More money than time honey
This attitude affects how the majority behave here in London. People don’t clean, they pay cleaners. People don’t make coffee, they go to Starbucks. People don’t go to each other’s houses for dinner, they go to restaurants in central london that can be reached directly by one form of public transport. Anything that requires two or more forms of transport, like a tube and a bus, is just too expensive in terms of time.
London is a city focussed on outcomes – not people, not processes. I have resisted this attitude in small ways – having regular updates with the off-licence (corner store) guy, the espresso stand guy, the conceirge of my office building etc. Travelling has given me the penchant for making conversation with people, for finding connections, for escaping the drudgery of programmed yes, no, thanks conversations. But London on the whole is angular, bright, dark, fast, towering, loud, and sometimes deafeningly silent.
I have begun to adopt the barely-contained-panic shuffle and tutting-irritation mutter of fellow London tube-users. The self-important, escalator-step-leaping, espresso-induced-hysteria that animates desperate sprints for the departing train, despite the fact that they run at 2-minutely intervals.
Highlights in this working holidaymaker’s London stop have been:
– getting corporate box tickets to an Australia vs. NZ football (soccer) match, guzzling down champagne with other ex-pats and listening to Midnight Oil at half-time
– getting lost on my way to work, only to realise that I work just around the corner from Westminster Abbey, House of Parliament, Big Ben and opposite Scotland Yard
– French wine bars in Covent Garden with new friends, slapping thick wads of fancy cheese on the endless supply of baguettes
– lunch in a ray of sunshine in St James Park with all the other barefoot workers, stretching out for a few minutes of exile from the desk
– drinks or dinner overlooking the Thames by evening light
– discovering second hand book fairs and markets in every corner of the city
– the freedom of anonymity, playing in a city that feels like tonight, it is just for us!
Tags: England
Jyai