Tom M. Wilson

I spied a London mood…

Europe is the most densely populated continent. Only 1/100 of Britain has its original forest cover. London air pollution can be seen on the black grime on the buildings of the capital. These are the stones of the Fitzroy Hotel.  Imagine what your lungs would look like after fifty years of living in this city.

Martin Amis was right in London Fields to portray this city as a grey and gritty. But enough criticism. I’m staying on Bethnel Green Road with my friend Danny and this part of East London is pretty close to being on the Indian subcontinent. It is a mark of the multiculturalism of this city that I thought I was engaged in very London experiences when I relaxed in the apartment yesterday listening to a Ravi Shankar record, and when I then strolled down the street past the West Indian guys listening to reggae circa 1974 on my headphones.

They have damn good hats in this town. I bought a straw hat with a green top in Brick Lane market today from a stylish black guy.  You can see some of Alva’s other hat work on his site. Below is Brick Lane market. The fashion here is far more quirky than any  other European cities can manage.

They also have great bookshops in this city. Foyles on Charing Cross Rd., the road most famous for its bookshops, is excellent. As is the London Review Bookshop in Bloomsbury (that is the British Museum you see in the background on the left).

Browsing in these bookshops on the weekend I discovered a few titles I plan to get hold of and leaf through. They are:

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman; The Earth Only Endures by Jules Pretty; and the apparently quite gimacky but actually very intriguing Extreme Nature by Mark Carwardine.

One book I did buy was Wildwood by Roger Deakin.  The author of Waterlogged, a book about one man’s attempt to swim his way across Britain, died last year.  This book details his travels through trees around the world.  I happen to think the jacket design is superb.

I said that the British Museum was in the background of a previous photo. Walking around the Japan section of the place I discovered an ancient bell. Apparently bells such as this one have been found buried on the edge of agricultural land, suggesting that they were involved with some kind of fertility ritual. In Zen Buddhism the bell is used as symbol of enlightenment, a moment of clarity or satori. If you can, get your hands on an album simply called ‘Japanese Temple Bells. It is a recording of different bells, many from the 7th century, and is well worth hearing.

Tomorrow I’m leaving London for Geneva. This weekend I’ll either be in the Alps of Switzerland or the Black Forest of Germany.

On Thursday afternoon I was on board a train, heading for the small English town of Totnes, south of Exeter, in Devon.  Ah train travel… if only I could ride more trains.  I think it is the best form of long distance transport.  Space, quiet, the English countryside domed by a blue sky full of fluffy white clouds outside the window, and the feeling that you are happily en route.

Totnes is a small town of eight thousand people, and is reputedly the classic English hippy country town.  Like many old country towns in Britain, the streets are just wide enough for a horse and cart, and in 2007 when they are full of cars, you feel a bit hemmed in.  Totnes is trying to powerdown, to ween itself of oil.  But bikes are dangerous on the very narrow country lanes that wind between the hedges – I and my friend Cliona hitched a ride back to her place outside the town, and as we rode along I saw a cyclist almost fall into the hedge, trying to ride so close to the edge of the road to avoid our car coming up from behind .

The Totnes Pound: a good idea.  You can buy one of these things for 95 pence, and use it to buy stuff in many of the shops in Totnes.  The great thing about local currencies like this one is that the money of the people of Totnes will stay in Totnes, instead of heading off to London or Paris or Sydney or wherever.  If the money stays in Totnes then the local community benefits.  There are over a couple of thousand local currencies now in existence around the world.  I hope there are more and more.

On Thursday I walked in the Undercliff, the area of wilderness and unstable geology which stretches six or so miles westwards from Lyme.

As I walked I remembered walking here for the first time in 2002, soon after I had walked over the ridges and beaches of Reunion Island.  Walking through the English wood I remembered feeling that John’s love of nature was my love of nature, and that that love and that relationship would be, as it had been for him, a deep lifeline.