19 June 2009
nowhere to sit, nowhere to go, nothing to do
Seeing as I am on another Dr-imposed alcohol ban, whilst the slightly-menacingly-mechanically-named 'proton pump inhibitors' do their work on my snarling insides, it becomes clear once again that London is a city most unkind to those not happily lolling in one of the 7,000 or so public houses that dot the city like beacons of hope to the terminally over-worked, over-commuted and, in lots of cases, just over. Of course it is technically possible to sit in a pub sipping still water (nothing fizzy for me either), but it's a bit like being in a library and realising all the books are simply spines glued together for effect (actually, it's nothing like that, the image just came to mind. Ho-hum). Anyway, it's not very fun, and people start shouting the same thing at you about fifty times and unfunny things get funny for everyone else while you sit there like a lemon, often sucking a piece of the same for want of some - any - stimulation. Bah, look at the self-pity on this one, put it out of its misery already...
But there is a more serious point here involving...gross social and urban hypocrisy! On the one hand, you've got a government desperate to push 'responsible drinking' as the NHS bills mount up, and on the other, you've got a country in which doing anything else after 4pm is almost completely impossible. Unless you're willing to pay £12 or so to see a film, or however much it costs to go to the theatre, there is nowhere to go, even if you've swallowed up a couple of hours already by, erm, eating. It's as if they want everyone not in a pub to simply stay at home, watch Sky TV, bid on ebay and go to bed early so not everyone tries to catch the twenty-to-nine buses and tubes in the mornings. Imagine.
So it's 9pm, let's say. Cafes (minus a few over-crowded ones in Soho) closed five hours ago. Some McDonalds are open, wearing their grim late Nu-Labour upgraded lime-green swivel chairs and hint-of-sauna wood panelling. You'd have more fun building a model Eiffel Tower out of the hundreds of swirling Metros, thelondonpapers and London Lites, so you don't go in. A few of those Tesco Express things are open. You could buy scratchcards and doughnuts. But where to sit? The parks and graveyards are tempting, but often shut or a little bit too dark for comfort. So you look for little squares and plazas, forgetting that we never put any in for fear of public assembly, revolution and that strange game with metal balls that elderly Frenchman play in the evenings.
If you want a piss you're in trouble. Absolutely nobody wants to deal with your effluence, and pubs only do so because they can't get around the fact that they contribute so much to its production. Even when open, sandwich bars and cafes are rubbish at providing bogs, presumably fearing business-folk shooting up in the stalls on their lunch-hours in between bites of avocado and crayfish baguette. All roads lead to the pub. All roads have a bloody pub, practically...I miss the New Piccadilly. Tax breaks for late-night caffs now! Late-night alternatives for the sober minority! More bogs for human beings! There's nothing you can do to stop them weeing, you know!
What a wretched damn metropolis this is, despicable to those it exploits, hostile to those it makes sick and even more miserable to those who are trying to get better. Bah.
Afterthought: and more booths, we want them. Diners where you can just order a drink instead of a frivolous expensive retro-burger. Why are we so horrible to ourselves?! The other side of a protestant work ethic is a protestant play ethic in which 'fun' is getting loaded on liquid anti-depressants whilst CCTV cameras stop you doing anything that the big other might deem joyful in any way. That's it...I'M MOVING TO GREENLAND. I bet they do brilliant things like seal-tipping and ice-carving in the evenings whilst playing three thousand piece Scrabble. Even Marx couldn't think of anything else to do past tea-time: criticise after dinner...? But where, man, where...The bench is covered with pigeon-poo and the tube is already shutting.
