A friend, a Londoner, told me that to survive in The Big Smoke, you should exploit it rather than letting it exploit you. It can get to be a grind if you let it, but there is so much to offer, so many quirky things to do.
On Saturday I went on a Beatles walking tour with GD and RG, two rather cynical Scots (if you take my cynicism and multiply it by a factor of ten, then you might be near GD's). It was hilarious, actually. The obsessive anorak who ran the thing was brilliant and just happened to own a Beatles memorabilia shop that we ended the tour at. He obviously lives and breathes all things Beatles. Which isn't that bad, I suppose; he could be an Oasis obsessive. He had this weird automaton delivery, with pauses in the wrong places - that I am sure he has done three times a day for the last 15 years or so. He met Paul in 1982, which he showed us a photograph of.
Still it's odd going to these places that once featured in the lives of the great and the good and pretend they still have resonance. We started at Marleybone station where the opening scenes of A Hard Day's Night were filmed; the main bit is now a Marks & Spencer. A place where John Lennon was busted for drugs 40 years ago is an estate agent's. I kind of found myself shrugging my shoulders a lot, trying to figure out why I should care.
We did go to Abbey Road and walk across the zebra crossing, annoying tons of motorists. A lot of doggerel was scribbled along the wall at Abbey Studios, including the bit above by Amanda from Canada. 'Which poet, Amanda?' I wondered.
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