My kind of town
Page 49
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A DAY OUT of the office. What a desk-shackled sub-editor dreams of. Released to sample the sightseeing tours of London.
Two operators to choose from, Cityrama or London Transport. Both running double-deckers from Victoria. Almost identical routes, taking in all the famous buildings and landmarks that one and a half hours' driving in central London will permit.
Cityrama's name wins me immediately. Something majestic about it. More attractive courier, too, though alas she is not to stay. In exchange for £3 she hands me a long, thin strip of piping attached to earphones and then is gone.
There has been no danger of exclusion from the trip. My companions, all upstairs, number only ten. Four Americans, a couple and two kids; three middle-aged Germans; a young South American couple, who spend the whole trip finding more of interest in each other's eyes than in the streets we traverse; and, although I had been confident that I would be the sole Englishman, there is another on board.
From his grunts and exclamations it soon becomes apparent that, like me, he too is enjoying a day out, but from an institution whose, sanity is rather more in doubt than that of the one from which I have emerged.
Overcoming any fastidiousness as to whose ear holes last waxed my ears plugs, I insert the equipment and place the end of my tube over the passenger's consul.
It is fortunate that I am not Chinese or Russian, or Arab or Eskimo. Were I one of these, or any of a number of other nationalities, the taped commentary playing in my ears would be no more than a distraction.
By now we were away, bumping up and down on our less than luxurious seats, and jolting our way through Pimlico streets in brilliant December sunshine. Past the house where the eight-year-old Mozart composed his first symphony. Past Chelsea Barracks, besuited recruits on parade (hoping, no doubt, that the sergeant-major's Bach is worse than his bite).
Down Millbank to the Tate. A Henry Moore to the right, we are told. A lump of manure (my euphemism), says the American boy.
The tape is rather old and worn and keeps cutting out. Already the phones dig into the flesh and the jolting motion becomes monotonous and discomfiting.
We bridge Father Thames at Lambeth, than return northside over Westminster. Round Parliament Square. Up Whitehall. (No offence intended.) Nelson's one good eye spies us as we approach and then depart, down the Strand to Fleet Street.
This, the voice informs us, was named after the River Fleet, which now flows as an open sewer directly below. (Yes, that's what I thought too.)
"We are now passing Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a favourite haunt of Dr Johnson's." (Why are we passing Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese? I have by now a thirst to slake.)
Into the City. Past St Paul's. South again over the new London Bridge. The old one is in Arizona — purchased, dismantled and reconstructed all in error by an American who thought he had bought Tower Bridge.
That's still there. So's the Tower. Along the Embankment. Cleopatra's Needle excites the lunatic. Round Trafalgar Square again and onto Picadilly Circus — "Centre of London for the pleasure seeker." (Mainly those who choose to inject their pleasures, I would have thought.) Picadilly. Green Park. Socalled because Charlie II's wife, furious that he was sending bouquets from the park to his mistress, ordered every flower to be uprooted.
We also learn that "Like the rest of London, the park is totally safe." As I say, it's an old tape.
Our driver's concentration has begun to flag. He has been controlling the tape machine, stopping it when traffic impedes our progress, starting again when we do. But much confusion arises when he fails to make allowance for our slow Knightsbridge pace. The Albert is a good half mile away, and out of sight, when the voice in our ears begins to extoll its splendours.
Necks are craned. Heads spin round. Eyes frustratedly searching for the magnificant edifice that eludes them.
The driver at last realises and rewinds. Sight and sound synchronise. The outside world stops misbehaving.
We muse on the Kensington museums, relive the Sixties in the King's Road, survey Her Majesty's little backgarden, and then Victoria looms into sight. That's the way to see London.