i sat down to eat my peasant dinner but i thought it was a song you sent so i didn’t watch it then
He was a proper old-fashioned London geezer (cringe word, hate it, can't think of a better one, worst of all it's the correct word), kind of East Endy, kind of Real London, the kind you don't really meet but if you do it always feels like an uncanny immersive theatre experience. They're anachronistic. They only belong in the London collectively imagined by people who don't spend any time in it.
Like the tide, it comes in and it washes over the beach. It's beautiful. But like the tide it goes out, sometimes it goes out further than it ever has, it recedes back across the beach and further out beyond the horizon. The bare seabed opens up in front of you and all you can do is look at it.
...
I imagine that some lab-grown 29-year-old from Woking with a mind honed to identify individuals who fit the profile of Real Londoner (as conceived of by 50 opinion-polled racist builders and their wives in the Midlands) picks a stubborn local who can still somehow afford to live here and passes him along to some creative studio.
amazing hopefully this was all legible and frankly i might be going very off board but you seemed interesting
I'm sat out the front of a cafe in Hatton Garden. I've just eaten a brie and bacon panini, and I'm rolling a cigarette. Feeling very London. An old man comes up to me and asks for a roll-up. I oblige.
The Hatton geezer (fuck off) is emptying his pockets, searching for the silver rizlas he apparently has. He refuses to take one of mine (also silver) because the tobacco I'm giving him is already too much to ask. He tells me about the guy who can do 50g of Golden Virginia for a good price, the guy who every other man over 50 knows. I'm not interested.
Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:38:49
I catch him on his way to the bar, telling him about this old racist failed actor that I'm avoiding. That I'm failing to confront. I get the sense he's avoiding people too. We get our drinks and find a corner. We chat for a bit. He's managing just fine.
I'm getting bored and he can tell, so he shifts the topic towards me. He tells me he'd spotted me chatting to a girl earlier, a black girl, and asks what I thought of her, if I liked her. I mimed affirmatively.
There is a pause. She ashes her cigarette. It falls on me. It seems like the birds have stopped too.
She says something that isn't really right but isn't really wrong. I'm not taking in their words any more, just their voices, trying to get a feel for whatever is going on between them. I'm imagining what it's like for them in this delicate situation, what I would say if it were me. She has that perfect upper-class accent, and she's using whatever upper-class tact that comes with it to navigate this. Style. They can't be together, but their voices are betraying them.
Thank you, Jack
Actual born-Londoners aren't LARPing like this, they sold their shite family home for a million pounds and moved to Malaga years ago. They have their culture and they've taken it elsewhere.
As we're stood there I notice a middle-aged woman staring at us across the room. I'm trying to catch her gaze, but its kind of vacant. I guess she sees me looking and considers it to be an invitation. She floats over to us in this strange dazed way, and on the approach I realise she's staring at (through?) my Korean colleague / fresh meat. She's saying wow, wow, wow. She seems genuinely so delighted, so shocked, so elated.
We gather around the start of a causeway down to the Thames. It's a pretty cold night and there's a breeze coming off the river. I've found the girl, or she's found me, and we're smoking a cigarette while we watch the dim silhouettes of the French Raj and his fireworks bearer down on the bank. They're fucking around with the box. I ask her what people do with fireworks for so long before they're ready to light. She doesn't know.
I am below everything.
The old failed actor genuinely believed this girl was of a lesser race. He believed she shouldn't be talking with me, shouldn't be here at this party, shouldn't be here in this country. He wanted a white England. I didn't really challenge him on it. Sometimes I justify it with thoughts like I was drunk, or baffled, or it isn't an argument I'll win, or he can't hear me anyway, or whatever. I didn't argue with him. I just cut off his rant and left with a pathetic "In a bit."
Above and in front two birds are darting in and out of a tree. Sometimes they collide to fight or maybe mate, but I can't really make it out in the low light. It's just after
dusk
, I have nothing to do, I'm watching them, trying to figure it out.Thu, 06 Nov 2025 21:22:59