SHOREDITCH
It has been awhile. I have fallen over the seas and swept through the sunnier climes of Europe.
There was not much time for blogging: far too much living to be done. I forged memories, forget them, made more, took notes, snapped shots, talked it up and took it home. Now to bleed some words from the experience.
If I start from the end and go backwards, I may find myself
starting to get to the beginning of it all. I started where I finished at any rate,
looping back through London to tie a neat circle around an amazing adventure. I set of in a north by northwest direction, but I guess every point is north by northeast if you angle it with enough perspective.
My itinerary:
Crouch End, London
Kouklia, Cyprus
Kreuzberg, Berlin
Lewes, Sussex
Barrio Gottico, Barcelona
St Tomas, Menorca
Earl’s Court, London
Behind me lay the remnants of a great civilisation,
artefacts we had excavated to illuminate the lifestyle of a proud people with a
way of life that endured for millennia.
In the wreckage of the central leg lay a heaving, thumping, pulsing
string of clubs, people, nights, lights and laughter that left me reeling and
feeling a freedom long forgotten. The final stretch glittered in the Balearic
Sun and the pangs of great holiday soon to end.
For now, the end.
Of the trip.
The beginning of the telling.
The hipster is alive and well in Shoreditch. It's written on the walls, it's hiding in the beards and moustaches, the skinny jeans and horn rimmed specs. Hardly a whisper of the Olympics round these parts - hipsters don't like sports. Unless they're ironic.
The place exudes coolness. My mate is a hair dresser, a damn good one, and can execute a precisely layered advanced haircut after zero sleep and an unhealthy dose of a devilish vodka Pimms mix. He works at Murdoch, a male grooming salon which caters to the well presented gent, demonstrating the particular kind of premeditated insouciance that is quite expensive to maintain.
I took a stroll and snapped these graffiti photos on my way to the famous Rough Trade Records. I picked up some sweet vinyl including this doozy by Modern Artefacts, whose name compelled me to listen and the explosion at 3:15 persuaded me to buy it. In Brick Lane I bought a Polish sausage from a Spanish man behind an Argentinian BBQ and listened to a smug geezer proclaiming how he had secured a record deal with some big shot.
Shoreditch = 5 Shovels
