The world’s my oyster

I didn’t have a lot of sleep, owing to the old man’s birthday bash last night. But I was called this morning, at 8.24 precisely, by Radio Kent for my opinions on whether women were happier and more content than men. Apparently the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ Campaign did a survey and discovered what is blindingly obvious – that we all want clean neighbourhoods, nice friends, good health and money. Did they need to survey that, I wonder?
Anyway, they called me from their studios in Tunbridge Wells. I struggled into my dressing gown, slumped on the settee and bleary-eyed, gave a less than sparkling interview. Five minutes later they hung up.
I crawled back into bed. The old man was out for the count so I meditated, after which I got trainered up and had a jolly good run along the river bank. At 11.00 I headed off to the West End.

I wondered why it was called the West End, and who had coined the phrase. I don’t know the real geography of London but I am assuming that the West End is opposite the East End and the other way up from the North and South. Then I wondered why the north isn’t called the North End or the south, the South End. It’s probably got something to do with the rise of the sun, the set of the moon or the river. No matter. When I was young though, we went ‘up west’. Well, I didn’t. They did. I wasn’t allowed to as it was for bee-hived tarts who wore stiletto heels and drunk strong espresso in vulgar coffee bars where they played the bongos.
This morning my transport of choice was the 239 to Victoria, an auto-bus that attracts an altogether classier passenger. Take today’s fare for example – Terence-can-you-take-me-to-the-Desert-I-am-Priscilla-Stamp. Mr. Stamp is now white haired and just a little bit stooped. He alighted outside Viscount Linley’s furniture emporium which is closed on Wednesdays and a stones throw from his aunty’s palace.
Terence had a knapsack on his back and a little bald patch on the top of his head. He grimaced as he shuffled off. We all get old, I thought, and he’s doing it rather beautifully.
I got off at Victoria tube station which was jam packed with tourists and the free newspaper touts who blight our environs. We now have more free newspapers than there are trees in the Amazon. They all report the same negative claptrap, nobody reads the damn things and they just serve to clog up corridors, gangways and dustbins throughout the capital leaving tons of waste paper. Grumpy old woman or what?
But my moment of metropolitan chick had arrived I whisked out my Oyster card. Fantastic. Pressed it onto the Oyster eye and with one beep I was through. Down the escalator, two stops, up the escalator, one more beep and the world was now my oyster. Out into Argyll Street, where the toothy grin of Connie Fisher beamed out from the photographs outside the Palladium Theatre. Connie is so desperately nice, my rude utterances were definitely not the sound of music to anybody’s ears.
Over Great Marlborough Street into Carnaby Street and down Ganton Street past one of the friendliest pieces of street art there is. A huge yellow plug as big as a very big thing, with its curly lead is fastened high up on an outside wall. It makes me smile every time.
I stood outside Flat White until I was called to meet my friend back in Carnaby Street. We went into ‘The Sacred Place’, a fair trade caff where we partook of fresh scrambled eggs with spring onions, brown toast and a fiendishly good Americana coffee with hot milk on the side. We talked about her and me and men and things, work and age and men and things, children, Paris and men and things and then we walked to Cecil Court where my favourite bookshop awaits. ‘Watkins’ is jam packed with every known esoteric book from Nostradamus to ‘The Secret’. I bought two books about the molecular structure of water and how it teaches us to be aware that we are what we think.
A brisk walk back to Covent Garden where my friend bought a pen that looked like a nurse and I a wallet for my Oyster Card. It’s a new design with the map of the underground on it and telephone numbers that are relevant if, at any time, you should want to have a little chat with somebody at London Transport.
I strolled up to Shaftesbury Avenue and just missed a number 19. The computerised read out, that hangs from the roof of the bus shelter, informed me that another bus would be along in 13 minutes, then 11, and so on until it said ‘due’, and bugger me if it didn’t swing round Cambridge Circus bang on time, only it isn’t a circus any more – the roads have all been meddled with.
I’m not against progress but sometimes I do wonder why everything is sacrificed for the ruddy car. You wouldn’t catch them doing that in Iceland. Outcrops of rocks, homes of the elementals and sprites are left where they live, highways are built round fairy grottos. I kid you not. It is not uncommon to do a figure of eight so that a pixies pad is left undisturbed. They are well used to ‘Nimbys’ – Nymphs In My Back Yard.
I flashed my new Oyster wallet at the all seeing eye on the bus. It beeped and I swung up the stairs and nabbed the last seat right in the front, giving me a panoramic view of the city.
At the moment London appears to be just one great big hole in the ground. Victorian water pipes are being replaced, the catalyst being the Olympics I don’t doubt. There are mountains being made out of manholes just about everywhere. The big red buses nudged the Chelsea tractors out of the way which is something that can be seen quite clearly from twelve feet up in the air. I did take delight in the big red Routemasters cutting up those smug Mercedes with dark spectacled drivers.
I noticed, for the first time, three naked, golden women holding up a building on the corner of Piccadilly (made out of bronze, silly) and as we swung into Sloane Street, I was amazed at the packs of extremely wealthy Arabian women wearing burqas, Gucci scarves, Versace shoes and Fendi handbags.
The journey back was quick, in time for me to do some research for tomorrow’s prrogramme and prep some nosh for Jim’s supper tonight. Mr. Lowrie emailed to remind me that it may be hard to get a parking spot because of the ‘Notting Hill Carnival’. Levi Roots is coming into the studio. He of Reggae Reggae Sauce fame. Mama Cherita is calling from Brighton and Collin Brown, the Bling King of Caribbean cookery, is talking about jerk chicken. It’s going to be hot, hot, hot so I shall go in my little red car, hood down, which means I can leave me oyster card at home.
It’s 12.31 and the french doors are open, so the summer may just be starting like they promised. Hope so.
Have a good night but a quick last word to Marmite Girl. No, I certainly do not think that Anne Widdicombe would make a good Prime Minister. It would be like having the worst prefect picking on you because you were going out with the best looking boy in the 6th form and she was left with netball practice whilst the rest of the school had gone on a day trip to Gracelands leaving her to run detention all on her own, with no chocolate tuck whilst the elastic in her airtex knickers had snapped whilst breaking into the tuck shop for a king sized Mars Bar, and she having been on celebrity Fat Club and all. No, Anne Widdecombe would make a dreadful first minister.