Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

We piled out of the Athenaeum Club, Furtle and I, before 11.30 this morning, which is almost unheard of. I wanted to buy acrylic paints and watercolour pencils and she was on the hunt for a couple of books. We decided then, that a brief foray into the West End was in order and in getting there around the middle of the day meant that we could wander around and visit the various places we wanted before everywhere filled up with the world and His Wife.

The tube journey in was sedate enough, though a squabbling middle age couple got on the train at West Finchley. Once it became obvious to the lady of the pair that her other half was not having any of the furore and minding his own business, she settled down to stare at Furtle and myself in turn. A person really shouldn't get into a staring contest unless they are willing to see it through. Long practice has allowed me to perfect the art of staring at someone and allowing my eyes to drop slightly out of focus as I do so, so I can generally meet there gaze without too much of that uncomfortable feeling that staring at a complete stranger often generates. Anyway, she broke the staring contest first and that was that. Having demonstrated my dominance in a pointless pissing up the wall contest, I was happy to show haughty distain until they got off the train at Camden Town.

Wandering into Blackwells, we managed to find one of Furtle's books - a history of nineteenth century London. Somehow we also managed to come away with three others, too: a history of Prussia for me, a history of the First World War in Africa for Furtle (which I shall read, too) and a shared thriller with the unimaginative name The Shakespeare Code. We ambled to Foyles to find Lady Sale's Journal of the Afghan War, but even they didn't have a copy, which is the signal to give up and get it from Amazon.

Thence to the London Graphic Centre to acquire a brush and the watercolour pencils (entertaining Furtle by pronouncing the word as "pen-sill," just because I could). Next a diversion to Forbidden Planet, which yield a couple of magazines and a comic. A wander then, around the corner to Modellers' World (quondam Beatties) in High Holborn where, after a certain amount of "umming and ahhing" I picked up paints reasonably close to those I wanted. I had to substitute, see. Airfix, even in their new kits, refer to 'Humbrol Paints' and give catalogue numbers accordingly. Humbrol went bust a while back and no longer make paints, so I had to make my best selection from the Revel equivalents. A small thing, but annoying.

Feeling peckish by this time, we endangered ourselves and a rainforest by scarfing back a McDonald's with relish (both actually and figuratively) before deciding to walk back to the tube.

The walk to the tube could have gone one of two ways - either by retracing our steps into the West End and back to Tottenham Court Road for the Northern Line, or we could head of in the other direction and then cut across past Drury Lane and pick up the tube at Leicester Square.

Clearly my knowledge of central London's layout is not as comprehensive as I had imagined. The West End, from Belgravia and Fitzrovia to Bloomsbury, via Soho and Mayfair to Covent Garden is known to me pretty much like the back of my hand. I can make a fair stab at places further west to Earl's Court, too, but the City is pretty much a closed book to me. Clearly High Holborn does not go quite in the direction I thought it did, for when we crossed the road to cut across to where I imagined Drury Lane would be, we found ourselves on Fleet Street via Chancery Lane.

This was unexpected. As was our appearance at Ludgate Circus. It was only when we exited onto the Victoria Embankment next to Blackfriars Bridge that I realised quite how far east we had wandered. Still, it was sunny, if cold and we were next to the river and heading west again. Oddly, it was comparatively warm by the river and we enjoyed the walk past Temple to Embankment, with the vistas of the City and Westminster across the loop of the Thames. It did mean that it was close on 2.30 by the time we got back on the train, though.

Tonight we watched the second half of Manchester United's demolition of Arsenal in the FA Cup (which accounts for why it is so quiet in the pub across the road tonight: all the noise will be in happy Manchester and a little further east in north London in Tottenham, no doubt) followed by the enjoyably lightweight Primeval (watch, enjoy, discard and forget) and then X-Files and the episode of City of Vice we had missed a couple of weeks back (my DVDs arrived this morning). This was unexpectedly difficult as it transpires that Channel 5 had shown a couple of episodes out of order, so we had not missed the episode we thought we had. Confusing.

That then, was our day.

I have a couple more pictures of Opus' doings across the Pond, which I must upload and then I can tell the entire story of his American holiday. They are sadly rather small pictures, having been taken on a relatively old camera phone, but they serve to show that a plush toy gets better holidays than Furtle and me at this stage of our finances.

After the events of yesterday, there is a sort of eerie calm over London today. The place is very quiet. I noticed it first as I was walking down to the Tube station at Whetstone: very little traffic – less even, than on a Sunday. The journey in was quiet and a little slow – the train halted at Finchley Central for a few minutes as people are being bussed in from stations acting as temporary terminuses on the Piccadilly Line, either side of King’s Cross (The mainline station is open, but the underground station, a crime scene, remains resolutely shut while the police do their thing). Even then, when we went underground at Highgate, there was plenty of room; no-one had to stand.

At Euston, the change to the Victoria Line was equally easy and quiet. No queuing, a seat to sit on.

Despite the fact that the congestion charge has been suspended in central London, traffic is lower than normal. It is very quiet apart from the occasional police siren.

It reminds me of the day after the hurricane in 1987.

So much then, for the bulldog spirit, or the spirit of the blitz, that the media were banging on about yesterday. People have stayed at home, taken a long weekend. Hardly business as usual.

The terrorists may not have won, and they won’t, but the London of which I was so proud yesterday has stayed at home today. They may not have won, but it looks as though the game has gone to extra time, and we won on penalties.

Additional

I am not suggesting as some think, that London is a city in fear. I am suggesting that all things being equal, the much vaunted "defiant spirit" of the inhabitants is manifesting as a day off in front of the telly instead of getting on with business as usual.

I am quietly proud of my adopted city today. Proud of the emergency services in particular, and of the people in general.

For all the individual stories of horror from the attack sites themselves (and some of the stories have been quite horrific - the bottom of a Tube train being blown out while travelling underground, a passenger being sucked into the tunnel into the path of an oncoming train from the other direction...), there has remained an air of calm, with no general panic, and only very few instances when the attacks took place.

Particularly, the Metropolitan Police and the emergency services have worked quickly, quietly and efficiently, to contain and limit the situation. The continued air of calm and control is in no small way down to these people. Our much-maligned health service is coping splendidly, and people have been volunteering to donate blood and other aid.

Those of us who have lived in London (or indeed any of a number of major UK cities: Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast, to name but three)for any length of time will be aware of the attempts of terrorists to destroy the fabric of life and the morale of the people. It doesn't work; it will never work. People in the UK, no matter their ethnic, cultural or religious background just don't live and work that way. We've faced this sort of thing down before, and we will do so again, if necessary. And I do not doubt that we will.

I am expecting a long walk to work tomorrow if the Tube is not back online. The exercise will do me good.

Most lunchtimes I pop across the Boots on Victoria Street to buy a packet of sandwiches and a bottle of Lemon flavoured Diet Coke for lunch. I usually wander across with a cigarette in my hand and stand on the end of Bressenden Place while I smoke it.

Over the past few months this has afforded me the opportunity to watch the progress of new building being constructed on the corner of Bressenden Place and Victoria Street. Two or three years ago (time flies, I can't remember how long ago it was, now) a bunch of perfectly serviceable buildings were demolished both on that corner and on the block behind it so that a big combination office block/mall development could go up. Since then, the new building on that corner, Cardinal Place has been steadily taking shape.


The picture is a few months old, and the end of the building is being finished off with a rounded top coming to a point where it arches down to the ground.

I assume that the name derives from the fact that it is opposite Westminster Cathedral on Victoria Street (The Catholic cathedral built in Byzantine style, not Westminster Abbey). Over the past few months, as the builders have installed the outer fittings on the corner, and started glazing the building, I have noticed that from that angle at least, it looks more and more like some bloody great steel and glass bird of prey that has landed flat on its belly and stuck its beak into the ground.

I wonder if there's a deliberate architectural pun here; maybe it's meant to be a Cardinal Bird, and is nothing to do with its location opposite the cathedral?

Or maybe it's just my overactive imagination.