You all know one London already: the London of Big Ben and Hyde Park, of Fuckingham and Piccadilly, of the British and the Tate; the touristy, fashionable London of arts, entertainment and culture, of proper Britishness binding together an astounding multicoloured amalgam of ethnicities, languages and cultures. But there is another London, of which I have not yet spoken.
It's the London of foxes rummaging in trash bins, of rats scurrying away over the railway tracks. It's the London of drunken blokes meandering in the fog, while others sleep in a puddle of their own puke in a bus stop. It's the London of old people arguing with themselves while they drag their feet down the road, carrying their own boring tragedies.
It's the London of brown-bricked suburban slums, of chavs in patchy outfits and loud voices picking up fights, of broken homes and fractured families, of street gangs and overdose, of knives and guns, of black kids stabbed to death in front of an off-licence.
It's the London of urban tribes, of the destitute homeless with their feet sticking out of cardboard homes in the subways, and bruvva can you shpare some change. It's the London of sects and cults, of street preachers, of creationism in Christian schools and jihad in mosques.
It's the London of theft and murder, of beatings and rape, of deaths by stray bullets. It's The Other London, unseen to a passer-by, hidden to all but those who want to see it - it's London Below.
Over all of this and much more, Big Brother keeps watch with his composite bug eyes of a billion CCTV cameras. He doesn't give a flying fuck as long as the money keeps flowing.
7 comments:
You can't imagine how Papa Shakespeare is working his way into you. You're soaking wet; dripping universals, the pros and cons, the whys and wherefores, the highs and the lows,the poison which hath residence in the infant rind of the weak but promising flower of your discourse...
Then I can see it coming: the moment when you look back at the outcome and, ready to rest, you will see that this is good:)
Joder macho, eso de que hagas referencia a Neil Gaiman me da demasiado pie para explayarme, así que me aguantaré y me morderé la lengua.
Nada más leer la primera línea había pensado en mandarte el mismo link que has puesto más abajo, así que cuando he leído lo de "London below" me ha dado la risa.
Has leído el libro? Has visto la miniserie de TV? Has leído el comic? Pues deberías. El comic se te puede perdonar, y la serie tiene un toque cutre, pero el libro es de lectura obligatoria. Justo ahora ando leyendo un libro de Gaiman (Objetos Frágiles).
Sincronismo! Sincronismo! Sin-cornismo! xDDD
Hala, un abrazote y no te metas por callejones malignos =P
PS. Le ha faltado una "t" al captcha para ser digno de pantallazo. "Deares" pone el jodío xDDD
euge: Stop spoiling me!! Anyway, I don't reckon Papa Shakespeare has much to do with any change in my discourse. The more I study his stuff, the less I like it. Wit, yeah, loads, poetry, yes, metric, rhythm and whatnot, but more often than not the plots are crap, the characters impossible, the Deus Ex Machina all too obvious. Suspension of disbelief requires hard drugs.
Maku: Pues expláyate, hombre :D Y claro que me he leído el libro. Bueno, la mayor parte en cualquier caso. Llegado a un punto, me aburrió y lo dejé. A riesgo de ofenderte atacando a uno de tus ídolos, he de decir que Gaiman es un poco inútil con los diálogos. Ya me lo pareció en Neverwhere, pero lo confirmé con Sandman. Que por cierto, hay alguna que otra cosa muy chula en ese comic, pero tb mucho lastre.
Oh sacrilegio!! Tienes licencia para despotricar ^_^
PS. No pillo el captcha. "Deartes"? "Deatres"?
My friend, I really wish you have not seen this incident about the black guy killed on the street.
Mmmmm, you read GayMan?
I knew London was changing you!
Which London are you discovering?
I hope you show me some of this one you describe, although not nice, it is more real than the other one.
Keep on living in both, feet on the ground, head and soul to heaven ^-^
And, keep the Alpidistra Flying, you know this one?
PD: I begin to play with the captcha-game. My captcha: oldbess, I miss an "l"
Maku, I don't get yours neither, maybe "de-artes"?
Yiyi: I didn't see it myself, a friend of mine did. She was there when he died.
Is The Other London more real, you reckon? For those living in it, no doubt it is. I think it's just darker, sombre and gloomy, not more real in any meaningful sense, just closer to a horror story than a fairytale. Still a story, but you might find it more to you liking.
Never heard of Keep the Aspidistra Flying before, being Orwell I'll have to check it out.
As for Gaiman, you should give Neverwhere a shot, it's quite a thing. And I've just seen Stardust the film (based on book by same author) and it's just brrrrilliant.
One Month Off.
Blogger is going to close down your account.
Readers are gonna give up reading your blog.
Hear!Hear!
I couldn't agree more, Yiyi!
I've worn away one complete layer of the keyboard plastic; even the blogger sign is gonna fade and pop off.
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