Good in an Eighties, Rutger Hauer, Straight-to-video Kind of Way
After a day spent in a basement off of Oxford Street, I caught a 390 bus, aiming to hit Bayswater. This was not the wisest of decisions. I made things worse by getting off at the wrong stop and then trying to take a shortcut through the backstreets of Notting Hill. This was a very bad move.
Walking passed drug dealers in a fetid side road, with a black rucksack hitched to your shoulder as the wind whips your leather overcoat might sound good in an eighties, Rutger Hauer, straight-to-video kind of way, but it does not qualify as my idea of Friday fun. I am not sure what the correct, street smart strategy is in this kind of situation; I got by evoking my best South London scowl and plodding along with a feigned air of deliberate nonchalance.
My evening did not get better when I got to Bayswater. Seeing a movie by yourself can either be a glorious experience or reduce you to feeling like the saddest sack to have ever walked into the Odeon at Whitelys. Tonight, shuffling into the LED twilight of Screen 8, I felt particularly abysmal and lonely. Being surrounded by the inane chatter of dating twenty-somethings only heightened these feelings. I was at least thankful for the fact that the couples closest to me were cooing over each other in Polish and Russian, their language allowing me almost total alienation, sparing me unwanted overhearing of hormonal banter and therefore further reflections on my lonesomeness. Friday night is definitely not the time to see a movie alone.
I could not wait for the lights to fade down and the trailers to roll. I needed so badly to be taken out of myself, to vanish into a narrative, immersed in another’s vision of the world. Even if it was set to be a ridiculous, brutal and predictable story, I wanted to be lost in fiction.
Nearly three hours later, the lights flared back to life and people began to scramble for spilt coats and bags. I found myself heading out into the night again remind of another drawback of seeing a film alone – there is no-one to talk to about what you have just seen. Bad movies deserve a post-mortem and as Clarence says in True Romance: ‘After I see a good movie I like to go out and get some pie and coffee and talk about it. It’s a sort of tradition.’*
However, Bayswater at approaching 11pm on a Friday is not the place for solo pie and coffee, so I began to walk towards home. I think my earlier Notting Hill experience had left me somewhat nerved. Despite the comforting and familiar smell of apple tobacco smoke still hovering over the now closed corner café, I began to feel nervous as I took my first alley.
Paranoia tends to awaken your senses to all the small details of surrounding ignored in the oblivious sleepwalk of the everyday. For the first time, I noticed that the street lighting in the area was not the sodium orange I am familiar with from the suburbs of my childhood, but a harsh, white light. Although this means less shadow, it is far from reassuring to know you would clearly see the face of anyone attacking you. The ridiculously heavy rucksack of hardback books on architecture and military history began to feel like a danger itself. It was too heavy run with and there was also the fact that you never want to look like a tourist when walking under the Westway.
After 10 minutes of loose fear, I made the pub at the end of my street, safe in amongst the crowd of actors drunk on applause and numerous gin and tonics. I caught a glimpse of myself in the polished chrome of the beer pumps already echoing the glow from the red-beaded chandeliers that help give the place a tart’s boudoir appearance. I looked dark-eyed, exhausted and grumpy. Hollowed.
Eventually the self-congratulatory talk of money and property from the acting mob drove me from the bar. I wandered outside with my pint of strawberry beer. The night was unfeasibly warm for January and I sat and watched the same white light dance itself to fracture on the choppy water of the canal. At last, here in my little enclave, I felt totally safe.
*With apologies to Tarantino who is not the easiest of writers to quote from memory.
Walking passed drug dealers in a fetid side road, with a black rucksack hitched to your shoulder as the wind whips your leather overcoat might sound good in an eighties, Rutger Hauer, straight-to-video kind of way, but it does not qualify as my idea of Friday fun. I am not sure what the correct, street smart strategy is in this kind of situation; I got by evoking my best South London scowl and plodding along with a feigned air of deliberate nonchalance.
My evening did not get better when I got to Bayswater. Seeing a movie by yourself can either be a glorious experience or reduce you to feeling like the saddest sack to have ever walked into the Odeon at Whitelys. Tonight, shuffling into the LED twilight of Screen 8, I felt particularly abysmal and lonely. Being surrounded by the inane chatter of dating twenty-somethings only heightened these feelings. I was at least thankful for the fact that the couples closest to me were cooing over each other in Polish and Russian, their language allowing me almost total alienation, sparing me unwanted overhearing of hormonal banter and therefore further reflections on my lonesomeness. Friday night is definitely not the time to see a movie alone.
I could not wait for the lights to fade down and the trailers to roll. I needed so badly to be taken out of myself, to vanish into a narrative, immersed in another’s vision of the world. Even if it was set to be a ridiculous, brutal and predictable story, I wanted to be lost in fiction.
Nearly three hours later, the lights flared back to life and people began to scramble for spilt coats and bags. I found myself heading out into the night again remind of another drawback of seeing a film alone – there is no-one to talk to about what you have just seen. Bad movies deserve a post-mortem and as Clarence says in True Romance: ‘After I see a good movie I like to go out and get some pie and coffee and talk about it. It’s a sort of tradition.’*
However, Bayswater at approaching 11pm on a Friday is not the place for solo pie and coffee, so I began to walk towards home. I think my earlier Notting Hill experience had left me somewhat nerved. Despite the comforting and familiar smell of apple tobacco smoke still hovering over the now closed corner café, I began to feel nervous as I took my first alley.
Paranoia tends to awaken your senses to all the small details of surrounding ignored in the oblivious sleepwalk of the everyday. For the first time, I noticed that the street lighting in the area was not the sodium orange I am familiar with from the suburbs of my childhood, but a harsh, white light. Although this means less shadow, it is far from reassuring to know you would clearly see the face of anyone attacking you. The ridiculously heavy rucksack of hardback books on architecture and military history began to feel like a danger itself. It was too heavy run with and there was also the fact that you never want to look like a tourist when walking under the Westway.
After 10 minutes of loose fear, I made the pub at the end of my street, safe in amongst the crowd of actors drunk on applause and numerous gin and tonics. I caught a glimpse of myself in the polished chrome of the beer pumps already echoing the glow from the red-beaded chandeliers that help give the place a tart’s boudoir appearance. I looked dark-eyed, exhausted and grumpy. Hollowed.
Eventually the self-congratulatory talk of money and property from the acting mob drove me from the bar. I wandered outside with my pint of strawberry beer. The night was unfeasibly warm for January and I sat and watched the same white light dance itself to fracture on the choppy water of the canal. At last, here in my little enclave, I felt totally safe.
*With apologies to Tarantino who is not the easiest of writers to quote from memory.
Labels: Bayswater, Paranoia, Strawberry beer
posted by David at 11:59 PM
3 Comments:
That night sounds like a movie all of it's own.
If it was a movie, it would be a straight to DVD one.
Creepy... but what on earth is Strawberry Beer?
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