Alan Coleman

I was taking some photos this morning on the way into work and managed to get a picture of something I noticed a few weeks ago. It’s a sign, painted on brickwork, for a cafe that was established in 1854. Veglio & CO’s Cafe.

This sign has only just become visible due to some demolition work being carried out on the rebuild of  Tottenham Court Road Underground station. It’s strange to think that this particular sign was probably covered up after the last war, only to be uncovered 60 years later. I was wondering to myself if any older person has seen the sign and remembers it, or even remembers going to the Cafe.

This sort of signage is nothing new of course, it’s practically everywhere. In fact I remember seeing an almost identical sign in Chelmsford a few years ago after some demolition work, it was only there for a couple of weeks before being hidden again for another 20 years, or however long it’ll be before the ‘Internet Ready’ lifestyle apartments see the wrecking ball.

It looks fairly precarious so will almost certainly be taken down, and I can’t decide whether or not that’s a shame. Part of me thinks it should remain as some kind of museum piece, but then I think about how today is so far removed from the society of 150 years ago there’s not really much point. It is a city after all, and there’s no point living in one unless you’re going to accept continuous progress. We can only keep hold of so much that attatches us to the past.

However, to contradict myself I’ve always thought that if I ever had a property with a sign like this I’d repaint it and restore it to it’s former glory – Champion Spark Plugs, Marmite or even Bryant and May Safety Matches, products from an austere and far less wasteful era when war was easy to understand and bullying was just a little bit of fun.

PS. There’s a Bryant and May sign down in New Cross just down from the Amersham Arms.

Two Things. The first is the London Marathon. I’d only ever watched this on TV before and always considered it quite tedious, all those wacky costumes and over enthusiastic charity types seemed a little bit too much. We went to see some friends who live in Canary Wharf on Sunday so got caught up in the crowds on the way there, and bloody brilliant it was too. Despite my ill informed judgment (who would have thought it?) about the event it turned out to be not only really good fun, but also quite inspiring. Moreover, in the current climate of hysteria surrounding our identity here we have an event that shows that we can be a great nation without necessarily involving the tabloid press.

The costumes, the pain, the smiles and the decency all underpinned a general feeling of pride both in the spectators and the runners. As the Samba bands played in the sunshine, and pubs spilled out onto the cracked pavements on the Isle of Dogs, we suddenly had a glimpse of how life can be lived without politics, greed and Richard Littlejohn.

The second thing is a gig I went to at the Electric Ballroom last week. And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead has been one of my favourite bands (aren’t they all?) for years, and last Thursday didn’t disappoint. I won’t bother using F7 to come up with a load of adjectives other than to say that they’re the real deal, and as I’ve said time and again, all the best bands are American.

Things are looking up!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alcoleman/sets/72157617401351574/

http://www.trailofdead.com/

I’m referring to the state of chaos and confusion that is the country of Greece this week, two before Christmas. It seems that the ignition for this spate of rioting was the shooting of a fifteen year old boy by Police, but I think that the real momentum is probably rooted in more wide ranging issues.  The Greeks have had enough, they’re fed up and pissed off and they’re releasing their anger by rioting in the streets and generally smashing things up. And good luck to them too.

I’ve always said that one of the defining moments for the British people, within my lifetime, was the manner in which we stood up to the Poll Tax (notice I use the word ‘we’ with a sense of pride). The widow learnt her lesson that day, humiliated by a mass disobedience that would end in tears of self pity. The politicians lined up with the usual rhetoric, but by then it’s too late because the damage had been done. Not by thugs or hooligans, but by people who were pushed too far. The reoccurring theme of a smaller group who consider the interests of an even smaller group to be of more importance.

We have to ask ourselves why and when civil disorder became uncivilised, frowned upon by middle aged men in suits and rebranded as thuggish, when the reality is that civil disorder results from people being badly treated.  Also, if it is our wish to smash the place up then why shouldn’t we? After all it does belong to us, we shouldn’t be made to feel as though our habitat has been provided for our use by graceful politicians, only to be handed a good helping of disappointment after we misbehave.

The right wing press poured scorn on protesters who gave a statue of Winston Churchill a green Mohican a few years ago. What happened to our sense of humour? That was a truly funny moment. Besides that, Churchill was a politician which means we have the right to lampoon him in life and death. Further still, it was he that played such a vital part in securing freedom during the Second World War, but he didn’t win the war on his own and even if he did, we still have the right to use that freedom how we choose.

Sometimes I think that peoples idea of democracy is just having things how they want it, or am I missing something?

Civil disorder keeps a country on its toes, it reminds the establishment that they can only have their way most of the time, and it reminds us that we still have some fighting spirit left.

The only problem the world has with civil disorder is there’s not enough of it.

I see him every morning in the park, watching intently as his pedigree Beagle shits in the flowerbed.

Dogs? Pet fucking dogs.

He stands upright and moans to other dog walkers about the state of the country, young people and insolence.

He wants to move on but the animal wants to stay and sniff, so they both block the path with their ridiculous retractable lead as he shouts the dogs name over and over and over again.

The voice of the old fashioned East End gent is inches from my hangover and fear. I tell him to get out of the way. He asks me who I’m talking to and I say you, and fucking that, jabbing my finger at the animal.

He spits with fury, the white hair and the brown winter coat. He’s foul mouthed, like me. The pet fucking dog has a go at me as the East End gent flicks the switch to let out yet more retractable lead.

So now I can’t walk through the park anymore through fear, it’s my own fault. I’m bored of it anyway, Lincoln’s inn fields. The ‘pleasant’ urban space for smug lawyers, personal trainers, tennis, tabloid newspapers, the middle classes and dog shit.

I usually stop just outside Blackfriars to survey the days papers, a quick glance across the multicoloured collage of sex, hate and economic meltdown. As predictable as it is amusing, especially last week when I spotted a story about the Saindi family from Afghanistan who’d apparently been housed in a seven bedroom house in Ealing, West London. I don’t know what I found more amusing, the finger wagging fury or the comments Mrs Saindi made about the house being too big to clean, funny as!

It used to be Rock and Roll bands and young people that upset the Tory media, now the papers put their songs on the Sunday edition as a polite freebie. It’s says a lot about the awful state of music in this country when we have to rely on immigrants to upset the status quo.

The thought of Mrs Saindi showing journalists her new plasma screen doesn’t make me feel jealous or envious or even angry, as there’s always something more important to worry about than who’s getting what for free.

That said, when the papers started talking of scroungers and handouts at the weekend, I couldn’t help but think of how a family like the Windsor’s have managed to get away with what they have for so many years. Because when you look at it, the loan of a house and a Nintendo is fairly insignificant when compared to generations of favour, opulence and greed that we have afforded the Royal family. And the Royal family are immigrants after all.

It is they that are the real parasites, standing by with glum indifference as the media celebrate their obscenity, their foolish offspring, and their want. They can’t believe their luck, millions queuing up to cheer their mere existence as someone else bares the misguided anger of those same ignorant subjects.

You make your bed, you lie in it.