Well another week in this great city of London. And another stealthily garnered piece of minutiae of the wonderful inner world so many people inhabit. My wide open ears are now so finely attuned to this stuff I have to concentrate to turn them off! Happily I get to grab my pieces between meetings and things when I am often on my own and can really concentrate. So here’s my usual sharp intake of breath one liner I grabbed outside Bank Tube station. Sharply suited man in designer shades loudly into mobile phone: “For christ’s sake Toby it’s a fucking gibbon. Deal with it”. Huh???????
However this week’s standout winner was the five tourists from Spain (they had Bright red jackets with Espana printed on them) and they were having coffee and cake with a tour guide and obvious Language teacher in The Crypt at St Martins in the Field Café. I was sitting virtually in front of them as the tables were shoved together so I could watch as well from behind my paper.
Young Language guy “Yes its silly isn’t it it’s written as Leciester Square (he enunciates liesester slowly and sharply) but it’s pronounced as Lester” Sharp faced woman “But why?” Young Language guy “I think it’s something to do with the french” The Spanish people muttered to each other sounding puzzled. Sharp faced woman’s friend “Oh so the french people wrote in English then” Young Language guy” Oh er no its more the way they influenced the way we pronounce things. We have lots of french words er like we say cul-de-sac for a dead-end for instance” Sharp faced woman “Why not just say dead-end?” Young language guy “ Er I don’t know we just do” Sharp faced woman’s friend “ We enjoy to speak the English but we worry about these strange words. What is paedophile?” (she carefully pronounced each phrase turning it into peed O feel) Young Language guy “Ohh um where did you hear that?” Sharp faced Spanish woman’s friend “It was on our free paper this morning it had a picture of a priest is he famous?” Young language guy “Ah no he’s um not famous er it means” he took ages to speak again “Um he’s not very nice towards children” Sharp faced woman “How do you mean this not very nice does he shout at them please to explain” The whole group looked at him with interested expressions. Young language guy “No he um holds them er too close and often without clothing” He was struggling now and the expressions on their faces were a picture. Sharp face woman suddenly brightly “Who of us wants more how do we say scones”
I didn’t get what happened next but they left. I bet they didn’t try out any new words that day!
Tag Archives: Londoners Life
Londoner’s Life 27 – by Phil Ryan
Well the last weeks in London have been characterized by terrible weather. A huge disappointment for London retailers when everybody went away on Holiday for Easter and of course the ever pointless Mayoral elections. My favourite little story however was how much Oyster Cards steal people’s money. It’s incredible, a po faced TFL official blamed customers inability to touch in and out correctly! But then when you start looking into it because we are so trusting we all assume even when we do ‘correctly’ touch in and out the right money will be taken. WRONG. It’s a bit of a lottery apparently. There were thousands of tweets and emails with various folks pointing out that they had random sums (almost all large) swiped from them (no pun intended) It seems you have to check your travel history. The best way is to set up an online account and then track each journey – how very convenient. But the sums erroneously taken head into the tens of millions which is staggering. System error kept cropping up from various commentators. So now we travellers must understand that the beep doesn’t mean the money we expect has been taken. It probably means some money or some amount has been taken.
So now you’ve been told.
The current dip in the housing market is being written off as spring related. But in truth apart from the mortgage companies making it virtually impossible for young Londoners to get any money from them the prices continue to rise. HUH? How does this work exactly. Every month a new ghastly London tower block – sorry – designer apartment complex pops up with a fancy marketing brochure and is apparently snapped up. By who exactly? Well it’s more bad news I’m afraid. The rental sector is now easy pickings for rich non UK-based individuals and companies who are cash rich and able to negotiate block deals. They see rental as an easy way to hide and store their money. It’s a better bet than lousy interest rate banks and savings companies. And of course it just keeps rents artificially high and secondly shuts out local people from living and buying in their own areas. So when you look at a block where a few people have paid staggering sums for some concrete and glass designer shoe box the chances are that most of the block was already purchased at a knock down rate. Building companies like the deal as they often sell ‘off plan’ ie they draw up plans – sell the idea to rich foreign backers – and then use their money to actually build their latest blight on the landscape. No one builds houses anymore. Where’s the profit? Where’s the funding going to come from.
Hm.
On a cynical but weary London note I see that the citizens of Brixton are complaining of the rampant gentrification of their area. Locals are watching as their manor is slowly overpricing itself. And pushing them out. Of course the local Council love it. They get rid of the people in the once poorer troublesome areas and their folk. They can overpriced the Council Tax as houses and flats jump into higher tax bands. My favourite comment was from one guy who went into what used to be his local café and was offered bruschetta and olives! Poor sod was looking for egg and chips but now it was very ouef a la frites at £10.95 with hand brushed Brazilian honey rolls.
Right onto happy news of a sort. It’s coming up to a bumper year of London-based events. So Londoners can effectively play night and day for many months. The Queens Jubilee is the first of many events designed to promote Great Britain PLC (a minor division of the Qatari Investment Corporation) and thousands are supposedly flocking in to see the river pageant and take part in the street parties. Then comes the biggest corporate event of the decade. The Olympic Games (four tickets available to Londoners) will spin-off into endless Corporate junkets and promotions. I mean to say the food sponsor is McDonalds! Irony or what. Who’s in charge of customer relations Robert Mugabe? But it does mean London will see some incredible sights so we have to try to take a small crumb of comfort from that. I’m told the West End theatres are dreading the time – but I think locals will go to the theatre (if prices drop below those affordable only by having the income of an oil millionaire) So lots to look forward to.
And finally on trends. We’ve seen the Sushi restaurants, the tiny dogs and the tiny car invasion. But now we have the discount card and promotion explosion. London seems to be awash with ‘offers’. Every newspaper in town now has its own loyalty reward card – and the offers brigade are growing like wildfire from Groupon, Wowcher, Taste Card, Wedge Card (this one the only genuinely decent one) But it seems our capital is full of 50% or get one buy two type offers. I’d hate to run a small business in this new half price landscape. You have to join in or get left behind it seems. My local restaurants all participate in various schemes. So now locals go in and shamefacedly push their cards and coupons across the table. But times is hard and every penny counts. And do the people need to save? Yes they blooming do. So we all hunt for bargains wherever we can. And does it make us feel awkward. Yes it does. But do we care? No not really. It’s a London thing.
Londoners Life 25 by Phil Ryan
Well the snow didn’t hang around thank goodness. But it’ll probably blast back in March! Right now I’m trying to avoid the Mayoral election nonsense. It’s very simple really. All of them are pointless to a large degree. Ken and Boris are arguing about high tube fares who’ll put them down or up – the fact of the matter is that whatever they are far too high and the service is lousy and continues to be lousy. And the fringe candidates are basically invisible. The mad Green woman who looks like a bush was spouting off about punishing car drivers again to save the planet. The failed ex-cop was going on about more police. Er that’s about it. So we’ll get stuck with a fight between two fools who are all about self-promotion and self-advancement. I’ll never forgive Ken for many things but his most offensive crime was building that hideous City Hall building opposite the tower of London.
Desecration. They should lock him up in the Tower Of London and force him to watch Londoners blowing it up as he’s pelted with rotten fruit! And Boris’s ludicrous billion pound buses will arrive soon. Why don’t the pair of just set up a permanent photograph of themselves being laser beamed onto the clouds above London. We get it guys. You love yourselves and couldn’t care about Londoners. Under both of you everything went up, life got harder, travel got worse, more taxes appeared and ultimately you have bugger all power. Remember folks your vote is essentially worthless. Nothing ever gets better or cheaper. Remember that. They could make one of the Muppets Mayor at least it would be entertaining and cheaper.
Travel in London really is getting to be a soul destroying experience. This Friday I had the horrible experience of arriving back at Victoria by train at around 6.30pm. Trying to get to the underground across the station was like swimming in a tide of bodies. Angry depressed bodies who were rooted to the spot necessitating a weird ducking and diving route – it was like a giant desperate game of pacman. And when I finally got to the tube the platforms were pleasantly six deep. Apparently two other tube lines had gone down (the usual reasons – aliens at baker street – a wave of indifference at St Johns Wood – badgers with guns at Charing Cross) and now Victoria was reduced to holding back groups of commuters behind gates a completely common occurrence the miserable and clearly suicidal guard guy told me (I think they’d taken away his laces and belt before they stuck him on the platform with his little microphone). It certainly wasn’t for the faint hearted. London’s underground system seems to just swallow tons of public money now and I honestly can’t see much difference. It’s over-priced and over-crowded (I’m sure that will improve during the Olympics with the expected six million extra journeys they’ve predicted – oh joy)
Talking of our much anticipated London Olympics we now learn that this money sponge for the amusement and enrichment of corporate sponsors and construction companies is into another revelatory moment again. Turns out that the ticket fiasco continues with an American ticket printing company getting the contract to print the tickets instead of a British company, the second revelation that most of the merchandise and goods are produced in China by Chinese companies and just when they couldn’t break anymore promises and commitments we now find out that they’ve let an American company sell tickets to Americans that we Londoners can’t get hold of! I notice that we grabbed back Mr Fred Goodwin’s title what about Lord Coe. If the guy told me it was the morning I’d check with five other people plus look out the window. For a London event paid for in the main by Londoners the guy has simply lied to us time after time. Virtually everything he has promised Londoners hasn’t materialised. And don’t get me started on the LOCOG bunch. Slightly darker in the way they operate than the Syrian regime they have been quietly flogging off the buildings and land to foreign property developers and foreign corporations. The London Olympics? I don’t think so. It’s the International Greed Olympics with all the gold going out the country to everyone except Londoners and Great Britain. But it’s a done deal. Nothing can be done. That’s total corruption with complete government backing for you.
But to finish on a positive point I’ll return to my usual trend spotting game. It really is the new Korean revolution alongside the sushi invasion. Loads of places called Bim Bam Bong and Noodle Beng Bim Bom Bang (Okay I am making these up) seem to be popping up. Udon Noodles are now the order of the day. Just an FYI Udon noodles are those fat disgusting long ones with the consistency of rotting slugs and a similar discomforting sensation when swallowed ( not that I’ve swallowed rotting slugs but go with me on this one) They have also copied that clever Japanese canteen style of making you sit on a cold and cement hard plank like wooden bench. This of course causes people’s buttocks to go numb at the same time that their stomachs are being paralysed with tasteless horror food. All together more of a punishment than a dining experience. But hey it’s fashionable. And in London we like our variety. And when I asked some people I was jammed next to recently in a Korean restaurant what they thought of the food they all told me it was challenging! Very London. And despite the pointless mayoral elections and Olympic fiasco do any of us truly care. No. We just get on with our lives. Why? It’s a London thing.
Londoners Life 23 – by Phil Ryan
Yes the cold snap is starting to hit London. Weather forecasts predict us being hit with snow flurries very soon. And we all know what London does when 2 centimetres of snow arrives! And just as we were coming to terms with the white death we then then got more scares over an oil depot going into receivership. Now we get stories about also being hit with petrol prices in London shooting up to £2.00 a litre and all of us freezing in our cars as we ran out of fuel in sub-zero temperatures on the M40. (Although I suspect they are just softening us up as they’ll get to that petrol price level within 6 months at this rate anyway regardless of oil depots closing – not including death on the M40) And for the first time ever I briefly toyed with the idea of one of those electric cars as I am noticing more of those blue charging posts as I whiz around town in my gas guzzler. But to be honest when all is said and done they are just old fashioned milk floats with a bit more comfort and zero style. I mean have you seen those G-whiz things. Is it me but does everyone who drives them look huge and somehow ghoulish – little eyes screwed in concentration as they avoid trying to hit a pigeon or a crisp packet which would probably spell instant death for them and anyone stupid enough to be their passenger. They look like damaged egg cartons with comedy tiny wheels where a human has been forced inside like some novelty act from Cirque du Soleil. And you can feel the smug waves coming off them from a hundred feet away. Look at me I’m saving the planet. But to balance it out they all look very weird and devoid of cool and have the tensile strength of a bowl of porridge. And yes I know the new Renault ones look a lot more cool – but still drive a Renault? However London of course is now leading the way with more and more electric vehicles now being put onto our streets to silently mow down children, the elderly and the slow moving. Many London Councils are rolling them out as Council vans and maintenance cars. Quiet death from your local service provider. Perhaps they’re thinning out the vulnerable in a bizarre cost cutting drive nothing would surprise me where local Councils are concerned. (I think Westminster have introduced recently culling of the poor haven’t they?) But the march of the electric car moves forwards. Green yes but you can’t hear them coming!!!! If I had my way I’d fit them all with a loud clockwork toy noise. That’d brighten up your day wouldn’t it?
One observation I’ll make is about the various foreign embassies we have across London. Some of them are in the weirdest of places. For instance Tonga’s embassy is in a residential street off the Hendon Way – how very glamorous. But others have very swish addresses in Knightsbridge and the West End. But my main thought is the amount of protests outside half of them. Concerned citizens of each country seem to now gather on a weekly basis to shout at those inside. I’m not sure the rulers of the various countries are paying much interest and my guess is they’re not actually in the building. The Ambassadors are probably somewhere else too – you know getting piles of Ferrero Roche at some fancy black tie function. So in effect the protesters are shouting at a bunch of secretaries and cleaners. But I realise they have to show these repressive governments that in London at least free speech is fine and dandy. Good luck I say. Although I do get a bit miffed when the protestors attack the poor police folk who turn up trying to keep the peace. I’m not sure it’s sending a signal to Syria to stop killing their own people by punching Constable Smith sharply on the nose. But when they protest here we’ll protect them which of course is right and proper. But then sometimes they shout about the fact that we in Britain shouldn’t let their bad governments stay in power while often shouting anti-western slogans. All very confusing I fear.
Now a new bugbear with me in 2012 is London Theatre ticket prices. They seem to be heading skywards and I’m not sure it’s healthy for good theatre. I realise that with rising rents and costs these shows are costly but come on. Half the theatres are up to £85 for a seat you can actually see the stage from and don’t even get me started on the cost of drinks and snacks. Just like cinemas and service stations it seems that theatres are now operating an ‘alternative universe’ policy. Whereby the costs of normal things are inflated to such an extent that people hand over the cash whilst still in a state of shock. On what world is a bag of Maltesers £5.00 and a glass of wine £9.50! I’d take all the impresarios knighthoods back just like they did to Mr Fred Goodwin. So Mr Macintosh and Mr Lloyd Weber tell me when is it reasonable to pay £5.00 for two mouthfuls of ice cream and £10.00 for a programme? A paperback novel costs less and has had a damn sight more creative energy poured into it. If you honestly want kids and anyone on a low income to embrace the theatre stop being so damn greedy. I originally thought that Wicked and Les Miserables were show titles not descriptions of how the pricing policy works and makes the audience feel.
Finally more rip off nonsense from The Olympic legacy Company. It seems that us Londoners have paid £93 billion pounds to give away land, housing and stadiums to a host of private companies who will charge us through the nose to either visit or use facilities we’ve already paid for! I think every scrap of Olympic housing stock should be turned over to Social Housing – after all it was paid for by the public. And the stadiums should be free to Londoners who paid for them whether they wanted to or not. And look out for the ridiculous concept of Stratford International Station whose train station doesn’t even connect to Europe directly! Instead you have to slope off back to St Pancras. Shouldn’t they just re-name it Stratford Local or something? But when you ask the locals they just shrug and smile about the whole fiasco. Do they care? No. It’s a London thing.
Londoner's LIfe 21 – By Phil Ryan
The big sleep is over and now we begin to take stock of the year ahead. And for Londoners the hardest thing to come to immediate terms with are the usual high price rises on the tubes, trains and buses. It now being cheaper to travel in London by car! Honestly I worked it out. 2 people in a car popping across to say Camberwell (not of course via the congestion charge zone that’s only for the super-rich and white van drivers). Not very green I’ll grant you but very nice. Comfortable and clean. You get to listen to your own music and not the tinny wasp farting noises from the headphones of the JB sports clad gimp in the hoodie glaring at his iphone from a seat saying for pregnant ladies and the elderly. In an average sized car you shouldn’t use more than a fivers worth of fuel per trip. Cheaper than two Oyster card worth of trips. Of course there are a few drawbacks to this concept. Thanks to Camden and Westminster Councils whose Chief Executive Officers are more like Afghan warlords than public servants nowadays you can’t stop easily. Not without facing the ludicrous parking charges and restrictions they so delight in inflicting on us AFTER public consultations. Where are these public consultations? We had one in Camden once about the greatest con trick of all – the dreaded Residents Permits (or a tax to use your own street every year). The Council sent out a questionnaire using hysterically loaded questions. DO YOU WANT STRANGERS FILLING YOUR STREETS AND RAPING YOUR FAMILY? Tick A or B. You know the sort of lies they use. A bit like the new green re-cycling madness. I now have SIX bins. I’m not making this up. Everyday some trucks trundle up and down my street taking away stuff. It’s getting very specific. I saw a bin by a bus stop that said only suitable for 18th century manuscript paper with a picture of Jane Austen on it for the hard of hearing.
But in an Olympic year my favourite new London game is spotting the very tenuous Olympic links everyone is using to push prices up. Of course top of the charts are those soulless parasites the London estate agents. Every borough I’ve been in recently apparently is perfect to access the Olympic stadium from according to estate agents boards and ads. Including far flung spots like Barnet, Roehampton and Ilford presumably viewing the Olympic Park by radio telescope. Of course there are those local areas directly around the stadiums who are also twinned with Helmand Province in the safety stakes which they handily fail to point out! I’ve also realised the prices going up now will presumably not fall afterwards despite the fools and suckers buying an overpriced flat to see a waste of money that only lasts a month. That’s property in London I guess. But many new terrorized folk will at least be able to shuffle around the Stratford Westfield shopping centre or take in the empty velodrome. The great legacy is getting vaguer. But the areas are certainly being built up. Mainly ‘so called ‘luxury’ apartments with names like The Point, The Wave and The Shoe Box (I made the last one up) But take a wander around Canning Town station to see the ghastly rabbit hutches being thrown up left right and centre. With ceiling heights too low for the average hobbit and walls thinner than a cream cracker these ‘architect designed’ monstrosities will presumably fill up quicker than Cheryl Cole at her next sacking. And bizarrely they all have tiny balconies allowing them to see other people on their tiny balconies. Just a sample of the new examples of the wonderful ‘design’ we can expect over the coming property developers feeding frenzy Olympic year.
And on the subject of London’s ever changing design I have to say the new layouts around Exhibition Road in South Kensington are just very surreal. Apparently it’s all based on a Dutch concept of ‘space sharing’. In plain speak it means ripping up the pavement, covering the surfaces of the roads and streets with curious red and white flat cobblestones and then letting pedestrians ‘share’ the road space with cars. It’s akin to the way that South Africans ‘share’ the coast line with Great White Sharks. I was having tea in Le Pain Quotidien amusing myself by watching baffled tourists soiling themselves as various Buses and cars apparently mounted the side streets they were walking along and chased them. Window shopping suddenly stopped being ‘charming’ instead becoming a kind of game of chicken. It’s a very nice concept. A bit like socialism. But in practice it turns a quiet stroll into a dice with death. Very exhilarating I’m sure but not great for the terminally nervous. And as for the locals do they like it. No not really I was told. But did they care? No not really. It’s a London thing.
Londoners Life 19 – By Phil Ryan
Londoners Life 19 – By Phil Ryan
Well a big hello after my absence. Had to finish off two novels and some other projects. But I’m back in time for my New Year review. London has had a busy old time in many ways. We’ve watched the giant money hole of the Olympics steal more and more of our money, we’ve had a bit of rioting, a bit of demonstrating and a bit of a recession. And how’s it left us Londoners? Well certainly the gap between rich and poor continues apace – some areas in London now resembling scenes from the aftermath of an apocalyptic plague movie whilst other tangibly smell of cash and cashmere. This gap can also be measured in ever sky rocketing house prices. Whilst everyday living costs creep ever higher. So for my review of 2011 here’s a quick list of a few London change indicators.
• Starters in restaurants now seem to cost as much as a main course
• More restaurants have replaced their chairs with those highly comfortable solid wooden thin benches from a Victorian prison
• A trip to the cinema for two is coming in at close to £25.00 and popcorn has broken the £5.00 ceiling
• There’s a new demonstration every day in Town not to mention various permanent demonstrations at tourist sights
• The Oyster card now only offers minor convenience in getting in and out of stations but cleverly hides the ever spiraling travel costs (until you have to top up)
• Parking in London is now only affordable by the wealthy or the desperate
• London Councils have finally abandoned all pretense of caring about their residents.
• Shops have sales every other week
• Sushi restaurants are taking over
So goodbye to 2011 with your momentous world events that touched London but didn’t fundamentally alter it in any way. For keen power player watchers we’ve had scandals and phone hacking saga’s that apart from the closure of the News of the World don’t seem to have changed the main players. Our Bankers carry on as normal apart from those lower down the food chain losing their jobs. So from a Londoners perspective what’s 2012 going to be like? Well it’s going to be more expensive across the board from transport to accommodation. The Olympic gravy train will roll in and out inconveniencing us all (of course TFL will run a fantastic tube service with an extra 6 million people on board) And there’ll probably be another uplifting parade to celebrate the royal baby that will undoubtedly appear in time for the Queens Jubilee celebrations. Closer to home still Hammersmith Bridge will be finally replaced by Lego as that seems more robust than the one they spent millions of our taxes on ‘repairing’. The Mayoral election will shock us all when a surprise last minute candidate bags the top job. Said candidate being that bloke off my big fat gypsy wedding. And London Councils will begin plans to cull the poor.
Looking back I’m left with some of my favourite moments from what I can only describe as ‘spokespeople’. TV and Radio reporters grabbing that all important human interest moment out on the street. So from ‘Rioters in Tottenham’ we had (from young guy number 1 with a hoodie and face mask carrying a large plasma TV) “It’s all about Iraq” (from young man number 2 with a hoodie and face mask number) “It’s about anger. We’re angry about being angry”. From a ‘St Pauls Cathedral Camp protester’ (who looked slightly the worse for wear) “I came to support these people and whatever it is they’re protesting about – it’s brilliant whatever it is and they gave me a tent a spliff and some soup I mean how great is that?” From a Christmas shoppers laden with about ten bags “Yes we’re cutting right back this year” and from some religious loon with a beard “Threatening death for us is an argument it’s not unreasonable”. So Happy 2012 to us all and whether its Ken or Boris as Mayor, whether we win gold medals or flog the Olympic venues for a tenner to a friend of Lord Coe’s as Londoner’s we just won’t care – It’s a London thing.
Londoner's Life 15 – by Phil Ryan
Well apart from the typical June London weather of pouring rain and blazing heat another London tradition seems to have now embedded itself. The London Food festivals. These extravaganzas are everywhere now it seems. Every borough has its own version. But they seem to follow a distinct pattern. A mixture of great produce and stuff that looks like MI5 should get involved. Weird looking space veg and purple and red oils that wouldn’t look out of place in Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory. And of course the stalls are alternatively manned by nice people who you want to hug and smug people you want to strike with a copper bottomed smirching pan (whatever the hell that is). That’s the issue. It’s just cooking food. But no these folk have elevated it to some permanent game of bizarre food one-upmanship. The oil has to be trammelled or the pan should be crindled. It’s like a whole new language. And of course just like lawyers much of it is designed to part you from your cash.
I saw a bread stall with loaves of bread starting at £10.00. It said stone baked in an ancient bronze age bread oven. To a sixteenth century recipe. What the hell was in it? Platinum flour? The Magna Carta? But if you recall one of my distant columns where I referred to London tribes – I’ve discovered a sub species. The Speciality Food groups. And the Foodie groups have sub species. The Vegetarian bunch where all the women dress in that washed out knackered looking Laura Ashley stuff – always have four small blonde children (the husband always has those faux National Health specs) and everything’s about soya and spelt. The Sunday Supplement bunch – a very different kettle of fish – decidedly jeans and blazers for the men – the women all Zara meets Chanel. And they’re drooling over smoke dried andeluvian reindeer buttocks and guarana leaved wrapped organic pork chops. God bless them‘ They can waste hours knocking up a meal that bears little resemblance to food. But it’s all about textures darling. Hm. I asked for a ham sandwich at one stall and the guy asked me how did I like my ham cut – against the grain or southerly. I said in slices. He almost started crying. Especially when I asked for white bread and Kerry Gold butter.
Had a great moany email about The Tower of London! I could have told them it’s a pointless tourist rip off at £20.00 per head.
For some stupid ‘let’s favour the regions’ type of reasons – the authorities hiked most of the contents up to Leeds years ago. Seriously. The place has got bugger all in it now. You’ve got the Crown Jewels (five minutes of oh look some diamond hats), some ravens (two minutes of aren’t they just crows on steroids?) and those blokes in Red uniforms (Why do they all look slightly drunk?) Oh yes and lots of stone walls (thirty minutes of look how old this wall is). Not exactly a fun packed day for the poor wee mites and their folk you have to admit. They’ve even got signs around the place saying things like ‘here in this room were suits of handmade silver armour’. No armour mind – just a sign. Priceless. But on that subject the tourists are really filling up the place. Just look at the Open top Tour buses. Absolutely full to bursting. And is it me but do none of these companies have uniforms that fit their staff? Just take a look. Half of them seem to be wearing jackets designed for somebody three sizes bigger – or their hats appear to have been glued to their heads as they seem to be play hats for five year old children. If smartness is their aim they’re failing badly. It looks more like each morning the tour bus staff are tossed into a large skip and just pick anything they can find with a company logo on – regardless of size.
My particular favourite London tourist mystery – is the hundreds of grim faced eastern European girls now employed at key historical points to totally confuse the visitor to London. You come for a slice of merry old England and you get some stone faced harpy with no sense of humour who says things like “Zis iss ze very place ze Kink roded his horses. Velcome to ze majesty of zis castle”. Call me old fashioned but shouldn’t they at least get some training? And I mean voice training. Imagine going to see the Great Wall of China and some buffoon pipes up saying “Yeah alright innit dis wall is well speshul. Big old Emperors and all dat stuff you get me”. I guess I’m just too picky. And yes I know they work cheap.
So summer is here(ish) And apart from the usual tube strikes and road closures we have to contend with all the public parks being turned into private event venues. Take Holland Park – it is now a series of semi – permanent Marquees erected for various do’s. I’m told they need the revenue. But the key word overlooked seems to be public parks. Ho hum. But Londoners love their parks public parks. Mainly all the flat dwellers without a garden. And of course that other group. The sun worshippers who whip off most of their clothes at the merest twinkle of sunlight. Nip down to Hyde Park by Bayswater for a real culture clash regarding sunbathing. On the one hand you have the countless young roller-blading girls and boys and fitness freaks in skimpy lycra shorts and no tops worth talking about zapping around the place in the blazing heat and the large groups of burka clad women with huge shades silently sitting on every bench watching them. Weird. But is anyone upset? Is anyone shaken by any of this? No. Of course not. It’s a London thing.
Londoner's Diary 13 – by Phil Ryan
Yes, it’s coming up to the great invasion now. Londoners are bracing themselves for the Tourists. We had the Royal Wedding rush, but now June is coming and so is the world.
I generally avoid the centre of town over the next months (I stay out on the leafier fringes). But a very good place to take the pulse of tourism is in our London street markets. Camden in the north and Portobello in the west have now gradually been reduced to a very long shuffle that takes hours to complete. It looks like a scene out of that penguin documentary film – but without the cute voiceover. Great for the stallholders, mind, but not so much fun for the visitors. And to add to that disappointment is the now almost generic nature of much of the goods for sale.
They’re not very London. In fact they seem to be mainly Chinese and Indian in manufacture. Seems weird to me. You fly in from Spain and go home with a Japanese rubber watch, some Indian scarves, some Chinese jewellery and when people ask where you’ve been, you say London! That said, we do have some great young fashion designers in many of the markets, like Spitalfields in the east, who do sell extraordinarily brilliant and authentic London designs. So it’s not all bad.
I particularly like the visitors who buy those tall Union Jack hats with bells on. Come to London, city of great fashion and style. What do you choose – a felt hat that makes you look like a twat! Classic. I think they just get confused by all the choice. But at least they can lose their money gradually in the markets. The attractions are now charging crazy prices. The London Eye, Madame Tussaud’s, The Tower of London, London Zoo. They’re all close to £20 entry. Last time I was at the zoo, I took a monkey and a meerkat home. Well, I wanted my money’s worth.
Frankly, I’m amazed the tourists still come. London is now one of the most expensive cities to visit. And our beloved Mayor is now pointing out that the tourists are all using his Boris bikes. Hardly surprising, they’re all strapped for cash. An oyster card would probably finish them off financially. They’d probably root in the bins except the locals have probably got there first.
And if tourists aren’t baffled and broke enough, it’s charity running/walking/crawling season here in London with a vengeance. You can’t go near a park or open space without finding scores of grinning sweaty folk dressed as nuns or in pink, blue or green, covered in balloons and sprinting at you waving plastic buckets. It’s all very laudable but annoying. I give to charity in my own way. But it’s like a load of highwaymen without any style have been let loose. Every underground station now seems to have a bucket waver in residence and my local high street has posted at least three a day along its length.
It’s like some surreal computer game. You devise strategies. Maximum points. Cross over. Lift your paper and become invisible. Glare wildly. Mutter ‘no thanks’. Get someone in front of you to block them from seeing you. Pretend to answer your phone. Avoid eye contact. Look at the floor. I’m exhausted after a day out!
I’m all for charity, but not when it walks up to you and demands money with cheery menaces. I’d like a central fund I could pay a tenner into once a month. Then all the charities have to fight it out with pillows in a giant mud-filled arena which you have to pay to go into to watch. Brilliant eh? Money and entertainment. Maybe it’ll catch on.
But London is getting crowded with visitors and the tubes are getting to be even more of a nightmare. I love the recent saga of breakdowns and then the accompanying explanations. A bolt fell off and jammed a door open. Signals wouldn’t talk to each other. My favourite: an animal of some kind loose in a tunnel. An animal? What? Bigfoot?
However, I witnessed a pure London moment last week. I was at Finchley Road waiting for a Jubilee line train. On the platform behind him I heard a Metropolitan line train approach. The station announcement proudly said: “Ladies and Gentlemen. The train now arriving on platform three is one of the brand new Metropolitan line trains now in service.” So I turned around and a new shiny and gleaming train pulled in. It was really brand new. Bright paint job. Clear glass in its windows. Modern. Inviting. It looked very nice. Inside there was about 50 happy people, all looking very pleased to be on such a nice shiny and clean train for a change. Some of them stood up to get off.
Meanwhile, people on the platform all looked pretty pleased to see such a nice-looking carriage. You could see it was pretty cool. At last. New trains. Comfortable, wide, air conditioned, a pleasure to travel in. But the doors wouldn’t actually open. So it sat there while various TFL folk appeared and poked it for a bit and then it pulled out. Bizarre. Hapless travellers inside banging on the windows and shouting rude words. Resigned travellers on the platform letting their shoulders drop. It had been a cruel trick. The next train arrived. Old, crammed, dirty but with working doors! Reality restored. When I later got out at Bond Street I asked a TFL bloke about it and he said: “Yeah, the doors are so new they’re sticky and they don’t really open. Give it a year or two and they’ll be fine.” Priceless.
So there you have it. We’re being crowded out with tourists. Prices for attractions are at mortgage levels. The tube doors don’t open. And the streets are full of charity muggers. But do we care? No. It’s a London thing.