London by night

[davywavy]

Many years ago now, I was out shopping one day when I ran into an old schoolfriend who'd joined the police when he left. We chatted for a bit, and ended up going to the pub to catch up, a process which mainly featured him telling me amusing stories about people he'd nicked. As we talked, he mentioned his frustrations at the jargon which was becoming vogue in the force. "For example", he said. "We can't call high-crime areas 'High crime areas' any more".
"Eh?" I replied.
"Well, there are some areas which have a lot of crime, and we need to identify them as such. Unfortunately, we can't call them 'High crime areas' any more, as that might stimatise the people who live in them."
Curious, I asked him how the police described high crime areas when they were talking to each other, now that the obvious descriptive term was forbidden.
"Vibrant and diverse" he said with a grin, and went to the bar.

I was reminded of this the other night as I stood on a street corner contemplating what a vibrant and diverse place London is in the early hours of Sunday morning. My day had started off so well. I'd gone to the Tai Chi seminar with Ninja Master, picked up some shopping, and then wended my way off to meet some friends for a trip to the theatre. Eventually arriving home just prior to midnight I put my hand in my pocket and...no keys. With that sudden lurch in the belly of horror, I realised that between me and my keys were several locked doors. I'd forgotten to bring them with me.

I leaned on the doorbell for a while in the hopes that sister might be there to let me in, but she was either out partying or so deep in her cups that I'd need a bucket of icy water to wake her. I tried the doorbell for the downstairs flat, but despite their lights being on and the curtain twitching they plainly know what a vibrant and diverse place London can be so they didn't answer the door. So I stood for a few minutes feeling like a complete bozo and wondered what to do. The last time I was locked out in the early hours, the evening ended with me being chased down the road - twice - by hundreds of women in their underwear like an episode of the Benny Hill show* so hope springs eternal and I spent a while waiting expectantly for a crowd of ladies in their scanties, but no such luck this time.
Plainly I had to find somewhere to sleep and, at that time in the morning, finding a friend who wasn't going to be either a) asleep or b) out on the town was going to be a challenge. I wandered to the main road where I started making calls to likely suspects whilst simultaneously trying to hide my phone from any passing merrymakers who might take a fancy to it and decide to add me to the vibrant diversity statistics. Eventually my efforts rustled up neural_trash whose housemate was away and so had a spare bed which I was welcome to soil with my presence, so I flagged down a cab.
"How much to Neural Trash's house, my good man?" I asked.
He gave me a surly look. "Forty quid. Give or take."
"Forty quid! That's daylight vibrant diversity!"
"Take it or leave it."

I took it.

The cab ride was interesting, in an expensive and depressing way. I went through places I don't normally see like Bethnal Green and Bow, which were extensively remodelled by the Luftwaffe a while back and haven't really improved much since. They're places of neverending strips of fifties development which are now just all fronted by neon takeaway signs with crowds of dispirited people hanging round outside. If any town planners are reading, I think it would be possible to inject some romance and sparkle which these areas currently lack by introducing the plague, but that's just a suggestion.
Occasionally a really nice building which Goering somehow missed (like the UEL building in Stratford) loom out of the sodium haze, but for the main it was endless strips. In that been-up-for-ages-early-hours-locked-out-of-house frame of mental tiredness, it was all strangely simultaneously indistinct and crystal clear.

And not once was I chased by any women in their undies. It was hardly worth locking myself out, really.

^{*True story}

Comments

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

"Forty quid! That's daylight vibrant diversity!"

You do that noble cabbie a disservice. Considering the time you are talking about, it can hardly be called daylight anything.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have never - NEVER - allowed simple facts or events to get in the way of a halfway decent joke.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

And had that been a halfway decent joke I would agree with you.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You're right, it was much better than that. I do myself a disservice.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

...

Typical Tory spin.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

My statements are endorsed by the independent Office of Humour responsibility.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

Only until March, when that role is to be taken over by Humour Corp. Admittedly in America they are responsible for endorsing Everybody Loves Raymond, Caroline in the City and My Two Dads. But that's no reason to think that they wont succeed over here!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I've not trusted them ever since they gave you a triple-A rating for humour a few weeks before you needed a massive injection of wit from the public.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

What most people don't realise, of course, is that despite my humour failure the government are unable to sue Humour Corp. for granting me triple-A as their contract says any loss of jokes or laughter material can be recouped by Humour Corp. from the government, and nobody wants to see Theresa May, Liam Fox and George Osborne doing their three stooges impression.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

nobody wants to see Theresa May, Liam Fox and George Osborne doing their three stooges impression.

See? Wrong again.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

Yeah... It's the 'All Nude' version.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Still wrong.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's very wrong.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

If senior politicians getting jiggy is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

And not once was I chased by any women in their undies.

I find you need to have something with you to play Yakety Sax on.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I've got my love trombone. Oh, yeah.

[(Anonymous)]

And it's frequently rusty...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It does explain your funny walk.

[(Anonymous)]

When I was at college, all the women in the University received a questionnaire from the NUS Women's Group on the subject of Street Lighting. We had to tick various boxes, and then say "How would you improve Oxford's street lighting?" I put "replace all the sodium lighting with mercury vapour" which would, obviously, have looked a lot better, but when they printed their findings, I found out that my suggestion had been ignored. And that is why these places still look so depressing.

H

[(Anonymous)]

High pressure sodium is less awful, but LED is actually quite nice.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, it would look like Stonegate in York at Christmas, wouldn't it? It would really lift people's spirits. And I understand LED technology is advancing by leaps and bounds. Not that the NUS cares about women's views on street lighting.

H

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's almost like you think the NUS is an organisation devoted to internal political hothousing rather than a representative system for it's members. That's crazy talk!

[(Anonymous)]

Well, in those days the student union was infested by people like Jacqui Smith, whose idea of "improving" the street lighting, as far as I could make out, was to stick up even more concrete brutalist street furniture everywhere to bathe the mediaeval city streets in flat orange light, because, even then, she was mentally unbalanced.

H

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

Hang ON a moment. There is no way you can just casually interject "The last time I was locked out in the early hours, the evening ended with me being chased down the road - twice - by hundreds of women in their underwear like an episode of the Benny Hill show..." without elaborating! It's THE RULES!

Also that reminds me of when, in my youth, I asked a minicab driver outside the Electric Ballroom at 3am how much it would be to Dartford. He gaily shouted "I TAKE YOU I TAKE YOU TWENTY POUND TWENTY POUND!" Bargain thought I... Then halfway down Camden High Street he said, "Deptford yes? Deptford" in an unsure tone of voice and I shook my head. Half an hour later he ran out of petrol and said in a miserable tone "I think it'll have to be more than twenty pound". I actually did feel sorry for him. He also got lost just after crossing the Medway. *giggle*

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

That's hilarious.

I'm from Dartford. I feel your pain.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Tsk! Here you go then: http://davywavy.livejournal.com/147922.html