Never Quite Made Broadway

[millionreasons]

Saturday: To Moor Park, because I once read that it was a gated community and I wanted to see what one looked like. As it was, the only gate I saw was to a private school. There were no streets, only private roads (one had its own CCTV) and as I walked down Main Avenue (est. 1958), I felt as if I were in LA, Tudorbethan style. I felt guilty for not owning a car; indeed the residents here must have taken Mrs Thatcher’s comment about men, 26, buses and failure quite literally. The rest of it was the Village Of The Damned meets Milton Keynes meets Hampstead Garden Suburb minus the boho charm. Every road led to a golf course - but one ran behind the tube into a pretty wooded area, so I walked along the track for about a mile and saw the only pedestrian, a jogger.

Later, go out to Kilburn for gin, a very hot green curry and Airport Girl’s final gig of their mini-tour. They play in tune and time (!) and Dave adds to the cacophony by not turning his phone off during the set.

Up next is Monkey Swallows the Universe who sound a bit like early 90s él-soundalikes Slumber who were formed of neo-Stuckist Mark D and Kirsty from legendary Sheffield popsters Mrs Kipling. Interestingly, although MSTU sound and look like they are from Oxfordshire, they sing about Walkey, Broomhill and Crookes, which must mean that they too are from Sheffield (possibly Oughtibridge) making me like them a bit more as I’m a sucker for bands who name places in their songs (see also: The Hermit Crab Band). Next up are Sodastream who are, as ever, good but it’s Saturday night and I’m full of gin (and wine and wheat beer) and want to dance, not cry along with bands who are, as Jeff puts it, dripping with razorblades.

Sunday, we accompany Jo and Heike up Hampstead Heath as I discover, to my surprise, that the best thing for a hangover is not sitting indoors drinking coffee and watching telly, but a bracing walk followed by Italian food in Al Parco café. We walk the scenic route up to suicide bridge, whose spikes would put anyone off the pain of death, round the back of Highgate past modernist glass cube houses, cute cottages and allotments to the Heath, past Kenwood House, through a great pile of mud over the sunset hill where the crows are flying with silhouette kites.

Comments

[harmlesskitty.livejournal.com]

i drive over suicide bridge about twice a week and *always* cranne my neck / risk driving into oncoming traffic to take in the view. london can be terribly claustrophobic if one doesn't take advantage of the odd vantage points.

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

I've never been up there before; I found it a bit vertiginous. One would have to be pretty determined to get over the various Mediaeval-looking spikes.

[23doves.livejournal.com]

Ah, The Hermit Crab band... I got hideously drunk with one of them at a wedding in the Scottish Highlands last year, and was witnessed attempting to do a Highland Dance.

They're mates of Mrs Daves, or at the very least one of them is...

[fadedglamour.livejournal.com]

My goodness, you were so very near to me! Moor Park is five minutes one way, and five minutes the other is one of the first estates built to rehouse east enders after the war, it's South Oxhey, quite infamous as a sort of landmark development I think.
Moor Park is quite awful, absolutely souless, though Moor Park Mansion (which seems to be the connecting point of all the golf courses) is really quite pretty. That wooded area is on my way to work, it's absolutely stunning on a frosted morning.

xx