Good things come to those who wait

Post Secret

This has been going on for a few years now, but I'd forgotten about it and found one of the books in a book store the other day, and stood there flicking through it, absorbed for a good 15 minutes whilst my boyfriend poured over some comics. It's really interesting to browse other people's confessions, almost like being an agony aunt but a more succint version. Some are brutally honest and deep...

...others not so much, but they do make you chuckle.

The project is still going on now, you can check out the website which is updated every Sunday here, the best ones get documented on the website/in books/exhibitions. I'm thinking of submitting my own postcard and secret, but I have no idea where to start...

i am a meat eater

Therefore the 'Rootmaster' bus on Brick Lane did not paticularly cater for my needs. Drawn in by the novelty bus-restaurant format, I somehow managed to overlook the fact that the whole menu was vegan when scanning over it, and boarded the bus with high spirits (as an afterthought, the name 'Rootmaster' is a bit of a give away).

You can't help but notice the bus on Ely's Yard round the corner from Rough Trade, and I'd been wanting to go on it for a while, and sure inside was a pretty cosy set up, but the suspension does jiggle you around a bit, especially when people are clambering up and down the stairs. The smell of food wafting up to the top floor from the kitchen below promised unknown exotic titbits, but the reality was nowhere near as exciting.

The 'cranberry' drink I ordered turned out to be the most bizarre fizzy affair and got cast aside, and the starter of bread with balsamic vinegar (or something) was also a major let down. For my main dish I had a butternut squash curry type concoction with rice, herbs and the occasional trace of mushroom, which although delcious, was scarce. I was left feeling like one of my own curries would be more satisfying, and also cheaper. Although the flavour of the meal was lovely- I do love butternut squash - the overall effect was bland and just lacking, well er, meat. So be forewarned, climb aboard if you want to drink herbal tea and the like, or actually are, you know, a vegan, but if you aren't I'd stick to cafe 1001 or the foodhall, personally.

New York London PARIS Munich

And so after days, months, years of yearning even I embarked upon my voyage to gay Paris. It was indeed a charming city, at times, but I must admit France wasn't quite as magnifique as I'd anticipated...then again I guess I'd been idolising it for so long it came a little as an anti-climax.

A fabulous time was had never the less, and highlights included:

• Climbing all 300 and something million steps up the Eiffel Tower despite remembering I am not a fan of heights, occasionally nearly keeling over with exhaustion and being put to shame by toddlers taking on the challenge with far greater aplomb . Also amusing was a thief who was chased after and floored by several policemen, who were soon after backed up by fellow police officers on horseback. A little extravagant but hey.
  
• The Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary museum with some pretty rad installations and a really cool video on skateboarding, gnarly dudes.
  
• Eating the obligatory snails, which I had eaten before in Barcelona but not in garlic, and using a lovely metal claw to extract the slippery buggars. I became quite adept at this, and after a while managed to persuade the lovely Hayna to sample one. She dug it.


• The Moulin Rouge - amaaazing costumes and acts inbetween the dancers, paticularly a woman who scantily clad in a diamonte thong proceeded to dive into a tank full of water and snakes, where she thrashed around recklessly for a good minute or so. Main complaint with the show, there was no where near enough male nakedness, then again I guess the leering fat businessmen would not approve. But still.
  
• Montmarte - such a lovely area, there was a really good Dali museum where they had the Mae West lips sofa and the Sacre Coeur was beautiful, we saw the carousel and steps where Amelié was filmed. Not so lovely were the hordes of foreign men attempting to sell bracelets, telling you 'not to worry' as they try to prise their wares onto your arm as you shout at them. The erotic museum (which we perused purely to kill time, you understand) was also a giggle, Hannah tempted by the 'intimate jewellery' in the gift shop.

Not so great was the awful weather, which meant that we got soaked to the bone in a not so fun trudge down the Champs- Élysées, which was no where near as picturesque as I was hoping. The Louvre was also a bit of a let down, though our experience was marred by the horrendous amount of visitors crammed into every square metre and our fatigue from the significant amount of walking we'd racked up over the excursion. Overall a trés bon trip, but I was glad to get back to London where in my opinion, even though people (especially on the underground) can be rude, we are altogether a lot more pleasant than the French.

tru dat

house 101

Park Life

Walking along Walworth Road I feel like a night walker stuck in the wrong time frame. The fresh morning air engulfs me, and I feel clear headed though my eyes are still adjusting to the light. The street is a ghost town, only the emaciated and scruffy old men furnished with their Special Brew roam in these early hours of Sunday morning, well, those and the ubiquitous morning runners, who litter the usually crowded pavements.

I walk along leisurely, enjoying the cool morning air and plan to walk to the park and sit by the lake, feed the ducks, what a romantic image. As I pass the mass of closed consumerism, very few of the insidious neon signs still aglow, I round the corner near the park and stumble across Mary's Cafe. I often pass the place on the bus, and it had been on my list of places to go for a while so I figure there's nothing to lose by venturing in; I abandon my park plans.



Inside the walls are covered in blue and yellow vertically striped wallpaper, and tables in various primary colours are dotted around, adorned with black wooden chairs which remind me of a school room. An old woman stares at me listlessly as I walk across the tiled floor to the counter, where a man with a grey moustache jovially greets me and says "Thanks, sweedie", as he takes the £3.80 I proffer for my breakfast special number one, which I read fresh off the chalk board.

Taking my cup of tea in the pleasingly rounded canary yellow mug, I retreat to a pastel yellow table to the middle left of the room, next to a wall. The sound of a can opening pierces the air as the woman wearing gold hoop earrings adjacent to me opens her tin of ginger beer as she waits for her black pudding. Two old men sit by the window in front of the devoid 'Merry Christmas' sign still lingering from years earlier; their faces decorated with glasses and wrinkles; they mirror each other taking gulps of the two cups of tea in front of them. One gets out his TV guide and eagerly reads out the program for later on in the evening, the other leans forward to listen whilst outside a red double decker bus is visible, most of its passengers in their Sunday best.



I loop the handle of my cup and drag the tea towards me, before clumsily measuring out two heaped tablespoons of sugar, which I pour from the sugar shaker nestling on the table amongst the other paint palette of condiments. Stirring in the sugar slowly and deliberately with my thumb and index finger steering the spoon I suddenly feel the urge to smoke a cigarette, which is impossible seeing as a) I have no cigarettes and b) smoking's not allowed here.

I unfold my newspaper onto the table and start to read it in vain, soon realising props here are not necessary, and I follow the old womans lead and unashamedly drink in the scene around me. The gaffer wanders from table to table, cracking jokes and making general banter with the regulars and I wonder if this is what I'll be like in sixty years time, devoid of any real pressing matters (perhaps), time stretched before me to peruse at my leisure. I think of my Gran, and how she'd have been at home in a place like this, if she was still around I would've brought her here.

My breakfast arrives and I tuck into the bacon egg beans tomatoes and sausage I have been anticipating. The old men at the window carry on with their conversation, the old women near the back of the cafe carry on theirs with the gaff. The radio starts to play and I feel like I could be in another era...until I turn my head to one side and am greeted with the panoramic widescreen tv screaming the message "Should human eggs be for sale?".

Reality zones back in and I realise I have been sitting in my spot for nearly an hour. I make a resolve to come to the cafe every sunday morning, and muse that maybe old lonely people don't have it so bad afterall. Then again, what do I know, I'm just a phoney regular at least twenty years too young.