For Amy Elizabeth Scowcroft (14/12/1920 - 20/05/2006)

Eulogy to be given at her funeral - 30/05/2006.

It is impossible to talk through a rich life of eighty five years so I hope you’ll forgive me if I engage in primarily personal reflections. I thought I’d try to explain how important Nana was in my life but that’s bit of an impossible task as well. As I set about preparing this I realised, more clearly than ever before, the depth of her influence.

And as I can no longer tell her, I’m going to tell you.

It is a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars. And Nana bore a few scars. For most of us here it will be impossible to think of Nana without thinking of her husband as well. That’s just the way it was, even death was unable to separate them.

My grandfather died before my second birthday and I have no memory of him. To be honest, this makes it hard for me to have the emotional attachment others do. But over the last thirty one years, Nana built up a fairly complete mental picture for me. Her devotion to him remained as strong in 2006 as it was on the day they married. It saddened her that she lived 31 years without him but in all that time she remained loyal, faithful and committed to their marriage.

Barely a visit to her house passed without some memory of Pop being mentioned, and mentioned in a touching way. And through her he attained a kind of immortality. The future is always rooted in the past and though Nana is now a part of our past, through us she too will attain immortality.

Nana knew that technology would play an increasingly important role in our lives. And I think that Paul and I helped to complete the circle when, on what turned out to be her deathbed, I was able to play her a film of her first great-grandchild through my laptop, a film that Paul had recorded and sent over from Northern Ireland shortly before.

She was thrilled by the film of little Ben because it made her feel young again and she felt better knowing that the Scowcroft name had moved on another generation. She was also thrilled that we had a firm enough grasp of the various technologies involved to be able to show her the film at all. After all, it was a process she started for us.

Back in 1982 she had bought us our first computer. It was a tool to help us learn and grapple with the technology to come. In truth, we should have spent more time using it to conjugate French verbs or understand Venn diagrams but I hope she understood that these 10 and 12 year old boys were more interested in the exciting world of football and cricket computer games.

And here we are in 2006 and I know that IT is a huge part of my work. Part of the A level course I teach is about technology and its development and thanks to Nana’s foresight I have been able to draw upon many personal experiences in the classroom.

Nana’s influence goes deeper still. In 1979 she promised me half of all her money if Labour won the general election. What prompted such a promise is lost in the midst of time. But try as I might there was only so much influence a child of infant school age can have upon the result of a general election. All I knew was that I didn’t get my money and now I had someone to blame.

This was reinforced the following year when through, and I love using this phrase, her contacts at the Ministry of Defence, she secured some excellent seats for the Trooping the Colour. So good, in fact, were these seats that to get to the right position we had to traipse past various Whitehall seats of power.

And so, aged seven, I was openly encouraged by Nana to engage in an act of terrorism as we walked past the front door of 10 Downing Street. Fortunately for democracy, our bags had already been searched and in the end we agreed that there was little a carton of orange juice and a cheese and pickle sandwich would do to alter the political status quo. In the end we simply booed quietly and strode on.

Once I was old enough to appreciate that no one believes in socialist ideals for the money, we often held lengthy discussions on politics. Although in truth this was mostly a means of winding dad up. The more he rolled his eyes at the mention of Ken Livingstone, the more we mentioned him.

And she also inspired a thirst for travel. She travelled to America long before it became fashionable. She ventured to the Middle East, to Israel and the Lebanon before the region fell apart again and she went to Russia while it was technically still impossible or at least impossible for anyone to travel in the opposite direction. But she went, not to gawp at other cultures but to learn from them.

Travel also made her appreciate her home and she could often be found up a ladder, painting, clearing gutters or felling trees. If a job needed doing she needed to do it herself. Although, in the end, this ruthless streak of independence caught up with her. And woe betide you if you tried to visit her on a Friday. Nothing was allowed to stand in the way of her Friday cleaning sessions. Mind you, you were not also not allowed to visit unannounced. You had to phone ahead for an invitation. I used to think I was visiting royalty.

Although her illness caused her pain and sadness, it provided some pleasure too. She was unable to use the tickets to the English National Ballet that I bought for her birthday. And, however much he went under sufferance, I know exactly how proud she was that her son felt it important enough to go in her place.

She was also incredibly proud that both her grandsons have ended up in the public sector as teachers because she was so incredibly proud of her own career in the civil service. There was a time when I thought seriously about following in her footsteps. I wanted to join the Foreign Office but by that stage I was struggling to conjugate verbs for my French A level and as a career it slipped out of view. But the principles of the public sector, the belief that as a family we had been treated well by our country, stayed with us. And so did the belief that those in such a fortunate position could give something back through their labours to help others. Hers was indeed a generous nature in both spirit and deed. And I can only try to live up to it.

I thought it only fair to ask my brother for his memories. He chose to emphasise her sense of humour, often wicked, blunt and honest but always with a touch of warmth. When Paul informed her that she was to be a great-grandmother, Nana replied “Well done, but it’s about time. You two are both Catholics, you should have had seven by now.”

Paul followed this up by writing:


Dear Nana,

Thank you for all that you have done for me. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to see you and say goodbye. I have many memories of being with you:-

The special Christmas cake,
Birthday pictures by the apple tree,
A white Mini,
Welsh Guards uniform,
The view over Croydon,
Mastermind,
Making tapes in your living room,
Washing and fixing a blue peddle car,
Crumpets and scrambled eggs,
Pressure cookers,
Reading tea leaves,
Lemon cake,
Telling Dad off again!,
Working at Oxfam,
Your smile on Wednesday 17th at seeing me and the new pictures of Ben.

All of these recollections I will treasure. They will remind me of you and I will tell Ben all about them so that he will know what kind of person his Great Grand Nan was.

Love always.

Paul.


It isn’t important whether you remember her as a mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, friend or benefactor. Whether she’s mum, Nana, Amy or Joan. A Scowcroft or a Davy. What’s important is that she meant something to us all.

As for me, I’ll remember her at odd times. If you turn right out of what, for me, will always be her house, you will see a wall of trees running up a hill. On the other side of that hill, about a mile away is Selhurst Park. And on alternate Saturdays during football seasons to come when Crystal Palace are underperforming as usual, I’ll look up from my seat and see the hill and I’ll remember the house on the other side. And I’ll remember the wonderful, warm, caring, generous, loyal lady who lived there throughout those crucial years of my life.

And I’ll say thank you.

No. No it isn't.

Bet you didn't see that coming.
Well it is a beautiful day and all the previous comments apply. Add to that the impending issue of Smoke (see links on the right hand side) which includes only my second published piece since various University pieces in a friend attempt at a lit. mag (I don't think I was listening to what he wanted to do and just wrote loads of really juvenille pieces including a series about a man who by day was a stupid, mild mannered Tory MP but by night was a stupid superhero called Parliament Man. Anyway, Smoke, it's really good. No actually it is.
But it's been a hectic week. Even if you take out the Dowie and AJ news (which to be honest, isn't really that important anyway) it's still be a push and a rush. My nephew has finally made it out of hospital! He's home which is fantastic news. But I'm still not up to the trip from London to Armagh to see him. Even with half-term approaching, the journey is too much for me in my current state. So it will have to wait until the summer.
My last remaining grandparent is no longer remaining and the cremation is on Tuesday, so | wouldn't have been able to go over anyway. It turns out that she had primary lung cancer and secondary bone cancer. She was quite literally falling apart. No wonder she wanted to die.
But in death comes hope. For in death she has enabled me to make some serious decisions about my own life. You know, the hardest part of visiting her in hospital was having a dying lady seem more concerned about my health than her own. And so I have to take her views into account and my inability to drag myself into work recently has proved that heart failure and large, unruly inner London secondary schools do not mix and as of 01/09/06 they will not mix. Thanks to my nan (once the will is sorted out) I will be able to take a year or two out and finish my MA. Thanks to my nan I will be able to have another go at living. Thanks to my nan I will hopefully be able to reasses and reorganise my life. Thanks to my nan I have got my life back, at least for a short while.
May she rest in peace.

Is that a rhetorical question?

The sun is shining. I've got the cricket on the radio, England are perofrming superbly as we have come to expect. A long weekend approaches. My weight is at a new record low (still another stone and a half to go before the big reveal though).
What could possibly be wrong on a day like today?

You can't see the other side, where they live

I thought I wouldn’t be around to watch the FA Cup Final today. I thought it might be the first I’d missed since 1986. But then I couldn’t work out if it was 1986 or 1989. I know I was with my mum sorting through grandma’s flat in Hailsham but 1986 is two years before she died and 1989 is one year after. But I know it was one of the Merseyside finals. One too soon. One too late.
Anyway, that thought reached totally immaterial status once cottoning onto the fact that having attended the 1990 final (and replay, bloody Mark Hughes/Les Sealy/Lee Martin/Allan Gunn etc), I was playing cricket in 1991 and football in 1992 (the Student Union should have known better). In 2001 I was at Lingfield Park and can remember very little about some of the others in between, striving for some form of twenty year significance with my last remaining grandparent struggling with nasty, virulent, terminal cancers.
But then I didn’t watch Wimbledon’s win. Or Coventry’s. And in 1985 I was playing cricket for Croydon Schools (very grand) against Sussex Schools at Sussex University (Mark Butcher was our captain, I opened the batting with him and took twenty minutes to get 0 before being bowled by one that barely skimmed the grass).
I guess it just doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not really a day that the neutrals care hugely about. And there’s more live football around the corner. I grew up watching Arsenal’s three straight finals (they lost two, hehehe) but that was when it meant something to watch a live game on television, when you were lucky to even see an England game outside of World Cups and European Championships.
It’s not an event anymore.
Nor is visiting hospital to see relatives in trouble.
I’ve done it too much recently, too many near death experiences (four in the family in just over two years, all different people, no deaths to speak of though). And now the near death experience is a nearly dead experience I find myself empty. Too many close calls and now an actual call. And my reaction? To be an emotional void. Is being practical and logical only possible by being detached?
Should I force myself to be visibly upset? Would that help others? Should you really get ready to grieve for a wonderful 85 year old lady when she has lived a long and fruitful live and now only seeks to die quickly and peacefully? To grieve when death would be a release seems a paradox to me, something designed to make me feel better. But what I want is for her to get what she wants. She wants to die.
It’s her time to go. Why so sad?
And if that's too depressing then here are a couple of pretty boats that went past the flat this week:

The fence is high and wide where we live.

Brief update on life in general.
And the baby is now doing fine. Out of his cot and soon to be in possession of his first two Palace kits (sad uncle thing, had to do it). Little Ben is, after two and a half weeks, out of his incubator and into his cot. Well done little man. And, considering he is one of us, he is a little man. He could make a footballer, hopefully a combative (yet skillful) midfielder. And if he plays in red and blue all the better.
But hey, I'm projecting again.
And my nan is still in hospital and up and down but looks like she'll live. Thought we were doing the one in, one out, thing. Turns out it's everybody still in.
Not sure about me though.
Having sorted out three days a week back at the ranch and been delighted by their attitude, I found I could only do two.
On top of everything else that has happened recently, even after six months on sick leave I am not ready to go back. And I think it is as much to do with where I work as me. I think I know that now.
Although it has taken me four days to get over working two. And I'm not sure it wont take at least another day or two. Which is a pity because those are the two I'm meant to be working.
Anyway, once I find a more interesting way to write all that down, I'll return.
Oh yeah, and (thanks to my decent pay and conditions) I'm now on half-pay (and that was not sarcastic). I appreciate the whole half-pay thing. What I'm not so keen on is having to dash half way across London to collect my half-pay in cash because some inept town clerk forgot to process my pay properly (she admitted it!), although it's hard to dash at that time of day, and then dash to find a bank to pay it into and panic about getting it in on time to pay the mortgage. That was a major load of stress and exertion my old ticker could have done without.
And so the point it, anything that could go wrong, seems to be going wrong for me. But then at least things are getting better elsewhere.
Ah, so conflicted.

The family that wees together, stays together

Well, well, well. Well, well, well. There are now four generations of this family on diuretic. What have we started. It's my dad's fault. He's been on them for about two years now. I followed last October. Ben (six days and counting) joined our club a couple of days ago. Today my nan went into hospital and wound up on the wonder of diuretics as well.
For those of you who don't know. They make you pass urine (oh, how posh was that?). With little Ben and I it's to get rid of excess fluid that the heart is unable to pump round the body and make useful. I think nan has something wrong with her heart as well now so it maybe that she needs them for the same reason.
I couldn't go see her today because of my diuretics. I went into work to sort out my timetable for next week, three days, gentle re-entry, they couldn't have been nicer, more than I expected. I got back to the flat around 11 o'clock and weighed myself. I was, get this, 6.7kgs higher than my lowest weight of one week ago. Think about that. Why is it so high? Well, the consultant suggested reducing the dose of diuretic. I did but for a couple of days only. Also I greatly increased the amount of "work" I was doing. Well, basically that means that I was seeing my nan twice a day, doing her housework, shopping and cooking for her and so on, caring for her while she starts to slip away. And while mum was away in Northern Ireland with my brother, his wife and their new born, I guess I spent a lot of time organising and looking after dad as well. And it was too much. It was all too much. My heart couldn't cope and if I'd kept it up I be back where I started.
So, without knowing that dad was at his mother's dialing 999, I was increase my dose and extracting the urine to extent of 6.2 kgs. Before I carry on I should say that as far as I know, the last I heard was that nan is comfortable. Hopefully dad will phone when he gets home. I'll head over in the morning.
When you piss 6.2 kgs worth of urine over six hours (and I do feel better for it), you can't go anywhere, seriously.
Where am I going with this? Well, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's that I'm not ready to do as much and if I want to live as active and full a life as my nan then I need to slow down now until I am ready. Perhaps I am simply trying to justify my reasons for not going to visit her today. But I promise I'll be there tomorrow.
So I am ready for a little work. But not a lot. And no lifting. Visiting only. Leave the hard work to others or the others will be visiting me.

Don't mind me

I'm just playing around. I've nothing better to do so I'm seeing if I can work out the HTML thingy. There may be a few slight changes while I get the feel of everything.
But the changes will only be slight. Or the whole thing will disappear. Now, now, don't all cheer at once.

Hank the DJ, Hank the DJ, Hank the DJ, Hank the DJ (repeat until funny)

What's in the news? Who cares? After all, if Hank the DJ plays songs that say nothing to me about my life, why should I care what's in the news? I have no opinion to give.
Ben's off the respirator. I have an opinion on that.
Middle East situation bad. I have no opinion on that.
The fluid seems to be off Ben's lungs and he's approaching a normal weight. I have an opinion on that.
My trade union, the NUT, attacks education policy and "cronyism". I have no opinion on that.
And neither should you.
Look about you, look at the things that happen in your life and try to make them better. Have an opinion on things you really care about, things that affect you directly, things that are central to your life. If it's isn't something you can touch then forget it, get a good night's sleep instead.
So far so good Ben. I'm sure Hank will play you whatever song you want when you are older. Choose well.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight (part two)

Click on the title to see my other blog for part one.


One dimension male time. Best way I could cope on Saturday was to drink way too much guiness before the match and then drunkenly shout "I love you Ben" everytime Palace midfielder Ben Watson got near the ball (he was superb again, his vision is amazing even if mine was a little blurred).
Of course it doesn't matter that we drew two all having led two nil. It hasn't mattered for a while to be honest. Since my brush with death and critical illness and now reaffirmed by Ben's desperate attemtps to cling to life, lots of things lack the importance they once had. Supporting Crystal Palace in particular is more about being with my friends and on Saturday it was about coping with my nephew's fight for life and with me being prevented from flying out to see him. I am Orville ladies and gentlemen and if the Americans and anyone under 30 thirty doesn't understand that cultural reference then I'm not about to explain the mysteries of a fluffy green ventriloquist's dummy.
Ben is making progress, fragile progress and has more tubes in him then is healthy. And each day he makes progress is a day's progress we didn't expect.
So I'll continue my transference of emotion to ease the pain, but that's fine. Right now I'm tired. Very, very tired. It's a good job Ben doesn't know the meaning of the word.

When there's nothing you can do, there's nothing you can do

APOLOGIES: am currently posting similar things on both my blogs, it's simply a way of using up time. If you read them you'll understand.

No further news on Ben yet. Apparently he wasn't expected to last past the hour so to be nearly six hours old is a good sign.
At times like this when loved ones are so far away and I'm on my own in the flat, sitting around waiting for calls, not a hope of getting any sleep, there's nothing better than switching on E4 to find that Ghostbusters is on, putting on the subtitles and playing Lyle Lovett's I Love Everybody.
For the sheer bear faced audacity, much needed when all seems lost I would like to nominate the following as the greatest song ever written for the next fifteen minutes.
Penguins by Lyle Lovett.
Thank you Lyle. In saying nothing you've said everything for me.
Come on Ben. Keep fighting.

Ben

The news isn't great. For lots of reasons I wont go into, my nephew's life may be short. I am thrilled that he is called Ben, a name I have favoured for a few months now. It's a shallow reason for favouring it. Well, one of the reasons anyway. Ben Watson, Crystal Palace midfielder, he's only twenty and is the most able player I've seen for some time and the player with the greatest potential too. I'll go to watch Ben play tomorrow against Crewe and I'll have to take my contact lenses out because I'll get stupidly emotional.
How is it possible to get so attached to something a couple of hours old? Is it the thought of losing it so soon?
I'll take some succour from seeing Ben Watson play tomorrow, pathetically linking my two Bens. The one with all the ability in the world and the other, well I just hope the other gets the chance to prove he has even a little ability in anything.
So I'll post up a couple of pictures of Ben Watson in the hope that I'll draw some strength from them. And I hope Ben is his brilliant self tomorrow in the hope that my nephew will somehow draw some strength from that.
Sleep well Ben. Fight hard Ben. Don't give up Ben. Be strong. There are many people who love you already whatever happens, who will always love you and I hope in years to come you'll read this and moan at my mawkishness. But then I don't know what else to do.

(taken from Empics - Ben I hope that one day you'll appreciate the image of your namesake stamping all over Robbie Savage)
(from www.cpfc.co.uk)

Guiness Interruptus

Note: posted this on my other blog which is primarily about music. It kind of seems to fit here as well so I'm putting it up. Follow up to be posted shortly.

So, the guiness thing did happen but only for a couple of hours and now I'm back at the flat waiting for a phone call. Big Bruv lives in Northern Ireland and today his wife went into hospital for an emergency c-section, a month ahead of time. It may be nothing serious, it may simply be a precaution but the distance between him and us has made everyone here jumpy and rushing around to find the quickest way to get there from here. With lines of communication stretched we are in the dark and hoping it's all for the best.
With my recent health problems I may not be going in a hurry and I hate that (sorry for turning this into something about me, it wasn't intentional).
On the way back from meeting friends in Greenwich the ipod did it's best to pound away miserable sounding songs, Such A Shame, The Masterplan, Say Something, The Harder They Come and so on. All of them seemingly inappropriate but then I remembered. They're just songs. They mean as much as a bag of chips or a really nice pen. The songs I write about on here do mean something to me, they make me happy for the period of time they are in my head. And so these songs, the titles and their sentiments wont upset me because that's not what popular culture is all about. Disposable, fluffy, hypodermic needle, positive, uplifting popular culture. I feel better knowing that it's there, bugger the message.

Thinking of you.

Continental drift, if you catch my drift

Something bad happened in the world today and I'm really angry about it. Everyone else is to blame but not me. I am so angry that someone could have let something like that happen. Ohhh the world is nasty and horrible and I'm going to vent my spleen on the internet whilst hoping that whoever is responsible (and it could never be me, oh no) is hanged/castrated/tarred and feathered though of course that's too good for them and in my day it wouldn't have happened because we all had guns that feared god and isn't it bad that only immigrants and left-wingers seem to be happy which is exactly why the rest of everyone needs to have guns to keep their numbers down and if we don't they'll be putting bromide in our water and scratching us of the electoral register just like they did under Stalin and it could happen to you because I saw it on the news when they were going on about that bad thing that happened four thousand miles away. Oh yes, the world is a nasty place which is why I'm going to sit in front of my computer and warn everyone to stay in front of their computers and listen only to me because then they wont have to be taken in by the bad thing that happened in the world today.
Perhaps they'll want to know how rubbish my life is and what I'm doing to prevent it getting better.

flkere flkicr flickr fkcdwer or whatever the bloody thing is called

Anyway, whatever the name of that photography website, I'm scared to put any picutres up there because so many are so good. Funnily enough, I've never suffered the same complex on here. Although that's probably because I can't understand the language of most of them and the rest are all spam style business things. Alternatively see commentary on blogs from yesterday (scroll down kid, there's more of this rubbish, lots more).
The point being:
I don't know. However there were some picture of the place where I live and I thought I'd steal them (cough, cough) to put them up here.

They look relatively half decent in the darkness. When I come to sell, I think I might use these pictures.

And for good measure I also stole one of the Woolwich Free Ferry which I continue to have an unhealthy obsession for (don't worry, I don't write down the number of the boat like those train freaks. Mind you there are only three boats so spotting them is slightly easier).
It's a lot smaller than the others. I haven't worked out why yet. I haven't tried to be bothered about even think about working out why yet.


*edited note to self - will of course credit the photographers once I've stopped slapping myself on the wrist and found them again on flicdfskr. Sorry guys.

Join Us

I’m starting a campaign. I hope that people will join me. I want London to be retaken by Londoners. The only people that go to the centre of town these days are tourists, day-trippers, sightseers. Londoners don’t go to town anymore except to pass out in the pubs and clubs. The centre of town is somewhere Londoners go to be seen rather than to see.
Londoners are creature of habits. I have trouble getting friends from one part of town to meet up in another unless it’s Covent Garden or Leicester Square or somewhere else where a pint of beer costs nearer four pounds than three. London has developed cities within cities.
I mention all this to John who suggests that a snappy name is required for my campaign. “What you could do is persuade all chefs, food vendors and other purveyors of consumable goods that they should not sell to tourists.” If I was totally unable to see his irony, it became evident once he spreads his arms and announces to all and sundry that the inaugural meeting of the Campaign to Under Nourish Tourists is about to commence.
“But I stand by my original point.”
“Which was what?” asks John. “That there are too many tourists in London, that locals don’t go to the touristy areas?”
“That is how it would exist in its simplest form. I’m not planning a campaign of terrorism, all I want people to do is to make more of the place that they live in.”
I have these ideas from time to time, they seem to make perfect sense to me. It is only when I try to communicate them to other people that they begin to suffer from a lack of common sense. Like every other former student in history, I was in a college band for three weeks during which time I tried to persuade my fellow band members that they ought to play a song I’d written. Sadly, the song proceeded to sound like the theme tune from the Magic Roundabout as opposed to the radical tune bursting with vitality that lingered inside my head. I should be able to communicate my ideas more clearly being a teacher, but I suppose it is easier to impress my brain than anyone else.
Still thinking about my services to the tourist industry, John looks at me with a combination of sympathy and pity across the tops of two beers.

Is it Thursday yet?

Move along. There is no reason behind posting this up here other than it reminds me of the Ashes (he he he) and of the greatest sportsman of the age (he's on the right people, keep will you?) and I wanted to make sure I had it available somewhere for personal use and not for reproduction for financial gain (will that keep the lawyers away?)

The name of this title is

Advance notice that the smooth and seemless transition from one title to another will be completed tomorrow for although the web address will remain, the title at the top of the page will be The Furrowed Brow until such a time as I decide to change it back. Which will probably be Friday. Unless there's football on tv. In which case it will be Monday. Unless there's football on tv. In which case...

The most interesting things about this blog are the titles

And possibly the really bad grammar.
No, it's the titles. I think.
You can tell a lot about the titles of blogs. You can tell whether or not someone feels the needs to celebrate their religion or their sexuality or their religious sexuality or their sexuality through religion. You can tell if they're a crypto feminist quasi autonomous knitwear specialist cross-stitching obsessive compulsive punning muscle bound freak with a penchant for weird South Korean porn (as opposed to the normal kind?). You can tell if they're a wannabe poet (the worst kind) or a lifestyle guru intent on advertising their talents and your inadequacies. It's easy to spot the angry young men and the slightly annoyed older persons. It's even easier to spot the political types, the opinionated, the people so disturbed by what other people do that can't possibly live their lives without resorting to beta-blockers and suicidal tendencies.
And where do I fit in? Who gives a toss. After all, it's great fun just looking at what is the greatest (there I go again) freak show on earth. It's even more fun to be a part of it.

Here's a first!

A blog that doesn't like George Bush. There are so many on here that revolve around the concept of 'oooh, he is a really bad man'.
Shocker.
Here's a cartoon by Steve Bell of The Guardian about last year's State of the Nation/Union/Whatever address which sums up everything for me.

Check out the Guardian's superb website which updates their cartoons on a regular basis. And if I ever spout political opinions on here again remind me of my hypocracy before listening to what I say because I will be right, oh yes, I always am.

This could be the saddest dusk ever seen

Without wishing to take Wordsworth’s London as the template for this (Richard Ashcroft tried it once, wasn’t totally unsuccessful either), I wandered around London a couple of days ago. I was up in the City to meet a couple of friends for lunch. And I’m specifically referring to the area between the Bank of England and Jewry Street (think Tower Hill tube and you’re about right). Lunch was fine but just walking around, not having worked in the area since the summer of 1992, I struggled to catch up on fourteen years of changes. I like the area though. Mostly because it contains some of the most straightforward and the most adventurous architecture around, not all of it good. Also, the street names are worth investigating although I don’t intend to do that here. No, I was depressed by what I saw throughout the whole day, a sure sign of aging and way too much pointless introspection. Using whatever definition of sad you deem appropriate, here are the saddest things that crossed my mind that day.

1) Groups of boys drinking beer at train stations.

2) People who take soap operas as their primary cultural reference point.
3) London streets where every fifth building is a coffee shop.
4) Groups of men drinking beer at train stations.
5) City gents who walked four abreast along the pavement and expect you to get out of the way and are annoyed when you dare to stand your ground or question their parentage.
6) Men who wear way too much aftershave.
7) London streets where every first and fourth building has a food shop, especially those with one word names like food, eat, snack, snak, and especially Benjys. Time was when Benjys was a pile ‘em, knock ‘em out cheap, turn a deaf ear to complaints shop much loved by those who didn’t earn much. Know they seem to have added themselves to the list of shops that get in everywhere. I walked past twenty plus in the Square Mile alone. They have extended their reach to Woolwich for goodness sake. And the high street (Powis Street in case you care) here is stuffed full of Poundland and mobile phone shops.
8) How sad HMS Belfast looks these days. Seriously, have a look from London Bridge. It’s time for an old fashioned scuttling
9) Men drinking beer at train stations on their own. But then as the Echo and the Bunnymen reunion reminded us all, nothing ever lasts forever.
10) Tourists. No, really. I’ll write some more on this later but it’s a subject close to my heart.
11) And what the hell happened to the Three Tuns on Jewry Street? A truly awful pub but one I went to a lot so to see there has been the now traditional change of name with plenty of painted on chalk writing for the menus is pretty dispiriting.
12) People who write lists.
13) Shit.