Back in the Smoke
Having avoided the return for over 10 years, I finally broke down and went back to my old haunt over the weekend. A family occasion was the excuse but really I felt like a fake, going back to so many memories and another life (younger, fitter, more optimistic).
London has changed very much for the better. The South Bank is unrecognisable, clean, very chi-chi yet still retaining an “edge”. Saw a lot of new stuff as well as old, I hadn’t seen the Millennium Bridge or the Eye and marvelled at the patients of tourists who on a chilly grey July day queued for hours just to look more closely at the clouds. Ah well, we’ve all done it.
Having said all that, I was not a bit sorry to come home. The pace of life is verging on the comical. Young harassed people rushing and banging into each other. Not for me. Not anymore. Of course London is mainly for the young. Full of promise and excitement, something happening on every corner and life, life, life.
What they don’t tell you is that it’s all a fake. You work longer hours there than in any city in the world (official). Everything is overpriced, from seedy bedsits to the Tube. People lie for fun; that Music Promoter you just met actually works in the Mail Room at the BBC. Very Hollywood in that respect.
You learn to love London for what she is, a tart with not much of a heart.
Having spent 2 days in nostalgia land, I returned to the comfort of Manchester with a sigh of relief. Some thought on Manchester to follow (My Kind of Town).
Having avoided the return for over 10 years, I finally broke down and went back to my old haunt over the weekend. A family occasion was the excuse but really I felt like a fake, going back to so many memories and another life (younger, fitter, more optimistic).
London has changed very much for the better. The South Bank is unrecognisable, clean, very chi-chi yet still retaining an “edge”. Saw a lot of new stuff as well as old, I hadn’t seen the Millennium Bridge or the Eye and marvelled at the patients of tourists who on a chilly grey July day queued for hours just to look more closely at the clouds. Ah well, we’ve all done it.
Having said all that, I was not a bit sorry to come home. The pace of life is verging on the comical. Young harassed people rushing and banging into each other. Not for me. Not anymore. Of course London is mainly for the young. Full of promise and excitement, something happening on every corner and life, life, life.
What they don’t tell you is that it’s all a fake. You work longer hours there than in any city in the world (official). Everything is overpriced, from seedy bedsits to the Tube. People lie for fun; that Music Promoter you just met actually works in the Mail Room at the BBC. Very Hollywood in that respect.
You learn to love London for what she is, a tart with not much of a heart.
Having spent 2 days in nostalgia land, I returned to the comfort of Manchester with a sigh of relief. Some thought on Manchester to follow (My Kind of Town).
