Living just to the east

  Living just to the east

Grey sky's and a sandwich for lunch. Sitting in my car in East London one experiences the dilemma most English people have as winter slowly takes hold of all that surrounds us. The streets are wet and the people look miserable as they rush around on those interminable journeys we are prone to. 

Not far away is the tube station and an escalator running into the hot stale depths of the tunnel system by which millions of commuters have each day to make their way about the metropolis. The crowded platforms, and stifling trains which rush out of the dark tunnel mouth like monster dragons, squeezing the hot air in front of them they rush at you as you jostle with other people, like yourself tied into this devils merry go round. Once on board the train, having forced your way through the throng of people wishing to disembark you stand staring into a strangers face not twenty inches away as the doors close and the train jolts into motion. Searching for a hand hold you sway and stumble in unison with all the other passengers as the train flees once again into the blackness of another tunnel. The screeching of the steel wheel,  the friction of steel on steel rails provides a ghoulish background noise as the train sways around the unseen corners on its way to the next station. Every day the commuter on the London Underground absorbs this punishment for the so called pleasure of living in one of the great cities of the world at least that is what the blurb on the tin says.
London does have its historic buildings particularly around Whitehall and on up to the palace. It does have the reprieve of the Royal Parks and the Embankment to stroll along watching the tidal Thames, ebb and flow regardless of the city.
The street names are, for the prodigal from the north a wealth of history and storytelling passed down in the tales of Dickens and Conan Doyle.
The majestic buildings of State. The Foreign Office and the Home Office, the Admiralty with its radio masts keeping in touch with the fleet were, in my minds eye, as a boy, enraptured by my fathers commentary, flights of fancy enhancing the picture that this very spot was the centre of the world and we the most important country in it.
The reality is now far different. Disparity is all around, with wealth and attainment displayed by the exclusivity of the hotels and restaurants, the very private domain of the mega rich. Central London is not for the likes of you and I other than, cap in hand we join the queues to gawp at a world so exclusive, our tender minds would become unhinged at the callousness of it all.
As a lad I had no wish to wave at the queen. The whole pomp and pageantry of our traditional heritage, interesting is now an anathema in the modern world and whilst I, like the rest am drawn to the jingle of the House Hold cavalry as they trot by or the ramrod smart drill of the sentries, it's all a bit irrelevant when a mile or so away they are feeding the poor from a food bank.
I wonder if Disney will ever do a feature length film of this dysfunctional nation with its elegant disdain for that other nation, living just to the east.