Monday 9 January 2012

The symbol of the disgusting excess of the noughties

Very busy December ends with goodbye to Leicester and new contracts for 2012 in London. Detail to follow. I have been writing, just not posting. I'm now in Croydon.


Friday night I moved from the scary art deco scrapyard shankiness of the Norfolk House hotel on the road to Brixton - to the South Park hotel in the leafy South Croydon, right near station -  until 20th when I hope I'll have a flat. Very good news jobwise. Seven months of work in London in prospect.


Saturday morning, very chilled morning with laid back train from sleepy leafy South Croydon Station - sudden desire to listen to chilled iPod music (Marvin Gaye!  i've got THAT old, and that laid back).... This is music instead of podcasts, somehow a big leap forward - I've been jamming my mind with podcasts for about 2 years so long to stop myself thinking.


Meant to go seriously shopping but just wandered around west end with big smile. Eventually had Time Out plus London Pride plus Jamesons in The Ship in a state of almost Tibetan contentment. 


I was around last year but was so busy rarely left Whitehall and Wembley. This year, in the West End, with the copy of time out and some beer in me suddenly I felt connected. Somehow Time Out magazine is very important, giving you instant connectivity to the London social scene. It's a friendly invite somehow, like a cheap Glastonbury program. 


Walking around Oxford street Soho, West End on Saturday.. It looked a bit better than when I left in 2009, with all the bookshops closing. If you think I'm being optimistic you should see some of the regional places - Barnstaple and especially Leicester are starting to looking quite "Detroit"


Biggest shock was in Top Man. I've left my jogging shorts at home so for the first time in my life thought - "hey I could run in cargo pants" - so armed with the sickly realisation that I actually wanted cargo pants I thought I could pick some up cheap..


All The cargo pants have gone. That is the difference between pre crash world of idiot excess and the post-economic apocalypse scenario we live in now, 
CARGO PANTS
The symbol of the disgusting excess of the noughties