Spend the late afternoon of the London bomb attacks in the Archway Tavern, with London friends old and new. Including David Barnett, now of the band The Boyfriends, who was one of the first Londoners I befriended when I moved here in 1994.
It’s the pub featured on the sleeve of “Muswell Hillbillies” (left) by that sine qua non of London bands, The Kinks. Today there’s a few less flat caps and few more Archway waifs with fantastic hair, but it’s otherwise unchanged. The album photo was taken in 1971, the year of my birth. My parents may have chosen to bring up children in Suffolk, but they met as students in the capital, living in Blackheath while Dad worked at an art bookshop in the Charing Cross Road. Consequently I’ve always thought I had London in my DNA. London brought them together, so London made me.
Ms Seaneen is at the pub, and hands me a CD of Bonzo Dog and Viv Stanshall songs. More Only In London types.
Today, as late yesterday, there’s a rather moving spirit in the air, celebrating the better qualities of the city and its people. Anger is the first emotion – anger at terrorists targeting public transport, where politicians never, ever go (unless there’s an accident to be photographed at). The people who suffer are those who can’t afford to get taxis or be driven about with security guards.
But that passes – perhaps more quickly than in other cities. London doesn’t like to get too sentimental for too long about things – Liverpool rather has the monopoly on that. One silver lining, apart from the cancellation of a ghastly Queen concert, is how people are recognising the capital in 2005 as a paradigm of unfussy optimism. Of annoyed sighs, but of adapting and getting on with making things better. Where that infamous English aloofness and fear of social embarrassment mixes with the capital’s international embrace, forming a unique resolve all its own. The strange convenience of the bus exploding directly outside the British Medical Association – where the nation’s top doctors raced outside to help. World convenience alongside frustrating inconvenience – another very London formula.
I think of the men on the platform at Old Street the other week who giggled at my appearance as I passed, shaking their heads and saying “Only in London. Only in London.” They didn’t mean it nastily, and I didn’t take it nastily. I’m now prouder than ever of that particular cat-call.
I’m in the mood for a Kinks song. A band that can be wry, sarcastic and satirical with one glance, then sincere and poignant (in a perfectly pitched tone similar to Ken Livingstone’s recent speech about the bombings) with another. Very London indeed.
Waterloo Sunset is far too obvious. Instead, here’s a lesser-known early 80s song of theirs, Better Things. Perfect for today. It even made me cry when I played it just now. But without being too silly about it.
Chin chin, you dirty old city.
Be an optimist instead,
And somehow happiness will find you.
Forget what happened yesterday,
I know that better things are on the way.
It’s really good to see you rocking out
And having fun,
Living like you just begun.
Accept your life and what it brings.
I hope tomorrow you’ll find better things.
I know tomorrow you’ll find better things.
