We returned last week from England to London. Two different worlds. A quarter of an hour before dropping off our car, we came to a complete stop on the M25.
Just moments before, there had been six lanes of hurtling cars and lorries. Now, everything was at a standstill as far as the eye could see; no sign of any emergency vehicles, just the GPS display changing from orange to red to dark purple and the ETA stretching out from a quarter-hour to an hour and a quarter.
Eventually, I got out and walked back to the ambulance behind us, imagining they would have better information coming over their comms system. The paramedic told me all he had been told was the lanes in both directions were closed for a police incident.
He said he wondered what people would do if they were caught short. This had a pleasing circularity to it. The last time I was in an ambulance, we were crawling up Lake Road with no emergency lights or sirens, patiently waiting through two light changes at the Belmont McDonaldās, while I writhed in the back in bladder agony.
Nice, after so much strolling across the green and pleasant land from one end to the other, to wind things up with a stroll on the M25.
Traffic in the other direction now began to move, and Karren began indicating with some urgency that she thought it might be time to stroll back to the damn car.
For old times' sake, I managed to misread the directions for one final roundabout, and then we were leaving the car behind and rejoining the world of high-speed rail and red double-decker buses. I grabbed a seat at the back, only realising too late that I was stepping into a small sea of plastic and food wreckage. I asked the passenger across the aisle if I needed to know anything. She said: a Tasmanian Devil just came through.
London, a world city with everyone and everything you can imagine within it. London, kinder and more accommodating to cyclists than my hometown, but also just as dodgy when it comes to nicking as much of your bike as they can get their hands on.
London, where you and your family can roll through miles and miles of green and pleasant cycle paths.
London, where you can take a biking break at a lovely canal-side pub. Itās run by someone who claims to not be Russell Brown but Iām not buying it.
London, where you set out for a stroll down to London Fields on a Sunday morning and find yourself in the middle of a half-marathon that quickens your pulse and has you pining for another one.
London, where the noise of politics can feel muted, made small by other things.
Of course, that can flatter to deceive. Unforgivable Pandemic neglect, disastrous Brexit and a decade of Tory direness will leave its mark whether it seems immediately visible or not.
Off we go on our birthdays to see their Parliament in action. We sit waiting for our turn and see the familiar behaviour of parliamentary people in a parliamentary place, which is to say: everyone who comes walking by looks to their side to check us out and then strides on, having satisfied themselves we are nobodies.
The Commons debate is about ICC warrants for the arrest of the President of Israel. The patrician deputy foreign secretary is courteously and respectfully trying to navigate the question of how much respect to continue to show a state that has bloodied its hands so grievously. He makes the somewhat reassuring case, with an air of plausibility, that you would not believe how much work is going on behind the scenes to bring this catastrophe to a resolution. Do surely hope so.
This is how we spend our birthday? No, we also went for a glorious lunch with our glorious daughter.
I declared that if ever there was a day to walk across that famous piece of road, it would surely be the one I turned 64. Our glorious daughter thought this could contain fatal levels of cringe, but she went along with it anyway.
Paul McCartney wrote the melody when he was 14, it says here.
I wrote a lot of stuff thinking I was going to end up in the cabaret, not realizing that rock and roll was particularly going to happen. When I was fourteen there wasn't much of a clue that it was going to happen.
This morning, older and losing my hair, I rolled out on the train to meet my old mate Richard and help him haul a colossal bike box back to our basement apartment in Hackney. In cold, heartless London, you would not believe how many people āstation staff and commuters ā were offering to help us.
The day concluded with the announcement that the appalling Tories will face their day of judgement on July 4.
Have to admit itās getting better, a little better all the time.
