fivemack | Another fine time in London

Got a vastly-too-early train for

julietk's party, so decided to walk from Paddington to Bermondsey. Got a nice AA map, three inches by four, artfully folded to pop out to not-quite-A3; two sides, one from about Paddington to Westminster, one from Holborn to Bermondsey.

The walk's lovely, across Hyde Park to the Serpentine and then to Hyde Park Corner, watching thousands of Londoners enjoying themselves in the park and realising again quite how much I like that kind of vibrant concentration of people, chattering away in half a dozen languages, particularly by the waterside - somebody remind me why I'm living in a quiet monocultural town of 150k with almost no water. Past the war monuments and Marble Arch, wishing I'd my camera to photograph those amazing cast-iron gates, and down Constitution Hill to the Palace, then Birdcage Walk past Wellington Barracks, the Treasury and the Houses of Parliament. It really hits you that these are buildings from the time when this was the capital of the largest, and probably the kindest empire on Earth; it's more spectacular than Rome.

On Westminster Bridge an Oriental gentleman was standing with a quantity of metal rods and a pair of pliers, and making bent-metal postcard holders in arbitrary names, incredibly quickly and with great craftsmanship. I'd for some reason been thinking about CNC machining for most of the walk, and this was pretty much the acme of the other way of doing things. He made a postcard-holder every few minutes, charging £3, and lacked not for custom; much more than I make in that much time, and much more direct a contribution to human happiness, one souvenir at a time. I got one as a birthday present for Pete.

Across the river and along the Thames Path; various outdoor concerts and an outdoor bookshop by the South Bank centre, and a wonderful Waterloo Bridge sunset, the low sun highlighting the white City against glowering clouds with a rainbow over the Gherkin. Everything suddenly went much more down-market at about the end of the Thames Path, say roughly Cheapside; walking along the rows of under-the-railway-arches garages on Druid Street to Bermondsey having just read Aberystwyth Mon Amour felt almost menacing. Looking left at a cross-roads and suddenly realising I was looking straight down Tower Bridge made up for it slightly.

A fine party; I didn't drink, only spent a few minutes hiding in corners, and managed actually to talk to a lot of friendly people, including a lovely itinerant Canadian french-horn busker and music teacher called EWT. I was pleaed and a bit surprised when

tkb turned up, I hadn't seen him for years. The music was a little loud and drove at least one of them away; Juliet and Pete have fine taste in the indie stuff of my student days, but I'd rather talk to people without having to devote so much of my brain to DSPing away "Sorted for Es and Whizz" from on top of the conversation. There comes a time in any such gathering when several people start singing Tom Lehrer in rough chorus; Ewt had a nice singing voice and I knew nearly all the words ...

Two hours of sleep on the floor having failed to remember where the blankets were stowed, up at seven, breakfast at a greasy spoon in Paddington, home via Bath where I broke my return journey to take a bus tour of the town, and realised I very much didn't like the kind of town living that much on its history and on the shameless fleecing of tourists (they asked nine quid to see the Roman baths, when even the Baths of Diocletian in Rome are free); the vibrancy of London is just completely absent, though there was a great duet of Russian xylophone buskers in the centre (whose CD I'd have bought, were it cheaper).

When I have posted this, I will fall asleep for some time.

Another fine time in London

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