Comments on naijablog: UK groans and moans..

oga jeremy,you touched two issues close to my hear...

2007-06-17T11:58:00.000+01:00

oga jeremy,

you touched two issues close to my heart. if the whole BAE mess had occured in our beloved country, they would have said, "business as usual" and castigated our people for being thieving degenerates (or much worse), but in this case all attempt was made to sweep the whole thing under the roof. ditto the cash for honours imbroglio and who knows what else?

and Euston station! what a nightmare!! in 5 years of travelling through that station, it has yet to win me over. that said, few of the more modern stations are much better. i thik they deliberately make those stations unfriendly places in order to discourage people from spending any more time there than necessary. heaven forbid you arrive early for your train and have a pleasant time awaiting your conveyance!!!

It's called "Euridice". Beautiful, I think.

2007-06-16T01:24:00.000+01:00

It's called "Euridice". Beautiful, I think.

Jeremy, you're absolutely right about that passage...

2007-06-15T22:44:00.000+01:00

Jeremy, you're absolutely right about that passageway from Charing X – complete with mean slopes at the bottom of the walls so you can't even busk in there or hide from the cold. But I'm afraid it doesn't even clome *close* to the ghastly passage from the IMAX Cinema to the front steps of Waterloo station – a slanting, filthy, tunnel that everyone who walks through just wants to get out of as fast as possible.

There's just one redeeming feature, Sue Hubbard's *wonderful* poem etched along each wall and still miraculously there after I think about five years now. It's like a glorious fight back against all the shit side of London:

I am not afraid as I descend,
step by step, leaving behind the salt wind
blowing up the corrugated river,

the damp city streets, their sodium glare
of rush-hour headlights pitted with pearls of rain;
for my eyes still reflect the half remembered moon.

Already your face recedes beneath the station clock,
a damp smudge among the shadows
mirrored in the train's wet glass,

will you forget me? Steel tracks lead you out
past cranes and crematoria,
boat yards and bike sheds, ruby shards

of roman glass and wolf-bone mummified in mud,
the rows of curtained windows like eyelids
heavy with sleep, to the city's green edge.

Now I stop my ears with wax, hold fast
the memory of the song you once whispered in my ear.
Its echoes tangle like briars in my thick hair.

You turned to look.
Second fly past like birds.
My hands grow cold. I am ice and cloud.

This path unravels.
Deep in hidden rooms filled with dust
and sour night-breath the lost city is sleeping.

Above the hurt sky is weeping,
soaked nightingales have ceased to sing.
Dusk has come early. I am drowning in blue.

I dream of a green garden
where the sun feathers my face
like your once eager kiss.

Soon, soon I will climb
from this blackened earth
into the diffident light.