Seeing Dessicated Withered Corpses At The British Museum (And Also Some Mummies).

As I walked towards the British Museum, I saw a huge teddy bear. It was wearing a Beefeaters’ uniform and was stationed outside one of the many naff souvenir shops that ply their trade in central London. No doubt you could buy one inside, but how do you get a giant cuddly toy through customs? The bear looked depressed. It was sagging and leaning against the shop’s windowsill. The stitching in its groin had come apart and the stuffing was poking through. It seemed to say something, but I chose not to ponder it too deeply.

The British Museum is a sight to behold. It’s a huge building that pulls in huge crowds and one day is just not enough to see everything. I started with a look at the Gamelan. This is a Javanese assembly of musical instruments, which produces those ethereal chimes that most of us associate with Indonesia. They piped in sampled music that was clear and soothing. There were few visitors there though. They all seemed to be in the main atrium outside, talking loudly and photographing themselves.

This was in fact a major annoyance. It wasn’t that they took a single photo. No, they kept taking pictures of themselves and each other, non-stop, with camera phones, digital cameras, video cameras… It wasn’t so much a trip to the museum as an exercise in vanity. ‘LOOK AT ME! I’M STANDING IN THE WAY OF THE ASSYRIAN WALL CARVINGS!!!’, they all seemed to be saying. They kept doing this, the museum just a setting for the ongoing adventures of people who needed to be photographed to prove they still exist.

A hawk-headed, four-winged door guardian grinned down from the walls, like it was in on the joke.

I mainly focussed on Egyptian artefacts. I just didn't feel like looking at the Greek gallery for some reason, and I had barely enough time for the Indian collection either. I soaked up Egyptian knowledge like a sponge, troubled by the nagging thought that I was still only having a second hand experience. The real thing had passed a long time ago. I also had to stop myself humming Nile's back catalogue. That would have been embarrassing.

Suddenly, I felt a strange urge to smack a young American tourist. ‘MMMMM-OOOOOOOHHHH-M!!!’ he droned, with ugly broad vowels. ‘There were ROMAN mummies too!’ In fact, they were still Egyptian mummies. It was just that the Romans who lived there styled theirs in a Latin fashion, much like the Greek Diaspora had Hellenic stylings on their own mummies. They’d gone native, integrated if not assimilated. There were no Roman mummies, just Egyptian mummies with a Roman theme.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t the kid’s fault. No one had bothered to explain the truth to him, and tourism is hardly a good way to find out anything. And besides, American children aren’t half as slappable as their Italian or British counterparts as I was only too painfully aware of.

I wandered into the Chinese ceramics gallery. The only pictures being taken were of the ceramics themselves. It wasn’t the place for screaming tourists to regard themselves via a camera lense. It was serene and beautiful, the visitors moving through it with grace and quiet admiration. I had one last look at the Gamelan on my way out. It was still a wonderful sight but also still curiously ignored. Then I turned back and headed into the loud, swelling, sweating crowd outside.

Tottenham & Upper Edmonton: Old Haunts Revisited

The Tottenham and Upper Edmonton area of London is an odd mix of buildings. While much of it is made up of faintly shabby early 20th century tenenments, now serving as shops, closed and empty buildings boarded over for demolition, grotty tower blocks from the 50s, 60s and 70s or bland modern architecture with tinted glass, yellow bricks and steel, there is a surprisingly large number of quality Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian architecture.

One example is this old sunday school and adjoining church.





Nearby, the famous Old Well.



Other buildings include the Tottenham and Edmonton Dispensary, the Tottenham Palace Cinema, and the Old Swimming Baths. But there are also many large townhouses and civic buildings, like the Tottenham Community Sports Centre and the Council Office. There is also the famous Gilpin Bell, a concrete memorial (and nearby Wetherspoon's pub with the same name) to a possibly fictional character from the 18th Century, who got carried away by his horse from an Edmonton inn (the eponymous Bell) and found himself in Hertfordshire. As you do. [For more on Tottenham in particular, go HERE.]

The last time I was in Edmonton was almost 12 years ago. Some things have changed. Most of the fish 'n chip shops run by Greeks have been taken over by Turks, who now focus on kebabs as well as Lahmacun, the enigmatic Turkish Pizza. Afro Carribean and African restaurants are now common too: the cuisine and the people have been here for a long time, but it seems only now that they feel confident enough to share it with everyone else.

A lot of the shops in Edmonton have changed as well. The old Kwik Save is now a discount clothes shop, the old Safeways site now a Lidl's, while Blockbuster video has been replaced by, of all things, a new library.

One thing that had not changed was the casual stupidity of the locals. One idiot decided to cartwheel across the road, missing several cars by only a second. Once he was over the road, he walked off like nothing had happened. As I went to cross another busy main road - The Angel - some idiot cycled across without looking and got knocked over by two angry-looking policemen en route to an emergency. I turned away and walked on. There was no need to see what would happen, but the cyclist's girlfriend, following up on foot, was shrieking with dismay. Earlier, in Tottenham itself, I saw police on foot walk up to resolve a row between a driver and the cyclist HE had knocked over. They dragged him out the car as he swore incoherently.

The last time I was here, I was staying at my Uncle's flat. I went to look at it again. He'd sold it on and it might have changed hands several times since. I crept up the stairs to the level where the flat was. It felt familiar, but also like an intrusion. They'd painted the door and reinforced it at points with steel plates. But it still felt odd, like there should have been a welcome where there was not. The pub around the corner - one of those small ones in residential areas that are no bigger than a large living room - had been knocked down and in its place they'd built ugly, flimsy new flats made of pine and metal girders. They looked like they would be knocked down in less than thirty years. Nothing lasts anymore.



As I went off to get the bus back to London Bridge, I saw the old community centre near my Uncle's flat. It used to play music on Saturday nights that was so loud I could listen to it as I lay in bed. The playlist meant it was more fun than you might think. But it was soon taken over by yet another Money Church, of the kind that are pretty much ubiquitous throughout Greater London. A banner outside claimed it was run by 'Endtime Ministries'. Somehow it all seemed very fitting.

The Mourning After.

A disfigured man died last night. Online they squabbled over when he died. Some even posted pictures of him being wheeled into hospital and of his family coming in soon afterwards. Right now on the television they are showing pictures of his body being carried off a helicopter. They're talking about the painkillers that could have killed him. He spent much of his life in pain.

His friends flicker on the screen, spilling their guts as eulogy. Everyone has a quote.

The media is pretending it never said a bad word about him. TV channels that showed mocking documentaries about his mutilated face now show it on tributes to a 'King of the Popular'. They praise him for things they neglected to mention for much of his life. They mention all the bad things and the ugly rumours out of duty, but the crowds outside the hospital where he died have called it: he's now a fallen hero, fawned over by weeping fans, cherubim and hypocrites.

A pro to the last, he died in time to make it into the early editions of all the UK newspapers. Good timing. All that was left for him was to die at a dramatic moment.

Picture of the Day (27/05/2009)

This is the long-empty Green Man pub at the south end of Coldharbour Lane, Brixton. It looks like the most recent layer of paint has been scraped off, revealing the original sign beneath. Note the now-extinct beer brands advertised, such as Reid's Stout but also Watney's, makers of the infamous Red Barrel.

Picture of the Day (26/05/2009)

This is St Michael Paternoster Royal on College Hill, a church near Bank and Cannon Street Stations. It's also the headquarters for the Church of England's Mission To Seafarers. It's next to a nice mini-park with seating and is very leafy in May.

The Last Day In Brixton

I had to get off at another underground station than the one I was meant to yesterday: someone had fallen in front of a tube train. The train I was one simply drove slowly through the station where it had happened. I could glimpse the train involved in the accident on the adjacent platform as I went past. Its doors were open but the lights were off. It had not entirely pulled into the platform, so the accident must have happened midway on the tracks. I saw a policeman talking matter-of-factly with two maintenance workers in dirty orange overalls. On the platform my train was going through, meanwhile, a sign had been put out for the train drivers to remind them not to stop, while a station attendant sat next to it, apathetically.

Within an hour the station was back on line and no one seemed aware that it had even happened.

Brixton Road was full of people trying to sell salvation. It was either charismatic Christian groups tied in with the many black churches nearby or any number of Socialist groups, either screaming for bent MPs' blood or promising an altogether more secular promised land.

As I sat down in St. Matthews' Churchyard to eat lunch, an open decked double decker covered in Christian Party regalia and full of supporters roared past. They're making a special effort in Brixton, if all the campaign posters are anything to go by. (Meanwhile, UKIP's 'NO To Uncontrolled Immigration' posters, with Winston Churchill thrown in for good measure, are nowhere to be seen for some reason, being more common in the more conflicted East End of London.)

I doubt the Christian Party will do well in next month's European Elections though. The public doesn't want principles or idealism nowadays. They want parties that are bitter and suspicious, that rage and self-pity in equal measure. Politics and religion don't mix anyway, but only in the same way that politics doesn't quite mix with anything.

As I drank my tea, a big mongrel (part-Alsatian, part-Labrador) trotted up to me. With dogs I don't know, it's always a good idea to be friendly and say 'hello'. They seem to calm down if they're growling, or stop finding you so interesting. This was the case with the dog too, which turned away, but stared instead into the Churchyard and at the other humans in the distance, sitting on benches. He seemed to be looking for something. A while later, I saw him walking past nonchalantly, now on a lead and with his mistress.

I then went to Brixton Library. As usual, there were a gaggle of drunks, dossers and generally dodgy looking regulars congregating in the square in front of the building. It's often the place to see the local constabulary, sometimes on bikes, drawing up to resolve a pointless squabble.

Brixton Library was careworn, but reassuringly serene. Outside, the city growled, screeched, shouted and boomed without end.

Tragedy as nuisance.

We were caught up in a delay just outside the train station. It had been over five minutes now. Suddenly the driver's voice resonated over the tannoy:

"I'm sorry for the delay, Ladies and Gentlemen, but we are currently delayed owing to a member of the public going under a train at the station. We hope to get moving soon and..."

An ugly, angry voice drowned the announcement out.

"WHY DON'T THEY JUST SCRAPE 'IM OFF AND STICK 'IM IN A BAG? I'M GONNA BE LATE!!!"

The train got moving again a few minutes later. None of us knew what had exactly happened. The passengers swarmed out of the carriage in a hurry, like nothing happened.