Down London Town

Took a walk round London the other day; hot steamy day it was a sunny Saturday June afternoon on this rollin' planet...

Ended up in some streets round the corner from Waterloo station south side of the river. Close to the Old Vic. Streets I had kinda known were there but had never got to before. Something specical about them, forgotten wildernesses in the middle of the city but plenty of space an' light about them. Made me realise London is too big to ever know an' it will always make you crawl at some point into the gutter. To think that you are the king and that there is nothing more to discover about the Smoke is like throwing a rope over a branch of a tree and hanging yourself from it by the neck. Suicidal in other words, mighty foolish. London will never be fully known, as someone with Madness said not so long ago we are just..."dancing in the moonlight, standing on borrowed ground"... Enjoy it while you can but don't get too cocky about what you think you know about it, you ain't a Cockney after all.

Heat. It must have been the heat which left me feeling drained that day. London had been too big for me, walking back across the muddy rollin' river to the north side of town I was having to move slow 'coz my eneregy had left me. Picked up the pace a little while later goin' up the Charing X Rd but there were so many people it got vital for me to get outta there, so I trailed off from Totty an' hit the green of Russell Square via the back end of the British Museum. Ended up eating a bag o' fresh chips in a deserted office doorway, on a little road just off Theolbald's Steet. After that it was as much as I could do to stagger to back my Toyo an' drive on home through the Shoreditch trendies an' the old East End.

That night Tamdin was away and after eatin' light I lay on the sofa as the June evening light hung around for hours and hours. Listening to Winwood's Arc of Diver on the Bose. Had picked it up earlier in the day in HMV, one of their 2 cds for a tenner deals. That and the Tom Tom Club. Back to the 80's big time but I don't mind. Just to hear Spansh Dancer again, Night Train and the title track - now that was a time when ya listened to music and it opened up the vistas of infinity, full of hope on the curve of a midnight sun. Yeah baby, I just lay there tuning into those distant echoes...from so many lifetimes ago. At some point I guess I musta have been trying a little too hard an' I fell asleep. When I woke it was as much as I could do to stagger up the stairs.