John Keats was a London boy who paid a heavy toll for skulking poetically through the twisting alleyways of the capital. One imagines him stumbling & spluttering through the miasmic backstreets of the fast industrialising metropolis, sick with desire for a certain Miss Brawne of his acquaintance, who's bosom was even at that lovelorn moment heaving like two heavenly globes imprisoned, as they were, within the tightly laced confines of her corset!. Two centuries later, and with Keats and the quivering objects of his Lovesick Blues long dust, the S T o N e d H O L y b L O g g E R found himself in a city infinitely more populous yet with infinitely goodlier airs. Especially so in the commotion of Columbia Road, E2 where the aroma hungry citizens of Londonburg come to buy flowers. Not yet half past ten and market streets were clamouring with the clatter of buyers and the chatter of sellers. The espresso machines were steaming noisily as the coffee vendors plied an already brisk trade. Their cappuccino trails wafted out open windows and joined the floral fragrance and warm diesel fumes to create a special kind of perfume.
Eau de Londonville bewitched the Stoned Holy Hooter whilst the Stoned Holy Peepers were enchanted with the vibrant colours of exotic blooms. Blooming of another sort was in evidence as pretty girls flounced in summer frocks. The Brick-Brown-East-End streets were host to an assortment of Runyonesque characters : Lenny the Pug squatted by the kerbside and was fawned over by cooing coquettes whilst his tongue flopped suggestively out one side of his mouth ; Pierre the Poet was there only to recite poetry through a loudhailer to the disinterested passers-by. I listened to Thomas Hardy in his sonorous Canadian drawl and was transported! In our waistcoats & trilbys, the s t O n e D H o L Y B L o g g e R and the Stoned Holy Bass Slapper Que Magnifique, Professor Juicy Clash, must have been viewed as some such escapees from a Runyon short story about two street punks busking for the folding to put down on a cuddy called 'Stewball' they had got the heads-up on from Mickey the Bookie! Hush-Hush on the Q.T and a guaranteed earner!
Pavements duly Rawked and pockets heavy with what London had tossed our way, we headed to Bethnal Green and curry before on to the Stoned Holy Sanctuary to divvy up the spoils. Choice ale in hand we basked in the sun, bullrushes swaying as green parrots flapped overhead and the lazy Lea glided by on it's way to a meeting with the Thames. Strange to think 10,000,000 human souls were hemmed in around us, blowing up & going down, creeping in & sweeping round their man made habitat in much the same way as their litter and rubbish!
And as the Sun disappeared out beyond the Westway the city took on it's nighttime aspect as the City of Shadows, A sea of yellow neon lights flickered on and flooded the hollow pavements of The City of Strangers. The shop-fronts of the Consumer Temples of Chelsea and Kensington beamed brightly out into the City of Cracked Dreams. The mock Louis XVI furniture, the stylish kitchenware and shoes sat patiently in the windows, waiting for people who already owned these things to come and buy more!
Meanwhile the Wild Colonial Boys were chasing alcoholic oblivion and the Kings of Cardboard City were bedding down for the night. The City of Refuge had nothing on offer but shop doorways and indifference. Even to it's own, The City of Stone offered only homelessness or exile. Somewhere in the City of Silence a penny was falling inbetween the cracks in the pavement. And the City of Vampires made room for one more jaded human husk underneath the bridge......... And all this whilst London whored itself out to the highest bidder. Stop!...Listen!.........London is Calling to the Zombies of Death!!!
