Annoying habits of Londoners #2: Being upset when strangers gawp at you
City living can be tough. Time and space are seldom your own. That’s why I have always depended on the oddness of strangers. Whether I’m trapped on public transport, bored in a pub, posing round an exhibition or peeking furtively from behind my bedroom curtains, other citizens behaving unusually is one thing I can always rely on to spice up my day.
I’m not talking here about the unfortunate, the drunk, students or the unwell. These people warrant sympathy, not gawps. What fascinates me are ordinary people in moments of minor social crisis.
A list of such crises would include, but not be limited to:
People having arguments
People in romantic clinches
People who are lost pretending that they aren’t
People trying to get served at a bar without looking too much like they’re trying to get served
People who look underdressed
People who feel overdressed
People turning round in the street for no apparent reason and heading off in the opposite direction as if it were the most natural thing in the world
People dropping things
People with lots of luggage who are trying to navigate London without bashing into anyone even though they suspect, correctly, that it’s not possible
People falling over
People who are just as nosy as me who get caught being nosy and try to pretend that they weren’t being nosy at all
We’re all nosy. If there’s a Londoner out there who persistently minds their own business I haven’t met them and I don’t want to. People are interesting. That’s ok.
What’s not ok is to do something interesting, however inadvertently, and then shoot evils at someone for watching you do it. It happens to me all the time, and I’m sick of it.
If you live in a city you have signed a metaphorical pact: to live a partly public life. If you’re in the street, you’re on the stage. Let me watch you; and you, you watch others in return. There’s no need to look so cross. You’re the star of the show!
See also:
Annoying Habits of Londoners #1: Applauding at the cinema
Five most annoying habits on London’s public transport
Diary of the shy Londoner
Follow Mike
Twitter: @MikPollitt
Email: michael.pollitt@snipelondon.com
13 Feb 2012
London agenda for Monday 13 February
1. Figure out what the hell is going on in Mulholland Drive [Le Cool]
2. Celebrate the launch of saucy new magazine Love Is the Law [Run Riot]
3. Dots. Dots. Dots. See the Dots of Yayoi Kusama [Flavorpill]
4. Take a A tour of Elizabethan Bankside with the Rose [Ian Visits]
5. Cross Hammersmith Bridge [Tired of London]
13 Feb 2012
Why Ken has won on transport but is losing on crime
The latest Evening Standard Mayoral poll suggests that Boris Johnson has regained a small lead over Ken Livingstone.
With only two points in it, it’s margin of error stuff, but does suggest that Ken Livingstone has failed to consolidate his lead from last month.
Ken’s lead was built largely on fares and the cost of living.
Despite Boris’s best efforts, Ken has won on these and Boris’s ludicrous £3 giveaway is not going to reverse that.
But as I’ve written before, fares was always going to be Ken’s ace card and he needs to win on the other issues if he has any chance of beating Boris.
The biggest of these is crime and Ken’s campaign has not been anywhere near effective enough on this so far.
Today’s poll shows that Ken is well ahead on transport but still trailing on crime.
However Boris’s lead is assailable and his record on crime has actually been pretty poor, especially when you contrast it with how central it was to his campaign in 2008.
Under Boris, knife crime has risen, especially among the young. and despite all of the publicity his flagship youth mentoring scheme has been a total flop.
And despite pledging a crack down on crime, he failed to extend it to his own office, where one of his Deputy Mayors was convicted for fraud.
However, rather than pick any of this record apart, Ken’s campaign has focused almost entirely on the issue of police numbers.
By doing this they have allowed the debate to descend into a long and rather dull game of mathematics, which depending on how you calculate it, shows police numbers going up or down by around a thousand.
This is not going to excite many voters.
They’ve also used a number of dodgy statistics, of their own, something that isn’t necessary when many of the real statistics are bad enough.
But in order to win, Ken needs to focus far more on Londoners’ real experience of crime, most notably the terrifying riots of last year in which Boris Johnson was absent without leave.
For any other politician, Boris’s performance during the riots would have been disastrous.
However, a compliant press and a lacklustre response from Ken and Labour, meant that Boris was allowed to get off the hook.
If Ken is going to win, then he needs to place Boris right back on that hook again.
13 Feb 2012
Kettling protesters - London's next successful export
John Yates, once of the Met before a spot of unpleasantness last summer, is now advising on policing in Bahrain.
Daily Telegraph – Yates of the Yard, seeking peace in Bahrain
13 Feb 2012
The appeal of court: Leveson is a guilt-free fix for hypocrites, prudes and the terminally indignant
Self-regulation didn’t work in the newspaper industry, and there’s precious little of it on show among viewers of The Leveson Inquiry either, says Mike Bonnet.
13 Feb 2012
Mat Riviere unveils "not even doom music"
After his 2010 debut album “Follow Your Heart”, lo-fi solo artist Mat Riviere has put out a trailer for the long-awaited follow up, to be entitled “not even doom music”. This is something to be excited about. Trust. Keep your eyes on Mat’s Soundcloud and Facebook to hear more as he (hopefully) drip-feeds us new stuff. And in case you’re not yet familiar with the work of mister Mat Riviere (who can be found on twitter posing as @meretrivia) the song below was the compulsively awesome title track from album number one.
12 Feb 2012
12 Feb 2012
Persephone Books
Cosy, beautiful and blissfully calm, Persephone’s Bookshop really does justice to the books they publish.
Set up in1996 by Nicola Beauman—an author herself—to publish books by women from the early 20th Century that have gone out of print, Persephone is all about books “by women, for women and about women”. Their titles include both fiction and non fiction works, and are as beautifully presented as their shop.
Persephone’s books can be distinguished by their grey covers and individual end papers taken from wallpaper and tile designs from the time the books were originally published. Each book also comes with a bookmark that matches the end paper. They aim to publish 2 or 3 books every 6 months, titles due to be published in April are Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary and Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins.
The shop itself opened ten years ago in Bloomsbury. Inside it has the appearance of a lovely tea shop, elegance and femininity oozing from every flower and book display. They have two book groups a month, along with tapas nights and tea time Q&As, and discussions with authors.
For more information on the titles available by Persephone go to www.persephonebooks.co.uk. Although they do mail-order and distribute to other bookshops, it’s a much better idea to go to the shop for yourself.
Persephone Books, 59 Lamb’s Conduit Street WC1N 3NB
10 Feb 2012
Irish, gays, Arabs and penises all offended as Mayoral candidates try to out-offend each other
Ken Livingstone:
“A gay banker would get his penis cut off in Dubai.”
Chris Doyle, of the Council for Arab British Understanding, which seeks to increase understanding of the Arab world in Britain, called Mr Livingstone’s comments ‘ridiculous’. [Metro]
Boris Johnson:
“I’ll tell you what makes me angry – lefty crap,” he thunders in response. Like? “Well, like spending £20,000 on a dinner at the Dorchester for Sinn Fein!” [New Statesman]
A Ken Livingstone spokesperson said, “To call the annual, self-financing, St Patrick’s Day dinner “lefty crap” is both profoundly ill-informed and also an attack on Irish Londoners and their contribution to this city. Irish Londoners came together to celebrate the part they play in the life of London – and Boris Johnson has slapped them in the face.”
The layers of offence and counter-offence deepen like a coastal shelf. Which is silly, because none of it is offensive unless you’re trying to make it so.
It’s still worth knowing. Some people say this stuff is trivial and we should all focus on the policies. That’s rubbish. We should talk about the policies, but focus on the trivia. That way we learn about character. Make up your own minds. I don’t fancy a pint with either of em.
Mehdi Hasan at the New Statesman – Boris Johnson vs the London Irish
Metro – Ken Livingstone: Gay bankers who go to Dubai ‘could have penis lopped off’
10 Feb 2012
London agenda for Friday 10 February
1. Pull out the studded collar, PVC leash, three-line whip and lashings of latex for the Torture Garden’s Valentines Love Boat [Le Cool]
2. View new work by Gavin Turk at Ben Brown Fine Arts [Run Riot]
3. See DJ Pierre at a secret location [Flavorpill]
4. Go to 93 Feet East for the Electronic Rumors Album Launch Party [Don’t Panic]
5. Span 500 years of music with The Sixteen at the British Library [Ian Visits]
6. Eat at Maison Bertaux [Tired of London]
10 Feb 2012
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- Silencing the Brick Lane curry touts could be fatal for the city's self-esteem
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Nice map of London's fruit trees shows you where to pick free food
- Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
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