Rabbit, Rabbit and Rabbits At The Town Show.

The Dagenham Town Show was a good experience, despite the gale force winds and the looming threat of rain. There were lots of stalls in the community and society tents, there was a fun fair and you could even get a ride on a helicopter (if you had the money).

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We'd come to see Chas 'n Dave who were second on the bill from Aswad. It was an odd experience to be excited about a band that wasn't exactly at the apex of its fame, but the battered, tarnished gleam of old school celebrity seemed to shine all of a sudden. They were playing live! At a Town Show! In our area!!! This somehow made all the difference.

But Dave wasn't going to be there. The local paper had reported that his wife had died, this now being relevant since they were PLAYING! THE! TOWN! SHOW! so Dave dropped out and Chas had to press on alone. I was curious as to how that might work. I also felt rather miserable for Dave. It didn't make the national media and there were no vapid celeb-obsessed Heat readers discussing it in the pub. His loss wasn't considered worthy of 'proper' attention. But perhaps that was a blessing?

Life carried on though. There were slightly over-priced hot-dogs to savour and a cocktail tent too! (No proper beer tent, though. They didn't want to give the proles ideas.)



We went to the youth club tent. We went past some St John's Ambulance cadets as we went in. They were clad in sinister black paramilitary uniforms and berets, like a sort of junior fascist paramedic cadre. Inside, the local boxing club had gloves and punch bags. I pounded one bag while imagining it was the face of various twats I'd run into over the years. The world was full of them. It felt good.



The local city farm had a fine array of animals to look at.



The rabbits, guinea pigs and Shetland pony all seemed quite sanguine, despite all the enormous pink and brown hairless things gawping at them while making a dreadful racket.



A toddler fired his bubble pistol at a pedigree goose, who just trotted off for a drink. Idiot humans? Comes with the territory.



The show was also a good way to see all sorts of different people who would normally never meet. Chavs rubbed shoulders with middle class art society members, emos casually strolled past army recruiters in field uniforms, young and old wandered in the midst of one another and even those strange, seldom seen and almost mythical creatures called 'the police' made an apperance.



The best part of the show was the Dagenham Idol, or rather a straw and wicker homage to it. The original was a wooden figure from the Bronze age, Excavated in the local area c. 1922, and possibly a symbol of fertility. The artists who were assembling the homage claimed there was a tug of love over it between another local park and the museum where the real idol resided. No violence was involved, but the idol had no doubt roused primal and savage territorial instincts.

In the end, I had to miss Chas and go home to look after someone who was feeling ill. For all the wind, it felt like a good experience, if a little truncated.

The Friday Short Story: Derelict

It's dusk. I never come out by day, only at dusk.

I'm hiding in a filthy, piss-yellow skip off Oxford Street, in Ramillies Place. I lift the top out and slink out. Flies blow out in my wake. I seem to be sleeping with every louse in town. I can feel the itch of their bites as they scab over.

There is dried blood on my chin.
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My pulse is going at Mach 2 right now. There's a voice in my head that's screaming Gogogogogogo! You've been seen. Getthefuckoutofhere! Getthefuckoutofhere! GO!

I move as fast as my legs will catch me. They're thin but taut. I've got an urban fox physique on my legs, my gut, my chest, my arms. I'm quick and strong - that's useful. I run into the alley nearby and kneel down. It's a false alarm. No one saw me - not at 6.30pm on a Sunday night in London. But I'm starting to see things again. Fuck me, must be the paranoia or inner demons or whatever bollocks you care to blame it on. Maybe it's 'cos I'm hungry?

I can see a grimy white Xri driven by a baseball cap-wearing chav driving past my hidey-hole in the alley. Ice Cube's bellowing out of the speakers for me to go check myself.

OK - I'll do it. I'm gaunt - as I said - and six foot two. I've got a thin, drawn face that makes me look older than I am. My skin's pale and pasty - too little sun. Like I care. My hair's receding and what I've got left hangs down from my crown like lank wire wool. I've got a deep blue Adidas tee-shirt on, last fashionable some time in 1995. But you can't tell I've got it on 'cos I'm wearing it under half a dozen jerseys, fleeces and a manky parka. My jeans are filthy, caked in grease and the grime of a thousand tube seats. They stink of sickly sweet eau de stale piss. My feet are bare and leathery, like my hands. They're all thin and long with tendons and veins running under my skin like roots from a big, thirsty tree. Every bit of me that's not got clothes on is covered in a thin film of dirt, with grime under my long, uncut nails. There's dried blood under there too. Aren't I a picture?

When I snatch a look in the mirrors at the Leicester Square bogs (that are free, best of all), I can see my eyes are going a bit yellow. My teeth are dirty and stink but don't seem to be going rotten. The gums have receded but are healthy and pink and make my teeth look bigger. The better to eat you with, Red Riding Hood, unless you let me feel your tits. Heh. I might smell, but I'm in good condition. That's the secret - steal fruit from stalls and shops when you can. Never drink or eat any shit with processed sugar. Water or even fruit juice is best. Oh and eat every day…

I'm hungry. I can tell, 'cos that's when my heart starts pounding hard, like it's trying to bust out of my chest. My stomach's so numb these days, I can't feel fuck all down there anyway. Time to move.

I check the coast's clear from the cover of my alley. There's a few revellers out there but they won't notice another dirty tramp on the move. So I head down Ramillies Place and take a turn into Marlborough Street. I'm heading into Soho's square mile. Give me there any day. Over the road, north of Oxford Street, is Noho, and I can't be arsed with all those toffee-nosed yuppie bastards you get there. Even a tramp's got to have standards. True, you get all the media and advertising pricks in Soho bars, but they're funny. Taste nice too.

There's a certain trick to moving incognito in London. First, you've got to understand that us Brits like to go about with our heads up our arses. We don't notice what's going on that much, 'cos that takes too much commitment and - gasp - personal initiative. Now you, Mr. Foreign Reader, may think this is a bad thing . But let me tell you this - it's Manna from heaven for the likes of me. Everyone's so busy living in their own little world or looking the other way or staring at the pavement as they walk that Mr. Dodgy Tramp (me) can slide past without them noticing. I'll move through whole crowds and no one will notice. They just see trash and don't pay much attention. That's very useful, like stripes on a tiger or the skin on a big python - it stops you being spotted. You'll walk past me 100 times and you'll never notice I'm there unless I want you too.

So there I am, heading down Marlborough, then Poland Street. I'm really hungry now. The last time I fed was on Friday. That was too risky - the streets were jammed with people. But I had to feed. Fair and Square. And I now have to feed again.

Picking prey in Soho is easy. First, you've got to know who NOT to hunt. First, leave the locals alone. You can tell who they are. They're the ones who've got this air of wariness and total confidence about them. It's like they're expecting me. They move quickly and look around all the time without knowing it. They know the streets and the layout of the Square Mile backwards. They're utterly comfortable in their environment - so you'd have trouble getting them - and they'd be missed too.

And that's why you don't go for anyone who looks Chinese either. I don't care if you think they're really Japs or Koreans or whatever. China Town is just down the road in Gerard Street and that lot are seriously fucking close-knit. If any of 'em goes missing, the whole bloody lot of 'em know about it by the end of the week. And what they know, the police soon find out.

Same with gays and lesbians. There might be loads of 'em in London, but the scene is just small enough for even one poof or dyke to be seriously missed. And if they find out what you've been up to, they're more willing than most to raise hell 'till you're caught. It's a good thing my Gaydar's pretty sharp, that's all I can say.

Never do prostitutes either. There's plenty of them about. Plus Joe Public doesn't give a flying toss about any of them. Perfect, right? BUT there's not a slag on the street that doesn't have at least one good friend and fellow whore who'll start panicking and calling the pigs. Plus, there's a large number of slags who are turned out by pimps and gangs. Doing those kinds of whore will get far nastier people than cops after you, and they're far more likely to get you too.

I leave my fellow homeless alone too. Most are pretty unhealthy and can pass whatever filthy shit they've got onto you. That can be anything - mostly hepatitis, though or even HIV if they're smackheads. That lot are worse than whores: they'll fuck ANYONE for their next fix. Plus, there are some seriously tough old tramps out there - ex-army - who are good at sleeping rough, knowing where there's danger and fighting back. Never go for anyone who can take you on.

No, go for people like the bloke who's just walked out of a chill-out, funky-bollocks bar on Broadwich Street, with loud Jazz pounding out inside. He's got all the right qualities. First bit of good news: he's a bit overweight - I'll explain why that helps later. The prat is also wearing creased chinos over which he's got on a bright pink Ben Sherman shirt. It ain't tucked in - scruffy bastard. He's got these expensive shoes on plus one of those short, almost shaved-off hair cuts the Soho media tossers like to have these days.

But still, I like him. He's drunk, doesn't seem to notice what's going on around him and he's concentrating on bellowing into a mobile phone. Which means he won't notice me. He's probably walked out of the bar so he can hear what the berk on the other end of the line is saying. That's good too. It'll mean he'll find somewhere nice and quiet to talk, where there won't be witnesses.

So I start to follow him. He's oblivious and he's just wandered into Carnaby Street. I'd better make this quick before the prick's mates in the bar want to know where he's gone. Instead, he's turned into Ganton Street. Gotcha! There's an alley there, where I can do my thing.

First, I check. No one else around. Good. I move up quickly behind him and put on my best tramp act:

"Mate! MATE!" I shout.

"Wha'? 'Ang on Patrick…" he says in a mock cockney accent, trying to cover up the time he spent at public school. I like the way he flinches as he turns 'round to look at me. All these cocks in London who think they're men of the world but still can't bear to look a derelict in the face!

Still, I have a part to play… "Mate, have you got a light? Or a fag? C'mon, I need a fag…"

"FUCK OFF!" he says and goes back to his call. Shit! I forgot about that phone! They heard my voice and there's now more than one person who knows I'm there. Witnesses, even if they're on a 'phone line, are dangerous. I grit my teeth and walk away. This one won't do.

So I drift through Soho. What do I do now? Dunno. I go up the back alley over the road from the Intrepid Fox pub on Wardour Street. I might be able to scavenge something from the bin bags there. It looks like a shit evening all round.

And that's where I find her. Near the bins, a girl is bent over, puking up. She's around the corner of the alley so she's out of sight from the main road. She's a bit chunky and has a big arse. Good. Lots more of what I need. Thing is, she's got a grey mini-skirt and a blue boob tube on, so she's probably a refugee from a Hen Night that got split up. Her clothes, what there is of them, are a bit tight, so rolls of fat stick out where they dig into her. She's got badly dyed brown hair with a crap perm, pulled up into a Croydon facelift. Her face is like a Hamster having a shit - chubby, screwed up and with beady little eyes.

I know this, 'cos she's just looked up and seen me standing behind her. There's just enough time for her to realise that no one else can see what's about to happen.
She hasn't time to react. I've done this so many times now; it's second nature. First, I twist her arm up behind her back and use my weight to force her onto the ground. My other hand goes across her mouth to stop her screaming. I tell her to be still. Very still. She's so scared now that she does just what I want her to. So I let go of her arm… and smack her hard on the jaw. That always knocks them out.

I then pull out a razor blade from my pocket and slice deep and clean along the big vein on her throat. The blood spurts out straightaway, but I've got my lips around the cut so none gets wasted. Arterial spray is like those water fountains we got at school. It comes out half way between a fine mist and a trickle so I have to be patient. There's the same dirty metal taste too. I like it. Best of all, she's fat and fat shits always have more blood.

Are you disgusted? Good. Go fuck yourself. Shall I sit on the pavement and look pathetic and hope you chuck me a 50 Euro coin? Shall I stand on the street corner and get ignored as I try to sell a copy of The Big Issue to dick-heads in suits? Or should I just throw myself at your feet and beg for every state handout and second-hand bed in a shelter that you can be bothered to offer? Go fuck yourself. You walk past me every day and either ignore me or look at me like I'm shit. And you must feel great giving £10 to a pack of lentil-eating, woolly cardigan-wearing cunt charities who only have a job 'cos they spend all day wringing their hands over us poor lost souls. Go fuck yourself.

So I do what I do to survive and not have to take orders from twats like you. Don't like me? Tough shit. I don't need your approval. I lurk, I hide, I feed. And you can't do fuck all to stop me. I'm freer than you with your mortgages, your debts, your mewling, ungrateful kids in their ideal state school you begged and cajoled to get them into and your sagging, moaning old bag of a career woman wife. You spend all your time wanting what you're told to and getting only what they give you. I don't wash and I kill to live. You wear after-shave and eat shit to exist.

Go fuck yourself.

I drink as much blood as I can, and cauterise the wound with a lighter I always keep handy. Then I break the bitch's neck. It pays not to have witnesses. I stick her body into a bin-liner and mix it with the rest of the rubbish bags in the alley. The thick bastards they have doing the bins in Soho don't notice just how many stiffs they sling into their trucks. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does it around here. Those enterprising Albanian and London gangsters must be in on the same trick too. Sooner or later one will get found. It's getting too dangerous around here. So I might move onto Camden soon. Suck some goths or grebo dopeheads instead. A change of pace. But right now, I'm off home.

So out I go, slipping out of the alley at just the right time so none of the pissheads see me. Timing is everything. I've had a lot of blood and I'm drowsy. I sneak back to the skip on Ramillies. I sneak in and close the lid. Soon it will be dawn. I fall asleep and have sweet dreams.

I wake the next evening. It's dusk. I never come out by day, only at dusk… There is dried blood on my chin. And I am hungry again.

The Newsagent's Lament.

I bought a copy of The London Evening Standard today. Mainly it was for jobs, so it was annoying to then remember that the vacancies are in the Tuesday edition.

But this wasn't the unusual thing. That was the huge number of porn mags the newsagent was selling. The shop's two sets of magazine racks both had titles like 'Readers' Wives', 'Asian Babes', 'Teen Nymphos' and 'Razzle' (and many more, err, 'obscure' publications) from the top shelf right down to the middle row.

Then on the row below that there was a range of tattoo and motorcycle magazines with even more scantily clad or naked women on the front. It was only the lower shelves that reverted to the traditional newsagent range of puzzle magazines, celeb rags, computer mags and children's comics.

I doubt the owner was a particular porn fiend, any more than he was a fan of the Pernod on the spirit shelf behind him as he manned the counter. It was just that he seemed to have a huge market of porn consumers to appease and they no doubt spent more money on magazines than the other customers. Pecunia non olet, as they say, and the newsagent had long since given up on shame or embarrassment in favour of making a reasonable living.

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.