Silbury Hill II

They were selling cheap train tickets for May, in an attempt to get people out into the country and improve their mental health. Fifty minutes on the train to Swindon, then thirty minutes on the bus to Avebury, and then I’m in an alternative, more natural reality? Hell, why not? Such a beautiful walk from Avebury up to Windmill Hill, in the benign, Wiltshire topography. Wild, Spring flowers, white, yellow and purple; birds chirping; white clouds lined up along a sky blue sky; and not a soul about. I was wrong, Silbury Hill can be viewed from afar, but from above. That’s one of the unnerving things about it, how low it sits in the high landscape. An edifice to be looked down on, not up to.

Chelsea is beginning to look nice for the Jubilee next week. Expensive floral displays on many commercial establishments, which may even be shaming the stragglers into action. In any case, this week is Flower Show week. Aliums are in, lupins are out, and encouraging the bees is most definitely in. The overcrowding is tiresome, and the judging is madness. How can an obvious work of genius such as the Ice Garden only be awarded Silver Gilt?

I shall miss the Jubilee. Thursday was unlike every other Thursday in every way, driving through the Silent Majority spilling out over Grosvenor Place and Hyde Park Corner, completely unsupervised. Friday was a dream. Not much traffic, and everyone walking around chill, for a change, enjoying the sunshine and the holiday. A political mastermind gets in the cab, but I take no notice. Instead, I buy a bottle of Dubonnet at Gerry’s on Old Compton St. A walk around the Mall and St James’s park on Saturday afternoon, and I almost wish I’d stood around for another five hours to witness the concert. Although I’m an anarcho-revolutionary Trotskyite, that was one well-executed piece of theatre.

There is a heatwave, and everyone is off to Royal Ascot, and I have managed to find yet another unsuccessful way of looking at the Conjecture. I also have an innate sense of sanity, and have recently been living on a diet of salad and sparkling mineral water. My older and more self-destructive brother died on this day last year, so a day off and some pints in the heat and the shade of the Cricketers pub in Enfield is appropriate. There isn’t much to say. I can’t bring him back, can I.

I knew little about Primark, except that they don’t advertise, and there is an overlap between the many punters who ask me to take them there, and those that visit Selfridge’s just up the road. But today is a half-day, because I need to do some holiday shopping. It’s some bargain basement place, and their #1 menswear seller is this Sex Pistols, God Save the Queen, t-shirt, rack upon rack of them, and I need a sun hat, and just there is one that fits fine, and in olive green, my second-favourite colour. And then you have to queue for ages in order to pay their cheap prices. This is some next-level ****.

When you're in need of menswear, try Grace Brothers.

(At least I think you're old enough...?)

Sure I remember it. There were only three TV channels at the time, so we were practically forced to watch it.

Grace Brothers was based on this shop:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons_of_Piccadilly

You seem overly tense. I suggest you haven’t been drinking enough lately lastcard. Make an effort to remedy this situation immediately.

Overly tense? What, with literally a million people converging on the centre for Gay Pride today, involving major road closures and traffic chaos? I did have a pint in the pub afterwards. where they were arguing and name-calling. I like the late evenings, though. Just another happy, harmonious, Summer's day in London.

I made it onto Google Maps. That's me outside the Imperial War museum, cleaning the cab windscreen. Other cab drivers seem to avoid it, and prefer to congregate at nearby Waterloo, but the quieter and more solitary spot has been good to me. Plus it lies near the centre of the arc of the river, about half a mile away, and so many places are easily accessible from it. Plus I like the building itself; the shape of the dome seems appropriate for its original purpose as Bedlam, a home for the desperate, the hopeless, and the criminally insane. Cab driving is slightly addictive. I have worked the last 18 days in a row, and now I have some days off, happily coinciding with another heatwave, but I almost wish I didn't; the roads and the traffic are awesome at the moment.

Hi Charlie!

Hi. Never gets overly hot in Mile High City, right?

Took the cab back to the garage in Bethnal Green before work this morning. Nothing major, it's just that the electronic key doesn't lock or unlock the driver's door now. Both can be done manually, but as far as I know it might be symptomatic of something more major, which they're going to yell at me for not telling them about. Best to get it sorted before my days off. Um, Billy, can I have a word? "Yeah? Regarding what? Yeah, speak to John, the one who looks like Morgan Freeman." I am not in touch with the modern world, and I literally have no idea who Morgan Freeman is. Everyone else does, with their smart phones and their QR codes. Turns out it's one of the West Indian mechanics, who seems to have taken pity on me on previous visits. He explains that Monday is not a good day for such matters, as they're all running around dealing with all the breakdowns that happened over the weekend, which they are.

Depends what you consider hot. Highs in the 90s F are common, but it's pretty dry. Cools off nice at night to the 60s generally. Perfect for me, lots of people wouldn't like it.

Let me know if you ever come for a visit, we'll meet up for a beer or something.

I will. I have had visa issues in the past, for reasons documented in this blog, but America is the country I'd most like to visit, and I'm not sure if I've given up entirely on the idea. In any case, Zeno has promised to smuggle me in along the coast.

And the promise still stands. Of course, as you know, this offer is only good along the west coast.

I can find Waldo, but I can't seem to find Charlie.

He is hiding in one of the gun barrels.

Long live the King!

I had tickets to go on a tour of Buckingham Palace next Monday, including the garden, but that has been cancelled. This is messing with my arrangements...

I did catch a passing glimpse of the Queen one time. She was in her limo, sitting bolt upright, staring directly ahead, in profile exactly like on the postage stamps.

She was not a postage stamp Queen.

I admire her greatly, though I’ll only admit that in this thread. Least people think I’m becoming soft and mushy.

She was loved, and she was unique.

Call me naive, but I'm not so keen on the appropriating a load of land and expecting the rest of us to be happy about it part.

Property is theft.

btw, the queen wore hats. Not enough women wear hats. They've lost another role model.

A lot of people in the vicinity of Buckingham Palace today. They have come in at the weekend. A conspicuous police presence, and new bollards in place, in anticipation of not altogether predictable road closures. There is a sense of something building up, rather than grief hanging in the air. I have been asking passengers who talk to me and whom I deem not unlikely to have met the Queen whether they did so. A 90-year old Chelsea Pensioner in a wheelchair gets in at Covent Garden. Soft-spoken and unassuming; not some rambunctious, how-I-won-the-war type. Yes, he met the Queen when she was 18, in Elgin, in the Highlands. She and Margaret were looking for a fish and chip shop. The journey brings me home, and it's been another busy day, so he can have it on me, not that I feel great about it.