It is one of those humid days, hot, oppressive in the way that only London seems to get - something about concrete and steel that seems to both reflect and refract the heat back at you. And there is little respite, most places aren't air conditioned, are built to keep the heat in not out. On the way home from work at a traffic light, I was the victim of a drive-by. A guy in a white van peeled by and blasted a bunch of us with a super soaker. 'I wish the water was cooler,' a girl next to me giggled, dabbing at her top. 'Let's hope it's just water,' I said.
I miss the sea. It has been a big part of my life in Boston, Edinburgh, Brighton. Even the other river cities I have lived in - Glasgow, Hamburg, Budapest - were all on working rivers. You never felt trapped because there was constant activity, goods being docked, things being ferried away. When I lived in Hamburg whenever I felt down I would go to the Elbe and watch the container ships - these hulking, boxy beasts waddle downriver. I always found something beautiful in their ugliness, maybe because psychologically, there was always this feeling of movement and freedom, always the possibility of escape.
A stroll on the Southbank today and the Thames seems sluggish and hemmed in, the only river traffic garbage scows and party boats, a clogged, constricted vein.
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