Category: London

Dude (Looks Like a Lady)

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Friday night in The Cow. ‘I got a new job, Mr Gray, have a glass of champagne with me’.  ‘I’d rather have a Talisker – just waking up actually, I dozed off waiting for you’.

I approached the bar tentatively.   ‘I’m celebrating, Luca.  Have you got some freshly opened champagne please?’  ‘Lunchtime’ he replied with a cursory glance over his shoulder as he reached for the bottle.  He poured me some to taste.  I nodded.

‘I’ve said hello to our waiter – I shook his hand in fact, then I had a chat with Luca – he was very smiley’ said Gray.  ‘He loves you’ I replied. We looked at the menu. There had been a makeover – ‘Bloody hell Gray it looks like a financial services corporate brochure – what the hell is going on?  It’s everywhere! You just can’t get away from it’. We ordered the devilled mackerel .

Gimme All  Your Lovin’ boomed out of the loudspeakers followed by Dude (Looks Like a Lady) – we head banged.

‘Pudding?’   We looked at the blackboard.  ‘Hmmmm,  a chocolate pot with raspaberries’.  Thank goodness:  I was beginning to think order and the corporate world had got the better of The Cow.  ‘Thing is if we get that we might have to send it back on the grounds that they give us raspberries and not ‘raspaberries’ – too risky’. ‘Let’s try the apple strudel with the ginger ice cream’.  It came and we ate it. The waiter, he of ‘Cramblegate’ said, smiling  ‘Oh, I see you like this one – you finish it’.

We paid. Mr Gray helped me on with my layers and we headed to the bar. I needed to ask Luca if I could reserve a table for my birthday.  Given the shenanigans on our last visit, I wondered if this would be possible; I needed Mr Gray by my side.  ‘Luca, I was thinking….?’   He looked at me, no smiles, ‘No, we can’t reserve’.  I nudged Mr Gray.  He smiled at him.  Luca smiled back:  ‘No, we can’t do it’.  Someone bumped into us.  We looked behind to find a man staring intently at the whiskeys laid out on the bar shelves with a friend at his side. ‘I think those are two of the Chilean miners behind us’ said Gray, ‘Go on, ask him how he coped’.

We left, and despite the tepid reception, I knew there was no place I’d rather be for my birthday.

Thursday night at The Cow

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I arrived 20 minutes late to meet my friend Mr Gray, and gave him a big hug. ‘Don’t stop’ he said, ‘This is the closest to sex I’ve had in months’.

I went to the bar to order drinks.  Two old dapper geezers with hats, waistcoats and twinkles in their eyes looked over ‘Jeez, it’s about time he turned up, Love; it must have been awful waiting so long for him’. I laughed as Luca reached for a couple of glasses behind the bar – and in the process of doing so smashed them.  ‘What the…..!’ one of the men exclaimed ‘Ah, leave him alone for God’s sake, he’s in charge, he can smash the bloody glasses if he wants to’ his mate replied.

We ate mackerel and samphire.  ‘I’m still hungry P – let’s have dessert’. We ordered sticky toffee pudding.  I asked the waiter for ice cream with it.  ‘OK, we ‘ave jeannejer, hasslenut and strouberrie’ he said, sweeping the crumbs off the table onto the floor. Mr Gray looked at him: ‘What?’

The pudding arrived.  ‘It’s stale Mr G, stale and heavy’.  ‘Leave it to me’ he replied and off he went to see Luca at the bar who shrugged and re-ordered crumble for us.

The waiter flew past again.  ‘Please may we have ice cream with the crumble?’ I asked.  ‘Eets finish now, no ice cream, ze cabbler will be ‘ere in a moment’.  ‘Cabbler? Cabbler?’ I asked Mr G.  ‘I think he means ‘Cramble’, Mr Gray replied.

Dessert no. 2 arrived with a dollop of cream on top.  ‘What’s it like, Gray?’ ‘It’s cold and it’s heavy’. ‘You can’t send it back again’. Luca arrived on the scene.  Gray waved the bill at him ‘We can’t pay this Luca, but we’ll have two single malts please’.  Luca gave him a cursory glance and threw the bill on the floor.

A huge platter of fruits de mer arrived for the guys sitting next to us.  As they plundered the shells for food we looked on.  Finally, unable to resist, I said ‘Was that enough for you?’  ‘No’ he replied as he fished for another whelk, ‘We will ‘ave some meat now’.

The music cranked up and we cried with laughter at the goings on; I’d forgotten what a top night out The Cow can be.

I complimented Luca on the evening as we left and apologised for the pudding debacle. ‘It’s OK’ he replied magnamimously. ‘And, the tunes, Luca, the tunes!  What happened?  In the 15 years I’ve been coming here you only ever played reggae – apart from Paddy’s day.  Are they from your ipod?’ ‘Yeah, mine – and Tom’s’ he replied ‘It’s 2010 now; things have changed.’

Who dares, wins

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Heading into town yesterday on tube strike day I felt smug as I managed to get on a bus that wasn’t packed to the rafters like others that had sped by without stopping.  There was a sense of adventure and resourcefulness that is palpable in London when this happens. 

As the bus drove on we passed crowds of people hiking down Edgeware road at a determined pace.  Trainers were on, rucksacks mounted on backs – some people were even running.

I watched as our bus pulled up and two girls jumped on. ‘This’ll get us to the end of the road, then I don’t know what we’ll do’.  Suddenly they sprang up –‘Wait did you see that one – that one takes us closer – quick run!’

I got off at Marble Arch hoping to catch a bus all the way down Oxford Street. As they trundled past me with faces pressed to the glass, I realised there was no chance and surrendered to a longish walk.

A man charged past, on the phone, his pink shirt sticking to his back with sweat: ‘Hi Darling. This was so stupid of me. I don’t know why I did it – honestly!  I’m coming up to Oxford Circus now’.

Two tourists stood in the melee that was the pavement on Oxford Street – laughing in an exhilarated fashion: ‘Here take a picture of me! Take a picture of this!’

Boris bikes passed with helmetless riders.

A man held up his iphone – checking he was going in the right direction.

Outside Top Shop I passed Seasick Steve – an engaging act on the festival circuit this summer, having a leisurely chat with two fans; checked shirt, faded jeans and gnarly beard all intact.  I looked back,  smiling, as a man beside me remarked: ‘He’s with the guy who took the photo’.

I decided to treat myself to a cuppa after my hike.  The queues in the cafes were enormous;  everyone with the same idea.  But, it struck me that while being inconvenienced is a pain, the tube strike does seem to bring a sense of openness to London town – and that’s refreshing.

Breakfast

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With one meeting down and a full day to follow, I headed into my local café to pick up some sustaining breakfast and more importantly my morning cuppa. The day was airy and fresh – signs of weather to come, but bringing with it a sense of calm to London town.

C was at the coffee machine and just finishing the hearts on two lattes. He greeted me:  ‘Hi P, how are you? – what can I get you?’  ‘Morning C, I’m really well thanks. It’s got to be a green Oolong please – and some of that delicious brown toast’.  ‘Okay, but have you tried the ‘Laoshan?’ ‘Here, smell it’.  He opened a tin of Laoshan and one of Oolong and handed both over the counter. ‘Oh, and what about the Genmaicha – have you had that one yet?’  He said as handed me the tin.

I looked into the tins and smelled them one by one. There is something very relaxing about the scent of tea this special.  ‘Hmmm, that Laoshan is a bit sweeter – no? Maybe nice for the afternoon. And the Genmaicha is lovely, but a bit too toasty for my morning cup – I think I’ll stick with the Oolong please’.  ‘Yeah, you’re right the Laoshan is a lot sweeter – kind of fruity too’, C replied.

‘Hey man, nice to see you back’ C said to a man who had walked in, ordered his coffee and was now sitting down to wait for it. ‘Yeah, it’s good to be back but boy what happened to the weather – it’s never like this in LA?!’   Having just seen an old friend who lives there, I turned to him ‘Oh, you’re from LA?’ ‘No, actually I’m from Vancouver – but I’ve lived here for the past few years’. ‘How gorgeous – it’s all about the outdoors there, isn’t it?’ ‘Yeah, I’m heading back for a week or so and I can’t wait – it’s 27 degrees there!  I mean your British summer is so messed up – like look, I’m wearing a jacket and you’re wearing a scarf!’

We talked about the weather a bit more and his relatives who were visiting from St Louis. His Americano appeared:  ‘Wow, that looks like a good one C’, I said.

I picked up my tea and toast and departed No.26 feeling calm and, as always, buoyed by the conversation.

Cosmic Disco

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‘A, it looks like a model bomb exploded in here tonight – where did you get all these beautiful people from?! Don’t tell me, you chartered a plane and flew them all in from Miami!’ A laughed.  To him this was just a normal night, a night full of his friends and their friends and the inevitable great tunes that get you shaking your booty, courtesy of Cosmic Disco.

Any radio station that plays ‘If you wanna ride, don’t ride the white horse’ five times in two hours is onto a winner in my books. It’s pure Eivissa. But there was something even more cosmic about this evening.

As we drank in the atmosphere and checked out our fellow party goers a man came up to me and said ‘hey, lovely to see you again, how are you?’ and we kiss kissed.  I’d never seen him before in my life, but given that he looked like Marcus Schenkenberg (MS), that didn’t seem important.  Then a really cosmic thing happened; as he said his name by way of introduction and I said mine,  he simultaneously turned over his arm to reveal my name tattooed there.

We all got chatting – his friend, his girlfriend then we went inside to get more drinks.  My friend decided she might leave but I said ‘no, wait, isn’t the scenery more attractive here than your four walls at home’?  She had to agree.  But I knew what she was thinking – this isn’t for me, these people are not my people, I’d rather keep it real.  The fact that the two girls standing beside us each had a chiwawa didn’t help matters (oh for the life of the average chiwawa; parties, makeovers,pink baskets to be transported in!).

The chiwawa girls were delightful.  We took them outside and introduced them to MS and at the same time asked him where he was from.  From tattoo to this:  ‘Well, I’m half Swedish, half Thai’.  The chiwawa girls were Swedish too! So, there ensued a delightful connection of fellow countrymen meeting each other in a strange land.  How lovely and unexpected that was for all involved.

More beautiful people arrived,  but the earthy energy of cosmic souls connecting rose to the surface and what appeared initially to be brittle and affected, proved to be the very opposite.  All it took was a willingness to make the connection and not judge the book by its cover.