London, late March, 2014
After planning, delaying and planning the trip again, I couldn't quite believe I was taking off from Melbourne Airport, then KLIA, then being quizzed at Heathrow at 5am, I fumbled through my explanation of 'self-employed' and 'writer' to border security, out of practice at this exercise in validation. A lone commuter on the Paddington Express, then Bakerloo line, I was ringing AB's buzzer by 6:20am. There I was on the other side of the world, greeted with restorative hugs, strong coffee and peanut butter toast.
I've since been to the top of Primrose Hill where I couldn't get any of the dogs to take an interest in me. Ergo, I am not a dog. I drank an interesting glass of Pinot Noir from Bulgaria (ah Europe) in the 6th floor bar at the Tate Modern... Further on the sophistication of our Northern counterparts, I've dined with dogs on two occasions – one at a painfully chic pizza joint in Shoreditch (locally sourced produce, organic this and that etc), the other a classic Queen's Park pub (fish of unnamed-origin and chips straight from the deep-fry).
AB has taken me shopping on no less than three occasions. AB: 10, to my: one. And art and parks and the tube and the unfortunately named 'Cake Hole' cake shop on Columbia Rd and Zaha Hadid's Sackler gallery extension and a larger than life statue of Sponge Bob at Al's place of work and a disturbing Swiss take on 'social and spiritual petrification'. (Thomas Hirschhorn's Candelabra with Heads)The buzz on the London High Street is H&M's 'conscious clothes' (interesting word choice) and a celebrity 'conscious uncoupling' which I'm guessing is to distinguish it from an 'unconscious uncoupling' which I've heard can happen when men fall asleep in flagrante.
In the backstreets, something has thankfully been done about the coffee problem. Antipodeans have created an alternative to the hegemony Nero and Costa Coffee had over the city's caffeination, by serving good solid flat, flat whites from small, tucked away shop-fronts with a typical aesthetic of recycled wood, occasional danish furniture and cardboard seating. Missing however from previous London trips is broad-accented bar service... Is it that the British need the jobs, or young Australians can now afford to travel Europe on their Aussie dollar? A bit of both maybe. Certainly being Australian prepares you much better these days for the cost of living over here; I have been pleasantly surprised how far my holiday dollar has stretched (which I mention only for its economic interest).
So there has been (fancy) dinner at Dishoom and Saltyard, more-successful shopping in Marylebone (fancy shops), and drinking at Brixton Market and Herne Hill (very hip right now). I've met 'the girlfriends'. Elaine (Fi's) owns a West Ham rubber ducky. And Christina (Jake's) puts up with him and challenges him - which if you know Jake... Seriously, I've been pretty lucky in the friends-with-great-partners-department. I spent a week with Fi in Clapham gluttonising on the EPL, Champion's League and Serie A and am back with AB in Queens Park after making a peanut butter pact to only replenish her stock when I'm leaving the country... Her little yellow Kraft jar of the baddest nut-butter in the game and the ready-made excuse 'oh but I'm on holidays' proved too hard to resist. I've come back fat from London once and I don't mean to compromise my much-loved homies' efforts to get me off the stuff and come back fat again. NO MORE!
Hirschhorn v Harrods, not sure which is more disturbing.