I worked in London from November 2000 to September 2002.
London is too complicated to love. It’s too complicated to hate.
Here’s a sample of some of the things I saw.
1 May 01
Today I saw shops, statues, and monuments boarded up as protection from rioters. Everyone just carried on shopping, right up until the police closed off the street. The following day, all the boards were down and life was back to normal. 3 weeks later, Churchill’s statue was still boarded up but no-one wanted to buy it anyway.
June 01
Today I saw the street outside my office evacuated because of a bomb scare. Everyone was looking out of the window, noses pressed up to the glass.
July 01
Today I saw anger. A woman was yelling and screaming at someone next to her on the Tube. I’ve never seen anyone so angry with a stranger before; it’s easy to see how people get killed in cities. Everyone else carried on reading.
July 01
Today I saw a little girl staring. She was melting on her mother’s knee on a tube train on the Bakerloo line, while her mother tried to cool her by fanning her with a book. Everyone was sweating in the thick air. I had a tiny electric fan from M&S, so I gave it to the woman; it seemed to help, the girl stopped staring anyway. A few weeks before that, a train on the Central Line had been stuck in a tunnel for nearly 2 hours. When the people got out there were ambulances waiting with water. Someone I work with had been on the train; she said people were just weeping with fear and heat. Someone will die there one day.
30/8/01
Today I saw Bloomsbury’s parish church. It was a mess; all the stonework was either black with city grime or crumbling away. Inside, the walls were white, the windows stained but stained, while the ceiling was painted in decorative gold. Pews for 120 people, balcony for a choir, a space as high as it was wide. The 40 or so regular worshippers are in for a treat - the vicar is expecting to get a grant for £3.1M to do it up as a “building of worldwide historical value”. I wonder if the world will notice.
5/9/01
Today I saw someone selling The Big Issue in London. I bought one and the vendor was really appreciative; it made me feel like I’d done something others didn’t, and I felt good about that. The back page had an advert for designer beds, handmade by craftsmen and delivered to your door. But not doorway, I guess. Later I spoke to someone who knew a little about the Big Issue’s organisation. It seems they train vendors to be really appreciative to make purchasers feel that they were doing something good. I didn’t feel so good about myself any more.
11/9/01
Today I saw American business people watching TV, gasping as one when each new item of news came in about the 4 crashed planes. They were channel-hopping, desperate for information. A reporter said that some people had been seen leaping from the World Trade Centre from as high as the 80th floor, “clearly still alive”. Someone quipped that they couldn’t throw themselves down if they were dead, and everyone laughed. But later they were hugging each other.
14/11/01
Today I saw St Paul’s Cathedral. It’s very, very big inside. £5 to get in was a bit of a surprise, until I saw all the staff on hand making sure no-one trashed the place. Went down into the crypt. Directly below the very centre of the dome, just below ground level, is Nelson’s body. There’s an extract from his journal: “May humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet.”
20/11/01
Today I saw Westminster Abbey. It’s a cramped, untidy jumble of a thousand years’ worth of the graves of kings & queens, lords & ladies, and all sorts of noblemen, women, and poets. Walking back past Whitehall, I saw Anne Widdecombe giving her autograph to some girls. They had no paper with them, so she was writing on their MacDonalds paper bags.
March 02
Today I saw sights. I passed a class of schoolchildren with their clucking, stressed teachers just in front of the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. I walked on up past Piccadilly where a man danced silently on a statue of Eros while a hundred or so onlookers and police watched, on up past the affluence of Regent Street, down the shabby Carnaby Street and over to Berwick St. It has an excellent outdoor fruit market, though today the men seemed more engrossed in the card game they were running in a doorway. At the bottom of the road, a vagrant slept at the door to an erotic club, while a few yards away a lovely-looking girl stood singing to herself under a sign which read, “Girls”. I passed another class of schoolchildren by the Portrait Gallery; not suprising, there’s so much to see.
April 02
Today I saw business as usual in London. I walked from The Mall across Horseguard’s Parade, onto Whitehall and down to Westminster. Tourists looked happy and suits looked important. This was 2 days after the Queen Mother’s funeral, but you wouldn’t have guessed.
1 May 02
Today I saw Mayday protest marchers in London. I had a bird’s eye view from Trafalgar along the Strand which was packed as far as the eye could see. One banner read “Camden pensioners action group”. The atmosphere in the square was like a carnival with speeches galore and riotous applause, but an hour later everyone was bored. On the news all they showed was a bit of fighting and none of the speeches. They didn’t show the man walking across Leicester Square carrying a ferret, either.
