Monday, September 05, 2005
Timewaster, Inc.
For those of you that 'don't believe in television', but love to profess their affection for Jon Stewart the site onegoodmove provides extended clips of US commentary shows like Bill Maher and The Daily Show. As one living abroad, it has been useful.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
The Rock Music is Tonight
The Ravonettes are playing a 'secret gig' tonight at Lock 17 in Camden, free of charge.
Info here. You owe me.
Track review: Tim McGraw (part 2 of 3)
After a while I settled into the theme of the summer, the daily wake and the schedule of breaks, the afternoon naps after a day on the jackhammer, the evening boozer on the beach. These things became my routine. One day wasn't much discernable from the other, barring of course the workman's appreciation for the weekend. Woo-hoo! And as things got normalized, coming into work early in the morning became a communal sentence. I mean, everyone is groggy at 6 in the morning, until someone decides to take upon themselves something physically strenuous. Then everyone else refuses to be out done, and the workday starts itself.
Every our of this day, the heigh-ho, is helped along by radio. Sometimes, if most of the guys on the site are black, someone would put on a soul station, or the foreman would cycle to his oldies station. But usually it was country. Ninety percent of the time. Contemporary country. 2004 was the summer of Gretchen Wilson, Big & Rich, and "Live Like You Were Dying". The latter song, written by the Goatee in Black Tim McGraw, is a great example of the kind of fatalistic melodrama that takes over half the country market. The other half, of course, belongs to ruckus tunes; good old boy music (or more recently bad little girl music, aka GW) about how good we do it down here. Friends in low places sort of thing.
All of that is well and good, and actually makes the workday go by faster than the grave tunes. Even if you don't agree with the ridiculous or rawcous lyrics, you can at least resign your brain to the standardized beat. Hammer bang bang. Drum machine bang bang. And who's to say you need to like the lyrics anyway. Singing along with a song with words like "save a horse, ride a cowboy" is actually kind of fun, despite the innanity of the sentiment. Who can be worried about banging a hammer when you can do it to the chorus from "Redneck Woman". The innanity works for most. But I can't really sing along to that kind of stuff. I'm a crooner. Perhaps it was hearing Randy Travis' "For Ever and Ever" at too young an age, I just like the slow and dramatic melody.
"Drugs or Jesus", by the same Tim McGraw, lays the drama pretty thick. The song begins with some pretty foreboding piano progression, the sort of thing that used to lead off a rock ballad in the 80s, and then a few taps of the high hat, just to let you know that things are going to get serious. A few poiniant vibrato notes on the guitar, and then you're ready. "In my hometown" McGraw begins, you're either lost or you're found." So begins the stark realities that reflect most everyone's experience with "coming home." You return and find the failed and the found haunting the same places you saw since you were 7 (the successful ones probably aren't around). One of the best songs about the subject, "Left and Leaving" by The Weakerthans, provides a similar sentiment:
i'm back with scars to show,
back with the streets i know,
will never take me anywhere but here.
McGraw is young enough to get away with a song about coming back home. He's been around a little, seen the big city and had his showbiz moment, and has returned to his hometown of Rayville, Louisiana to see two camps of people. Those that look for Jesus, and those that are looking for the next fix.
we follow the roads that lead us
...[dramatic pause]... to drugs or Jesus.
Of course, he's not going to get anywhere without any conflict. McGraw knows his audience. (in fact, you could say he knows Nelly's audience, too, given their recent collaboration) And he knows his audience would love to hear a story about spritual movement. And since a story about the Glory of God goes on the gospel channel, its important that McGraw sings about a time when he wasn't so holy, when he had to struggle through his faith. And then he has to tell us about it (it's just part of the salvation).
The music, however, doesn't endure the same kind of progression. The lyrical arrangement is a pretty standard chorus-verse affair, including even the recent rap trick of having the chorus fill in the last words of a verse (think Common's "Go" or Usher's "Burn"). The pianos and guitars crescendo when you expect them to, a solo sneaks in behind the crucial born-again moment, and after McGraw comes down on the side of God the outro uses perhaps the oldest trick in the Book ("Hallelujah, hallelujah, ...").
Every our of this day, the heigh-ho, is helped along by radio. Sometimes, if most of the guys on the site are black, someone would put on a soul station, or the foreman would cycle to his oldies station. But usually it was country. Ninety percent of the time. Contemporary country. 2004 was the summer of Gretchen Wilson, Big & Rich, and "Live Like You Were Dying". The latter song, written by the Goatee in Black Tim McGraw, is a great example of the kind of fatalistic melodrama that takes over half the country market. The other half, of course, belongs to ruckus tunes; good old boy music (or more recently bad little girl music, aka GW) about how good we do it down here. Friends in low places sort of thing.
All of that is well and good, and actually makes the workday go by faster than the grave tunes. Even if you don't agree with the ridiculous or rawcous lyrics, you can at least resign your brain to the standardized beat. Hammer bang bang. Drum machine bang bang. And who's to say you need to like the lyrics anyway. Singing along with a song with words like "save a horse, ride a cowboy" is actually kind of fun, despite the innanity of the sentiment. Who can be worried about banging a hammer when you can do it to the chorus from "Redneck Woman". The innanity works for most. But I can't really sing along to that kind of stuff. I'm a crooner. Perhaps it was hearing Randy Travis' "For Ever and Ever" at too young an age, I just like the slow and dramatic melody.
"Drugs or Jesus", by the same Tim McGraw, lays the drama pretty thick. The song begins with some pretty foreboding piano progression, the sort of thing that used to lead off a rock ballad in the 80s, and then a few taps of the high hat, just to let you know that things are going to get serious. A few poiniant vibrato notes on the guitar, and then you're ready. "In my hometown" McGraw begins, you're either lost or you're found." So begins the stark realities that reflect most everyone's experience with "coming home." You return and find the failed and the found haunting the same places you saw since you were 7 (the successful ones probably aren't around). One of the best songs about the subject, "Left and Leaving" by The Weakerthans, provides a similar sentiment:
i'm back with scars to show,
back with the streets i know,
will never take me anywhere but here.
McGraw is young enough to get away with a song about coming back home. He's been around a little, seen the big city and had his showbiz moment, and has returned to his hometown of Rayville, Louisiana to see two camps of people. Those that look for Jesus, and those that are looking for the next fix.
we follow the roads that lead us
...[dramatic pause]... to drugs or Jesus.
Of course, he's not going to get anywhere without any conflict. McGraw knows his audience. (in fact, you could say he knows Nelly's audience, too, given their recent collaboration) And he knows his audience would love to hear a story about spritual movement. And since a story about the Glory of God goes on the gospel channel, its important that McGraw sings about a time when he wasn't so holy, when he had to struggle through his faith. And then he has to tell us about it (it's just part of the salvation).
The music, however, doesn't endure the same kind of progression. The lyrical arrangement is a pretty standard chorus-verse affair, including even the recent rap trick of having the chorus fill in the last words of a verse (think Common's "Go" or Usher's "Burn"). The pianos and guitars crescendo when you expect them to, a solo sneaks in behind the crucial born-again moment, and after McGraw comes down on the side of God the outro uses perhaps the oldest trick in the Book ("Hallelujah, hallelujah, ...").
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Love is Always Sacred
For anyone that hasn't already crashed at my fabulously located flat in London (in other words the 2 people that visit this blog), I live within a stone's throw of Harrod's, the world's finest and most opulent department store, in the world's highest per capita earning district. Not that the residents of Knightsbridge actually work, mind you. Really they just buy expensive things from Harrod's and try to run you over.
Apologies. I'll eat the rich later. What is perhaps more repulsive, at least outside the class war, is a recent scuplture commissioned for the basement (re: lower ground floor) memorial to Dodi al Fayed and Diana, Princess of Wales. Visitors to the store will be familiar with the fountain and engagement ring encased in polyeurethane, a loving tribute to the heir to the world's most glorified mall and his royal girlfriend. Now we get to fawn our affections on this:
Apologies. I'll eat the rich later. What is perhaps more repulsive, at least outside the class war, is a recent scuplture commissioned for the basement (re: lower ground floor) memorial to Dodi al Fayed and Diana, Princess of Wales. Visitors to the store will be familiar with the fountain and engagement ring encased in polyeurethane, a loving tribute to the heir to the world's most glorified mall and his royal girlfriend. Now we get to fawn our affections on this:
That being a life-sized bronze of Dodi, Diana, and a seagull. That fire you see in the background isn't so much a foundry as an English Mount Doom. And i believe we're all familiar how that story ends. The statue will be grafted into the already borderline kitch in the Egyptian Room of the store, the section where you can buy makeup that costs a few hundred quid and is made from the ground bones of Somali children.
See more pictures of the sculpture here.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
...And in this corner a barking lunatic
George Galloway is going to debate Christopher Hitchens in NYC, and God Bless Us all if the world doesn't implode on that September day. The event is happening as part of Galloway's US speaking tour, though it might more accurately start another round in a proper shit-tip, if their past interactions are any indication.
Witness the end of political discourse as we know it. Tickets to this event are worth their weight in GOLD.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Hippomaster
Got my first scientific publication, a product of work done through long, cold winters at the University of Pittsburgh. The article, Patterns of Hippocampal Atrophy in MCI, will be published by The Journal of Neurology in the fall. I am second author. Let me know if you'd like a copy.
Suck it.
Suck it.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Walken 2008
If you want to learn how to build a house,build a house. Don't ask anyone, just build a house.
Gimme Some Blo'
The subheading has been answered: Bret Easton Ellis has come out of his Prada-leather-lined hole in the ground to publish a book called Lunar Park. It is apparently an autobiographical novel. The gut reaction to that style is a swift kick to the shins, but eschew for a moment your vision of an autobiographical novel, the endless parade of personal memoir that seem to need their own section in Borders (headlined "Wine about Life"). Consider that this is written by the man who has written of supermodeling anarchists, cork-snorting teens, and found the most despicable way to feed rats.
The most public aspect of this book's press junket is that Bret is gay. This wasn't exactly revelation. More surprising was the context of Bret's relationship with Kaplan died in January 2004, prompting a long mourning spent completely out of the limelight. He did not attend the funeral in Michigan, he said, because he could not even bring himself to leave his room - the room in his mother's house in the San Fernando Valley, where he grew up. And he stayed in Los Angeles for 19 months, shuffling from mother to sister to friend and finally a series of hotels, suffering what he calls "a midlife crisis."
So, perhaps we won't be expecting the same noncommittal slash-and-burn, choose your poison version of literature. How the personal events in Bret's life will effect his new direction remains to be seen; Lunar Park was largely finished at the time of Kaplan's death, though he has admitted to the death being the catalyst for finishing the book. Ellis seems to be working hard to distance himself from his bad-boy party-boy image:
"My worry is that people will want to know what's true and what's not," he said recently. "All these things that are in the book - my quote-unquote autobiography - I just don't want to answer any of those questions. I don't like demystifying the text."
- Read excerpts of Lunar Park
- Audio interview on Bookworm (realplayer)
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Track Review: 'Drugs or Jesus' by Tim McGraw (Part 1 of 3)
Last summer, from late May until the first week of September, I worked as a foreman on one of my father's construction sites. The building was the former location of my hometown's newspaper, The St. Augustine Record, which had moved across town to a bigger building next to a shopping center and a hospital, off of US1. Anytime I drive down the section of a town where all the Chili's and Barnes&Noble's and Blockbusters and Home Depots are congregated, I always refer to it as the, "you know, the US1-part of town", regardless of where they grew up, or if they even know that US1 runs up the east coast and harbors its fair share of traffic from the Chili-going public.
Anyway, I'm not being completely truthful by saying I was a foreman for the summer. At least, the whole summer. My dad hired me as foreman, because the building was a small project for his office and the fewer checks you sign the better. See, a foreman shows up early, opens the locks, gets out the tools, and then tells everyone what to do, and makes sure that they keep doing it until break. Sometimes he goes and buys doughnuts for everybody. Well, i got most of those done, except for the showing up early bit, and the locks, and the tools. But all the crews had their own tools, and their own keys to the place, anyway. Actually, I don't think we had doors at that point. The place had been gutted by the demolition crew by the time I got there.
So, perhaps, I was not the best decision for the job of foreman. He is, in many ways, The Boss, but only in that he takes orders from the contractor, or the architect, and delegates. Delegate and maintain. Crews come in (Demo crews, Roof crews, Plumbing crews), and you tell them where to go to do what they do. You also have to be something of a handyman, as there are always sidejobs to be completed; actually, all the jobs that you don't hire a specialized crew for, you and a couple of day-laborers punch it out in between the delegating and maintaining.
There's a fun bunch. Laborers are often viewed through broken glass, (if anything's ever stolen on a site it's usually the day-laborers that get fired first) and in plenty of cities in the nation they get blamed for racism even murder. The laborers in St. Augustine are a more humble bunch, at least the ones that came through the services we used. The overwhelming percentage are fellas looking for enough cash to fuel a weekend bender, but there are a few really good workers in the mix, who may have a rap sheet they aren't proud of, or just haven't found the right employer. I met a guy who weighs 250 pounds and has 3 DUIs, but could build (and demolish) a house in a week.
Anyway, I get fired as foreman. By my dad. I was staying at a little house on the beach that summer, with a couple of friends my age who lifeguarded full-time. They were always out of the door by 7, into the big yellow pickup and onto the sand. I always kind of prided myself at not getting up till 8, and showing up at work only after a big fuckin bowl of some highly sugared cereal. It's the only thing that gets me up. Well, pops wasn't keen on this. He's always been the one pushing me out of bed in the morning, for work or surf, and one morning, after the Count Chocula, I get a bell asking me why I'm not on the site. Then i get fired, then he asks if I want to be the assistant foreman, and then he asks me to remember to bring back his surfboard to the house.
So I stay on the job, but now i have to get up and be there at 6 (construction workdays: 6-3:30, with half-hour for break and two fivers at 10 and 2. Clockwork.). I won't say that i didn't die a little everytime i woke up late and had to rush out the door in wet sock without my sugar-soup, but i won't say that i didn't benefit physically from lifting bricks and 2x4s for eight hours. Builds character, too, apparently. But I would never say as such. Officially i was a carpenter, but I was put on any job that needed doing. I remember the spackling, the carpentry, the jackhammering, loved it after a while. But I'd be amiss to not say that everyone didn't consider me a bit odd being there. Not being the architect's son; nepotism on a site is standard, and if anything that got me more respect.
Anyway, I'm not being completely truthful by saying I was a foreman for the summer. At least, the whole summer. My dad hired me as foreman, because the building was a small project for his office and the fewer checks you sign the better. See, a foreman shows up early, opens the locks, gets out the tools, and then tells everyone what to do, and makes sure that they keep doing it until break. Sometimes he goes and buys doughnuts for everybody. Well, i got most of those done, except for the showing up early bit, and the locks, and the tools. But all the crews had their own tools, and their own keys to the place, anyway. Actually, I don't think we had doors at that point. The place had been gutted by the demolition crew by the time I got there.
So, perhaps, I was not the best decision for the job of foreman. He is, in many ways, The Boss, but only in that he takes orders from the contractor, or the architect, and delegates. Delegate and maintain. Crews come in (Demo crews, Roof crews, Plumbing crews), and you tell them where to go to do what they do. You also have to be something of a handyman, as there are always sidejobs to be completed; actually, all the jobs that you don't hire a specialized crew for, you and a couple of day-laborers punch it out in between the delegating and maintaining.
There's a fun bunch. Laborers are often viewed through broken glass, (if anything's ever stolen on a site it's usually the day-laborers that get fired first) and in plenty of cities in the nation they get blamed for racism even murder. The laborers in St. Augustine are a more humble bunch, at least the ones that came through the services we used. The overwhelming percentage are fellas looking for enough cash to fuel a weekend bender, but there are a few really good workers in the mix, who may have a rap sheet they aren't proud of, or just haven't found the right employer. I met a guy who weighs 250 pounds and has 3 DUIs, but could build (and demolish) a house in a week.
Anyway, I get fired as foreman. By my dad. I was staying at a little house on the beach that summer, with a couple of friends my age who lifeguarded full-time. They were always out of the door by 7, into the big yellow pickup and onto the sand. I always kind of prided myself at not getting up till 8, and showing up at work only after a big fuckin bowl of some highly sugared cereal. It's the only thing that gets me up. Well, pops wasn't keen on this. He's always been the one pushing me out of bed in the morning, for work or surf, and one morning, after the Count Chocula, I get a bell asking me why I'm not on the site. Then i get fired, then he asks if I want to be the assistant foreman, and then he asks me to remember to bring back his surfboard to the house.
So I stay on the job, but now i have to get up and be there at 6 (construction workdays: 6-3:30, with half-hour for break and two fivers at 10 and 2. Clockwork.). I won't say that i didn't die a little everytime i woke up late and had to rush out the door in wet sock without my sugar-soup, but i won't say that i didn't benefit physically from lifting bricks and 2x4s for eight hours. Builds character, too, apparently. But I would never say as such. Officially i was a carpenter, but I was put on any job that needed doing. I remember the spackling, the carpentry, the jackhammering, loved it after a while. But I'd be amiss to not say that everyone didn't consider me a bit odd being there. Not being the architect's son; nepotism on a site is standard, and if anything that got me more respect.
Throw the R Away
I'm working on a short essay on Christopher Hitchens, not because I have anything interesting to say about him, but just because I am so tormented by his journalistic existence, his means and his ways, his...well, anyway, in the meantime here's of gallery of media on George Galloway, politician noted for his rhetorical ability and his left-wing views, and who famously (in Britain anyway) called Hitchens a drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay. He is currently the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bethnal Green. My mom loves him. And he deserves a bit of attention (don't send me hate mail) at least for being the biggest mouth in the highest office to critize so directly.
- Galloway believes that Londoner's are "paying the price" for Iraq
- A fun interview ( /arguement/shouting match ) with the BBC4.
- A video of Galloway appearing before the US senate sub-committee
- Hitchens' attack on Galloway in (ack!) the Weekly Standard. I can't believe I'm linking to that stone rag.
- Galloway believes that Londoner's are "paying the price" for Iraq
- A fun interview ( /arguement/shouting match ) with the BBC4.
- A video of Galloway appearing before the US senate sub-committee
- Hitchens' attack on Galloway in (ack!) the Weekly Standard. I can't believe I'm linking to that stone rag.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
HA
Welcome to the age of fear, London. Where a broken down bus closes a section of the city. The police is starting to use its public statements in the same way they did in the US; even though all of the failed-bombers are in custody, MPs are steamrolling in new 'anti-terror' laws to combat the new extremism. Racial profiling, passport checks, and ID cards.
Donnie Darko is getting big here. Related?
Donnie Darko is getting big here. Related?
Musichole
Today I thought i would give you a few interesting links for music. My interests generally lie in the "indie" domain, and most music on the internet lends itself to music uncorrupted by the hands of the EMISonyBMG boheomouth. Independent labels are alive and well in the age of the internet. And the nice thing about indie music is that it is often free.
First the basics: any decent hipster is going to visit Pitchfork at least daily. Forget Rollingstone stars, NME ratings, or the 'now playing' rack at your local used store. Pitchfork delivers daily: 4-5 new record reviews (reviewed 1-10, with decimals!), 3 singles (admittedly only useful for those living in cities where singles make in to stores), news from the like, a daily featue covering a live performance or a celebrity list, and a weekly feature.
Tiny Mix Tapes is in the same vien, but with significant differences; to say that they get sloppy seconds might be a big crude, as reviews actually differ quite a bit between the two sites. TMT do 2 reviews a day (shorter and terse-er than PF) and quite a few features, from 'The Dolorean' (reviews of old records) to interviews with artists, movie reviews, and original essays on topics like how much you should pay for a Brangelina sex tape.
Then there are the music blogs; people doing the same thing i'm doing here, but with more adverts and in a different time zone. A couple of my favorite:
Audiofile
Poplicks
Lacunae
Sixeyes
Audiofile is done by Thomas Bartlett (lead for Doveman) and is hosted on Salon, so go through the rigamarole in getting the Daypass. You can kind of lose your head downloading tracks off of Sixeyes, they have consistently good compilations of music (called 'sixpacks').
Which brings me to actually downloading/buying music. Everyone knows about iTunes, but fewer know about emusic, which features an amazing amount of music from independent labels. And not just new stuff (like the last Bad Religion, Xiu Xiu, or Decemberists album); I've gotten a decent education on British punk (The Fall, Throbbing Gristle, Buzzcocks), post-rock (The Sea and Cake, Tortoise, Laika), and even good goth (This Mortal Coil, Bauhaus, Young God Records). Admittedly, there is less for you if you're into techno or mainstream rap, but plenty if you're willing to search the underground roots of each. Plus you get a trial period with 50 free tracks! If you want to join, email me, as there are incentives for getting someone to join. Fuck yeah i'm selfish.
I also have hacks for select few of you. Email me for details.
First the basics: any decent hipster is going to visit Pitchfork at least daily. Forget Rollingstone stars, NME ratings, or the 'now playing' rack at your local used store. Pitchfork delivers daily: 4-5 new record reviews (reviewed 1-10, with decimals!), 3 singles (admittedly only useful for those living in cities where singles make in to stores), news from the like, a daily featue covering a live performance or a celebrity list, and a weekly feature.
Tiny Mix Tapes is in the same vien, but with significant differences; to say that they get sloppy seconds might be a big crude, as reviews actually differ quite a bit between the two sites. TMT do 2 reviews a day (shorter and terse-er than PF) and quite a few features, from 'The Dolorean' (reviews of old records) to interviews with artists, movie reviews, and original essays on topics like how much you should pay for a Brangelina sex tape.
Then there are the music blogs; people doing the same thing i'm doing here, but with more adverts and in a different time zone. A couple of my favorite:
Audiofile
Poplicks
Lacunae
Sixeyes
Audiofile is done by Thomas Bartlett (lead for Doveman) and is hosted on Salon, so go through the rigamarole in getting the Daypass. You can kind of lose your head downloading tracks off of Sixeyes, they have consistently good compilations of music (called 'sixpacks').
Which brings me to actually downloading/buying music. Everyone knows about iTunes, but fewer know about emusic, which features an amazing amount of music from independent labels. And not just new stuff (like the last Bad Religion, Xiu Xiu, or Decemberists album); I've gotten a decent education on British punk (The Fall, Throbbing Gristle, Buzzcocks), post-rock (The Sea and Cake, Tortoise, Laika), and even good goth (This Mortal Coil, Bauhaus, Young God Records). Admittedly, there is less for you if you're into techno or mainstream rap, but plenty if you're willing to search the underground roots of each. Plus you get a trial period with 50 free tracks! If you want to join, email me, as there are incentives for getting someone to join. Fuck yeah i'm selfish.
I also have hacks for select few of you. Email me for details.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Courage Fades, Like a Boner
British television is no safer from the plague of reality shows in the US, save for the fact that we only have 5 channels (well, 3 really, BBC1 and BBC2 would never go for it) on which to broad cast such fare. In fact, ITV (The People's Channel) actually reverts to live coverage of a communal house during it's night-owl Big Brother block. There's this show, Bad Boys, where delinquent young yobs are sent off to military training. One of the exercises i saw them forced to perform was to hold a red pencil in between their nose and upper lip, no hands. Hence, the expression, "stiff upper lip." I don't know the history of this practice, but i suspect it plays on the conception to reap something humiliating to the cadets. Stiff upper whatever.
So London endures it's second bombing and the world watches the upper lips of the Brits. These particular rucksacks went off with a bit of a pbbhht, the detonators not setting off the rest of the homemade explosives they had left behind for their fellow commuters. Two weeks ago 4 bombs on public transport killing 50-some folks seemed to evoke "Blitz Mentality", i.e. "stiff upper lip", i.e. keep it moving. But these more recent attacks, despite their weakness, have not produced the same sentiment. Editorials are going off in all the papers, from The Guardian on the left to the Financial Times on the right, that "the captiol's mood is less sure", and that "the defiance has begun to fade."
After the 7th of July, Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, comes out and cries an invective against the bombers: "Londoners will not be divided by the cowardly attack," he said, his voice angry and raw. "They will stand together in solidarity ... and that is why I'm proud to be the mayor of that city." Of course, Livingstone isn't terribly popular, but that's beside the point in a crisis.
I said that most "can't be bothered" to worry about the national mood or how the occurence of terrorism affects London life. And those people will, largely, continue to be unbothered. The people who would be bothered by this sort of thing, well, now they will.
So London endures it's second bombing and the world watches the upper lips of the Brits. These particular rucksacks went off with a bit of a pbbhht, the detonators not setting off the rest of the homemade explosives they had left behind for their fellow commuters. Two weeks ago 4 bombs on public transport killing 50-some folks seemed to evoke "Blitz Mentality", i.e. "stiff upper lip", i.e. keep it moving. But these more recent attacks, despite their weakness, have not produced the same sentiment. Editorials are going off in all the papers, from The Guardian on the left to the Financial Times on the right, that "the captiol's mood is less sure", and that "the defiance has begun to fade."
After the 7th of July, Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, comes out and cries an invective against the bombers: "Londoners will not be divided by the cowardly attack," he said, his voice angry and raw. "They will stand together in solidarity ... and that is why I'm proud to be the mayor of that city." Of course, Livingstone isn't terribly popular, but that's beside the point in a crisis.
I said that most "can't be bothered" to worry about the national mood or how the occurence of terrorism affects London life. And those people will, largely, continue to be unbothered. The people who would be bothered by this sort of thing, well, now they will.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Blitz Mentality
Did something fairly stupid today. I left my apartment in South Kensington and walked towards my university in central London. Being an overseas student with a cheap apartment means you are connected to the world only through your email, your chat box, or your online personality. The desire to reply to emergency emails outweighed the desire to avoid the possible aftershocks. The bombs had gone off at the tube stop i get off to go to work, and on a bus i use when i can't afford the tube. Ah. Who am i kidding, I wanted to see the whole mess of it.
I woke the same way I woke up on a morning in September, by a phone call from a hysteric mother ensuring my uniform bodily constituency in the face of militant Islamic fundamentalism. I remember feeling kind of excited when she first told me. I think i might have even voiced, "Wow, that's amazing." I got off the phone to call my mates, all three of them, and got the requisite responses. Wow, man, yeah.
I made a couple eggs and left the apartment. Everything in Kensington looked quite normal. Harrods was open, restaurants, shops, about half of them were still operational. As i got to Hyde Park Corner i noticed the sidewalks filling up with suits. I walked along Piccadilly, where 5 days ago a Pride Parade made its way away from the Live8 concert. Green Park was full of people that don't usually walk through Green Park, or who bother walking anywhere, besides to the curb to hail a cab. It occured to me there that at any hour in the London workday, maybe 15% of the population is underground. I walked past a few of the major stores, the Virgin Megastore and the Waterstones Bookstore. A group of men seem miffed that the bookstore was closed. Nobody was open in Piccadilly Circus besides the Pizza/Souvenier joint below an Adam's Rib restaurant. That's the worst pizza i've ever tasted.
Nothing was open from there to Bloomsbury besides a Subway and a video rental place. Everyone was walking in the other direction, and no one seemed particularly distraught. Most people were either walking in groups of three or four (laughing, joking), or else talking on their mobile. People were a little inconvenienced, maybe a little shocked, but no particular distress. Granted these weren't the people who had felt the heat of the blasts, or broken tube windows with their fists, but they did have to endure "heightened circumstances."
But they weren't doing it right! The were just walking home as if the boss had called in sick, or a The men and women in business attire seemed less worried about terrorism, and more upset that they couldn't pick up a novel on the way home. One of the most common expressions to insignificant events in London is, "can't be bothered." Terrorism seemed to rise to the top of no one's agenda.
Perhaps i wanted to see fear, I wanted to see recently dried cheeks and loosened ties. I wanted to see them get nuts, because if they could get nuts, this country, then maybe my country wasn't melodramatic for having done so. Maybe i could see some of the sorrow, or the militancy, or even the glint of revenge sparking in the eye. But there was no such reaction. Yes, yes, the IRA and all that. British resilience. Stiff upper lip. Whatever. I know there's a completely different, news-worthy story to be told about those stuck in a smoky tube carriage, or on the top floor of the double decker bus. But i don't know any of those people yet.
Things are running smoothly. The pubs are full of people getting pissed, as they (and I) normally would. All busses are running. The tube is back on tomorrow, mostly. There are a few lines cut, and a few diversions. There will be inconveniences. But its quite traditional in London to moan about such things. About the rest they can't be bothered.
I woke the same way I woke up on a morning in September, by a phone call from a hysteric mother ensuring my uniform bodily constituency in the face of militant Islamic fundamentalism. I remember feeling kind of excited when she first told me. I think i might have even voiced, "Wow, that's amazing." I got off the phone to call my mates, all three of them, and got the requisite responses. Wow, man, yeah.
I made a couple eggs and left the apartment. Everything in Kensington looked quite normal. Harrods was open, restaurants, shops, about half of them were still operational. As i got to Hyde Park Corner i noticed the sidewalks filling up with suits. I walked along Piccadilly, where 5 days ago a Pride Parade made its way away from the Live8 concert. Green Park was full of people that don't usually walk through Green Park, or who bother walking anywhere, besides to the curb to hail a cab. It occured to me there that at any hour in the London workday, maybe 15% of the population is underground. I walked past a few of the major stores, the Virgin Megastore and the Waterstones Bookstore. A group of men seem miffed that the bookstore was closed. Nobody was open in Piccadilly Circus besides the Pizza/Souvenier joint below an Adam's Rib restaurant. That's the worst pizza i've ever tasted.
Nothing was open from there to Bloomsbury besides a Subway and a video rental place. Everyone was walking in the other direction, and no one seemed particularly distraught. Most people were either walking in groups of three or four (laughing, joking), or else talking on their mobile. People were a little inconvenienced, maybe a little shocked, but no particular distress. Granted these weren't the people who had felt the heat of the blasts, or broken tube windows with their fists, but they did have to endure "heightened circumstances."
But they weren't doing it right! The were just walking home as if the boss had called in sick, or a The men and women in business attire seemed less worried about terrorism, and more upset that they couldn't pick up a novel on the way home. One of the most common expressions to insignificant events in London is, "can't be bothered." Terrorism seemed to rise to the top of no one's agenda.
Perhaps i wanted to see fear, I wanted to see recently dried cheeks and loosened ties. I wanted to see them get nuts, because if they could get nuts, this country, then maybe my country wasn't melodramatic for having done so. Maybe i could see some of the sorrow, or the militancy, or even the glint of revenge sparking in the eye. But there was no such reaction. Yes, yes, the IRA and all that. British resilience. Stiff upper lip. Whatever. I know there's a completely different, news-worthy story to be told about those stuck in a smoky tube carriage, or on the top floor of the double decker bus. But i don't know any of those people yet.
Things are running smoothly. The pubs are full of people getting pissed, as they (and I) normally would. All busses are running. The tube is back on tomorrow, mostly. There are a few lines cut, and a few diversions. There will be inconveniences. But its quite traditional in London to moan about such things. About the rest they can't be bothered.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
You will never live here
A list of particularly literary books for those that wish an approxiamate The London Experience:
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier - A collection of fantastical short stories which will supplant in you with the proper definition of "wry."
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe - There are about 3 dozen "Thatcher" novels (most recently The Line of Beauty), each with its own brand of invective against the steamroll of PM of the 80s. This is an exposition on those years which is most excessible and personified deliciously by a ruthless family of Leeds.
Lud Heat and London Orbital by Iain Sinclair - This man is amazing. He's a compendium of London esoterica, a purveuor of the nefarious and occult influences on London culture. Lud Heat is a collection of prose poems, most notable a survey of the Hawksmoor churches that were constructed alond astral lines and reference much Egyptian architecture and mythology. Orbital is Sinclair's travelogue of follwing the M25, the giant ring-road that encircles London, and finding various and sundry adventures in the abandoned regions therein.
Collected Letters of Julian McClaren-Ross - The prototypical dandy. Ross wrote a few novels, short stories, but the real adventure was his own life, which goes from origins in Havana and Saudi to becoming a notorious London personality and denizen of the pubs of Fitzrovia. The British would never condone the adjective "gonzo" for extensive use, but Ross most approximates the quirks and intrepid attitude of the word, albeit in a more refined way.
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier - A collection of fantastical short stories which will supplant in you with the proper definition of "wry."
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe - There are about 3 dozen "Thatcher" novels (most recently The Line of Beauty), each with its own brand of invective against the steamroll of PM of the 80s. This is an exposition on those years which is most excessible and personified deliciously by a ruthless family of Leeds.
Lud Heat and London Orbital by Iain Sinclair - This man is amazing. He's a compendium of London esoterica, a purveuor of the nefarious and occult influences on London culture. Lud Heat is a collection of prose poems, most notable a survey of the Hawksmoor churches that were constructed alond astral lines and reference much Egyptian architecture and mythology. Orbital is Sinclair's travelogue of follwing the M25, the giant ring-road that encircles London, and finding various and sundry adventures in the abandoned regions therein.
Collected Letters of Julian McClaren-Ross - The prototypical dandy. Ross wrote a few novels, short stories, but the real adventure was his own life, which goes from origins in Havana and Saudi to becoming a notorious London personality and denizen of the pubs of Fitzrovia. The British would never condone the adjective "gonzo" for extensive use, but Ross most approximates the quirks and intrepid attitude of the word, albeit in a more refined way.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Brighton Bombs
i had a "day" recently, where some series of miscellaneous events occurred in relative succession, such that not one of them is notorious or even very interesting, but all together they gave me a bit of vertigo and i had to lie down and sleep for about 12 hours.
Saturday i got up to go to my friend Ainsley's birthday party. Ainsley is one half of the Canadian Super-Couple Adam&Ainsley, from Toronto and Alberta, respectively, the city-mouse/country-mouse duo you can't resist. Of course, i am a lazy bastard, and i hardly got out of bed, early on a Saturday, so i could share my praise.
Ainsley decided she wanted to go to Brighton, the beachside community about an hour from London that is the denizen of the kind of 20-year-olds that wear clear sunglasses and spend more money on hair product than food. There is a collective thump-thump beat that's pumped into the seaside clubs and bars at the same monthly rate as electricity or water. But i am able to rise because we're making a DAY-trip, not some nightclubbing ecstacy flush. Despite my trip to San Francisco and LA in March, i haven't seen the sea in about 10 months, and this feels like a bit of a natural defect, like i'm some Dracula who needs a coffin of sand to replenish. (I keep a small dish of St. Augustine sand in my cupboard, but it's just not enough)
*Tangential But Necessary Aside: last summer i went to Burning Man; i'm not really going to recount the experience here (some would argue it is impossible to do so), suffice it to say that i am constantly finding events which in some way pale in comparison to BM. Also, suffice it to say i'll never go back to that flaming hellhole. But my favorite story (and personal sensory experience) of BM was Critical Tits. Your are likely familiar with the activist collective known as Critical Mass, which overtakes city streets on the first Friday of the month to proclaim our possible independence from the automobile. Critical Tits, however, is the yearly parade of about 5,000 women around the lake bed to proclaim independence from bras. I got back from the exhibition and collapsed when i told Davina (Rhodes, class of '01, wife of Jake Byrnes) that i'd collapse if i saw another pair of tits and then she flashed me.
So Brighton basically turned into the British version of that event. Which is to say, older, pastier, and better accents. The weather was actually fantastic. The sun was shining, and getting out of the train station actually gave me a feeling that there is such a thing as 'cool ocean breeze.' The seagulls make me think about being home. The rampant plastic makes me think about Ocean City Maryland. The leathery old men make me think about used wallets.
Walking to the beach Adam gets shat on by a seagull. In Etruscan Rome this was seen as a sign of good luck, but Adam just got upset and stopped our Sherman march to the sea. I told him about the tradition, but he just kept saying, 'damn bird.' When we finally did make it to the sea, i was surprised by two things: the beach was entirely covered in both small to large round pebbles of varying colors and shapes, and small to large round boobs of roughly equally variations.
It's not really fair for me to paint a picture of some ocean of boobs without end (save that for my BM acid flashbacks). There were plenty of runts, geezers and blokes messing about, but i tend not to notice these. I'm no fag. And there are plenty of dazzling things about Brighton Beach. There are 2 giant piers in Brighton: The Palace Pier and The West Pier. The Palace Pier has bumper cars, a roller coaster, a log ride, and plenty of hot dogs. Even an exhibit based on the new Doctor Who television series. The other pier, the The West Pier, had the same sort of thing going for it until it closed down in 1975, laid dormant for 25 years, and then was burned down to pilings and steel framework a couple years ago. It's widely acknowledged that the owner of The Palace Pier had The West Pier burned, but no arrests were made. The beautiful terrible structure is actually a lot more fun to look at than the carnival monstrosity to the east, but kids aren't allowed to play on The West Pier, at least not without a tetnus suit.
But the BOOBS! I hadn't really expected British women to be so forthcoming with their nipples. The pleasant weather probably drew out the pups, as if every resident in the greater London area wanted to save money on holiday by getting a £10 ticket to Brighton instead of a £300 weekend to Oz. The generalizations about English weather are pretty spot on, so it was no surprise to see the pebble beach fully stocked with raw, pale London flesh. And i might corrupt the fantasy a bit further by mentioning that the age of the boobs laid out before me reflected the normal age distribution of England, many of them hanging lower than the fold of their bellybutton. Saggage abound. Once i was in an Eckerd and my friend Julie taught me what the toilet seat extension is for. I imagine women have the same fears.
A couple of the girls in our party took off their tops and then we all preceeded to have a conversation about the shapes of breasts. It's a conversation i soon find myself dominating, which doesn't really bother anyone except the two girls with their tops off, who seem to think themselves the experts for the fact we can all look at their nips. We ended on some vague disagreement on the uniqueness of each set of breasts; not something i'm exactly sure of, given me research in the public and private sector. It's a cute idea, but i'm too much of a generalist not to see things in certain categories.
The rest of the day is lost in a haze of lager, sunsets, and bead shops, though you've lived in cheap seaside towns so you know. I'm the only one that didn't get burned or eat fried foods during the trip, so i don't have any particular scars from the adventure. I got off the train a couple stops too early, and so i had to walk across greater london to get home. I was pretty exhausted, given the sun and the booze, until i get a few blocks from home and see my road blocked off by police cars. Usually this means the Queen's on her way home, but sometimes it happens for fancy (once i was woken up by a police van playing the A-Team theme out of their loudspeaker and driving in circles on Brompton Road).
And then again, i am confronted with The Other. A vast pink parade of women strutting out of Hyde Park wearing nothing but bras and spandex leggings. The Playtex Moonwalk is, ostensibly, a midnight parade of 15,000 bra-clad women powerwalking to raise awareness and money for charity, but for me it was just a punctuation mark on The Day of The Breast. Granted, the mean age rose significantly, but i think i was somewhat vindicated, as the bras these women were wearing were built for comfort, as well as speed, and there was no attempt to push-up to the round ideal. There were no gravity-defying porno globes, just lots of sweaty swelled chests, and more giggle than i am prepared to describe. Sizes, complextions, and sagginess varied, but overwhelming was the mundanity of it all, the averageness of the unprepared tit, and the uncomfort at my at standing for 5 minuntes to watch it. Pert breasts are few and rare and unhappy breasts hang all the same.
Saturday i got up to go to my friend Ainsley's birthday party. Ainsley is one half of the Canadian Super-Couple Adam&Ainsley, from Toronto and Alberta, respectively, the city-mouse/country-mouse duo you can't resist. Of course, i am a lazy bastard, and i hardly got out of bed, early on a Saturday, so i could share my praise.
Ainsley decided she wanted to go to Brighton, the beachside community about an hour from London that is the denizen of the kind of 20-year-olds that wear clear sunglasses and spend more money on hair product than food. There is a collective thump-thump beat that's pumped into the seaside clubs and bars at the same monthly rate as electricity or water. But i am able to rise because we're making a DAY-trip, not some nightclubbing ecstacy flush. Despite my trip to San Francisco and LA in March, i haven't seen the sea in about 10 months, and this feels like a bit of a natural defect, like i'm some Dracula who needs a coffin of sand to replenish. (I keep a small dish of St. Augustine sand in my cupboard, but it's just not enough)
*Tangential But Necessary Aside: last summer i went to Burning Man; i'm not really going to recount the experience here (some would argue it is impossible to do so), suffice it to say that i am constantly finding events which in some way pale in comparison to BM. Also, suffice it to say i'll never go back to that flaming hellhole. But my favorite story (and personal sensory experience) of BM was Critical Tits. Your are likely familiar with the activist collective known as Critical Mass, which overtakes city streets on the first Friday of the month to proclaim our possible independence from the automobile. Critical Tits, however, is the yearly parade of about 5,000 women around the lake bed to proclaim independence from bras. I got back from the exhibition and collapsed when i told Davina (Rhodes, class of '01, wife of Jake Byrnes) that i'd collapse if i saw another pair of tits and then she flashed me.
So Brighton basically turned into the British version of that event. Which is to say, older, pastier, and better accents. The weather was actually fantastic. The sun was shining, and getting out of the train station actually gave me a feeling that there is such a thing as 'cool ocean breeze.' The seagulls make me think about being home. The rampant plastic makes me think about Ocean City Maryland. The leathery old men make me think about used wallets.
Walking to the beach Adam gets shat on by a seagull. In Etruscan Rome this was seen as a sign of good luck, but Adam just got upset and stopped our Sherman march to the sea. I told him about the tradition, but he just kept saying, 'damn bird.' When we finally did make it to the sea, i was surprised by two things: the beach was entirely covered in both small to large round pebbles of varying colors and shapes, and small to large round boobs of roughly equally variations.
It's not really fair for me to paint a picture of some ocean of boobs without end (save that for my BM acid flashbacks). There were plenty of runts, geezers and blokes messing about, but i tend not to notice these. I'm no fag. And there are plenty of dazzling things about Brighton Beach. There are 2 giant piers in Brighton: The Palace Pier and The West Pier. The Palace Pier has bumper cars, a roller coaster, a log ride, and plenty of hot dogs. Even an exhibit based on the new Doctor Who television series. The other pier, the The West Pier, had the same sort of thing going for it until it closed down in 1975, laid dormant for 25 years, and then was burned down to pilings and steel framework a couple years ago. It's widely acknowledged that the owner of The Palace Pier had The West Pier burned, but no arrests were made. The beautiful terrible structure is actually a lot more fun to look at than the carnival monstrosity to the east, but kids aren't allowed to play on The West Pier, at least not without a tetnus suit.
But the BOOBS! I hadn't really expected British women to be so forthcoming with their nipples. The pleasant weather probably drew out the pups, as if every resident in the greater London area wanted to save money on holiday by getting a £10 ticket to Brighton instead of a £300 weekend to Oz. The generalizations about English weather are pretty spot on, so it was no surprise to see the pebble beach fully stocked with raw, pale London flesh. And i might corrupt the fantasy a bit further by mentioning that the age of the boobs laid out before me reflected the normal age distribution of England, many of them hanging lower than the fold of their bellybutton. Saggage abound. Once i was in an Eckerd and my friend Julie taught me what the toilet seat extension is for. I imagine women have the same fears.
A couple of the girls in our party took off their tops and then we all preceeded to have a conversation about the shapes of breasts. It's a conversation i soon find myself dominating, which doesn't really bother anyone except the two girls with their tops off, who seem to think themselves the experts for the fact we can all look at their nips. We ended on some vague disagreement on the uniqueness of each set of breasts; not something i'm exactly sure of, given me research in the public and private sector. It's a cute idea, but i'm too much of a generalist not to see things in certain categories.
The rest of the day is lost in a haze of lager, sunsets, and bead shops, though you've lived in cheap seaside towns so you know. I'm the only one that didn't get burned or eat fried foods during the trip, so i don't have any particular scars from the adventure. I got off the train a couple stops too early, and so i had to walk across greater london to get home. I was pretty exhausted, given the sun and the booze, until i get a few blocks from home and see my road blocked off by police cars. Usually this means the Queen's on her way home, but sometimes it happens for fancy (once i was woken up by a police van playing the A-Team theme out of their loudspeaker and driving in circles on Brompton Road).
And then again, i am confronted with The Other. A vast pink parade of women strutting out of Hyde Park wearing nothing but bras and spandex leggings. The Playtex Moonwalk is, ostensibly, a midnight parade of 15,000 bra-clad women powerwalking to raise awareness and money for charity, but for me it was just a punctuation mark on The Day of The Breast. Granted, the mean age rose significantly, but i think i was somewhat vindicated, as the bras these women were wearing were built for comfort, as well as speed, and there was no attempt to push-up to the round ideal. There were no gravity-defying porno globes, just lots of sweaty swelled chests, and more giggle than i am prepared to describe. Sizes, complextions, and sagginess varied, but overwhelming was the mundanity of it all, the averageness of the unprepared tit, and the uncomfort at my at standing for 5 minuntes to watch it. Pert breasts are few and rare and unhappy breasts hang all the same.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
The Chelsea Flower Show is Decadent and Depraved
you should keep in mind, you stupid people outside the realm of the brain, that you only see things because your eyes keep moving. if your eyes stopped making tiny movements inside your skull you would cease to see, and cease to make visual memories. the visual system, like the rest of you, is dynamic and thrives on change. like einstein says, the only way to ride a bike is to...but what happens when the moving stops? how do you record an event in your life if the tiny saccades of your eyeballs are forced to standstill because of unnatural factors and nefarious intents. You don't forget, you bastard, you just don't remember.
so this is what is was like to amble through the chelsea flower show. stasis, as best represented by an outdoor/indoor $10million salute to plants. all you could expect, i guess. these factors, i should point out, weren't nefarious so much as inertial: 200,000 people on pensions shuffling through a crowded tent, with only roughly half of them observing the one-way signs directing them from the black orchilds to the strawberry towers, and about half of them sticking to the small picket fences guarding the exhibits. it didn't help that my fellow flower-gazer, the old bastard that got me into the show, was in the beginning stages of Parkinson's, developing his shuffle in an appropriate venue for such a motion.
i never really knew what the lower-upper class looks like till i went to the show, but now i know. Tweed coats and a bamboo cane, or a double brested suit with some meaningless crest sewed onto it, and a wife that looks like Camilla. And horrible teeth, which seemed to me more a mark of priveledge than unruly dentition. the phrase "can't be bothered", emitted at a regular frequency of about 5 times an hour (admittedly, this is a catch phrase common to most of the British, and a goo number of the americans who come get sorted here).
And, of course, rampant rudeness. but i realized about halfway through it, after shuffling past one too many english garden exibits, perhaps after i whiffed too much Miracle-Gro, that the only experience the Show was willing to engender was one of abject boffishness or class submission. I, the American, have no experience with either, and so of course decided to make a complete fool of myself.
It starts, i suppose, when you ask the john deere rep if you can take a lap around the Show in his 30-hp Gator. When he does not capitulate, you make a fuss with British words like finkle and preposterous, but in an annoying American accent ('oh my god, look at the liine'). With that display you've probably earned enough guff to walk into the Champagne and Oysters Tent, run by Perrier-Jouett. Ch. n' O. are apparently the only foods the residents of Knightsbridge are willing to eat in public, outside the confines of four-star restaurants and gastropubs.
You perform the duties of the waiter, i.e. clearing the table of unconsumed Ch. n' O.'s. Men in tweed jackets and golden walking sticks and women with birds on their heads both notice you and scoff. As if you noticed. As if you noticed security, even.
It ends, apparently, with two men in red coats, pensioners who laid down the old limbs for god, queen and country, old enough to be my medieval ancestors, escorting you to the Gate. For "being a nuisance". Nothing for free in this district, mate.
so this is what is was like to amble through the chelsea flower show. stasis, as best represented by an outdoor/indoor $10million salute to plants. all you could expect, i guess. these factors, i should point out, weren't nefarious so much as inertial: 200,000 people on pensions shuffling through a crowded tent, with only roughly half of them observing the one-way signs directing them from the black orchilds to the strawberry towers, and about half of them sticking to the small picket fences guarding the exhibits. it didn't help that my fellow flower-gazer, the old bastard that got me into the show, was in the beginning stages of Parkinson's, developing his shuffle in an appropriate venue for such a motion.
i never really knew what the lower-upper class looks like till i went to the show, but now i know. Tweed coats and a bamboo cane, or a double brested suit with some meaningless crest sewed onto it, and a wife that looks like Camilla. And horrible teeth, which seemed to me more a mark of priveledge than unruly dentition. the phrase "can't be bothered", emitted at a regular frequency of about 5 times an hour (admittedly, this is a catch phrase common to most of the British, and a goo number of the americans who come get sorted here).
And, of course, rampant rudeness. but i realized about halfway through it, after shuffling past one too many english garden exibits, perhaps after i whiffed too much Miracle-Gro, that the only experience the Show was willing to engender was one of abject boffishness or class submission. I, the American, have no experience with either, and so of course decided to make a complete fool of myself.
It starts, i suppose, when you ask the john deere rep if you can take a lap around the Show in his 30-hp Gator. When he does not capitulate, you make a fuss with British words like finkle and preposterous, but in an annoying American accent ('oh my god, look at the liine'). With that display you've probably earned enough guff to walk into the Champagne and Oysters Tent, run by Perrier-Jouett. Ch. n' O. are apparently the only foods the residents of Knightsbridge are willing to eat in public, outside the confines of four-star restaurants and gastropubs.
You perform the duties of the waiter, i.e. clearing the table of unconsumed Ch. n' O.'s. Men in tweed jackets and golden walking sticks and women with birds on their heads both notice you and scoff. As if you noticed. As if you noticed security, even.
It ends, apparently, with two men in red coats, pensioners who laid down the old limbs for god, queen and country, old enough to be my medieval ancestors, escorting you to the Gate. For "being a nuisance". Nothing for free in this district, mate.
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