to E16 and back again

I came into the city with the tide this morning, a little before 7 AM. The journey started in a futuristic fantasy world, a twilit zone of metal monsters and a constant, low, deep humming. This world, far east of the Tower, felt like an archigram conception of the city as a machine for living - if we all lived inside an engine that didn't switch off at night, but lay dormant, ever sensitive to human needs and wants and catastrophes. The Docklands, in the present, are an image of silently blinking lights on high, high buildings, where corporates and conglomerates juggle their daily millions. The high, high marvels of construction (and pretty unromantic architectural design, unless phallic counts as romance) stand ominously watchful in the night, watching you with their innumerable CCTV cameras. (aside - A documentary I was watching about London told me that you are never alone in the city anymore because you are under constant surveillance. It meant this as a very good thing.) Unsoftened by centuries-old edifices, as the City of London is, this new centre of finance in the world city of London pins you down with its sense of power and security. There is a certain perversion of scale, whereby the seemingly endless tarmac highway - Blackwall Tunnel, M40(?), Rotherhithe Tunnel, Wapping Way - snakes smoothly far below the purpose-built scions of money-power, and the sky meets the pyramids on top of buildings not so far above you. You walk as a giant in this land, where the topography is completely man-made, but the buildings are giantlier still. There is a middle level of efficiently whirring rails which carry trains with no cockpits and no drivers, which rarely apologise lamely, unlike other London metropolitan railways, for being 3 minutes late. You access this railway through glass bubbles perched in midair, here and there, here skirting a dock-full of gleaming water, there straddling a road, and sometimes tucked away in a massive building. Glamorous, shiny and new, these vertical worlds made even me, wannabe anti-capitalist activist, feel awed and excited about being In The Thick Of Things.

The banks and money exchanges and similar mysterious things crowd together chockablock, while set at a safely planned distance rise exclusive hotels and fancy aparments in picturesque waterside settings. Walkways do exist in places, but not throughout, for you wouldn't be walking much if you inhabit this world. An alternate world where 26 year old immigrant couples, engaged to be married soon, huddle together in touchingly mutual insecurity, bolstered by their (quite hard earned!) pounds sterling, cocooned in their curtain-walled splendid life-pods, with living rooms that look out at an Empty Dome - all tensile members and DuPont fabric and never a soul within. (There are vague plans for its revival in the 2010 Olympics by the way; the Millennium's biggest British white elephant is set for a comeback.) So, this couple has a nice lifestyle, full of nice food, a blackberry, a 56" TV screen, a 42" computer monitor, a loud home-theatre system and a semi-abusive sexual emotional relationship. (They never walk by the waterside a step away from their door, but we aren't all hopeless romantics I suppose.)

They're very good people too, inviting their awaara (and ungrateful) relative to stay over and share their luxuries, even on the eve of the Sunday when they are to collect much more important relations from Gatwick at an ungodly hour in the morning. We squabble over tfl's helpful hints and finally call it a night and call a cab.

They are quite succesful (earning 10 times more than me apiece), quite imperfect, alone, frightened and sickeningly happy. As with a certain cemetary in North London, I pass no judgement. No verdict.

So I came back to my London with the tide this morning, having hopped out of the (increasingly mushy) lovebirds' cab at East India DLR station, where I waited 45 minutes for the freakishly punctual first train of a Sunday morning. I dunno about crime rates in E16, but I was safe in Bill Waterson's imagination with Calvin and Hobbes. At the end of a shortish train ride, my courage failed me for a short few yards as I crossed Tower Bridge in the still-dark morning. I dimly felt why a dear friend, who loved the city nearly as much as I, may have chosen a return to the motherland over a solitary existence here. Even the river looked low. Miraculously though, the minute I stepped on the south bank, the movie in my head started again - past glimpses, infinite possible futures. I was on my way, decoding public spaces snootily and remembering jokes on fake neon trees (ask me another time). Needed a breather near the Tate, where some guy was patiently photographing sunrise against the Millennium bridge (dude! that was So last year!), before finally reaching the BBC sponsored bench that I sought near the National Theatre. "Everybody needs a place to think", it said as I prompty fell into a thinkless and very refreshing sleep. Guess what the NT does on Sunday mornings just before 8? It tests it friggin' fire alarm, over and over again. The persistent lady in the bhopu failed to convince me to leave the building without my hat, gloves, coat and car because - a. i was technically outside the building and b. after the second time i figured it was a test.

It is important to note at this point in the narrative that you don't have a hope in hell of surviving hunger on a Sunday morning in Central London. Do Not start on a cock-eyed early morning traipse without fruit and/or chocolate. I had neither, so had to survive on philosophy until it was 8 AM and I left the softly lapping river. Crossed Waterloo Bridge, passed the closed Tesco, closed Pret, closed Cafe Nero and plonked myself in the friendly racist Italian sandwich place under India Club on the Strand. A £3 greasy spoon breakfast later, in which I was again heartily joined by Calvin and Hobbes, I was on my way towards the alma-mater, on dear familiar routes, to attempt to find new haunts for future lazy sundays when I want to dress like a tramp and refuse to be socially excluded.

Unrelatedly, some decisions should be made soon. And some things should be let go off (not all though). Hope this Sunday helps.

p.s.: this was the longest post ever!