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.

Harlequins and Dominatrixes in Fitzrovia and Soho

Working away from 'home', my route from Kings Cross took in Fitzrovia and Soho.

I've passed through Fitzrovia countless times over the years, but never by exactly the same route. I always know roughly where I'm going but never precisely, the Post Office Tower acting as a sort of surrogate compass when a reference point is needed.

In Fitzrovia I encountered dipictions of two figures. The first a Harlequin, painted on the exterior of a bizarre toy shop that appeared to belong to an earlier age. Pollock's Toy Museum does indeed date back to the 1960s but it felt like it had been there much longer. The strange Victorian toys in the window display made it more akin to a cabinet of curiosities than a Hamleys or Toys R Us. While in the immediate vicinity of the shop I briefly felt transported back to a different time, a slightly sinister foggy one, with a cane wielding top hatted Lon Chaney figure lurking on each corner instead of a Japanese sushi takeaway establishment. The moment passed as I left the shop's field of gravity and was thrust back into contemporary Fitzrovia. A safer, more sober and less interesting place than in my brief imaginings or it's much written about postwar heydey.

The Harlequin, a character dressed in a mulicoloured diamond costume and usually wearing a black mask, originates from the Italian comedia del'arrte. The character is associated with both foolishness (possibly contrived in order to confuse and cause chaos) and trickery. The Harlequin is also associated with dextrous physical acrobatic skills. A variation on the character arrived in England in the 1700s and a bit later was paired up with the contrasting clown figure, developed by Joseph Gramaldi (who is buried a couple of miles away in the park named after him near Angel, where you can dance on his grave and make it play a tune).  The Harlequin, along with the Jester, was used extensively in the symbolism of Marillion's record covers and song lyrics in the 80s. This association brought about a slightly unwelcome earworm. I needed something a bit more upbeat than Fish's pained wailings at this time of the morning.

The second figure I discovered in Fitzrovia was a grotesque Teresa May/Marilyn Monroe hybrid. An apparition as horrific as it was no doubt intended. The shop it was painted on had closed, the window newspapered up. A situation no doubt exacerbated by the malevolent presence of Marilyn-Teresa.

Parts of Fitzrovia are being disrupted by Cross Rail. A cynic might say a sneaky excuse for getting rid of the remaining interesting pubs, cafes and restaurants to replace them with the latest corporate number nine models.  I noticed, with alarm, that the Sam Smith's pub 'The Champion' was being refurbished. I wondered why, it was perfectly alright last time I went in. The wooden, William morris-ey darkness of Sam Smith's pubs are always welcome places of escape. I hope they don't spoil it. There is another up the road, The Blue Posts and I'm sure I've once been in a third in Fitzrovia but i've never been able to find it since.

The Harlequin, is often characterised as a trickster or devil, a bringer of chaos, the fun sort of chaos.  The Marylin-Teresa figure seemed to represent the exact opposite. An authoritarian order of brightly lit dull piped music temperate horror where you do what you are told to do or suffer the consequences. I'm siding with the Harlequin and will shout him a pint in the 'Posts.

Across the divide of Oxford Street into Soho, I found myself near the axis of Berwick Street/Great Marlborough Street. More depictions of May. In one she is in a band with the Queen and Angela Merkel called 'The Dominatrixes', all three dressed as such. A horrific and disturbing vision which I was still trying to wash from my mind some time later.

On Berwick Street market, things were no less disturbing. Since I'd last visited, the shops under Kemp House, a large tower block that rises above the market, have been hidden behind boarding pending development. On one of the boards were images of LP covers from the Reckless Records shop. Reckless was never located here and still operates down the road. It was a place I used to go to a lot 'back in the day' when Reckless Records own label released a string of LPs by The Bevis Frond, still a musical favourite and a figure intertwined with London as it exists in my head.

Under Kemp House had been Sister Ray, which moved up the road a while back, and Music and Video Exchange which has gone from not far away to where the sign above currently stands never to return. The words, next to the Reckless covers, seemed to convey a spirit of defeat and resignation to the development to come.

I left the market hoping it would still be here next time I visited. Soon after I passed The John Snow', another Sam Smith's Pub, one I've never been in. Named after a Dr who discovered cholera is caused by drinking water infected by sewage, rather than 'dirty air' as was thought at the time. Not the Channel 4 news presenter (Jon).

Soon after I'd crossed Regent Street and New Bond Street and was in the heart of Mayfair. An area I have rarely visited and one I associate with dull exclusivity. From this vantage, Fitzrovia and Soho still seemed like places that still belonged to the Harlequin.