"as it once was..."
Getting around in London is probably the most democratic thing about the place. No. That’s not strictly true. It does throw up £1million houses next to scuzzy blocks of flats every now and again i.e. World’s End’s proximity to Kings Road, but that aside, cash is king in the capital. Don’t believe me? Try asking the Big Issue sellers or the beggars at Liverpool Street or Cannon Street in the rush hour. The commuters just zone them out. Poor? Smelly, Begging? You might as well not be there. I don’t know why anyone would ever waste a wish on being invisible when they could do it by being a beggar in the City.
Social ranting over.
Transport. The great leveller. You’re stuck with two real choices: Tube or cab. No-one in their right mind gets the bus if they can avoid it, especially now they’ve done away with Routemasters. London buses are miserable places. Too hot in summer (the only time when the heaters are ever used) and stinking of sweaty bodies in winter, they also attract the sort of wildlife that means in some areas, you take your life in your hands. Me? I always liked the bus. You got to see so much of London, it costs sod all, and I always liked the colourful company. But it does lack a lot of the patrons that the Tubes and cabs get – the middle class (if it exists) or rather the workers. The Tube can see everyone from MPs, to actors, to TV minor celebs to crack dealers, buskers, bankers, lawyers, coppers, chavs, and tourists all mixing together in their awestruck wonder of the Tube. Because it is wonderful. I miss it a lot. The feeling of the city above you, the random gusts of wind, the buskers, the ghost stations, the whole feeling of a life in London under London.
Now I have my car.
I can drive to work. For an ex-Londoner this is a considerable shock. No-one drives to work in London. If you get in a car to go to work in London you’re either a cabbie or a chauffeur. Parking, traffic, congestion charge – all that nonsense. But now, I can get up, get into my new car and be at work, 30 miles away, in 40 minutes. I even get the chance to get above third gear. My life in my car deserves its own post. All I’ll say now is that I like those intervals in my day when I am alone with my car. I can discuss politics with Radio 4, laugh at the bad music on Radio 1, mock the chromosomally retarded presenters on 3 Counties Radio (“Asylum seekers are all scum!”) and play my own CDs as loud as I like. I miss the Tube, but I love my car. I’m sorry about my carbon footprint, planet earth, but I love my car.
Anyway.
Until next time. Don’t walk on the grass, cut it.
1 comment:
No such thing as "carbon foot print". We are insignificant to the state of the planet but to accept that would require humans to finally realise the futility of our own existence. The planet is getting hotter (in places, and only by a little bit) because of one thing and one thing only. The sun. It's a bit bigger and more influential than a 2 litre Golf, so fill your boots Sir.
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