Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner
It is official. I am a Londoner. For the first time in 18 years, I qualify as a permanent resident of Albion’s capital. I am no longer just spending the majority of my time here; no longer a constant tourist, a visitor who does not know when to leave.
According to all the bureaucrat paperwork I now live full-time in London. It is great. I even qualify for a resident’s card bestowing legitimate library user status and discounts at everywhere from the zoo to the puppet theatre.
Crawling upstream, moving from the hazy estuary border of salt and fresh to my new canalside mooring, I am another alien who has found a home in the hoodoo mix. The polarities have been reversed. When the train passes under the M25 on Tuesday, it will have stopped representing the point where London’s gravitational power splutters out and Essex reasserts itself. It has now become the barrier between future and past. The edge of my city home and the new away of an estuarial satellite destination.
To mark this special day, I have been given gifts. Black glass goblets, green metal kangaroos and cooking bibles. Over curry and champagne, watching a feature film about a boy from Southend who makes mistakes, but is smart enough to learn from them, everything changes.
So, join me in softly singing:
‘I get a funny feeling inside of me
When walking up and down
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
That I love London Town’
According to all the bureaucrat paperwork I now live full-time in London. It is great. I even qualify for a resident’s card bestowing legitimate library user status and discounts at everywhere from the zoo to the puppet theatre.
Crawling upstream, moving from the hazy estuary border of salt and fresh to my new canalside mooring, I am another alien who has found a home in the hoodoo mix. The polarities have been reversed. When the train passes under the M25 on Tuesday, it will have stopped representing the point where London’s gravitational power splutters out and Essex reasserts itself. It has now become the barrier between future and past. The edge of my city home and the new away of an estuarial satellite destination.
To mark this special day, I have been given gifts. Black glass goblets, green metal kangaroos and cooking bibles. Over curry and champagne, watching a feature film about a boy from Southend who makes mistakes, but is smart enough to learn from them, everything changes.
So, join me in softly singing:
‘I get a funny feeling inside of me
When walking up and down
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
That I love London Town’
7 Comments:
That's great news - it's where you belong, I think. Certainly where you resonate. Congratulations, David. I look forward to my next time in Town with even greater keenness.
Very nice. Congratulations to you... *sings*
I didn't realize there are actual benefits to living there besides the obvious one of just wanting to. We don't have things like that here. All we get are library cards and the opportunity to pay enormous taxes.
In my London, you get lead poisoned water and a shotgun to hold off cougar attacks. I think yours is better.
Hey, congratulations! London has welcomed you home! It sounds like a perfect time to celebrate. And as though your celebration was grand. :)
Great description of how it is to have London as your "official" point of reference, finally.
you should take a listen to london rain on my boom box on my page - its very .. you
Can't wait to see the pearly suit guv.
Yes, London is where I resonate. Having spent some time in the other London (a shameless and shabby imitation right down to its river ‘Thames’), I only miss three of its good points – rampant black squirrels, being able to buy comic books from Bruno and pubs so lax in policy they will even let Sean Twist drink in them. I do not qualify for a pearly suit, besides it would just clash with my chimney sweep attire.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home