Eleven and a half hours flying time from Bangkok sees me in Heathrow Airport retrieving my bag from the wrong baggage carousel....I think we are destined to be apart!
Navigating the London Tube system when a little lagged and disorientated at 7am is a fun way to start the day. Fortunately, I make it to Holborn station where Kate and Wayne are waiting for me, and they help me carry my stuff through a few more tunnels and up and down several hundred stairs and voila! I have arrived at their place at Limehouse, The Isle of Dogs, East London.
I haven’t seen my Daughter for 14 months, and it’s really great to be here, I’ve missed her. Wayne and I have been good friends for a long time now, and it’s good to see him again and catch up with their lives. They live in a 1 bedroom apartment that fronts the Limehouse Basin, a safe harbour off the Thames, with a lock system to that leads into Regents Canal. It’s a picturesque outlook from their window, with moored yachts that double as homes for many owners.
Wayne has scored a great job with an investment bank as a quantitative analyst, and Kate has been sought after as a teacher at various schools, and has just been offered a permanent job; but they need to secure a residents visa which is very difficult now, the new coalition government has turned protectionist and anti-immigration.
The mighty Thames lies nearby, and I am immediately taken by the power of the tidal surge. The tide is rising and the water is a labyrinth of cross currents and rips. Wayne says that people regularly try to swim across, but invariably drown due to the freezing water, the severe currents, and the fact that they are usually exceptionally drunk. There is a story in the news the week I arrive. A homeless Somalian refugee sees an English woman jump into the Thames attempting suicide. He takes his clothes off and leaves his bag with some meagre possessions on the wharf, and plunges into the icy torrent. He is a strong swimmer and manages to save the woman, who has changed her mind and now chooses life and a hot bath over a muddy grave. He is a hero, but someone has stolen his clothes and all his worldy possessions while he was risking his life in the swirling surge. The great Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe is in town to present him with the British Swimming Association’s “Swimmer of the Year” award. The former vagrant now has a flat, and the promise of a job as a lifeguard once he finishes the training course the BSA are putting him through.
Kate & Wayne take me to Brick Lane, a narrow street of wall-to-wall Indian restaurants, with a Sunday market scattered in alcoves and closed off streets. I am in culture shock here. The masses of people, are mainly young 20-35 something’s. This is a cool place to be seen. But I’m not used to the madding crowd and the constant sidestepping to avoid a human collision.
I am struck by the young men, who, in their struggle to assert their individuality, have ended up in the same uniform. They are soft, almost effeminate. They wear fake reading glasses with black frames, skinny black jeans tucked into Dock Martins, coiffed hair brushed to one side with a lot of height in the centre and held there (obviously) with spray or product. They then accessorize with scarf and bracelet, ring and necklet. They are soft spoken and soft looking: this is the “nerd look” and this is the “new thing”. I’m sure it will make its way somewhere from here.
I settle into a routine again. Kate & Wayne go off to work; I check the markets and keep up with family and friends. I shop, and I cook Thai food as I find the blandness of the British food like a depressant to my palate.
Nights are social. London has the greatest concentration of pubs and bars of any city in the world. They love to drink here and drink often. There is no drink driving problem here, only a drunken commuting problem. You can buy alcohol everywhere. The local “off-licence” general store, the supermarket, hell even the Mexican takeaway joint will sell you a Corona or pina colada to wash down your burrito. I tag along to works drink nights, friends drink nights and even go out on my own for a drink. In a place where space is at a premium, people are jammed and crammed together and stuck inside most of the time, because, frankly, the weather is terrible. It’s understandable that cabin fever is an epidemic here, and pubs, bars and clubs offer an escape.
We go to Favela Chic, a club in Shoreditch. It’s small, it’s packed, it’s Tuesday night. A couple of interesting bands play. I spot a middle aged guy at the bar dressed in just an apron, with a naked torso obvious. Kate thinks he’s come from the kitchen and I muse about food preparation laws in this country. But, no, next thing we know he’s on a podium playing air guitar and he’s let the apron fall down revealing a chest that needs a bit of work before the next Mr Olympia contest. He’s the DJ.
Charlotte is a patent attorney specialising in construction patents. I thought everything had been covered since the Greeks and Romans invented a building design that has rarely changed for 2000 years. She says of her job “it’s really boring”. She’s catching up with her friend Laura, who is a stage producer in the West End. I ask Charlotte if she is feeling ok, as she has massive black rings around her eyes and is noticeably unsteady on her feet. 5 minutes later she’s off to the toilet, and when she gets back she goes home. Laura gives it to her “oh, you are rubbish”. But she goes, and we stay and drink a bottle of Pinot Grigio in her honour.
I walk home along the Thames. A stiff, freezing wind pushes through me even though summer is about to begin. The lights reflect off the water with a cold beauty, and, in the distance I can see The City, where giant phalanx-like buildings thrust upwards into the sky in tribute to the Gods of Finance that have lured so many to this place. This country has been in financial trouble now for four years, and things really aren’t getting any better for most people. Financial power is moving from the West to the East. I wonder if the London has seen its halcyon days and an era is complete.
Tomorrow, I’m off to The Hague, Holland for 8 days.
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