. If days of freedom aren't intended for us to make sense of the world we live in, I'm not really sure what they're for.
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