Disparaging the boot is a bootable offence

I don’t know why, but over the past few months I’ve become a bit of a Clothes Person. I can’t explain it. After more than a quarter of a century not really giving much of a damn what I wore, I’ve started (gasp!) caring how I’m dressed. Actually, it’s been a fairly gradual thing, but it’s really hit since autumn. I am at a loss to explain it.

I even have a sort of philosophy of clothing. In my view, there’s no point following fashion. For starters, they keep changing the damn thing. Then there’s the fact that I am, not to beat around the bush, completely the wrong shape for fashion. Fashion is designed with skinny types in mind, and Christ knows I’m a long way from skinny.

Therefore, I tend to go for clothes that are eyecatching, but flattering. During the First and Second World Wars, it was common practice to paint ships as you see on the left, in what was known as “dazzle camouflage.” By covering the ship in different shapes and colours, it was hard for enemy gunners to make out where the vessel actually was. By the same token, I tend to go for clothes that catch and thus deceive the eye. A shirt, waistcoat, jacket and accessories, particularly if you’re careful to go with fairly muted colours and patterns, will hide a multitude of sins.

And in my experience, a unique get-up, provided you don’t just look stupid, is a fine way to break the ice at parties. I’ve met quite a few very interesting people at parties purely because they came up and asked me, e.g., where did I get my watch?

As you might have gathered, I tend to favour a slightly old-fashioned semi-formal get-up, because that suits me rather better than the standard shirt-and-trou party togs. Not quite period wear, you understand, but heading in that direction. I spend a lot of time looking at vintage stuff.

Anyway, this is a longwinded way of getting on to the actual point of this blentry (it’s a word I invented – “blog” + “entry” = “blentry,” I am so cool). Namely, that last week I bought some boots. I like my shoes, but the fact is that they aren’t going to stand pounding the streets for very long. I had a pair of brown Chelsea boots in mind, but while browsing through Pop Boutique in Seven Dials I came across a pair of brown zip-up boots that looked just the ticket. The size was right, they were only £25 and they were a perfect fit. Sold!

On Saturday I decided to wear them for the first time. I took a stroll down to the station, when this happened:

I should point out that the heel wasn’t completely off at that point. I figured that I wasn’t planning to walk very far, and I couldn’t be arsed to turn around. So I put up with it. I got to Waterloo, had a look around that bookshop I rather like, and then this happened:

I know, right? In less than twenty minutes total wear time, both boots were semi-soled. Lame, in the most literal sense. The worst part, though, was the knowledge that I would have to walk home like this, shuffling along with a sort of “fluppity-thud, fluppity-thud” noise. I’m effecting some home repairs in the hope of fixing them.

In other news

I thought I was being stalked by an emo kid today, but it turned out that I was just walking through an area with a lot of emo kids, and all emo kids look the same.

How did I miss that one?

You know what I totally failed to notice? The one-year anniversary of this blog. It was back on 26th January. Ah well. Happy birthday this blog, I suppose.

South London to New York

Here’s an odd little bit of info I came across while browsing the Net. It seems the classic “Noo Yawk” accent is fading, as is the case with so many accents and dialects in the mass media age. What I found particularly interesting, though, is that apparently the New York accent ultimately comes from South London. Dropping the R at the end of words like “furniture” or “doctor” is pretty normal over here. The R only seems to be retained, off the top of my head, in West Country accents.

In America, however, the R is a precious thing. The old-skool New York accent is quite unusual in that regard. It turns out that the reason it was adopted here and not elsewhere (for the most part) is due to the fact that New York (and various other East Coast cities) were settled by South Londoners at a time when the Cockney accent was starting to gain prominence in Britain.

So now you know. Yer actual Cockney and yer actual Brooklyn are practically cousins.

All About Chalk Farm

I recently spoke to a friend-of-a-friend who had learnt, via our mutual friend, that I’m a collector of useless information on Our Fair City. She asked me if I knew anything interesting about Chalk Farm, and I had to confess, to my own annoyance, that I didn’t. I mean, it’s not that it’s an uninteresting place – it’s an old-ish part of the city, it’s among interesting places – it had just never occurred to me to research the place.

I use the station plenty. It’s way less crowded than Camden Town (and about the same distance from the Stables Market). I enjoy strolling around Primrose Hill, which is where upper-middle class people who have been good go when they die. I like the station itself, which is clean, well-maintained and empty enough that you can actually appreciate the décor – something not often possible on the crowded London Underground.

So, out of curiosity, I delved deep into my library to see what I could find out. First of all, the name. I’d assumed it either referred to a farm with chalky soil (unlikely, London is on clay) or a farm owned by someone called Chalk. Turns out not. Turns out that “Chalk” in this context is derived from “Chaldecot,” the original name of the settlement here, which means “cold cottage” or “cold shelter,” which I suppose makes this place the original Cold Comfort Farm (although there’s no evidence of a farm, which just raises further questions). The suggestion is that it was once a resting point for people coming into the city. Lazy bums, it’s not like it’s that far to walk. Hell, you could probably do it in half an hour if you know the shortcuts.

The area is more-or-less defined by the station. Chalk Farm Road itself, after which the station is directly named, mostly runs through what you and I would think of as Camden. It goes from the bridge over the canal, where may be found the Camden Lock Village market (the one that looks like a souvenir shop exploded and everyone was too lazy to clean it up) and the far superior Camden Lock market, past the Stables market (Yr. Humble Chronicler’s particular favourite), past the Roundhouse and finally ends at the junction at which Chalk Farm station is located.

The station is a fine example of Leslie Green architecture. Leslie Green is the chap who designed all those lovely oxblood-tiled Tube stations – if it’s red, it’s Green (har har). Due to the unusual shape of the junction, Chalk Farm technically has the longest unbroken frontage of any Tube station. From ticket hall to platform level, it is the shallowest of the “deep” stations (i.e. those whose lines were constructed fully underground). Coincidentally, the deepest station on the network, Hampstead, is just two stops up the line.

The station would originally have been called Adelaide Road, but for some reason the name was changed before opening. If I were to hazard a guess, the aim was to encourage people to move there with the promise of a rural idyll, as was common with Tube extensions. Why they didn’t simply go for Primrose Hill, which was a fashionable upmarket area even then, is beyond me. Having said that, Hampstead was nearly named Heath Street and the station smack-bang in the middle of Islington was named Angel, so maybe the planners were just stupendously ill-informed about which suburbs were cool. Or perhaps the builders were worried that it might be confused with the practically-next-door Primrose Hill Station – the idea of an integrated transport network with interchanges clearly indicated was virtually unknown back then. In any event, Primrose Hill Station was closed in 1992. The building is now a shop and may be seen on the left as you cross the railway from Chalk Farm Tube. There is a scheme to reopen this as part of the Overground.

Admittedly it's not exactly easy to tell this is Chalk Farm, but trust me, it is.

Of course, I’ve managed to get quite a long way in without talking about what this area is really famous for. Namely, music. Starting at the station, Madness were photographed here for the cover of their album Absolutely. It’s also been used in the films The Boy Who Turned Yellow and Bad Behaviour, but I couldn’t tell you anything about those.

Then a short, short walk will bring you to the unmistakeable Roundhouse, London’s legendary music venue. The roundness of the house comes from the fact that it originally housed a locomotive shed with a turntable. Engines would be uncoupled from their trains here, turned on the table and then coupled to an outgoing train. The trains themselves were hauled by cable the rest of the way, as it was not considered possible for locomotives of the day to deal with the gradient, and there was also the suspicion that they would frighten the horses (wusses). It was completed in 1846 and closed a mere twenty-one years later, by which time locomotives were too big for the Roundhouse and in any case could totally climb that gradient anyway.

The Roundhouse

Therefore, the place spent the following ninety-nine years being put to worthy use as a gin warehouse by Messrs. W & A Gilbey.  In 1966, the GLC took over and decided, rightly as it turns out, that the Roundhouse would make a fine arts venue. The first memorable gig held there took place in 1966 in honour of the International Times, now defunct. There was also some band playing their first major gig there called Pink Floyd, and I assume they too were forgotten in time. 1968 saw a legendary performance by the Doors which has been filmed for posterity. In 1970, The Who gave their first performance of Tommy. They dedicated the gig to their support act, a flamboyant young pianist named Elton something. Other notables included the Stranglers, the Rolling Stones, Motorhead, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Sadly, the glory days came to an end in 1983, when the site was given to the Borough of Camden and closed as a venue.

This man ruined my photographs of the Roundhouse. I said to him, "Jump or don't, just get out of the damn frame." He did in the end.

The Roundhouse was also noted for other artistic achievements. Yr. Humble Chronicler recalls seeing an exhibition of abstract sculpture there in, ooh, must have been 2001. The grimy brick corridors beneath the main venue have been used for lots of filming, being a conveniently grim and industrial-looking setting.

However, aside from music, the venue is probably best known for theatre. It has housed the notorious Oh! Calcutta and the legendary Oh! What A Lovely War, as well as shows that don’t have “Oh!” in the title. A non-”Oh!”-featuring show of note was a production of Hamlet in 1968, starring Nicol Williamson as the title character, Anthony Hopkins as Claudius and Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia. Unfortunately, for all her undoubted talents, Ms Faithfull was flaky as all hell. When having a “difficult night,” her role was played by her understudy, an unknown actress named Anjelica Huston.

The venue was refurbished in the early years of this century, and is quite nice I’m told.

To finish this little tour of Chalk Farm, here’s a little ditty collected by Eleanor Farjean in  her 1916 book Nursery Rhymes of London Town.

Some farmers farm in fruit, some farm in grain,

Others farm in dairy stuff, and many farm in vain,

But I know a place for a Sunday morning’s walk

Where the Farmer and his Family only farm in chalk.

The Farmer and his Family before you walk back

Will bid you in to sit awhile and share their mid-day snack -

O they that live in Chalk Farm they live at their ease,

For the Farmer and his Family can’t tell chalk from cheese.

If you can’t tell chalk from cheese, I recommend you head to Swiss Cottage, named after not one but two types of cheese. Har har just my little joke, although you probably can buy cheese there.

An open letter to my readers

As you can see, I was able to find a surprising amount about Chalk Farm, which leads me to wonder what I might find out about other places. Is there a part of London you’re curious about? Drop me a line and let me know and I’ll see what I can dig up.

Go ahead, steampunk, make my day

Now, if you followed the link in yesterday’s entry, you will have come across Yr. Humble Chronicler’s philosophical opinion on the growing popularity of steampunk as a fashion statement in our fair city. One question I am often asked when discussing the subject is, “What the hell is steampunk?”

 

Good question, and damned if I can find a simple answer.

 

Perhaps the most basic answer I can give is that it’s science fiction or fantasy with a Victorian-styled setting, a sort of confluence of historic and futuristic tales. A typical steampunk story will be set in a world with the trappings of Victorian England, but far more technologically (and perhaps sociologically) advanced. It may be set in an alternative past, an alternative present or an entirely different world. Another popular scenario is a story set in the same world as an already-existing piece of Victorian fiction. Here are some examples of the different types.

 

Type 1: Alternative Past

Example: The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

 Scenario: In our world, Charles Babbage was working on the Analytical Engine at the time of his death. Put simply, this would have been the world’s first programmable computer had it been completed. In The Difference Engine, Charles Babbage lives to finish the Analytical Engine, ushering in the Information Age a hundred years early. As a result, 1850s London is a city of steam cars, Tube lines, mechanical cinematography and mass production. Unfortunately, this premature expansion comes at a social, political and environmental cost.

Type 2: Alternative Present

 Example: The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock

Scenario: An Edwardian soldier finds himself mysteriously transported to 1973. But not our 1973. This is a version where the First World War never happened. Heavier-than-air flight and petrol engines remain largely experimental, the world is divided between oppressive European empires and society has barely evolved beyond the Victorian era. Meanwhile, technologically-advanced anarchists believe change is long overdue…

Type 3: Fantasy World

Example: Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

Scenario: A world where magic and technology are combined in weird ways. It’s a place where races of strange creatures co-exist with steam trains, analytical engines and airships. Steam-powered robots are commonplace, but sound recording won’t be discovered for another two decades. The weather can be controlled by magical technology, but medicine is at barely more than medieval levels. Anything goes. It’s fair to say, though, that most steampunk fantasy tends to be set in either medieval-type worlds with steam-powered technology or Victorian-type worlds with magic.

Type 4: Someone Else’s Setting

Example: Scarlet Traces by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli

Scenario: Ten years after the invasion of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, Britain has adopted Martian technology and as a result has become an even bigger industrial powerhouse. Automated factories have put millions out of work, horses have been replaced by mechanical spider-things and the heat ray is the power source of choice. It almost goes without saying that the British Empire, unrestricted and unopposed, is incredibly evil.

Other notable works with steampunk themes and elements include Wild Wild West, His Dark Materials and Van Helsing. Actually, now I come to think of it, I’m not sure there’s ever been a good steampunk film. But you get the idea.

Some also count genuine works of Victorian science fiction such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Time Machine. I don’t. Steampunk, to my mind, is a stylistic thing. H.G. Wells and Jules Verne were merely writing science fiction in what, to them, was a contemporary setting. I think that to call their work “steampunk” is a bit like saying that Jane Austen wrote historic fiction. However, pastiches of or sequels to their work written by contemporary authors would be steampunk, because the author would be combining science fiction with a setting that, to them, would be historic. Clear?

I don’t know how you’d class, say, the 1960s film adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I think I’ll just throw down a smoke bomb and escape in the ensuing chaos.

Now, steampunk in the sense of the article in the Evening Standard wot I contributed to is different again. It’s a dressing-up thing, a coming-together of several different trends and subcultures.

First, you’ve got your Gothic and your Industrial subcultures. The Gothic subculture has the Victorian thing going on, with the top hats and the corsets and what-have-you. The Industrial subculture heavily uses work and military clothes as well as accessories that allude to machinery and, of course, industry. There’s a certain amount of aesthetic overlap between the two subcultures already, although in my experience if you say that out loud you’re asking for some rivethead to hotly argue that no they’re not alike at all shut up.

Then you’ve got your Neo-Victorians and Young Fogies. These are people who seek to emulate the ways of an older generation, albeit usually with certain compromises to fit in with the modern era (for instance, allowing women the vote and not assuming the Chinese to be evil). Said emulation often involves wearing period costume and adopting period manners.

I include this purely for illustrative purposes.

And then you have steampunk cosplay. Cosplay, if you’re not familiar with the term, consists of dressing up as a fictional character – you know those people who dress up as Star Trek characters at conventions? That’s cosplay, in a manner of speaking. Steampunk cosplay is, like its inspiration, a mix of Victorian and anachronistic elements, with a strong technological theme. For the cosplayers, it often has a nostalgic or adventurous feel. Characters may be created. Zeppelins may be alluded to. The chances are that you won’t get any musings on imperialism or the impact of industrialisation.

So, what you see on the streets of Shoreditch dates back some way further than Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes (which I still haven’t seen, but I’m told it’s very good). All that’s happening now is that it’s intersecting with the mainstream.

Now, where are my brass goggles?

 

Shameless self-promotion

Hullo all, this is just a bijou note-ette to say that Yr. Humble Chronicler is in the news, sort of. At least, the lifestyle pages of the Evening Standard. Check it out:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23800909-steampunk-rockers-the-trend-for-tweed.do

I shall try not to let fame go to my head.

An Unfashionable Opinion

I must apologise in advance if this entry is a little below the usual standard. I’m afraid I was out celebrating my birthday last night, and most enjoyable it was too. Kudos to all in attendance. Those not in attendance will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Anyway, the end result has been a hangover that feels as if someone is trying to pull my brain out of its skull cavity, and no attempts at a cure have so far worked. I’ve tried greasy food, caffeine, sugar, a long walk, going back to sleep and eating painkillers by the handful, and nothing has made more than a dent. The best cure, in my experience, is coconut milk, but I can’t find that for love nor money around here. I tried offering money first, then love, but it turns out my pallid and necrotic countenance is not as sensual as I had first thought.

So I’m going to go over a book I’ve been reading recently. It’s a little difficult to define a “London novel.” There must be thousands of books set at least in part in London. James Bond’s HQ is in London, but you’d hardly call his books “London books.” The Time Machine is set in London’s suburbia (and the ruins thereof), but again, you couldn’t say it’s a London novel.

I suppose my definition would be: could you set it anywhere else? In the case of, say, Oliver Twist, the setting is absolutely integral. You need the slums of Jacob’s Island, the respectable streets of Islington, the crossover-point that is the City, the roads and junctions. Their proximity and interrelationships are essential to the story. Oliver Twist is, therefore, a London novel.

The novel in question is London Fields by Martin Amis. Now, I know this is a very popular London novel, so when I say how much I didn’t like it, I’ll no doubt be accused of fashionably Amis-bashing, which seems to be the standard accusation levelled against those who dislike his work. But, well, I didn’t like it.

The story is told from four points of view. We have Keith Talent, a cheat (Amis’ term for a conman, italicised throughout the book), wannabe professional darts player and generally horrible individual. His reality is defined by the media – television programmes, tabloid newspapers and pornography – and so he can’t quite relate to society other than on those terms. Then you have Guy Clinch, a successful banker in a boring marriage with an out-of-control toddler. Then there’s Samson Young, a crap writer with an inferiority complex. Linking them all is the femme fatale, Nicola Six, who has decided that she wants to die. She manipulates the other three central characters with the aim of bringing about her own murder. Meanwhile, the city is in the grip of unspecified upcoming apocalypse, which is a Metaphor. Or the murder is the Metaphor for the upcoming apocalypse.

Now, I’ll admit that Amis isn’t all bad. There was, for instance, a joke I laughed at. But the characters are so broadly caricatured, and so obviously designed to serve a purpose, that I just couldn’t give a toss about them. And yes, I know the characters aren’t supposed to be likeable, but even an unlikeable character should have enough depth to allow you to identify. The most irritating of all, I think, is Clinch’s toddler, Marmaduke, whose havoc starts out as entertaining, then surprising, then finally tiresome and predictable.

The get-out-of-jail-free card is that Amis is writing about writing. Samson Young is a writer adapting Six’ life into a novel in an effort to prop up his career. He’s in a rivalry with the more successful Mark Asprey, whose supposedly real-life exploits are as real as his fiction, and by the same token we can never be sure which version of events is the one actually taking place.

I’m not a fan of writing about writing. I mean, yes, the unreliable narrator device is an interesting one, but too often writers-who-write-about-writers disappear up their own literary arses. Your book was remaindered? Baaaaaawww!

Then there’s the device of the self-insertion. If I was a publisher, the moment an author inserted themselves into a story I’d reject the manuscript. Amis is more blatant in Money, in which a version of the actual Martin Amis plays a significant role. In London Fields, you may have noticed some similarities between the names Martin Amis and Mark Asprey, the latter of whom signs his name as “MA.” What I hate about self-insertion is that ultimately, it carries the message, “Why, look at old Amis making fun of himself! What a jolly good chap he is!” Self-deprecation is all very well, but ultimately it’s still on your terms.

So, back to my earlier question. Is this a London novel? Well, it’s set in London. It’s not, as the title would suggest, an East London book, the title simply referring to Young’s unattainable desire to revisit childhood memories. The book, in fact, is set largely in and around Ladbroke Grove and Kensington, in a version of London that doesn’t really exist. The London of this book is a purely symbolic presence, having little to do with the real city (Amis’ version of Great Ormond Street Hospital, for instance, differs significantly from the one in our universe). The setting doesn’t reflect London so much as it does human society as a whole. Therefore, I don’t think it can justifiably be called a London novel – the grimy streets and upmarket residential districts are called London seemingly for convenience.

On that bad-tempered note, I’m back off to bed. In conclusion, Amis is annoying.

St Pancras – more than just a pretty facade

And now, children, we continue our story of London’s termini with St Pancras Station.

These days St Pancras is undoubtedly the most glam of the termini, thanks to the arrival of High Speed One and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (take a hike, Waterloo). Of course, it was not always thus. Yr. Humble Chronicler recalls the days when it was just a drab, second-rate grey sort of place. When you’re overshadowed by the awful Euston Station, you know you’ve hit rock bottom, all. When Alan A. Jackson wrote his book London’s Termini in 1969, he observed that its future was far from certain, although he thought it unlikely that the station would be allowed to disappear entirely.

Having said that, in 1966 British Railways floated the idea of running all St Pancras’ services into King’s Cross, demolishing St Pancras and building an office tower in its place. A look at Euston down the road will show you how awesome that would have looked, and fortunately the uproar caused by the rebuild of that station seems to have given them pause for thought.

Nonetheless, for many years the station was massively underused. The Midland Hotel – the huge Gothic structure that one immediately thinks of when St Pancras is brought up – was closed in 1935, turned into offices and later abandoned, decaying fittings and all. Indeed, St Pancras has had something of the Gothic about it in a way that goes far beyond its architecture.

Consider the circumstances of its construction. The Midland Railway, its builders, drove their railway straight through the slums of Somers Town and Agar Town, moving the occupants on without compensation. The line also cut across the overcrowded St Pancras churchyard, and little reverence was shown to the dead who had to be moved. Accounts speak of open coffins left on site and bones scattered in the road. I’m surprised nobody’s tried to claim there was a curse on the station.

Supernatural aside, the reality behind St Pancras’ semi-abandonment was that in 1923, the Midland Railway became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. The LMS, as it is known to enthusiasts, also took over the much larger London and North Western Railway, whose terminus was at Euston. There was no sense in the same railway having two major termini within ten minutes’ walk of each other, so it’s understandable in practical terms that St Pancras would become the poor relation. Things became worse in the late 1980s with the opening of the Thameslink route, which took yet more of St Pancras’ traffic.

The station in its day was magnificent – the Midland Railway’s philosophy was that they might not be able to get you there as quickly as the other companies, but they’d be sure to get you there in style. The William H. Barlow train shed was, at the time of construction, the largest single-span arched roof in the world. The slightly Gothic-looking ridge that echoes the architecture of the Midland Hotel is actually a coincidence – Barlow thought it would offer some advantage in terms of reducing wind resistance. The hotel was intended to be the finest in London, and was designed by George Gilbert Scott. The original design was to be a storey higher, the Midland Railway’s head offices to be housed on the top floor. However, their decision to base themselves in Derby removed the requirement for one floor.

Scott’s design is sometimes erroneously described as simply being his design for the Foreign Office, hastily redesigned. In fact, though Scott did submit a Gothic revival design for the Foreign Office, and it was rejected, it did not become St Pancras. This was, therefore, his chance to prove himself as a Gothic architect and recover from Lord Palmerston’s snub. Indeed, Scott somewhat snobbily observed of the completed hotel that “my own belief is that it is possibly too good for its purpose.”

The combination of the Gothic architecture and the fact that it was abandoned have made it a popular filming location. If you’ve seen Batman Begins, the stairwell of Arkham Asylum isn’t in Gotham City at all – it’s the main entrance to the Midland Hotel. When Harry Potter goes to King’s Cross in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone  (Sorceror’s Stone in the US), it’s St Pancras he passes. Even the Spice Girls got into the act with the video for Wannabe. Or so I heard, cough cough. The station itself, having had such an infrequent service for so long, was a popular choice for anyone needing to film at a London terminus without causing disruption. Films with scenes here include King Ralph, Shirley Valentine, Chaplin, Howard’s End and Richard III, among others.

As we now know, of course, fortune was to turn in St Pancras’ favour once more. The Channel Tunnel Rail Link needed a London terminus and – by Jove! It just so happened that there was a half-abandoned one right there between King’s Cross and Euston! The rest, as they say, is history. The rebuilt station is, in Yr. Humble Chronicler’s opinion, a perfect example of how to modernise for the future while retaining respect for the past. You’d hardly think, looking at it today, that it had once been a candidate for closure. Why, they’re even planning to reopen the hotel.

Of course, I can’t finish this entry without mentioning the significance of the shopping arcade. As you can see on the left there, the platform level is supported by pillars. These pillars were originally designed with a very specific aim in mind. Apart from passengers, the major traffic intended to use St Pancras was beer. The Midland Railway served the well-known brewing town of Burton-on-Trent. They therefore built their station with extensive cellars under the platforms in which beer could be stored. The redundant cellars are now the shopping arcade. It’s worth noting that the pillars were specifically built with the optimum spacing for storing beer barrels.

A gloomy picture of the St Pancras undercroft, most likely taken in the 1950s.

The undercroft of St Pancras was to play a significant role in the history of Britain’s labour laws. Thomas Bass was the MP for Burton-on-Trent, a reforming sort of gent, was concerned about the working conditions of the Midland Railway. Trade unions were virtually non-existent in the 19th century, the attitude of the railway companies being very much “Here’s the work, if you don’t like the conditions then someone else can do it and screw you.” The consequence was ridiculously long hours (36-hour shifts were not unknown, even routine with some companies), no pensions and if you wanted to strike, the procedure was to down tools and get fired.

As well as being a Member of Parliament, Bass was a customer of the Midland Railway. And not just any customer.

This customer.

So when he mentioned that he was bothered by working conditions on the Midland Railway, the Midland Railway had to take note or risk a big, empty undercroft. Bass’ involvement with them and others led to the 1872 formation of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the first proper railway workers’ union.

Next time you’re enjoying a croissant at St Pancras International, pause a moment. You’re in an important place.

In other news

Fans of this blog should keep an eye on the Evening Standard, for, er, no reason.

Model citizens

In a follow-up from my last entry, I thought I’d talk a bit about Soho. There’s a vintage clothing and second-hand bookshop on Berwick Street that I visited while clothes shopping the other day. On the way, I passed a doorway that had a small, handwritten sign proclaiming that therein could be found a “model.” There are a lot of these in Soho and quite a few in Chinatown, and I think you have to be a little bit naive to think you’ll find an Airfix kit in there. But what, specifically, is the deal with those places?

This isn't actually in Soho, but you get the idea.

Well, if you know anything about Soho’s status as London’s red light district (sorry, King’s Cross, you’re just too respectable these days), you’ve probably worked out already that “model” is a euphemism for “prostitute.” But this raises a number of questions. Prostitution is illegal in Britain, isn’t it? Why are these places still allowed to exist?

Fortunately for us, the Internet is here, and I have a number of books on the seamier side of London. Having sullied my browser history almost to the point of no return, I bring you my findings.

These places are known as “walkups,” and basically they are a way around the ridiculous laws in place in Britain. Contrary to popular belief, prostitution is not actually illegal in Britain. However, it is illegal to be a pimp, to run a brothel, to openly advertise and to kerb crawl. The walkup sidesteps the restrictions.

The way it works is this. You have the coded advertisement  for a “model.” It might give a brief description of the model, including body type, hair colour, race – pretty much everything except “and you can have sex with her for money.” And some just seem to say “model” as seen above. Anyway, your man, the “punter” to use the lingo, goes in and walks up the stairs to a flat (hence the term “walkup”). The door is answered by a “maid,” basically a receptionist. Then the punter goes in and meets the girl (“WG,” abbreviation of “working girl”). The usual set-up seems to be that the WG shows the punter a list of services and prices. Money is exchanged, and services are received.

It’s not technically a brothel, because there’s only one WG there at a time, although it is rented by several WGs on a timeshare basis. The WGs are self-employed, so no pimp (at least in theory; more on that below) and the maid works for them.

Personally, I think it’s a slightly stupid set-up. It’s as if you were to legalise cannabis, but make it illegal to possess bongs, pipes, rolling papers or bloodshot eyes, and you couldn’t call it cannabis. And it’s not like people don’t know what goes on. I rather take the view that prostitution should be outright legal or outright illegal, just so everyone knows where they stand. If I’m honest, I think the former – it’s going to happen anyway, and if you bring it out of the shadows then it can be policed and taxed.

The fact is that prostitution isn’t all about the tart with a heart of gold and the victimised punter whose wife just doesn’t understand him, or the glamorous pimp portrayed in countless hip-hop tracks. It’s true that many of the women involved do so out of choice, but it’s also true that there is such a thing as human trafficking. Many of the women are forced into the trade and controlled by criminal organisations. This is most common in the case of brothels (euphemistically referred to as “massage parlours” or “saunas”), but it’s far from unknown in the case of the walkups. The difficulty is that nobody seems to know exactly how many are trafficked and how many are legit. The numbers vary wildly depending upon whether the person you talk to is pro- or anti-prostitution, and both sides frankly seem to pull the figures out of their arses.

If it’s brought out of the shadows, as I say, things can be improved. Prostitution could be made subject to the same rights as any other field of employment, including pensions, health benefits, a clean and safe working environment, unionisation and, most importantly, police protection. Trafficking and coercion could be, if not eliminated entirely, greatly reduced. Punters who suspect a criminal set-up could report it without fear of running into the ridiculous halfway laws of Britain. And here’s a thing, The Government, you could cream a bit of money off the top in taxes. If there are as many thousands of prostitutes as the government claims, the potential earnings are enormous.

Anyway, enough soapboxing for now. I’ll finish where I started – on Berwick Street. Did you know that the first brothel in Soho opened on Berwick Street in the mid-eighteenth century? It was kept by a Madam Goadby and was known as a maison, “catering for all tastes at the most exclusive prices.” Quite a long way from the shabby street we see today. And for some reason Berwick Street always smells of cough medicine. Why is that?

The Quest for the Black Fedora

Have I mentioned how much I hate Oxford Street before? It’s quite possibly my least favourite street in the entire city. Unfortunately, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve found myself down there a surprisingly large amount.  The only time it was enjoyable was on Monday, when I met up with Shoinan (whose blog you should see on the right there). I drank far more than was sensible, which was perhaps best illustrated by my strategy for getting rid of a particularly persistent rickshaw driver, namely to ask him if he could get me to the airport fast, for I needed to get out of the country fast as I had “molested a lot of children.” If there’s a hell, I’ve got a front row seat.

Oxford Street is actually very old indeed, dating back to at least the tenth century, when it was a major highway out of London. Streets in London that are named after places tend to take their names either from where they once led or from aristocratic local landowners. Oxford Street is perhaps unique in being both. It led to Oxford, being nicknamed “Oxford Street” by the early 18th century and previously known as “the Oxford Road.” At around the same time, the second Earl of Oxford bought the land just north of the street, and the nickname became official. As the land was developed, the street became something of an entertainment district and by the 19th century, was becoming known for its shops. It is these days the busiest shopping street in Europe.

The two ends of the street couldn’t present a greater contrast. At the Marble Arch end, you’ve got huge, high-class department stores, the sort of place where an invisible forcefield repels poor people at the door. The first of these was John Lewis, opened in 1864. Then at the Tottenham Court Road end, St Giles as was, you’ve got a lot of those short-term lease places, the ones that seem to be permanently having a closing down sale, even though you can’t remember when they were actually “open.” The ones where you pay a ridiculously low price for the goods and discover why two weeks later. And those deeply irritating shops where you have someone with a microphone hawking unbelievably-priced goods while a mute crowd blocks the pavement. Free tip, folks: perfume is something where you really should sample the merchandise before you pay a suspiciously low price for it.

[PARENTHESIS: The saddest example of this sort of shop I ever saw was in Kingston-Upon-Thames, in which the hustle was pre-recorded and there was no crowd. There's something pathetic about a tape shouting "Knickers half off - not yours madam!!!!!!" to no one, it's the sort of thing Samuel Beckett might have written]

So anyway, it was to this capitalist strand that I made my way a couple of weeks back in search of a hat. Not just any hat, though. I was specifically looking for a black fedora. I did already have one, which I’d bought back in 2001. Unfortunately, several years in storage had taken their toll, and held up to the light you could see enough moth-bitten holes to make it into a decent collander (albeit a totally gross one). Furthermore, it didn’t quite fit. I had to literally pull it down on to my head. And I wasn’t sure about the band. But I really liked the look - with my red scarf, long black coat, navy blue waistcoat and watch chain I had a bit of an 1890s boho thing going on (see M. Lautrec’s poster above right). Technically a fedora is out of period, as they didn’t become fashionable for men until the end of the First World War, but just try finding a Homburg for a decent price.

I figured Oxford Street would be my best bet. Camden has more vintage shops, but you could guarantee being charged a small fortune for something that’ll go out of shape in the first shower of rain. It’s possible to look very expensive for surprisingly little money, but below a certain point you really do get what you pay for.

Trilby

Do you know, there was not a fedora to be found in the entire street. No end of trilbies, thanks to the current hipster trend for wearing them. I’m entirely the wrong shape to be a hipster – above a certain weight, one is not expected to be fashionable. In any case, I don’t follow fashion on the grounds that when I dress up I want to actually be noticed.

The fedora is so cool that it can actually turn you into Humphrey Bogart.

Actually, I did find one fedora in a certain upscale department store opened in 1864, but it was at a ridiculous price and wasn’t even particularly nice. The crown was too shallow for my taste. The salesman tried to convince me that I was making a mistake, but frankly for that kind of money I want a hat that tells me I’m hot.

In the end, I found a much nicer fedora for a third of the price in Marks and Spencers Merton, about ten minutes from my front door. Which just goes to show something or other. In the absence of a moral, I shall repeat the slogan of the British Hat Advisory Board (BHAB): “We all adore a fedora.”

The disadvantage of having a hat that I can actually put on is that it can be taken off with surprising ease, as I found out on my way back when mine was blown off by an unexpected gust of wind from a departing train at the Tube station. However, like Indiana Jones, I wasn’t about to leave my fedora in danger, and so I deftly reached down and plucked my trusty hat from the running rail. I should note that this is not a clever thing to do unless you a) know exactly how long there is between trains, b) know which rails carry current, c) know how far it is from platform level to the rail and d) really like your hat.

All in all, this week’s shaping up to be thoroughly irresponsible. Excellent.