345 to South Kensington

It makes sense to write about local transport first - in London the topic fills our conversations, the printed page, and even the cinema. It is why my 35 hr week leaves me tired as. The underground system doubles as a navigation system - If you’re going to meet someone, chances are, you will choose a tube station as the spot. People find their way around London not by street names but by tube stations, in association with the Mondrian-esque trance inducing tube map. People didn’t know what to say when I told them I was a couple of miles from the nearest tube.

For the first couple of weeks, to get from Camberwell to my work in Chelsea, I would take the bus and then the tube. One upside was the the guide-book-sanctioned experience of emerging from the brushed steel interior to see the Gothic grandeur of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben's tower. Once or twice I tried the 345 bus to travel the four or so miles to Chelsea, and found it took longer than a bus from Nelson to Motueka.

A quiet tube

And I didn’t enjoy standing all the way to work, I didn’t enjoy the feeling of breathing recycled air, I didn’t enjoy spending five quid it on it every day. I didn’t enjoy reading trashy free papers to avoid eye contact. (My sister sent me a text telling me to scan the tube map to find the only station name that contains none of the letters M,A,C,K,E,R,E,L. “something to do on the tube when you don’t know where too look”) So learning how to bike to work was good.

With the help of Sustrans and Transport for London's cycle maps, I bike through Camberwell, two hundred years ago a satellite village, now very urban, with its not-very-trendy bars, 'Sophocles Bakery’; an olive vendor, the smelly Chinese grocery, and evangelical churches. I keep pedalling, overtaking gridlocked cars and buses, through Kennington, dominated by the Oval, London’s second cricket ground. I dismount to navigate the tangled crossroads of Vauxhall (once 'Folke's Hall') I like to see the collection of contemporary architecture here- the very ostentatious spy headquarters, and apartment blocks that look like the construction of a hyperactive child and the new Vauxhall station itself, with token solar panels on the steel rooves sheltering those waiting for the buses.

[photo - Johnnie Blows - licence: CC ShareAlike]

Then I meet 'Father Thames' and follow him upstream past the wasted hulk of the iconic Battersea powerstation, past a particularly hairy and unavoidable roundabout, and to Battersea Park. I hesitate now, as urban oasis is an overused metaphor, but this collection of playing fields, tennis courts, a gaudy peace pagoda, gardens, cherry trees white-blossomed against a slate sky, is my five minute refreshment - and as I reach it, I stop pedalling, and sit up straight and swallow.

Then it's Albert Bridge over the river. Seeing it lit up after dark adds to its charm. It’s an old shaky bridge this one and troops are advised to 'break step while crossing the bridge'. From there it's a short ride across the latte suburb of Chelsea to my work on Old Brompton Rd.

Albert Bridge at Night

There's the question of the danger and difficulty of cycling, but I'll leave that for another post. For now, I just want to dwell on the fact that biking to work makes me feel the city is a much more varied and lively place than hurtling under it does. My 45 minute morning ride takes me from tower blocks to topiary, from grime to glistening marble. Freewheelin.

(unless otherwise noted, images are in the public domain or distributed under GNU free distrubition licence)

Large things in large town

My days in London settle into a vague pattern. Mornings are leisurely, evenings are social, afternoons I usually bus into the city, and experience the first traffic jams of my life. I go with vague errands (buying a phone/tent/harmonica, unrewarding illegitimate busking) but mostly my time in central London is spent walking around and staring at old things: surprisingly low stone builidings; commerative statues and arches of all descriptions; plaques, portraits and palaces. I’m equally attracted and repulsed by the monuments. A giant statue of Achilles made with cannon won in the battle of Waterloo? Bellicose jingoism. More difficult for me is the oft-present glorification of the era of British imperialism.

The injustices of British relations with other ethnicities are still sorely relevant for many. A man waves an Ulster flag among the massive Union Jacks along the Mall. Later I meet a pan-African crowd outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. An impromptu protest has sprung up in the aftermath of activist Toyin Agbetu being released without charge after his pronouncements during the Abolition 200 (ending of slavery) service in Westminster Abbey back in March. Agbetu was arrested while declaiming what he has called the commemoration’s “myopic eurocentrism”. For the interested, here's a news piece on the March event.
The protest today involves a lot of drumming and pretty soon the National Gallery closes their main doors. Sympathetic and curiousI asked one of the protestors why they chose this spot. The protest started at the police station, and ended here partly by chance. My guy thought it was as appropriate a place as any. He gestures around Trafalgar Square. “Slaves built all of this” he says. I talk with him a bit, explain the phrase "kia kaha", (he hears kia kara), then move off to book my tickets for the Globe theatre.

Namvula encourages me to go to the British Museum – to “see all the stuff we stole” I do. The wizened and strangely shiny mummified Egyptian is very memorable. But it is looking at the exhibit of Viking doohickies that something hits me. The complexity of this island’s history. I present a list, familiar to most of you, but important nonetheless:

Invaders/colonisers of Great Britain
????? (Neolithic stuff)
Romans
Anglo-saxons
Vikings
Normans

Then a few centuries later, the mongrel inhabitants of this damp flat island spread an Empire to the antipodes. Bizarre. That’s what I think of when I see Nelson’s column.

Next time I write I will have tales of cycling through the Midlands.

Travellers congregate

(Written mainly on Monday 27 May.)

Temperature on arrival: twenty-six degrees celsius. Temperature today: ten.

What, dear readers, can I say about London? Many of you, I imagine will have been here at some point (bless our middle class cotton socks) for longer than me. I have been here for four days. At the moment I’m missing the wilderness, so let me tell you about birds and stuff.

Twice I’ve walked along the canal towards Paddington – the birdlife in the canal is impressive. Canada Geese calmly patrol the area. Most unusual are the moorhens. They have these amazing feet, with a series of round pads along the massive toes. This allows them, I suppose, to patter along lilypads and sneak through rushes. (I have to practice sneaking through rushes myself, to handle Regent Street. Ha!) By flailing their wings and pushing with these considerable paddles they can almost completely lift themselves out of the water while remaining stationary. Impressive. These dark, vocal birds are bullies: they chase birds twice their size from their very visible nests. They must do the same with predators.

Another highlight was seeing the pukekos. Yes, pukekos are found all over the world (so are sparrows. Hong Kong had a skinny, sweeter singing, territorial sparrow.) The pukekos here are much smaller, about the size of a bantam hen. They aren't of course called pukekos here. Wikipedia lists the names of this bird as: Purple Swamphen, Porphyrio porphyrio, African Purple Swamphen, Purple Moorhen, Purple Gallinule. My favourite is "Sultana Bird" - from the French - talève sultane. Porphyrio porphyrio here have more dark grey and less blue plumage, but they are unmistakably pukekos. They strut and flick their white arse like ours do.

Less similar to the antipodean version are the magpies. Here they are graceful, like large cuckoos, with a long tail. Namvula greets a magpie if it is solitary: ‘good morning magpie, how are your wife and kids?’. Not to do so brings on calamity. The crows are a bit of a favourite. Totally black, it’s as if you are always seeing them in silhouette.

Like most cities, there is not one, but thousands of Londons. Geographically, mine has centered around Ladbroke Grove where I am staying with my cousin Namvula. It is a suburb both refined and quirky. Trees, mainly plane trees, line almost every street (streets with names like Oxford Gardens) My first evening here I saw children practicing cartwheels on the pavement and a man biking with seven dogs on seven leads. Like the rest of London, he had no cycle helmet – hurrah! It makes cyclists seem much more human, much less freakish. I see posters advertising the health benefits of cycling on bus shelters. Good.

My London also has had an African side to it. Namvula’s mother is Zambian and many of her friends I have heritage in that continent. Ore, a Nigerian boy I met liked my beatboxing and we performed together at a talent quest in a South London school. I've heard a South African soul singer, Morrocan gnawa-jazz fusion, and 'Mama Africa' Miriam Makeba. This is a city of many possibilities, a city where it seems no-one is a true foreigner.