Sunday, fuzzy sunday.

Here I am after a long and involved weekend. Saturday we spent with Rob and his aunt. Bless her, she is lovely and extremely paranoid about being parodied in Rob and my script and website at www.vitriolandoldlace.com. She shouldn't worry. I come from Bexhill where the vast majority of the population are over 60 and have more than enough material to last me several lifetimes. Despite the incipient paranoia the day was a delight, as always, as enough food to cause a blue whale to explode was paraded past us. We then had to leave for reasons of sanity and then had to discuss the intricacies of travelling from Loughborough Junction to Elephant & Castle with someone that the Network Rail helpline. A journey of one stop I might add which I was informed "didn't run today." I at that point indicated that I'd used the service to get to Loughborough Junction that day. The chap plainly insisted that it was impossible and I must be imagining it. I gave up at that point and called back for travel the following Saturday and the girl told me that the last train was 10.30. At least I knew I’d missed it, but how unhelpful was the first guy? Ah well, we whizzed home on the 35 and spent most of Sunday semi-conscious.

And now the week beckons.

Oh no!

Well it looks like the hinted of follow up attacks in London have just hit. It's still not clear whether it was a copycat attack or the same organisation again. Certainly the explosions seem considerably less powerful this time. So much so no-one seems to have been hurt – thank goodness. Interestingly this time it seems that it wasn’t a suicide mission as the perpetrators seem to have been seen running from the scene. And bless them, some of the public tried to stop them. I like that attitude, very un-American! Do something like that and live and expect people around you to attempt to arrest you! In the States people would pull a gun on you or shrink away terrified.

All the people I know seem to be OK.

I hope everyone else is!

Sociable Bunnies!

After the celebration of Orlando’s birthday on Friday we went to Orpington on Saturday for a 21st birthday party with some girls who we previously met in Turkey on holiday. A charming time was had by all but I was struck by the provincial nature of the people there. When I was younger I used to travel by train from my home town of Bexhill to Brighton, Canterbury, London and quite a few other places. Admittedly while my father was living in Dorset the journey there was a bit onerous but otherwise I was happy to travel for an hour or two. Many of the people there (particularly the young ones) viewed trips to London like an expedition to the Antarctic only with Discos and shopping. I’ve run into this mentality before, best reflected in the words of a lovely waitress in a Little Chef1 at Newport Pagnell service station who made me, by much dint of effort, the worst hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted. She enquired about our journey2 and we explained that we had travelled from London which she then described as being “A right long way away, in’t it?”

I find it very difficult to understand that attitude. I may have travelled a bit more that most people but finding that people don’t believe that Peckham is a real place and that their main intent in life is to breed and settle, probably where they were brought up and then only travel to places that are exactly the same as where they live with sunshine and food they can complain about. It is a mystery to me.

1 Notes for the unfamiliar. Little Chef’s are purported to be restaurants serving delicious meals on the highways of Great Britain. And the Queen is really a dwarfish Czechoslovakian Traffic Warden.

2 Our journey entailed a trip to Northampton for New Year. The trip involved visiting a pub that shut at 11.30pm on New Years Eve and listening to a girl who wanted to have sexual congress with her best friend’s boyfriend because she didn’t have one. Her friend agreed and the boyfriend said “Ooooriatte”. Many people from Northampton have an accent not dissimilar to Bubble from ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. The word Acrylic is pronounced Akrilack and everyone wears it!

Beers Bars and Birthdays

Well, it’s been the hubby’s birthday over the weekend (like every queen we have at least 2 per year) and this one was a pleasant and relatively quiet one. We went to the pub for lunch – The Crown in Blackfriars Road. At this point I will say I’m not much of a pub person but this one was wonderfully comfy, has a secluded beer garden which manages to be quiet! We spent a pleasant afternoon there having a nice lunch and then wandered around enjoying the sunshine. He then received a call to let him know he’d got the job he’d applied for and we proceeded to wander until we returned with our flatmate to the Crown for dinner. They then served us up a hot platter with a selection of hot dishes including sausages, chunky chips, chicken kebab, ciabatta with roasted vegetables, salad and sauces which comfortably served 3 without desert for £12. After this repast we went home and flopped in front of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

Silence...

We all trooped out as had been requested (or in the case of Local Governement, demanded) and the mood was quite jovial. As we stepped out onto the pavement I noticed several other buildings emptying out and again the crowd seemed in boyant mood, the sun was shining and the usual cars and busses ploughed up and down Walworth Road.And then a horn went off and the whole street became silent.

Busses, cars and taxi’s pulled over to the side of the road and a silence fell that I haven’t experienced anywhere in the world before. I’ve been places where it’s quiet but never somewhere where it was quiet by the choice of the people there. The whole of Walworth Road stood and made their presence felt. It was oddly moving.

And then I saw two women in Yashmaks who were standing on the street corner who looked nervous to put it mildly. I smiled at them as they stood on the street with us.

And then I thought, I really wish my life had subtitles. I wish I could express that I was not excluding anyone from this experience. That the only people who I stand against are fools and murderers, bigots and killers.

And above all, I would like the people who encourage and instruct young men, women and children to become suicide bombers to put their beliefs where their bombs are and do it themselves. ‘Cos I can’t think of a case where they have.

Summer in the City

We seem to have reached that amazing part of summer that confounds tourists from around the world. The warm spell! Tourists seem to maintain the illusion that London is wet and foggy and that the British are all uptight and polite. If only the various deprived Rookeries of London were still present, we could just direct them there and then a day later buy their clothes and gold fillings in the pawnshops. Seriously though summer is upon us in that brain baking way that we experience most years.

There are some unfortunate reactions to this type of weather, however.

So far the builders outside my office window have disrobed to a semi-decent level reminding me again of the downside of fried food. This isn’t a diet coke break but more of a Chocolate Sundae garnished with whipped cream, sugar lumps and chips. In contrast are (and I hate to use this phrase) the Chavs who look rather scarily malnourished with a skin tone normally found on insects in underground ecosystems. I really have a problem with heroin chic and cannot understand the attraction and in some cases, their ability to walk on legs that thin. It’s not even that they’re slim, they don’t seem to have any muscles. I am rather horrified by the concept of people in their 30’s and 40’s emulating this too. I think I see the future for Mr Howard and his replacement in them. The new Sun readers, too young to remember the intelligence insulting Party Political Broadcasts from the last two elections, who will believe that the bigoted crap reflects their views.
Julie Birchill loves them apparently. I think it may be that their standards are so low that she might get a date.

I shot me down?

Well it looks like that they’ve identified the bombers and it turns out that the silly pratts were suicide bombers.

It’s really not a very good idea to die for your belief. Living for it is much more effective. Even the Catholic Church worked that out.

I hope we will see no crap with idiots assaulting Muslims. The beliefs of these extremists are so far removed from the rest of us, be us Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Jew or merely waiting and seeing, that they are almost inconceivable.

My real curiosity is what was going on in their heads because I cannot imagine it!

Ice and Fire

We are at that point of the summer where we can only be described as under regular attack. The massed hordes of Mr Whippy assemble in our area and attempt to ram raid every child and parent’s pocket for some cream-like, Soya-based, seaweed containing fluff that Whippy and his ilk purvey.

I quite like ice-cream but if I were to indulge as much as the doorstep availability would allow I would end up the size of Ibiza. Particularly since the closest the material sold has come to a cow is probably the corpulent mother in leggings buying a large one for herself and an ice pole for her equally distended but somehow deprived child.

The Ice Cream Wagons have been circling for some time now and I am awaiting the lynching of some poor diabetic with a Screwball.

And if I hear another rendition of a Disney film tune scored for crackly and annoying little bells then someone will die. I will ensure it.

London is now Burning!

It is at this point that I’ll raise that I live on the edges of an estate and that I am a dweller in an ex Council Flat (We’re barristers… It’s more of a statement). I am a bit tetchy and for many people who don’t know what the area is like it will be of little surprise to know that I had a rather disturbed night. The Local Pub decided to have a throwing out party and the police and ambulance services had to be called. This is not a usual event however as the area’s pretty quiet at night. On top of that night time disturbance we had a blast of the night time ‘London Heat’ where every block of stone radiated heat for about 4 hours after sunset meant that there was no possibility of more than an hours sleep last night.

So I’m a little cream crackered.

Panic on the Streets of London?

It can get a little wearing watching the news. All the attempts to create iconic figures out of the populace from the tube train driver who guided people to safety to the man who helped a woman with a burnt face. All these people have said that yes it was them and that they again, just did what anyone else would or that they were just doing their job. However the press seems very keen on deifying them. Again, I’m not sure it’s for those members of the public’s benefit. Could it be to sell papers and stories, to milk disaster for all it’s worth.

I now hope that I am getting too cynical.

We have recently had a development in this country for celebrity for celebrity’s sakes. The creation and elevation of people with no or little skill in life and less inclination to use those skills. The ‘It’ girls and the footballers wives are prime examples. Independently well off, these Coco the Clown look-a-likes have done little to benefit humanity and in some cases seem to undergo lives of tawdry excess and substance abuse. And I don’t know why.

Few of them seem to be genuinely happy and, trust me on this, that make up on a 50 year old will look less than pleasant.

They are almost appreciated because they’re tawdry. Like being unable to stop watching a car crash. You know what will happen but can’t look away.

Certainly the people who helped on Thursday need no part of this tacky ‘processing’ by the media. When we do things because of reward rather than it being right we are on a slippery slope to rule by lawyer and dominance of the ‘affordable monthly repayment’
Or am I ‘Disgusted’ from Tunbridge Wells?

A mission to inform

Well, it’s a couple of days after the event and things are pretty much getting back to normal. There are less people tan normal around but after the request on Friday that people stay away from London that would seem reasonable. I have found the media particularly unhelpful over the last couple of days as they try to eke the ‘incident’ out over the weekend. It may seem a bit cynical of me (and of course none of my friends would call me that – bunch of sycophants that they are) but their comments of ‘People are staying away from London. Is it that they’re following the Governments suggestion of staying away or that they’re afraid of another attack’

It’s almost as if they’re hoping for a bit of panic.

The cynical side of me remembers that this is the silly season for the press when normally not much goes on and any minor bit of news is leapt on.

I understand a mission to inform but over the last few years we’ve had so much bullshit over crime being ‘out of control’ and people ‘are afraid to leave their homes’ I often end up feeling that there might be a little scaremongering.

If people were out without fear there would be more people on the streets and probably less crime. Time to reclaim the streets I think.

Maybe not tonight.

London is NOT burning.

I've been considering starting one of these for some time but have often wondered if I have the inclination or capability for regular postings. Or for that matter whether the internet would suck out my creative soul..

I realised today that it didn't matter. After the events of the last 14 hours here in London I realised that the main thing was, as many others have, to make my voice heard.

I am so proud to be British! Not through any misplaced patriotism, or without realising some of the abosoultely diabolical history we have.

It's the people. The people who I know. The people who I see on television today. The people who have survived these terrible events and seen things that no one wants to see with resolve and fortitude.

And a sense of.. and this is where it becomes difficult to explain.. mustn't grumble, could be worse or 'Tut'. I'm pretty sure that there's no translation for the terms but it's really the fact that these people carry on. They trim sails and walk home rather than collapsing in the street in hysterics. They smile when they could fear. And they help others and when the cameras fall onto them they say "I only did what anyone would." and avoid the limelight. These people aren't looking for 15 minutes of fame. They're looking to get on with their lives and often help others to do the same.

And it must piss off those who caused this atrocity. For them it must feel like trying to nail jelly to a wall!