Crossing the Thames

The construction of three immense bone-white pylons puzzled me.  Each enclosed a double helical staircase but seemed unlikely to be a homage to DNA.  Finally I was about to appreciate their purpose.

'A return ticket, that'll be £9,' the attendant barked from a kiosk.  She looked at me narrowly. 'But you can't just go round and round, it's not the Circle Line.'

The Thames cable car serves no practical purpose.  Its capacity is less than a tenth of a tube train, nevertheless so few people wish to travel between the places it joins that it's mostly empty.  Cynics suggest that it is a manifestation of the conflation of political vanity and commercial opportunism facilitated by the neoliberal settlement, especially as it has, uniquely, gained entry for its sponsor, Emirates, on to the TfL map.

From the platform, a thick cable is visible in the perimeter slot of a large red wheel which turns continuously, sustaining the procession of pods high over the river.  There is something countercultural about leaping on to a vehicle that’s moving, albeit slowly; a small dog refused the challenge and was yanked into a pod moments before the doors snapped shut.  The pod casts off from the platform with a slight shudder, accelerates and rises towards the first pylon.  Inside the pod is reminiscent of a sedan chair with two bench seats, covered in counterfeit London Transport moquette, facing one another.  There is an infinitessimal jiggle as we cross the first pylon.  A gentle breeze sways the pod rhythmically.

The cable car is part of London’s eastward regeneration and the dominant impression from the glass capsule is of a vast building site.  The ziggurats of Canary Wharf are encircled by fields of mud being sculpted by battalions of diggers.  The O2, another self-aggrandising political folly, squats opposite like a collapsed soufflé.  The river itself is largely unpopulated; this historic east-west corridor is virtually abandoned while a tunnel is being expensively bored in parallel to house Crossrail.  A lone dove-grey navy ship steams up the river, passing a scatter of moored dinghies then slowing to turn into West India Dock.  A small tug loiters, waiting to nudge the larger vessel into a lock.

A plane rears up from London City Airport; almost immediately another lands and a third approaches as though they too are beads on a cable.  Adjacent is the derelict hulk of Spillers Millennium Mills, a reminder of the role of the docks in the importing and processing of foodstuffs and now being redeveloped as an incubator for start-ups.  In the distance, the Dagenham wind turbines rotate at a stately pace.  Framing the scene and indistinct in the fading light looms the shallow suburban crescent of Shooters Hill, topped by a defunct water tower.

Empty docks are lined with pairs of dark cranes, each mounted on four colossal legs, the protruding windows of their dusty cabins resembling insects' bulbous eyes.  Their jibs are raised: a parade of salutes to the clean and ordered world which has replaced the noise and clutter over which they reigned.  Now the cranes are anchored fast to the rails along which they once roamed freely, emasculated.

Back in my flat, I peer out of the window.  Attached to their slender ribbon the pods glow red in the distance, like a Christmas decoration strung across the river.

© David Thompson 2015

Clissold Park

Fiery carotenoids and anthocyanins blaze in the wake of retreating chlorophyll as summer shuts down.  On damp pavements, slimy remnants, the wreckage of the grand photosynthesis enterprise, are treacherous; but sodden and crushed with chipped bark on the faux wilderness paths, the glutinous slurry cushions my flexing knees.  After grinding round the first circuit, a moment of balance is achieved.  Tension is exhaled and joints have unlocked, but energy is still plentiful.  Endorphins start to percolate, levitation ensues and pedestrian perception slips its leash.  The leaves blur and common or garden fungi are transmuted to psilocybe.  Disembodied, I pass effortlessly through walkers with snuffling dogs observing their morning constitutionals.

Abandonment to a separate reality trance is tempting but alertness remains essential.  This city park with its curated flowerbeds, commemorative benches, restored fountains and artfully disguised toilet blocks conceals a hazardous anarchy: runners may circumnavigate the perimeter track in either direction.  Round this bend or behind that bush lurks a sweating opponent, intent on the metronome beat of his stride, echoing the music conjured in his private auditorium, and heedless of oncoming traffic.  Darting left or right at the last moment – that pavement ritual executed daily in shopping malls – is not an option.  Only an early signalling of intention, while still an object in peripheral vision, guarantees safe transit. 

Ambient sounds penetrate my opiate veil, like voices infiltrating sleep or thoughts populating a hypnopompic awakening.  Singletons confiding to their phones, sharing sorrows or broadcasting injustices, couples murmuring, families bickering.  A passer-by admonishes an old lady feeding bread to ducks: ‘It’s bad for them, use peas.’  She ignores the imprecation and flings handfuls; frenzied birds boil the water.  Children squeal, are propitiated with ice cream and scramble off on scooters.  Tribal footballers jeer at the other team.  Earnest hipsters, wrenched from their beds, are tortured by a personal trainer.  ‘Five more reps, feel the burn!’ he commands.  His judgment is critical: clients are indignant if not adequately exercised, but he mustn’t jeopardise their Monday commute.  A drone dangles overhead; it revolves slowly, transmitting images to invisible watchers. 

Chestnuts arch the final stretch, a broad uphill lane; under the leaf clutter, fallen fruits ambush my soles.  Alongside, skateboards veer and clatter, competing for space. Above, the shrieks of invasive ringtailed parakeets challenge docile natives for territory.

A decorative bridge clamps the stump of the New River, originally an aquaduct helping to slake Londoners’ thirst, now reduced to a limpid creek. Originally an ornament to the manor house, it is crusted with a baize cloth of smothering algae, pristine as the adjacent bowling green.  The house itself is a monument to unparalleled temerity; Augustus Clissold acquired it through marriage and changed its name to his own.  After his death, activists campaigned for the estate to become a public park, trumping his hubris.  Now an elegant café, attuned to the tastes of its middle class patrons, it holds the reward for my efforts.

© David Thompson 2015

Shropshire

Shropshire is the sixth least populous county in England.  But as we set out on a glorious autumn day to walk Long Mynd, the plethora of Gerry's acquaintances we met challenged the statistic. Most were superannuated hippy fugitives from the 1970s who'd never made it back to civilisation. They were genteelly shabby, accompanied by drooping dogs, and bore the slightly crazed countenance of someone who lives out of range of a Pret.  Our conversations were brief.

'Haven't seen you for a while,' Gerry said.

'Nah, dog's been at the vet's,' was the gnomic response, and we'd move on to the next baffling encounter.

Gerry and I were accompanied by his friend Bob, a dour artist who would pause periodically to exclaim at an especially painterly view.  Our plan was a two day walk including an overnight stay at a pub.  This simple itinerary was spiced by our various incapacities: I had a painful corn, Gerry a troublesome knee and Bob chronic back problems. 

As we emerged from the wooded summit of Long Mynd, the ridge broadened into a smooth saddle, devoid of trees.  A white glider with disproportionately long wings rested on the ground, looking like a paper cutout against the dark carpet of heather.  We approached the knot of onlookers near a machine the size of a tractor from which a slender cable protruded.

‘Nice day for it,’ I ventured to a bearded man muttering into an intercom.  We’d been enjoying clear skies and warm sunshine all morning.

‘There’s not much lift, we need thermals,’ he countered.  Clearly our ideas of a nice day didn’t match.  

He explained that gliders use warm rising air, which produce fluffy cumulus clouds, to gain altitude.  I studied the strange machine.  The business end was a large wheel wrapped with cable, safely encased in a metal cage.

‘So this is the winch?’

‘It’s the retrieve winch, it rewinds the cable once the glider’s airborne.’ He patted it affectionately. ‘Over there’s the launch winch.’  I could just make out a similar object in the distance.

‘They won’t be up for long,’ he predicted, ‘it’s just a trial lesson. It was his birthday present,’ he added, pointing to one of the figures getting into the glider.  As someone who needs valium to get past duty-free, it didn’t appeal to me as a gift.  The cockpit was being closed and I shivered, imagining being sealed inside that cramped space with the prospect of relying on the vicissitudes of the atmosphere for survival.  

There was crackle on the intercom and the cable tautened.

‘Better stand behind this,’ he said, indicating a metal screen,’ if the tow breaks it’ll snap back.’ 

Almost immediately the plane was yanked into the air, reminding me of the balsa wood models I'd flicked across the garden as a boy.  It climbed so steeply that only the still tethered cable appeared to prevent it flipping over.  Then the cable was released, buoyed by a diminutive parachute, and the retrieve winch snarled into action.  

There was a wisp of cloud and the glider ascended, making the most of its temporary defeat of gravity.  Soon it was high above the deep valley.  Suddenly the glider twisted in the air: it was performing a loop the loop!   But coming out of the manoeuvre it had lost height and was now almost level with the ridge. 

‘He might have to land in the valley,’ a bystander murmured nervously.  I considered this; the only place in the valley that wasn’t full of sheep was the river.  I held my breath.  Just as the glider seemed about to crash into the side of the hill, the nose lifted and it circled round to land gracefully, slithering through the tufts of heather and coming to rest precisely where we'd first seen it.

‘That looked hazardous,’ I remarked to the beard as he reset the winch.

‘Not really, he knew the wind was blowing on the side of the hill which generates updrafts near the ridge.’

I turned to my companions.

‘I think I’m ready for that pub.'

© David Thompson 2015