Stratford is good
Hmm. The main problem I have with LJ is the actual typing part. That might seem odd, but I write little bits in notebooks and bits of paper, on trains etc, and I never bother to write them up here. Recently I have written about a strange zine reading incorporating an inscrutable shadow puppet show, that sparked memories of a couple of anarchist pop kids I knew in the late '80s in Bristol, and a disastrous gig by the TV Personalities last week, their first London headline since 1996 at the 100 Club.
Yet - I'm writing today because I just enjoyed a short walk in Stratford (or the Strat, as I refer to it internally). I'm having some days off work to do my dissertation ("Very nearly to talkies without the cost" - electrical reproducers, home-grown synchronisers and an industry in flux, 1927 - 1930 - great title, eh?). I needed a break, so I walked around the block. Indoors it is dark cold-ish and airless (basement without window), outside, sunny with a light breeze (summer afternoon).
One day in the 1990s, living in a studio flat with C in Finsbury Park, we heard one of the provincial drama students in the next flat open the window and shout out (dramatically) "London, I Love You!" I sort of felt like that today, after buying 3 tickets for a one-man show called "Honey I Forgot To Thaw Out The Penguin Last Night" by a mental health system survivor, then walking down and around past the ibis/nandos/library/blockbusters/xtian radio station/supermarket. None of these Stratford landmarks cheered me, but it was almost as if they were invisible today; I focussed instead on the Gerald Manley Hopkins stone, the plaque for the Stratford Festival Garden (to brighten the Strat in 1951 in honour of the Festival of Britain) and the beautiful old Stratford Peace Park statue, glancing over to the shop where they had Pete Townsend's monster fridge, looking forward to pals visiting tonight, and the performance on Monday, thinking: Stratford is good.
Ok - back to the basement (no internet down there either).
Yet - I'm writing today because I just enjoyed a short walk in Stratford (or the Strat, as I refer to it internally). I'm having some days off work to do my dissertation ("Very nearly to talkies without the cost" - electrical reproducers, home-grown synchronisers and an industry in flux, 1927 - 1930 - great title, eh?). I needed a break, so I walked around the block. Indoors it is dark cold-ish and airless (basement without window), outside, sunny with a light breeze (summer afternoon).
One day in the 1990s, living in a studio flat with C in Finsbury Park, we heard one of the provincial drama students in the next flat open the window and shout out (dramatically) "London, I Love You!" I sort of felt like that today, after buying 3 tickets for a one-man show called "Honey I Forgot To Thaw Out The Penguin Last Night" by a mental health system survivor, then walking down and around past the ibis/nandos/library/blockbusters/xtian radio station/supermarket. None of these Stratford landmarks cheered me, but it was almost as if they were invisible today; I focussed instead on the Gerald Manley Hopkins stone, the plaque for the Stratford Festival Garden (to brighten the Strat in 1951 in honour of the Festival of Britain) and the beautiful old Stratford Peace Park statue, glancing over to the shop where they had Pete Townsend's monster fridge, looking forward to pals visiting tonight, and the performance on Monday, thinking: Stratford is good.
Ok - back to the basement (no internet down there either).