Paul Haine | Tales from the city
D&F
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Decline and Fallstival, part 1
It was the smoking, acrid stump of the year, and the smoking ban was really starting to bite. Luckily most of us had developed a tactic of smoking through the windows of the Decline and Fall offices, which our tame lawyer had informed us was almost within the spirit of the law. And he was a forty-a-day man, so I trusted him implicitly. Leaning back on a partly-open window, and exhaling in a leisurely fashion, I was nearly decanted into the courtyard fifteen feet below, as the pane swung outward with an unpleasant creaking sound.
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I wanna be like you, part 3
I was on the phone to the Editor pretty quickly, as you can imagine.
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sub verbo
I apologise for interrupting the breakneck narrative flow of my most recent article, but a few incidents have just occurred which are entirely indicative of the kind of thing I have to put up with here.
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I Wanna Be Like You, Part 2
After all last issue’s travails, the externally unremarkable house we turned up at actually turned out to be…to be well, rather nice. And there was, at least, plenty of alcohol to get stuck into. As no real, um, action seemed to be happening as yet, I set off my cunningly-concealed tape recorder, shooed Fenella in the direction of the drinks table, and got mingling. Why were people here? What exactly did they expect? I may have been press-ganged into the situation, but I might as well get the facts. I sidled up to a professional-looking couple just on the wrong side of thirty.
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I Wanna Be Like You, Part 1
The Editor had returned from hospital, and was busy trying to stamp his inimitable mark on the forthcoming issue of the magazine.
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Low Speed Thrills
I don’t know how many of my regular reader (stet) actually live in London, but those of you who do probably share my feelings on the public transport system. But what are the alternatives? Those of us unable to afford…
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Literature, Part 2
Yes, there were bands, or a band, anyway; a collection of whey-faced youths whom Jay affected to recognise as an up-and-coming thing. There were drinks, too, which was probably a bad idea given the amount of painkillers I’d consumed that evening. Still, the first part of the evening went all very well, although it struck me that we hadn’t actually got around to discussing any books. Never mind, I thought, who wants to read the damn things anyway? My pleasant alcoholic reverie was broken by an irritatingly chirpy man, who bounded onto the stage and introduced himself as the host for the coming discussion.
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Literature, Part 1
Why does one read in public, I asked myself recently. It’s impossible to get onto the Underground nowadays without being elbowed in the chin by someone nostril-deep in a copy of Platform, or whatever. Is it an effort to shut out one’s fellow passengers, or perhaps an enjoyment of being seen to be reading? Or seeing them seeing you reading? Or them seeing you seeing them seeing you reading? Perhaps I’d better stop.
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Ethical Audit, Part 3
I worked all night on the ethics article, I really did. Only the coffee kept me going. By six that morning I was three-quarters finished, but hallucinating slightly, and looked an utter wreck. This was bad; I could just imagine Ondine’s face as she saw me sitting wild-haired and stinking at my desk as she came in to work.
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Ethical Audit, Part 2
“This,” said the Editor, exercising his most repulsively smarmy manner, “is Ondine Moore. She’s our new columnist.”
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Ethical Audit, Part 1
The Editor had set me to work writing some gushing supplement-style rubbish. This week, the desperate quest for novelty (and one too many visits to Waitrose, I expect) had got him started firstly on organic food, and then on a whole slew of preposterous lifestyle stuff. As I result I had been compelled to speak to some fairly insufferable people.
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Apocalypse, Part 2
There had actually been a purpose to my leaving the house via the Wan King, and this was to meet Poppy and the Editor to take a cursory glance at some exhibition or other that had opened in the vicinity of Spitalfields. They were already there, clutching the stubby, imperfectly chilled bottles of French lager that seemed to be the traditional accompaniment to this kind of thing. Nowadays I can never see a piece of contemporary art without getting a faint tang of fizzy Strasbourg filth on my tongue; Pavlov would have been very proud.
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Apocalypse, part 1
February really has very little to recommend it. It was grey, and damp, and blustery, and distinctly apocalyptic-feeling, and I was sat in my local Chinese takeaway (you may remember its proprietor from an earlier issue – we have a good working relationship) reading some pitiful tabloid rag while waiting for my order. The news, such as it was, seemed particularly doom-laden and strident today. Bird flu, it screamed, was coming ever closer to our shores. I always had a soft spot for Tchaikovsky, so started cheerfully whistling The Dying Swan .
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The Brits
It was the Brit Awards last night, so Fenella and myself were in the vicinity of Earl’s Court (the Editor was not allowed to come along for complex legal reasons). Some things happened, and there was a certain amount of free alcohol, I believe. We were loudly discussing the the many bewildering sights that had presented themselves.
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Controversy
It was a particularly grim, joyless afternoon in the capital, and I was having the Londoner’s equivalent of the Falling Down experience (sample: “Where the fuck have they put the fresh coriander? I can’t find the sodding fresh coriander”), when I received a text message from the Editor. This is a rare occurence nowadays; ever since he accidentally sent me one referring to me as “sweetcakes” (I believe it was meant for someone else, though cannot confirm this) he’s been a bit wary of using it.
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East v West – part 3
There was something of an ugly atmosphere of ennui about the Decline and Fall offices.
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Just another weekend in the capital
It was a dull Friday morning, and I was in the process of attempting to write the next part of Decline and Fall‘s monumental comparison of East and West London (these things take time; unlike Time Out, we like to do stuff properly) when the Editor suddenly emerged from his cubicle with an expression of some excitement. We should really make that door lockable from the outside, I thought.
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North v South East v West – Part 2
My thorough investigation of the yawning chasm between East and West London began, appropriately enough, in a small dingy pub off Holborn. Rupert, myself and Poppy, Decline and Fall‘s arts correspondent, were staring at a Tube map and attempting to make ourselves heard over the sound of lawyers yelping in the back bar. I had dragged along the other two as the best bets for knowing exactly what was going on in the halves of the capital concerned.
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North v South
Time Out has decided to hop blithely onto one of the oldest and most venerably creaky London bandwagons: the is North London better than South London debate. I mean, have they only just got around to this particular chestnut? Let’s face it, us North Londoners have been despising our southern brethren for several hundred years now (and with good reason too). I can only guess that rising levels of gentrification in Dulwich and Camberwell have reached such a pitch that South London has finally appeared on Time Out’s radar, presumably once the ipod-per-square-foot ratio reached a certain permitted minimum. In any case, I refuse to be drawn on su…
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The Sound of the Suburbs
It appears to have become autumn some time over the past couple of weeks, and as the season of filthy, choking fogs and inexplicable public transport delays is now upon us, it seems only natural that a Man of Taste and Substance’s thoughts turn to…rap music.