Number 95

is the bus that travels from White City to Hanger Lane. I know this because I caught it this evening, then changed to the number 83 to Ealing Hospital. The tubelines into West London all went into meltdown this evening. Why, I am unsure.

Thankfully, my train terminated at the aforementioned White City, and so I waited for 20 minutes in front of BBC Television Centre (the home to many of my dreams as a child), then caught the bus. I was even more grateful that it happened at this point of my journey (or as grateful as one can be when your journey time is doubled), as I have been stranded at East Acton Tube station before - missing in Acton, if you will (there was a student band at my halls of residence in 1995/6/7 who thought that was a wonderful pun - I assume they had actually lived in Acton, rather than simply being illiterate or having no proofreading skills). And now I wonder whether there are American and Ethiopian bands missing in Akron and Axum respectively. God, I hate my brain.

Despite being next to the A40 out of London, East Acton is, in fact, the middle of nowhere. For all I know, there could be a dimensional portal at the exit to the station - such is your chance of catching a bus towards any local population centres. I am sure Warsaw and Krakow both have more connecting bus services to Ealing than East Acton does - and it is less than 2 miles away. There is a bus that runs to and from Hammersmith, but it just stops in the middle of an industrial estate. End of the line. Quite literally, if it was the last bus leaving Hammersmith bus station, you saw the word Acton and assumed it would at least carry you vaguely in the direction you wanted to go.

Ah, I feel much better now.

Travelling

is the name of a rather wonderful late-70’s track by Burning Spear, but I am not here to dicuss the finer points of his musical style. I am, rather pondering the delight I take in reading travel books. At present, one of the five books I have on the go is Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, a huge, sprawling travelogue-history lesson-ethnographic expedition-just about everything else, based around the author’s three trips to the new Yugoslav state in the 1930’s. The book is a delight in so many ways, and provides just as much insight into British social mores of the time as it does those of the Balkans, but it is, essentially, a travelogue. And I have just passed on the other most enjoyable book I have read in the last year, From the Holy Mountain, again a socio-historical travelogue.

Now, I have to admit to be struggling with fiction as a whole these days. Most of what I read is either academically related to my interests, or collections of essays - most of my reading is done ont he Tube, and I find it almost impossible to immerse myself in a longer work. The critical and destructive nature of my personality also precludes me from engaging with a great deal of fiction, as I tend to analyse as I read, and this gets in the way of enjoyment on the whole.

So travel literature appeals to me. Being appallingly British and having a fear of travelling anywhere more exotic than Bognor Regis means that there are a wealth of countries I can explore in this manner as I pass through East Acton. I always remember being most taken with Palin’s journeys and the rash of ‘Great Railway Journeys’ and so on that followed - both Whicker and Michelmore left me cold as a child, but the new, budget travellers who sought to get away from the crowds (Ian Wright - not the footballer was one of them, and the late Pete McCarthy as well). It was so much easier to see the sights of Gambia or somewhere else I would need inoculations to visit at 8.30 on a Thursday night than to actually have to travel there. A sanitised, but grubby, nonetheless, picture of more unusual destinations has always appealed.

Having pondered this more over the last few days, particularly because I am not entirely happy with what I have written, there are further parts to my interest in this kind of literature. Firstly, the notion of someone who is intrinsically an ‘outsider’, linguistically, politically, ethnically, especially if they are British (and so are not an outsider to my cultural poles), yet not a complete innocent abroad, is central to my appreciation.

Writers on their native countries never seem to do it for me - maybe there are too many preconceptions confirmed - the exception(s) to this in my experience have been the English-speaking Irish writers of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, especially Synge, although, once again, the wild west of Ireland in those days was a world away, lingusitically, socially, religiously, and so on from his middle-class Protestant County Dublin upbringing. The other issue is tht writers on their own countries tend to have an agenda, as Radischev, or are simply caught up in their own passion for the area - Wainwright’s guides to the Lake District, etc, I’m sure are perfectly usuable, but the BBC has recently remade them for television and added a wealth of new information about both the local areas and about the genesis of the guides themselves.

So, anyway, to use Russian Formalist terminology, there is a need for ‘ostranenie‘, or defamiliarisation - it gives a far greater insight into both the country and the writer themself - Dostoevskii’s ‘Winter Notes on Summer Impressions’ works on so many levels, and the descriptions of London are frequently as apt today as they were 150 or so years ago, but the very nature of these descriptions, the aspects of life in the modern centre of the Great British Empire at the time, the parallels he sees with Russia, are all echoed throughout his later writings, and few writers have laid bare every aspect of their personality as freely as dear old F.M.D.

The Renegade Master

Back once again from Ashby de la Zouch and a visit to the National Forest - didn’t know we had one, but it is a far better way of reclaiming former collieries and other disused industrial sites than simply filling them with household waste…

So a couple of other quick things before I put the washing on and disappear out for the day to Southall to top up my sunburn and try to buy a shower curtain. March’s CD is done - post if you want a copy…. This month’s coffee is Yemeni, brought back by my dear nephews from the plantation itself near Sana’a following their recent sojourn there - I may be travelling there later in the year…

Oh yeah, Portsmouth beat Manchester United to throw the Premiership race wide open, and Tiger blew the US Masters. And I saw the last 30 minutes of Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of Christ’ - visually stunning, but far too Catholic altogether for my tastes. Although I would like to watch the whole film to see just how outrageous his portrayal of the other religious and racial groups is. I also had issues distinguishing it from ‘The Life of Brian’ at time, and frequently expected this kind of silliness to erupt:

Bar Frankfurt Calypso

was the name of the bar just round the corner from the hotel. The sign was black lettering on an orange background. In three different fonts. “Bar” was normal. In Arial, perhaps. “Frankfurt” followed the standard practice of using Gothic script for a German name. The “Calypso” element was rendered in a wonderful 1970’s style - I have been searching for the font for about 45 minutes now, to no avail. It was bliss. And had evidently not been changed since the bar opened in the late 70’s or early 80’s. An aberration, I thought. Like a kebab house in the provinces. Everywhere, and especially bars, rebrands itself about four times a week in the UK, and in a major cosmopolitan European city, it must be at least twice a day, if not more frequent. Then there was another. Not the same style, but from the same period. And another. In fact, apart from international brands - Habitat, Starbucks, FNAC, etc, most of the businesses seemed to be small concerns with no desire or need to change their image. Even the Keisy supermarkets make very little effort:

Yet despite this anti-branding, there is a conciousness to the naming of businesses. German and Austrian names are prevalent - especially for bars and restaurants - Frankfurt, Duesseldorf and Innsbruck all appeared at least once, and not one of the bars seemed to have any particular Teutonic influence save the name. I imagine it is due to the fact that Germans were the first real mass tourists in Europe, and must have got to Barcelona in large numbers in the late 1960’s.

Back Tuesday

See you later.

Tourism

Today I have mostly been visiting:
Waterloo Station
Tower Bridge
The Tower of London
The Number 15 bus
Notting Hill
Ping Pong on Westbourne Grove

Copts and robbers

In a startling piece of serendipity, The Art of Eternity began last week on that most wonderful of channels, BBC4 - this meant that I have seen on full colour many of the treasures of Eastern Christianity mentioned in Dalrymple’s book (you must all read this immediately if you have not yet done so). This is not one of the pieces of art that has been shown, but it is part of the Egyptian-Netherlands Cooperation for Coptic Art Preservation (ENCCAP)- dedicated to saving the masses of old Christian artefacts in some of the oldest monasteries in the world - under threat from declining numbers of monks, the environment, Islamic fundamentalism and simple theft - as with all works of art, these change hands for a great deal of money, and most of the older monasteries in Dalrymple’s journey have suffered repeated thefts, both in the distant past, and in the last couple of decades - the monks he visits on Mount Athos, for example, have had to deal with armed raiders attacking them by boat to seize manuscripts, icons and relics.

Wow, all of that work just to use a dreadful pun as a title.

Mortality

So my bank think it is necessary for me to take out life insurance before my 30th birthday. They have never contacted me about this before. Do they know something I don’t? Especially as is there is no lump sum at the end of the policy, and they frequently refer to the fact that my dependents will receive a payout if I should die within the first 15 years of the policy.

Is another 15 years really the best I can hope for? If so, that is two thirds of my life over with already. And it means that I was middle-aged at 22 - something that probably won’t come as a surprise to most of you. And I certainly feel it. My back has been bad this week - it went whilst cleaning the kitchen floor. It is almost back to normal now - after 2 days and repeated hot baths it seems to have clicked back.

It caused enormous hilarity for the other residents of Ealing as I hobbled down to the Tube station on Wednesday morning - even the mentally ill Irish woman I pass at precisely 9.52 looked at me with pity, rather than screaming obscenities at me as usual - this was, of course, compounded by the ’snowstorm’ that hit Britain and brought London to a halt once again. I no longer have either the energy or the inclination to rant once again about lack of preparation/Tubes/trains, etc. And it makes no difference - an inch (2.5cm for the European readers) of snow. I will point you back to my Grossman/TFL post, as this explains it all.

Vasilii Grossman versus TFL

“…After Unecha, we travelled in a freight car. The weather was wonderful, but my travel companions said this was bad, and I realised this myself. There were black holes and craters from bombs everywhere along the railway. One could see trees broken by explosions. In the fields there were thousands of peasants, men and women, digging anti-tank ditches.

We watch the sky nervously and decided to jump off the train if the worst came to the worst. It was moving quite slowly. The moment we arrived in Novozybkov there was an air raid. A bomb fell in the station forecourt. This train wasn’t going any further…”

Vasilii Grossman, A Writer At War

“Throughout the day, fallen trees and other debris have caused disruption to most open sections of the Tube network.

Speed restrictions have also been introduced on some open sections of the Tube network for safety reasons.

LU is working with infrastructure companies Tube Lines and Metronet to remove debris from tracks as quickly as possible but inevitably this will result in disruption to services.”

TFL

The goose is getting fat…

…despite the fact this is the least Christmassy start to a festive period ever. It is sunny here in London - the leaves have fallen, but there has been a noticeable lack of both cold and rain (I have been thinking back, and the last snow of any note I can remember in these here parts was in January 1996 - I have vague recollections of wandering back from a pub in Hampstead to my halls of residence. God, I wonder what my drinking partners that night are doing now?).

The only discernable change has been in the erection of Xmas lights (the Regent Street one shave been sponsored by some dreadful Aardman film, and so have images of animated rats/mice plastered all over them) and a sudden quadrupling of the number of people using (in the loosest sense of the word - is it really so shocking to think that you would need your ticket when you reach the barriers!) Oxford Circus Tube between 10 and 11 in the morning. Although this may also be due to the fact that the Tube, especially in West London, has been generally appalling for the last two weeks. I have 3 Tubelines and 1 rail service to get home. On at least 3 occasions in the last 2 weeks, only the rail service has been running.

Even the singalong carol concert at the Albert Hall is being conducted by a certain Mr Cohen. Amazon are offering cheap everything for Xmas, so you can’t even enjoy the threat of impending bankruptcy come Boxing Day. I mean, what is happening to our traditions? Christmas tree (German?), Father Xmas (Dutch/American?) - do we even actually have traditions, or would the British Xmas without foreign influence be as miserable as the Cratchitt’s?