Five Days Of London Living

In fact, the first vision you have after shooting through the channel tunnel London-bound is a green-fielded, dark-forested vision reminiscent of Robin Hood’s hunting grounds… brittle-twigged branches knobbled like faerie’s fingers; dark closes and moody hills. Of course the industrial train cemeteries came shortly afterwards, but I still found myself surprised to be liking England, a whole ten minutes into the country. The weather, ever-compliant to virgin eyes, greyed a little, rained a spurt and then stayed steadily sunny for the remainder of our trip.

In hindsight I can say that London was a place which always surprised. It was strange to be walking around in places where English was everywhere. You would think that after ten months in non-english environs it would be easy; the lingual equivalent of slipping into a hot bath, where every book and magazine was able to be comprehended; where train stations bore sensible names like “Embankment” and “Leicester Square” which, if I couldn’t pronounce, I at least had long familiarity with after a lifetime of playing monopoly with my brother.

Yet “Oxford Circus” is the thing I should have paid more heed to, for the next surprise was that very little was comprehensible to me in London, whether English or not. The London accent seems to have changed a little since my childhood watching the BBC, and I often had trouble understanding them – to say nothing of the difficulties they found in understanding me! Bertrand, with his “euro-english”, fared much better in the comprehension stakes, and took us around the tube with a lot more finesse than I would have ever achieved on my own.

And yes, it was strange to be back in English culture, where capitalism began and continues to flourish. Whilst walking through Soho, for example, I heard a person attempting to bargain with the seller to buy some tangerines. Note to new players – do not attempt to bargain with Soho fruit sellers if you wish to remain dignified. The seller was absolutely incensed. He bellowed at the poor man: WHY WON’T YOU PAY WHAT THE PRICE IS? WHY SHOULD I SELL IT TO YOU FOR LESS? DO I KNOW YOU? DO I?

But what delights London presents to the merry wanderer with no pounds to spend, but plenty of time to be aimless. There were Cornish pastries to be eaten; near life-sized postcards of Diana; shops which sold clubbing clothing that boasted fluorescent digital images inbuilt into the fabric. Bertrand and I found a domination shop attended by two mumsy looking women in pink cardigans. Here you could buy edible underwear, gorgeous corsetry, fur-covered “spankers”, and books of both a sexual and social-conscience nature. As we left the store, we overheard an older woman buying a Mistress Manual. “Yes, I thought it would be fun to try, I’ve never done it before,” she said. “It’s the best of its kind for beginners,” the attendants enthused, and discussed the diagrams in detail, as though they were discussing how to bake a cake instead of how to spank and titillate. 

The museums were wonderful, and most of them free. The Portobello and Camden markets were a fiesta for people-watching and retail-dreaming. We saw the London Bridge and Kensington Gardens. It was the best time for Brit-watching as all of them were gathered together on the grass, half-naked, sprawled and sunning themselves in the barest piece of sun.

We saw a lot of people wearing funny hats – tourists, guards, but none of them that you would hope would need to run quickly, as it was doubtful that they could see at all from under them. Indeed, the police were ever-present, but appeared to be employed for the purpose of posing with tourists, rather than conducting any serious kind of work.

The biggest surprise of all to occur in London was that despite its enormous size, we once again fell under the spell of a strange coincidence which has been following us since Bolivia. Eight months ago, on a train, we sat across from a British couple, Petra and Charlie, who we struck up a conversation with, and parted company at the end of our journey. Despite never exchanging details and having completely different itineraries, we again bumped into them several weeks later on a crowded street in La Paz, and once more several weeks later again in a bar in Rurrenabaque. So it should have come as no surprise that, on visiting Putney Bridge, a suburban city outside the centre of London, who should we unknowingly sit beside in a café but … yes, Petra and Charlie! This time we exchanged details, and hope to see them again – the fifth time, possibly planned.

In short, the most surprising thing about London itself was that although it inspired, amused, and presented a host of delights for the idler, it was a tiring place to be and we were relieved to return to the relative quiet of Paris. The signs may all be in French again, but everything still makes more sense than that wild and heady London town!