Tales of two capitals

There is a novel set in London called Neverwhere. The London of neverwhere is much the same as ours but different – the Angel Islington is an angel called Islington, Baron’s court is a royal court.  The effect is to make you take a second look at something that is quite familiar.  You begin to wonder just why it is the way it is and question whether you know the place at all.  I had the same experience recently when I returned to London.  For someone used to the London of “what do you want?  There you go.  Now fuck off,”  Stepping off a plane and being offered help with directions, watching people fall over themselves to assist a new visitor trying to fathom the intricacies of the ticket machine instead of huffing disapproval and being told by a railway employee a cheaper way to navigate the London transport system was a paradigm shift, this looked like London, smelt like London but sure didn’t feel like London and yet it was – it was London in post Olympic glow and hell was it a nice place to be.  This not the first time I have experienced the Olympic effect (I was in Sydney for the 2000 games where like London pre Olympic cynicism gave way to enthusiasm, good humour and general all round helpfulness) and as cynical as I am about major corporate let’s make money fests disguised as we’re a friendly and socially conscious company there was no escaping the fact that the games had brought a lot of cheer to the city.  There was the pride in putting on a good show (and avoiding any fuck ups,) welcoming people from around the world who were intent on having a good time and the joy being able to watch amazing feats of human endeavour on your doorstep.  In these times of austerity it was good to see London getting it’s monies worth from the outlay on flags and bunting being able to use them for the Royal wedding, Golden Jubilee and the Olympics. 

    

It’s not just the Olympic afterglow that’s changed the UK’s capital, London is very different to the city that I lived in for three years.  There are cosmetic differences – the city is cleaner than it used to be (thanks to an IRA ceasefire meaning we can now have public bins) and there are lots of new shiny buildings (the shard being the newest.)  The city has been gentrified – the old warehouses that 20 years ago were beginning to be developed and were as likely to house artists as city elite are now million pound apartments with fancy coffee shops and restaurants below.  Bricklane which used to be just cheap Indian restaurants, ethnic fabric and yummy Indian sweet shops as well as the cheap as chips 24 hour begel bakery has changed.  Yes there is still ridiculously affordable sub continental cuisine but now we are in a world of self conscious retro clothing stores, young designers waiting for their big break and trendy coffee shops that let’s face it can’t do coffee.  Now I don’t want to be a London (or England) basher but we need to face up to reality.  The English can boast many accomplishments – penicillin, the theory of relativity, the works of Shakespeare – but making coffee is not one of them, I’m not sure why but they just can’t do it. Over the course of my week I began to resent an addiction that lead me to pay two pound plus for a bitter hot beverage, drowned in pints of overheated yet badly frothed milk.  Coffee culture is something that’s exploded in London – you could always get a (badly made) cappuccino in Soho and the Edgeware road was the place for the super strong tar like Turkish variety but London is now packed to the gunnels with trendy coffee shops that my daggy self finds too much hard work to be in – by trendy cafes I mean the type that think it’s post modern irony to display pictures of the latest reality TV celebrity next to an artfully thumbed copy of Rimbaud.  The staff are usually well tattooed and trained to sneer at you if you order the wrong coffee before heading outside for a rollie.   

Edinburgh - check out the cloud coming in.

After a week in the sunny, friendly and not quite London London I realised that as fun as it was I couldn’t afford to be in it and headed to another of the UK’s capitals Edinburgh.  Like London Edinburgh was also full to the brim – the Edinburgh international Arts festival being in full swing.  As well as the international visitors milling around the city was full of every type of artist, writers, comedians, actors, film makers, circus performers the list goes on.  Walking down Princes Street I was asked to spare a pound by a poor dishevelled looking person, I wasn’t quite sure if he was homeless or an artist.  Edinburgh is much more a Raji kind of city (aside from the temperature) it’s small, beautiful and very atmospheric.  The people are lovely and thanks to mid century migration from Italy(I had such a head spin when a man named Gino said “what can I get for ya lassie” in the broadest of broad Scottish accents) is a place that knows how to make coffee and in contrast to where I had just left understand cafe culture comes from it evolving spontaneously rather than deciding that now it’s the alternative and cosmopolitan thing to do.  I had come to Edinburgh to catch up with S my old flatmate from Melbourne and her boyfriend H.  S and H are taking a sabbatical in the Scottish capital.  After a long overnight coach journey (I can’t afford British trains) it was a fill up for the soul to be with faces not seen in far too long a time.   Catching up on events and people from home made me very wistful for the easy conviviality of Australia and long to be with dear friends again.  S and H are both, like me, book fiends and over longs nights drinking pint cans of cheap beer we waxed lyrical over our favourite authors and books.  This was all too much for me and realising that I needed to get a bit of book time in me and spent a huge part of my time at the book festival.    

A wee dram

It’s been a while since I delved into the world of books but it’s nice to see that book audiences are the same the world over.  They’re super polite, will laugh at anything – including the lamest of jokes, during the q and a session someone will invariably stand up and start with “As a writer myself” and then proceed to ask the most irrelevant question.  As silly as it all is – I mean books by their nature are solitary endeavours to create and consume so more often than not the poor author resembles a startled bunny in the face of an audience of 100 people but it was fun to share book talk with like minded people and pick up a couple of books to see me through the next few months.

Scotland is famous for so many things – tartan, haggis, deep fried mars bars, heart disease and of course whiskey.  For my “things Scottish” indulgence it just had to be whiskey.  Sipping  a warming glass of the golden liquid in a cosy pub was the best way to warm me in the Scottish summer (I kid you not) and the best was to spend our last night together –it was just a little silly to add beer and prosecco to the occasion.  After too brief a time it was time to leave this gracious city and my dear friends.  With sore heads and promises to see each other soon it was time to say goodbye and once again make tracks.  I hope it’s not too long before I can visit the place again.