London lovin’

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford”

So said Samuel Johnson, one of the many writers and artists helplessly absorbed in an ongoing love affair with London town. I, now in London for the a while before I disappear to another capital, would like to test his unbounded love for the thrilling streets of the capital.

Admittedly, I am already a bit of a London elitist myself. After many stays in many European cities, I always return to London thrilled to be back somewhere where the buses are red, the sky is grey and the people are every colour under the sun. But, having spent three years at university outside this multicoloured capital, I, the permanent defender of everything “London”, feel the need to justify my own love affair with the city and rediscover the crooks and crannies that make it what it is. Whatever that identity may be.

So whilst I’m here, I will endeavour to visit places in London that I’ve never been to before and make a record of them in blog form; a short and sweet review of any restaurants, bars, cafes, parks, streets, theatres and the like which I happen to discover whilst back in the capital. So, when I leave it again, this time, I hope, on a more permanent basis to another exciting capital, I will be certain that my love for London can never be usurped.

“A sunny place for shady people”

Travelling along the Cote d’Azur, it does not take long to understand why F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel of American New World decadence was set on the French Riviera of the 1920’s. The strip of French coast-line, with its average of 300 days of sunshine a year, is still as beautiful and glittering as the lavish world of Dick and Nicole Diver, the wealthy, glamorous but fatally tragic duo of Tender is the Night. The Divers’ world is one which oozes money and decadence, a world which slots perfectly into the the sun-drenched towns along the alluringly blue Mediterranean coast line. It is hard to envisage the tragedy of the novel, with its morass of broken families and identities, taking place in the charming winding streets of each pastel-coloured “vieille ville". And yet, ironically, it is the persistent sunshine which brings out the darker edge in this scenic setting. It is the sun which makes the coast glitter in a way which suggests a restless impermanence, a shroud of volatile and intangible light. Perhaps this feeling is induced by mere paranoia on my part, an impact of the tragic outcome of the novel still firmly imprinted in my mind. Or perhaps, it is the feeling of money in the air, the awareness that this is a slightly rootless world constructed on paper, ink and rays of sun, without anything hugely substantial holding it to the ground. In places such as Beaulieu, Ville Franche and Antibes, the big coastal houses and the littering of private yachts certainly endorse this notion. In Saint Jean Cap-Ferrat, the Rothschild Villa with its intricately designed numerous gardens and 18th century style house, stands again as a reminder of the sheer overflow of money that existed here in the early twentieth century.

Nowhere, however, is this hedonistic excess more obvious than in Monaco, a place of tall, grey concrete, and big, big bucks. The private yachts are stacked high and mighty in its port, almost on top of each other, creating a mountain of luxury which greets you as you enter the tax-free city state. Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s drive past on the roads which annually stage the Formula One Grand Prix. This is the 21st century equivalent of the Diver world, hovering above the ground idealistically and aimlessly, totally divorced from reality. Like the £35,000 bottle of champagne on the bar menu, it is total insanity. And yet, almost a century after the money, sex and tragedy of Fitzgerald’s world, it persists, the sun still beautifully shining on.

Photos all my own

Coffee?

I am far from a coffee expert. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a Brazilian medium roast coffee bean or one hand-picked by Kenyan elephants and roasted on an open fire. That’s too much poncey detail for me. No, when I say I love coffee, I am referring to the Going-For-Coffee coffee experience. The process of calling someone up and popping that all-important, timeless question, the question which has brought more bored, lonely people together than match.com ever will: “Do you want to go for coffee?”  The most used phrase in my vocabulary. GFC (Going-F0r-Coffee) is a very specific experience, however. When I say GFC, I don’t mean, grabbing a quick skinnysoytripleshotcafelatte and scalding your tongue/mouth/face/trachea taking desperate sips whilst running for the bus. And I certainly don’t mean having coffee at home, even if it is from your new coffee machine which arrived yesterday and even makes capuccinos dahling. GFC has three specific criteria which make it the proper GFC experience. And this is what I do best:

1. The GFC experience must be long. Certainly over an hour, three hours being the ultimum length. The angrier the cafe waiter gets with you for sitting there for so long having only purchased one drink, the better.

2.  GFC is not for catching up with long lost friends who you haven’t seen in a decade. That’s a different type of coffee experience. My GFC is for the friends that are always there, that you see almost every day, that you technically should have nothing left to talk about with anymore but whose mutual love for GFC means you are still there day in, day out, Going-For-Coffee

3. GFC with said friend(s) must always happen at the same coffee place. Perhaps there’s a shortlist of 2 or 3 which you choose from with that specific GFC partner, but no more. Preferably stick to the same place, then only one set of staff will hate you for your prolonged, cheap visits and and flavour your coffee with their saliva.

GFC is stress-free, no-pressure socialising with the added perk of caffeine, and minus the expense/calories of going out for dinner. In times of need, GFC always pulls through as a source of comfort and tranquility and, of course, procrastination. It may, granted, be best for students, the lazy, bored or unemployed, but it is still an artform. It is a much-needed antidote to the too-often used phrase: “ A coffee to go, please”.

Faces

 

Table for two?

Ios Island, The Cyclades, Greece

Goodbye

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

My last night as a university student; Dr Seuss always says it best.

Geek-time: I love words

In my family, discussing the roots of words is our equivalent of a normal family’s game of Christmas charades. This is because I have two fiercely patriotic Greek parents, who, despite living in London for most of their lives, still hold true to the belief that Greeks Invented Everything. So I thought I’d compile a little list of the wonderful way that so many of our English words have developed, crossed boundaries, and adapted, in a geeky bid to make people more aware of the beauty of words:

Ostracize

From the Greek ostrakos, meaning oyster. In Ancient Greece people would vote by making a mark on an empty oyster shell. Taking away someone’s oyster shell, ostrakismos, meant taking away their power to vote, thus eliminating them from society. To alienate someone from society or a community is thus, to OSTRACISE them.

Focus

From the Italian word fuoco meaning fire. A fire was the centre of the house, hence the FOCUS.

Disastrous

Again from Greek. Dis means without; Astro means stars. Someone who is without stars, has no fate, no destiny and is thus DISASTEROUS.

Sinister

From Italian, sinistra meaning left. The left has always had connotations of otherness- in theatre for example, the ‘evil’ characters would typically enter from stage left, hence, SINSITER.

Hermaphrodite

From Ancient Greek mythology. Hermaphroditus was the son of the God and Goddess Hermes and Aphrodite. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, his lover Salamacis loved him so deeply that she prayed for total unity with him, thus combining male and female characteristics and thus, HERMAPHRODITE.

Schizophrenia

From the Greek schizo, meaning I tear, I break, and phrena, meaning brakes. An illness defined by an unnatural duality, and an inability to control this, to brake , thus SCHIZOPHRENIA

Camera

Back in the day camera’s required a darkened space to work, a room for example, thus the Italian word for room, CAMERA

Window

From the middle English windeye, which I came across whilst reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (fun). Literally an ‘eye’ for the wind to come through, hence WINDOW

Icicles

The middle English word for icicles is issyiccles. How cute?

N.B. As ever, I am open to corrections/further suggestions...

“My body is a pebble”

Egon Schiele

 

Bill Brandt