Song to the Sirens
Back home in time for Ch4 news, first time in weeks. August is well underway and the surreal apprehension and outright fear that pervaded the city streets just a fortnight ago has dissipated, in part due to the tragedies and misfortunes that have befallen others in Niger, the hurricane hit Carribean, and yesterdays Greek aircrash. It has diminished further due to the higher human instinct for survival. To survive the threat of terror, but also to survive the torrid media opinion and speculation that prevails, the moral vacuum that threatens in its wake, and the social upheaval these events have instigated here in the UK.
Security, but at what price? Our guardians look earnest in their flourescent yellow macs, but their numbers are down and the personnel look less alert or informed than their predecessors. Pairs of cops still patrol the Underground, or rather they loaf around at the gates, often facing the escalators rather than the entrance to stations, which seems a little futile. Nobody is fooling themselves that it’s safe to move freely, but it’s funny how we all cling to the idea that an official all clear might be sounded.
Yes the summer moves on, in fits and starts, bouts of fair and foul weather, and from a more escapist perspective, on top of the Riviera holiday, one of this summers beloved festivals has passed - with a lot of laughter, and a considerable recovery period. Yes again I gathered with the Big Chill faithful, and several thousand event virgins, in the lovely green fields and meadows of the Malvern Hills, to rock and nod my way through a weekend of wonderful music, slightly sinister narcotics, and 40,000 revellers. Some of them quite mad but none of them, to the best of my recollection, showing much propensity to do bad. I’ll try and supply more details of the festival episode soon, but for now, time to rectify an increasingly desperate living space. The state of this place is far from coincidental... I feel as tossed around and trampled inside as the room looks. But I'm doing okay, my woman is happy and my family are well, and a Cornwall visit is coming soon.
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Updated 11.30pm: Like the protagonist of some eloquently twisted DeLillo narrative, I find myself watching another heavy documentary - on the massacre of the native Hereiro in Namibia by soldiers of Germanys Second Reich, almost a hundred years ago.
I was thinking about my description of London, summertime London, after the bombs. Look beyond the blitz spirit, there's Kens media campaign of 1 London, a city of 7 million Londoners... many of whom have stopped shopping, "particularly on Thursdays" said the news report. During terrorist attacks, and war on terror, it's often the simple people that die, and more rarely those who perpetrate the hatred that fuels terror... the innocents die, and in the west the effect of their deaths are effectively measured in terms of a downturn in retail sales.
So I don't wanna be misunderstood when I say things have regained a sense of normality. Londons populus is a social body shocked and unsettled by a revelation, a collective conciousness of the catastrophic, and although a mutant, extreme and perverse normalcy prevails, you get the feeling that things will never be quite the same as they once were.
Security, but at what price? Our guardians look earnest in their flourescent yellow macs, but their numbers are down and the personnel look less alert or informed than their predecessors. Pairs of cops still patrol the Underground, or rather they loaf around at the gates, often facing the escalators rather than the entrance to stations, which seems a little futile. Nobody is fooling themselves that it’s safe to move freely, but it’s funny how we all cling to the idea that an official all clear might be sounded.
Yes the summer moves on, in fits and starts, bouts of fair and foul weather, and from a more escapist perspective, on top of the Riviera holiday, one of this summers beloved festivals has passed - with a lot of laughter, and a considerable recovery period. Yes again I gathered with the Big Chill faithful, and several thousand event virgins, in the lovely green fields and meadows of the Malvern Hills, to rock and nod my way through a weekend of wonderful music, slightly sinister narcotics, and 40,000 revellers. Some of them quite mad but none of them, to the best of my recollection, showing much propensity to do bad. I’ll try and supply more details of the festival episode soon, but for now, time to rectify an increasingly desperate living space. The state of this place is far from coincidental... I feel as tossed around and trampled inside as the room looks. But I'm doing okay, my woman is happy and my family are well, and a Cornwall visit is coming soon.
------
Updated 11.30pm: Like the protagonist of some eloquently twisted DeLillo narrative, I find myself watching another heavy documentary - on the massacre of the native Hereiro in Namibia by soldiers of Germanys Second Reich, almost a hundred years ago.
I was thinking about my description of London, summertime London, after the bombs. Look beyond the blitz spirit, there's Kens media campaign of 1 London, a city of 7 million Londoners... many of whom have stopped shopping, "particularly on Thursdays" said the news report. During terrorist attacks, and war on terror, it's often the simple people that die, and more rarely those who perpetrate the hatred that fuels terror... the innocents die, and in the west the effect of their deaths are effectively measured in terms of a downturn in retail sales.
So I don't wanna be misunderstood when I say things have regained a sense of normality. Londons populus is a social body shocked and unsettled by a revelation, a collective conciousness of the catastrophic, and although a mutant, extreme and perverse normalcy prevails, you get the feeling that things will never be quite the same as they once were.
posted by johnnytoobad at 7:58 pm
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