The archive

Growing up in the relatively rural westcountry, there have been few enough occasions where I could open an entry here with a Ballardian broadside. But today I woke up on the tenth floor of the Premier Inn which towers over Westfield.

It's been a while since I got to travel to London - and certainly it's a long time since I found myself alone there. In fact, it's become so usual to be part of a pair, visiting and revisiting haunts, that I'd forgotten some of the associations which Paddington has accumulated in recent years.

Dear reader, I lied to you. Not deliberately. I swore myself off London until after the Games. I didn't want to endure the crowds, the indignity of queuing for trains, the ever increasing paranoia as the perception of a threat ratchets up uncontrollably, and bored security guards itch to act.

Just now, the whole world seems to be on pause. Events are grinding to a halt to accommodate the twin national patriotic rallying points of the Diamond Jubilee, and more disruptively the 2012 Olympiad.