rhythmaning | Apr. 11th, 2009

Apr. 11th, 2009

I am on a bus through a quiet, deserted City – empty on a dreich Saturday lunchtime. The bus comes to a halt in Cornhill [edit: not Cornmarket as I originally said, which is in Oxford...], and doesn’t move for a while. A crowd appears on the opposite pavement – a huge gaggle of press photographers, surrounded by police, struggling, pushing and shoving, to get a picture. They seem to be pointing their cameras at the pavement, stretching their hands high above their heads as they hold their cameras. The people on the bus move to the window, trying to work out what is going on. They photographers move down a few yards, and the ruck starts again. A woman moves forward from the crowd around the photographers and pushes through; she lays the bunch of white tulips she is carrying on the ground, seeming to disappear below the mass of cameramen.

As the photographers move, it becomes clear they are – unwittingly – at the head of a march. The crowd has people carrying placards: “Remember Ian Tomlinson” – the newspaper vendor who died of a heart attack during the G20 demonstrations, allegedly after he was beaten by police officers.

I ring the bell and get off the bus, walk across the street and join the crowd. There are many, many policemen – probably as many police on the street and in the many vans as there are protesters, although there seem to be more photographers than either. I can’t help but wonder about the new law making it illegal to take photographs of policemen: it is impossible to photograph the crowd without including the police in it. Do the press have a dispensation? The crowd seems a strange mix: there is a large banner proclaiming “Anti War Coalition”. There is no chanting – it is strangely quiet, and very dignified.

After a while I walk on, enjoying the empty streets – the police are holding all the traffic. A security guard and another worker are discussing the price of their building, just sold for £140 million; I wonder if that is a lot or a little.
Two young girls – teenagers – come up to me near St Paul’s and ask the way to Barking. One of them has smeared mascara and tear-damp eyes, the other heavy mascara I think, and remember that the tube is messed up with engineering work (Transport for London being an oxymoron, it seems) – the District line is out. I direct them to Liverpool Street and tell them to pick up a Hammersmith and City line train. They look at me sceptically, so I explain I don’t know about buses.

“No”, the cried-out girl says, “we’re walking.” I point east, and suggest they ask one of the many policemen watching the photographers watching the pavement.

It is a long walk to Barking.
Later as I am walking to Waterloo, a young lad wearing a hoodie, thick stubble and a broad Irish accent heading in the other direction asks me the way to Westminster tube station. He is going the wrong way – completely the wrong way. I tell him to head north and then walk beside the river until he gets to Westminster Bridge.

He goes off in the right direction, but I doubt whether he will make it.

I am on a bus through a quiet, deserted City – empty on a dreich Saturday lunchtime. The bus comes to a halt in Cornhill [edit: not Cornmarket as I originally said, which is in Oxford...], and doesn’t move for a while. A crowd appears on the opposite pavement – a huge gaggle of press photographers, surrounded by police, struggling, pushing and shoving, to get a picture. They seem to be pointing their cameras at the pavement, stretching their hands high above their heads as they hold their cameras. The people on the bus move to the window, trying to work out what is going on. They photographers move down a few yards, and the ruck starts again. A woman moves forward from the crowd around the photographers and pushes through; she lays the bunch of white tulips she is carrying on the ground, seeming to disappear below the mass of cameramen.

As the photographers move, it becomes clear they are – unwittingly – at the head of a march. The crowd has people carrying placards: “Remember Ian Tomlinson” – the newspaper vendor who died of a heart attack during the G20 demonstrations, allegedly after he was beaten by police officers.

I ring the bell and get off the bus, walk across the street and join the crowd. There are many, many policemen – probably as many police on the street and in the many vans as there are protesters, although there seem to be more photographers than either. I can’t help but wonder about the new law making it illegal to take photographs of policemen: it is impossible to photograph the crowd without including the police in it. Do the press have a dispensation? The crowd seems a strange mix: there is a large banner proclaiming “Anti War Coalition”. There is no chanting – it is strangely quiet, and very dignified.

After a while I walk on, enjoying the empty streets – the police are holding all the traffic. A security guard and another worker are discussing the price of their building, just sold for £140 million; I wonder if that is a lot or a little.
Two young girls – teenagers – come up to me near St Paul’s and ask the way to Barking. One of them has smeared mascara and tear-damp eyes, the other heavy mascara I think, and remember that the tube is messed up with engineering work (Transport for London being an oxymoron, it seems) – the District line is out. I direct them to Liverpool Street and tell them to pick up a Hammersmith and City line train. They look at me sceptically, so I explain I don’t know about buses.

“No”, the cried-out girl says, “we’re walking.” I point east, and suggest they ask one of the many policemen watching the photographers watching the pavement.

It is a long walk to Barking.
Later as I am walking to Waterloo, a young lad wearing a hoodie, thick stubble and a broad Irish accent heading in the other direction asks me the way to Westminster tube station. He is going the wrong way – completely the wrong way. I tell him to head north and then walk beside the river until he gets to Westminster Bridge.

He goes off in the right direction, but I doubt whether he will make it.

Back in February, when we had a week of hard frosts and then several days of snow, I repeatedly visited the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art - to see the patterns the weather had made of Landform, the large earthworks by Charles Jencks in front of the gallery. I love that sculpture - it is a wonderful shape.

I also walked through the Dean graveyard to get there.