Showing posts with label stocktaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stocktaking. Show all posts

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Hi Ken

High Street, Kensington




A long time ago, (when I were a lad), High Street Kensington was the home to Biba, the most fabulous boutique on earth, where my cousin Rachel went to buy trendy clothes that she dreamed would make her look like Julie Driscoll, or the lady on the right.

In its heyday, Biba took up the entire Derry and Toms department store building, and beautiful young ladies could try on their maxi coats and kinky boots surrounded by Egyptian columns, marble flooring, and Art Deco stained glass.

I sat in my bedroom, listening to the first and second Roxy Music albums, dreaming of the glamorous, amplified, sexy, drug enhanced, world my generation would eventually inherit.

Then we joined the Common Market, and had a recession, and a three-day week.

Then a bit later we had punk, which was not really glamorous or sexy, but it was amplified and fun.

Friday, 25 July 2008

Breakfast in America


Venue: Starbucks Coffee House
Location: Greenwich and Bank, Greenwich Village
Weather: Sunny, 85F, very humid.
Company: A businessman in a linen suit, 2 surgeons from St Vincents in their operating theatre greens, a Dash lookalike in a t-shirt that says “Dinosaur Barbeque”, sundry others.
Music: To Make You Feel My Love, Kelly Clarkson
Drink: Venti 3shot skinny latte

I no longer feel empty, numb, tense, or angry.

I am unsettled in my stomach (which used to feel rock solid and dense). I feel calm in my chest (which used to feel tight and constricted.)
I feel free to speak my mind.
I haven't got a lot to say.

I have nobody to fight. I don't want to fight. This is good.
I have nobody to love. This is not so good.
Sex and sexuality: I know who I am, and what I want. I don't want to do anything about that right now. I don't know why that is. Tick 'other'. Tick 'none of the above'.

I don't like my short-sighted eyes. My semi-blindness bothers me much more than it used to. I barely recognise this world, even though the only thing in it that's changed is me.