The Walker of 'The Worst'.

Recently, Peterborough won the dubious accolade of  'worst place to live' in the UK, as voted for by readers of the website 'Ilivehere.co.uk'. Thus the city beat Huddersfield and Rochdale (2nd and 3rd place respectively) to be named most 'crap town' in Britain. The news quickly spread and was replicated in The Cambridge News, The Sun and The Daily Mail. Lazy list journalism with pop up ads.

The concept of 'crap towns' was brought to the fore a few years ago in the publication 'The Idler', along with 'crap jobs'. Books followed on both, handily sized for the toilet library. Around the same time I remember borrowing a book from the official library, title and author long forgotten, in which the protagonist visited various provincial towns and gave them similar reviews to the sort found in 'Crap Towns' before returning to London and vowing never to visit the provinces again. On the back of the book was a cartoon of a map of the UK with a weatherman pointing his stick. The 'outlook' was steaming turds at various intervals, replacing the usual suns, clouds and occluded fronts.

'Ilivehere.co.uk' is, dare I say it, a more crap version of the original 'crap towns' stuff produced by The Idler. If you can bear to wade through the advert ridden pages and constant pop up requests to 'like' them on Facebook, you will find readers scathing reviews of towns and cities they have lived in or visited. The Idler and the forgotten crap map writer did it better. But there was always something a bit mocking patronising and smug about the concept.

'No Town is a crap town if you learn to look at it without faecally tinted spectacles', wrote Jonathan Meades. I think he's got a point. To the eye of the urban wanderer, or architectural observers like Meades or Nairn, all towns and cities have things worth 'noticing' and and have interesting things to offer, as well as things they would be better off without. Although, to be fair, Jonathan Meades and most urban wanderers are transitory and do not have to stay. For those stuck in the crappest circumstances the perspective is no doubt different. Crap circumstances - shit housing, lack of employment opportunities and poor amenities - exist in all towns and cities (and villages) to some degree, some just have less of them or are better at hiding them than others.

This brings me back to Peterborough. The city has been much maligned over the years. It can't be denied it has elements of the stereotypical crap town aplenty.  A profusion of chain stores in the centre  and particularly in the monolithic 1980s Queensgate Shopping Centre. Street drinkers congregate and argue at the abandoned statue plinth at the Rec before leaving behind offerings of crushed Superbock tins and fag ends. The intermittent (in the centre at least) cycle lanes/paths are ridden on badly by iffy looking blokes in hoods on crap mountain bikes. People don't smile much. But these phenomena are hardly unique to Peterborough.

In the early 80s there was an air of optimism surrounding Peterborough.  Designated a New Town in the late 1960s, the city  was still expanding. The Queensgate had just been opened, by Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands no less. The actor Roy Kinnear beamed cheerfully  into the camera whilst dressed as a Roman Soldier during a TV ad campaign promoting the city. And in 1984 sculptor Antony Gormley was commissioned by the Peterborough Development Corporation to produce a work entitled 'Places to Be'. The title seemingly reflecting a vision of the city as a place at the cutting edge, a city of the future where life would be exemplary.

Gormleys offering to the city consisted of three human figures. One has it's arms outstretched to the sky as if praising some unseen deity (Peterborough Development Council perhaps?). The second with its hand shielding the sun from its eyes gazes into the distance, possibly towards the future (or maybe these days towards a lost future of Newtown utopia). The third, and possibly the most interesting is a walker.

The optimistic visions of The Peterborough Development Corporation, Gormley and Roy Kinnear did not quite turn out as planned. Perhaps symbolic of this was the vandalism of Gormley's three figures in 2006 when they were sited in the City's Thorpe Meadow. They were subsequently relocated out of reach on top of three buildings in Cathedral Square.

The Walker strides across the roof of Queensgate, free from the bustle inside. Heading toward and beyond the Cathedral. Maybe striding out of the city in disappointment that the Utopian New Town vision didn't quite come off and seeking to avoid further encounters with vandals. Or alternatively, a symbol of the possibilities of walking the city beyond the obvious, centrally and beyond to the outer reaches of the borders marked by the 'parkways' and cycle Green Ring. I hadn't been aware of The Walker until now, about a year after I became a commuter to Peterborough and vowed (and failed) to spend most of my lunchtimes exploring the area within  a thirty minute radius of work. I'd quickly lost momentum on the project. The sight the sculpture provided a renewed optimism. There were still things unexplored and to be 'noticed'. I needed to get back out there, making the most my limited workers lunchtime. Underneath the Walker I made a New Year's resolution to get back on track.  From this perspective Peterborough didn't seem such a crap town but one that requires deeper explorations.

Clapham to Bloomsbury: Not taking the direct route

I arrived at the venue at Clapham Junction to discover the training course I was due to attend had been cancelled. Others were annoyed about this. Admittedly it was all a bit inconvenient, plans had gone awry and if people were to travel back to work it would hardly be worth it. A day wasted! So I kept to myself the recognition of a golden opportunity for a slow drift back across London to eventually catch the train home, sometime after lunch. It seemed the obvious thing to do to me. But I knew others would consider it unusual, maybe baffling and possibly even reckless and irresponsible to embark on such acivity rather that try to get back home or even work as quickly and directly as possible.

The poster I saw later somewhere near Hyde Park appeared as sign of solidarity.  As if put there by a support group offering self help memes for psychogeographers and flaneurs. Support for an activity some might consider a bit immoral: an act of idling, inefficiency or time wasting. Of not taking the direct route.

Prior to this revelation (the relentless sun, the need to pee and for a drink of water possibly intensified the importance of the notice), my wander had commenced at  Falcon Road and through a bit of Battersea. Here I got earworm of the song 'Up The Junction', from the 60s film which was set in these parts, which intensified each time I approached a traffic junction. The frequency of traffic junctions seemed higher than normal.  The song faded as I came across a way to the Thames Path, around the side of Falcon Wharf, a large Ballardian appartment building.

Heading into the Thames Path involved skirting the base of the building, which appeared to house a high end hotel and appartments with amenities including a 'wellbeing spa' and a 'baketique' according to the signage. Haven't spas always been promoted as having associations with wellbeing? As for 'baketique', I had to look that up and discovered it is a term for an establishment selling American cupcakes. The internet says this one is permenently closed. The recent cupcake craze is evidently at an end. I've never been sure of the difference between cupcakes, muffins or 'buns' as my nanna called the ones she made. My nannas only came in chocolate or 'plain' flavour. Cupcakes meanwhile seemed to be available in an infinate variety. Too much choice possibly confusing even the most 'sophisticated' consumer was probably their downfall as much as price and sugar content.

Round the corner, a posh woman was rebuking a young man who had been cleaning the railings and then proceeded to empty the contents of his bucket into the river. She'd approached him and told him what he had just done was illegal. Maybe it was. But I'd have thought his 'crimes' would pale into insignificance when compared to the history of people polluting the Thames and I doubt he will be responsible for the next cholera epidemic or doubling in size of London's Fatbergs.

Not hanging about to witness the outcome of the womans overzelous intervention, I carried on along the river path past several new developments I imagined were designed for the 'exclusive' end of the market . A notice politely asked 'please keep off the grass'. The grass in question was a narrow strip so small it seemed barely worth maintaining and the sun had done it's best to bring about its demise.

Across the river, I had noticed a cluster of tower blocks. Rather than the usual grey concrete, or modern steel/glass they appeared to be made out of brown brick. A high rise version of Wentworth Prison perhaps. Or maybe more exclusive flats, from an earlier period. A Sloan Ranger Thamesmead.

The effectiveness of 'business watch' looked in doubt, the eye on the fading notice deteriorating as if afflicted by a cateract.

I carried on without observing much else of interest until I got to Chelsea Bridge. I'm sure there were things to notice but I'd gone into a sort not-noticing state, a combination of the rythm of walking gently and the brutal heat as time moved beyond midday.

After a random bus ride across Chelsea Bridge to somewhere near Victoria I soon found myself at Hyde Park Corner, where a Lion and Unicorn were engaged in what looked like a combination of mortal combat and ballroom dancing. The Lion's mane appeared to have faded from red to yellow in tandem with the faded grass in the park. The Lion is meant to represent England. The fading of its mane possibly symbolic of the English inability to cope well in hot weather. The Unicorn is supposed to represent Scotland. The Scottish get even less sun than we do, but the Unicorn appeared unaffected...

From this point my walk took in numerous other figures and statues. The Colossus above seemed to be standing in defiance of the towerblock opposite. This isn't shown that well in the picture, but I couldnt get an optimum angle due to some excitable Italian kids playing frisbee around the base of the statue. The shield from this angle resembles a large friabee, or discuss, which may explained their presence.

Out of Hyde Park and onto the concrete square of Marbel Arch, I came across a behemothic green something. A giant headless semi-amorphous beast from an imagined collaboration between Ray Harryhausen and Salvador Dali appeared to be heading towards me. The square was like a 60s concrete version of a classical square, the Marble Arch looming over it. The sort of place Sinbad or the Argonauts would fight beasts or animated skeletons if they were living in a semi-brutalist age. Voices sought my attention. Not skeletons with swords, or allies in the fight against the giant beast, but tourists wanting me to take their picture in front of the Arch. I obliged, hoping I'd pressed the right button on the camera before wishing them a good day and leaving the square.

Along Oxford Street I fell into line with the tide of shoppers drifting in the direction of Oxford Circus. Looking up, the splendid art deco statue of the winged figure above Selfridges looked like another Harryhausan creation. I half expected it the creek into life and fly across the sea of shoppers and tourists who were probably too focussed on the ground floor to have noticed it.

Soon after crossing Oxford Circus I headed left into Fitzrovia/NOHO and soon located The Champion where I stopped for a swift half and a bag of crisps. I was glad to see it looked barely any different following its recent refurb, and still offered haven of welcoming dark brown and shade. Particularly welcome given the intense heat and bright sun outside.

I resisted the temptation to visit the Blue Posts or the Fitzroy Tavern and wound my way towards Tottenham Court Road. I followed a narrow passage which emerged into a courtyard. On a platform outside a first floor window was an unusual display. A strange boy like figure breaching towards a manequin, with a cast of supporting but no less odd figures dotted about, inside a white frame. What this meant I had no idea. I continued down the passage and out eventually of Fitzrovia.

Not long after this I found myself in the vicinity of the University of London and the streets around Mallet Street where the ULU building still seems to put gigs on.  The buildings are large, flat roofed and brown  sporting crittle windows. This brought to mind images of boffins in white coats huddled over testbtubes or bearded, rollnecked open university types standing in front of writing beamed from an overhead projector onto a wonky screen.

Along this stretch somewhere I saw the message below on a telecoms/electricity box. What is to be opposed is a far right organisation. I'd not heard of them so googled the term, only to find I was being diverted somewhere within 5 seconds. I twigged it was dodgy and further Google searches confirmed the worst. Before this I had assumed it was the work of people not wanting to be labelled 'millenials', ' gen x' or babyboomers etc, given current attempts to divide people by generation as well race, sexuality, gender, class and suchlike.

Emerging from the University area into Tavistock Square I passed The Tavistock Hotel. I was familiar with it, having stayed there a few times many moons ago. It was one of the few London hotels within our price range. It was a bit like going back in time to it's 1930s(?) art Deco era. The waiters and waitresses in the large breakfast room.were dressed in black and white, and appeared to have been there for an eternity. There was a satisfying ever so slightly damp smell in the rooms which had not, thankfully, been modernised. My last memory of the vicinity was going the the Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes located in the basement on one corner of the hotel, to see The London Dirthole Company. There were people playing bowls while the band played i think. Sadly I didn't stay in the hotel on that occasion.

A final pertinent message from Virginia Woolf, echoing the sentiments of the Hyde Park Poster, was quoted via the hotel bar windows: 'The Streets of London have their maps, but our passions are unchartered. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner?' The ghosts Bloomsbury were on my side,  advocating not taking the direct route.

Eyes don't lie at the Rec

A barmy morning, I took a slightly convoluted route to work. Only an extra 10 minutes added to the 'direct' route but enough time for a diversion from the norm.

This resulted in crossing the Stanley Recreation Ground. In the morning sun it looked enticing from a distance. Upon reaching its edges, I made my way across a desire path towards the main 'official' path. The rec felt quite pleasant in a rough grass slightly littery sort of way. No manicured straight line gardens or park keepers here.

I came across what looked like the base of a missing statue. I imagined a stone figure becoming animated and extracting itself from the base before wandering off across the grass in the manner of a Ray Harryhausen creation. The remaining base resembled an altar, with a few offerings of empty beer cans and fag butts placed on or around it. Not far away a group of people occupied a bench which had a far more impressive array of similar detritus strewn about it. People for whom 8 in the morning wasn't too early for a tin of brew. Disciples of the missing statue, perhaps.

Leaving the Rec I passed the 'official' notice board. Pretty much unused apart from by the City College who had stuck a few random notices behind the glass in 2016. Some unofficial additions included a black and white sticker bearing a mysterious symbol of a four pointed star or possibly a compass. Possibly navigational, but if so too cryptic to be desiphered.  

I didn't notice at first the quote from Al Pacino in Scarface graffittied across one side: 'The eyes Chica, they never lie'. Out of context, on  rec in Peterborough, this sounded more like a warning than advice on picking up women for Cuban gangsters. Similarly cryptic to the star/compass. Pondering this and the similarly baffling statue-altar I left for work.