Friday, February 04, 2005

London. Time to embrace The Horror

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Those close to me and those who occasionally read my blog are familiar with the fact that I am going through a mid-life crisis, have packed my job in and keep toying with the idea of writing a book. Hopefully, a book even more interesting and profound than this blog (ho ho).
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Anyway, a friend sent me a link today to a magazine that publishes photography and writing inspired by life in London …
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Great! I thought. I'll start there. But, sadly, not. Tracy found a page of samples of the kind of work they publish here …
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Aside from the fact that much of the material seems to be pretentious and not very well written there's the small issue of it all being horse manure; written by the kind of pseudo Londoner toe rags who refer to Borough as Bermondsey, because it sounds cooler. I heartily encourage London readers of this post to click on the link above and get a feel for what I mean.
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I'm not complaining as such but it's unlikely that I would be able to contribute anything useful to a magazine that I wouldn’t buy. They've got their fantasy. I've got mine. It's all a bit like that sketch from Life of Brian …
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'So, aside from the crime, the crap schools, the lethal hospitals, the lack of social cohesion, the rudeness, the terrible public transport, the cost, the cramped housing, the aggression, the hate, the prostitution, the drugs, the filth, the vice, the ever-widening division between rich and poor and the tangible sense of apathy and despair you can sense in whole chunks of the city … London's a fantastic place to live!!!'
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I believe that virtually nothing that is written about or filmed about London conveys a sense of what this city is all about. It wouldn’t be fair to focus exclusively on the down-side, but to pretend that it doesn’t exist is an outright lie. Films like Lock Stock, or Notting Hill, have proven to be spectacularly successful but they have a curious, fantasy feel to them, and for good reason. They're bollocks.
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Yes, the time has come for a change in London's media profile. It's time, boys and girls, to embrace The Horror. Open your mouths nice and wide and suck in good and deep. Yeah, you like that. Don't you? …
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