Camden and Environs. Wednesday. 1am. Night For Day.

I finally left the flat on Tuesday, at around midnight. The night was cold enough to be dry, so nothing got past my insoles. It snowed throughout, which lent considerable wibble to my autofocus, but I don't think you can tell it's snowing from these pictures, unless the whiteness of the sky gives it away. This, combined with the "night mode" on my phone, created an effect almost the exact opposite of the old "day for night" process, where a blue filter's stuck over a lens if one wants to fake a nocturnal exterior, a much ridiculed practice I never minded, or even really noticed. It was as quiet as it looks. Here's the environs...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The giraffes were looking bulkier.

 

 "Night mode" couldn't really capture how apocalyptically opaque with grit the bus windows looked. Passing the Black Truffle, I was struck by the boldness of its mascot, then realised I wasn't look at a blown mind, just a chef's hat.

 

Notebookery: CITY and CITIZENS (1993ish)

 I need new shoes again, so I've been out less, the ground being wet, and in the evenings I've been winding down in front of youtube, sometimes for seven hours or more, so my thoughts are a little unravelled. Don't worry though, good times are being had, I just don't want to post too many youtube recommendations on here because I know some of you have lives to be getting on with. Here's another notebook then. These pages are from my A-level Art project, on a subject of my choosing. I can't tell if London looks different now or not, apart from the crowds; I wish I'd taken more photographs of the south bank, back when it was scrubland to the east of Blackfriars Bridge. I think the project got me a B. No. I know it did. But it hadn't yet been through a housefire, so didn't look nearly as handsome. It was almost definitely that kind of glibness that helped get me a B, now I think of it. 

 You should be able to click to enlarge these.

The Gates to Regent's Park were Open at 6am.

 So I went in. 

 

 Once I got to the pond I turned off the podcast in my ears, because how often do you get to hear quiet? 

 Not silence. The distant pow of geese ricocheted between Ulster Terrace and the Outer Circle.

 

 My new shoes scratched audibly on the path beneath me. New to me, anyway. Twelve quid.

  Maybe they'd once had rubber soles. That would make sense. They've been a bit slippy.

 

 My camera could see better than I could, so now and then I paused to take pictures of the surrounding brown, and see what I was standing in.

 That's what these are. Imagine all of this more invisible.

 

 The bigger gates weren't open, but I don't think they ever are. They're just there to look nice.

 

 It's all there to look nice, I suppose. There's a fountain at the end of this path.

 

 And the waterfall and rose garden, surrounded as they are by vegetation ravenous for light, weren't visible at all. So here's another big gate.

 Far too nice to ever open.

An Evening Walk In Cheap Footwear Good For Beaches

  After how glum the South Bank looked in July it was good to see some life return this evening, specifically two distant mudlarkers with, I guess you'd call them headlamps, they're lamps worn on the head anyway, and a lone goose. Everything felt pretty lone on London Beach, although I may have seen some couples in the shadows of the wall. In my ears, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey were talking to Dave Rogers about how he edited The American Office, which doesn't show up in these photos and is probably for the best. In other words I haven't really recovered the knack of experiencing.

Showing My Face

 Something about the light on Hackney Marshes reminds me of Seurat. I'd walked here from Camden, invited to a picnic, and for the first time in four months spoke with strangers. There were teachers and doctors and musicians, one of whom pointed out to me that I wasn't wearing walking shoes, which is something to consider. It was midnight by the time I got home.

  Before I headed home though, I took a detour up the Lea, past the filter beds, to visit what I think must have been the marsh office described by Ken Campbell in The Furtive Nudist. Here he'd sit beneath a fishing umbrella, pockets stuffed with stationery, and await "a commission".  The last time I came here was in 2016 just after the first recording of Time Spanner, possibly also awaiting a commission.

 Happily this detour also took me past a friend, Mischa from shunt who was standing at the bend in the river. I wasn't expecting to bump into him, or anyone. It's nice out, I suppose is the moral, but I know nothing's changed. I wore a mask. But also I showed my face.