Saturday 29 May 2010
On food
The male mind is said to be occupied for the majority of its time with thoughts of sex. I am not male and thus have no idea what that must be like. (Thank goodness.) But I do know that many female brains I have some knowledge of are predominantly filled with thoughts of FOOD. Making it, buying it, presenting it, eating it, watching others eat it... And as a cyclist, I am grateful that I don't need to give a penny to the cumbersome and maddening thing that is Transport For London, but I do give over half of my salary to Sainsbury's. I barely land at my desk every morning, after a bowl of muesli and a 45-minute ride to work, and my mind starts to riff on the beauty of bananas and how much fun you can have stuffing vast quantities of sunflower seeds into your face. Then my friend and colleague Bita (remind me to explain to you how cool she is at some point...) will reach for her box of sultana bran, or I'll see someone dip furtively into the biscuit jar and I'm off; I simply can't think for the drum beating in my head about how yummy porridge tastes when its raining outside on a Saturday morning, or how heavenly it is to plunge into the crust of freshly-baked bread and scoop out the fragrant soft insides. And a friend, whom I DO NOT thank, has recently introduced me to Amarino's, which is where you can select four flavours of ice cream from the colourful array and watch them mould the lucky winners into a petal-shaped concoction of oozing yumminess. And then you sit in sugary silence and watch Old Compton street roll by in all its trippy splendour. But stuck in an office in the East End, I have no option but to while away the hours with pumpkin seeds and yoghurt until its time to go for a run through the packed City streets at lunch hour and then dash into Tesco's to plunder the shelves of humous and oatcakes. My day is measured by snacks and meals and grazing and thinking about what I'm going to eat next. And on a rainy day, such as today, the inner call for carbs - preferably steaming hot - becomes too much to think above. If any more precipitation rolls down the window, I'll wish I were male, and preoccupied with anything other than thoughts of biscuits...or pizza...or chocolate...
Tuesday 18 May 2010
On my luxurious commute
I have discovered real luxury, and its not a perfume made in the mountains at midnight, or cashmere plucked from the bellies of baby goats. Its leaving a little early and riding the route to work that takes me past my favourite spots in my favourite city.
Google Maps tells me the quickest route from home to the office is a dreary slog along Nine Elms Lane, where Royal Mail trucks larger than Texas rumble past me on my flimsy bicycle and the site for the new American embassy looks like a tooth cavity drilled and awaiting filling. Then I am directed to progress up into the City from the riverside, past cowed looking people in cheap gray suits sucking on Starbucks as they jostle their way out of Liverpool street station. This route gets me to work in a vile mood, swearing to find a new job, any job, as long as it isn't in the East End.
But I came to a sweet realisation a while ago; that I had the freedom to choose. Ah, democracy and the burden of choice...however, I digress. A little less sleep, a few more trees... Easy decision, really. So now I set out in the morning with a sense of anticipation, and wend my way through Battersea Park, where a man brings fish for the herons that flash around him in the early sun like a gang of gawky teenagers. I cross the river under the rearing arches of Ebury bridge and take the temperature of the day from the Thames; there is nothing that river doesn't know about the city it slices through, I think, as I stare into its greasy gray depths. Then I circuit Sloane Square, where the bronze girl kneels forever in her fountain - filled and frothing now that Spring has at last arrived - and watch the sober-suited man roll up the shutters on Tiffany's for another day of peddling want. The elegant matrons of Belgravia are to be seen getting into their chauffered cars from the marble steps of townhouses I decorate in my dreams...through briefly open doors I catch tantalising snippets of a life where quiet and space reign in gleaming rooms. Little ladies in headscarves shuffle along the pavements to Waitrose past me, and should I stop to pick a tulip from the profusion in Ebury Square, there is an excellent chance of it blowing off and being flattened by a Maybach bearing down behind me. What comes next is a swift heart-in-throat dash through the steely cabbies that swarm around Wellington Arch; I always secretly salute the triumphant laurel-bearing girl, aloft above the fracas in her chariot, as I dash for the light that I usually get caught at, and must wait for the traffic pouring down Park Lane. Then its Piccadilly, past the Royal Academy that I've yet to visit, and into Piccadilly Circus where the ads perpetually keep the tourists goggling and snapping. Up Shaftesbury, past the theatres that will one day bear my name in lights, and the smells leaking out of Chinatown.
As soon as I cross Kingsway, things get quirky and the shops get smaller. People instantly acquire dress sense. One is reminded that plaid shirts with tightly rolled sleeves and jeans so skinny you can give yourself an anatomy lesson have never stoppped being hip. Some days, when there's time (and others, when there isn't) I join the queue at Monmouth for a moment in one of the commmunal wooden booths with the best cofee in London. And then onwards and eastwards. Rapha (cycling clothing Prada) have opened a cafe and store on Clerkenwell road that attracts couriers in their rag tag get-up, always accessorised with a bike lock slung across the body like a belt of ammmo and a crackling walkie-talkie. Further along the road is another new cafe, flaunting uber-cool custom built bikes in its windows, called Look Mum, No Hands.
As I turn down City road, the suits take over and gray becomes pervasive. I become just another of the army of ants that swarm into the blind buildings to switch on their computers and pick up their phones. But I can smile, knowing I have the whole thing to do in reverse, come five thirty...
Google Maps tells me the quickest route from home to the office is a dreary slog along Nine Elms Lane, where Royal Mail trucks larger than Texas rumble past me on my flimsy bicycle and the site for the new American embassy looks like a tooth cavity drilled and awaiting filling. Then I am directed to progress up into the City from the riverside, past cowed looking people in cheap gray suits sucking on Starbucks as they jostle their way out of Liverpool street station. This route gets me to work in a vile mood, swearing to find a new job, any job, as long as it isn't in the East End.
But I came to a sweet realisation a while ago; that I had the freedom to choose. Ah, democracy and the burden of choice...however, I digress. A little less sleep, a few more trees... Easy decision, really. So now I set out in the morning with a sense of anticipation, and wend my way through Battersea Park, where a man brings fish for the herons that flash around him in the early sun like a gang of gawky teenagers. I cross the river under the rearing arches of Ebury bridge and take the temperature of the day from the Thames; there is nothing that river doesn't know about the city it slices through, I think, as I stare into its greasy gray depths. Then I circuit Sloane Square, where the bronze girl kneels forever in her fountain - filled and frothing now that Spring has at last arrived - and watch the sober-suited man roll up the shutters on Tiffany's for another day of peddling want. The elegant matrons of Belgravia are to be seen getting into their chauffered cars from the marble steps of townhouses I decorate in my dreams...through briefly open doors I catch tantalising snippets of a life where quiet and space reign in gleaming rooms. Little ladies in headscarves shuffle along the pavements to Waitrose past me, and should I stop to pick a tulip from the profusion in Ebury Square, there is an excellent chance of it blowing off and being flattened by a Maybach bearing down behind me. What comes next is a swift heart-in-throat dash through the steely cabbies that swarm around Wellington Arch; I always secretly salute the triumphant laurel-bearing girl, aloft above the fracas in her chariot, as I dash for the light that I usually get caught at, and must wait for the traffic pouring down Park Lane. Then its Piccadilly, past the Royal Academy that I've yet to visit, and into Piccadilly Circus where the ads perpetually keep the tourists goggling and snapping. Up Shaftesbury, past the theatres that will one day bear my name in lights, and the smells leaking out of Chinatown.
As soon as I cross Kingsway, things get quirky and the shops get smaller. People instantly acquire dress sense. One is reminded that plaid shirts with tightly rolled sleeves and jeans so skinny you can give yourself an anatomy lesson have never stoppped being hip. Some days, when there's time (and others, when there isn't) I join the queue at Monmouth for a moment in one of the commmunal wooden booths with the best cofee in London. And then onwards and eastwards. Rapha (cycling clothing Prada) have opened a cafe and store on Clerkenwell road that attracts couriers in their rag tag get-up, always accessorised with a bike lock slung across the body like a belt of ammmo and a crackling walkie-talkie. Further along the road is another new cafe, flaunting uber-cool custom built bikes in its windows, called Look Mum, No Hands.
As I turn down City road, the suits take over and gray becomes pervasive. I become just another of the army of ants that swarm into the blind buildings to switch on their computers and pick up their phones. But I can smile, knowing I have the whole thing to do in reverse, come five thirty...
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