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| RTomens, 2023 |
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Since 'lockdown' (or The Great Imprisonment for which no crimes were committed) things feel different - worse.
How?
What things?
(Drops a cube of sugar in his cappuccino whilst sat outside Le Renoir in Kentish Town where, pre-imprisonment, he saw Keir Starmer emerge from the cafe, say farewell to a young man and go on his way - my how things have changed for him, now tipped as our next prime minister!)
Things on the street, the ghostly atmosphere of almost deserted shops, the demeanour of lost souls wandering, wondering 'What the hell's going on?' - well, haven't they always? Probably.
Was there ever a time when people stepped confidently through city streets, content in the knowledge that all was well in the world? I wonder, are most people contemplating The State of the World or just the state of their bank balances, marriages, affairs, health etc...
'Oh look at the state the world's in!' People cry. But wasn't it always so? When has there not been a war somewhere? When have there never been very poor people? The difference today is that we all know about the ills of the world, should we choose to find out.
So, close the internet, then we'll be back to only knowing what we read in the papers...no, best close them too...and TV channels...and news broadcasts on the radio...
Then we'll only hear 'news' from worldwide travellers.
"I've seen the war in --------."
"Really?"
"Yes and it's -------- -----'s fault!"
He continues to give his opinion, but is it reliable?
If we only had town criers they'd probably be biased.
Meanwhile, London is smothered by thick, grey cloud - chilly - people coming to terms with the onset of Winter, already surrounded by Christmas items in shops which seem to be increasingly redundant...ah yes, I do remember a time when you had to get up off your arse to buy something! Now? Laze on the couch in your leggings/tracksuit bottoms, hit a button and whatever you want arrives in the post - magic! Everything comes to those who sit and wait.
It's all in my imagination, this air of gloom...? Why, just the other day, watching a young man walk past with headphones on, I imagined he was listening to Pierre Henry - crazy! I also imagined, once, that teenagers were going out to basement dives every night to listen to their own revolutions in sound, dressed in variations of a clique uniform, dancing to music that the old folk (anyone over 30) wouldn't know about until a watered down version appeared in the charts. In the day they practised making music themselves and made art, or wrote literature that no mainstream publisher would touch because it was 'too offensive'.
Now, today, I tape away on these keys, pausing to sip some coffee...look out the window at the half-open window on the top floor across the street...and imagine what's going on in that room...
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Never say I don't give you anything, right? Here's an old bookmark found in a book in the shop. You're welcome...
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