Thursday, December 02, 2004

Out'n about

Exhausted now! It was exciting getting about everywhere, dressed up as if I was a member of the working world. I was at Ilford, Romford, Ilford again, then the City, and Canary Wharf and Stratford and in between catching weird buses that go all over the shop - that one that wanders all over Wapping and ends at Shadwell, as well as walking down whatever street happened to catch my eye.

There were mixed signals of encouragement and discouragement. I can't say I'm any closer to having any kind of a job, but by God it was good to get out and have people to talk to, instead of just looking at the damn dead Internet websites. Even the most rebuffing, facetious and idiotic receptionist cannot be as disheartening as the faceless, soulless Internet.

And now I am so exhausted. So what caught my eye. The Skanska building in Moorgate is STILL being finished. They obviously don't have any tenants desperate to get in there, at the rate they've been going. The food fair on Stratford Station forecourt, where I bought dried sausages. The overly richbitch Thameside neighbourhood in Wapping - hard to believe it is a short walk from the wretched hulk of Watney Market and Shadwell. The boarded up look of the Tobacco Dock shopping centre - I wonder if they've shut down for lack of footfall. Romford looks just as down and out as Manor Park on weekdays, when all the jobless and middle-aged wander the streets in dejection that looks to border suicidal. Oh the London phenomenon of "if you have a job, it's because you're young, healthy and attractive, and you commute every day and don't get to see the ones that are left behind to trawl the streets in unutterable despair". I thought it just affected the ethnic boroughs like Newham and Waltham Forest, but no, it is even very, very obvious in Romford when you step off the train station and go walking up and down the high street.

Oh enough, I'm yawning... gimmea a beer.

1 comment:

loveandtheplanet said...

Oh yessirree, they ARE other worlds. Small minded people still talk of social isolation in terms of the nearly extinct traditional English Class System. But multiple groupings all exist, all living separate lives, buffeted by for any combination of: their fantasies, their ignorance, their physical location, their age, their hobby activities, their culture, their language, their religion, etc., etc.

I really have come to adopt the term "Atomisation" at last, as my favourite description of the phenomenon in this new century. I first came across it in a Michel Houellebecq 's novel which X passed to me to read, and it's taken me years to fully appreciate how much is encapsulated in that word.. (previously mentioned in http://gerrylondon.blogspot.com/2004/03/film-barbarian-invasions.html )