Episode 9 part 1: Edgware - the edgiest EOL yet

April 18th-20th 2023 - Breaking the chronology

New feature: random rock/pop lyrics.

Lyric #1

You've got a hubcap diamond star halo
You're built like a car, oh yeah

Get It On T.Rex 1971

First draft started Tuesday 18th April 2023 22.22 Front room Parkway

Whether it was the coffee or the sun or what but today was such a cracker I had to try to get it down and out before the lustre of it faded.

Slept ok(ish). Woke at 06.50 feeling pretty Parkie rough but by 08.00 (first Madopar time) and a couple of stretches I began to feel less ill. Semi excited about going to Edgware the northwest end of the Northern line. 08.30 message from my daughter ‘coffee?”. First thought no but said yes. Finished muesli, put on Burberry, vintage 501’s, old Hollinger cap (legitimised as left by Airbnb guest) and shades. My daughter said glamorous - I thought so too. Chatted outside the Coffee Jar across the road from my place, stroking Dream the poodle dog. Maria the owner gave me a pot of hummus and a cucumber, back to flat laughing about the joys of Camden life.

Happy with combination of my look and wonderful light in the hall stooped to selfies.

Good walking down Parkway, Converse low tops rejected by my son give me more bounce better walk. Trotted down escalator (another new thing), Edgware line train pulled in exactly as I hit platform 1. Carriage emptyish - who’d be going north at this time. Out into the light and am quick enough to get shot of dagger boards and railings at Golders Green.

Cool old guy, long white beard, cap and crumpled skinny jeans and sits slouched across the carriage - moves when I start taking pictures. Admire neatness netted stone before Hendon (same as on road north of Ullapool). Great light this morning.

Wobbly walking up platform - good looking station

.The ticket hall is plain, worn, still elegant in this light. Quality design and construction of the doors. Good start, I’m happy snapper¹.

Onto the main drag, I like, busy. Good English bone structure above the untidy shop fronts.

Turn west, more messy local shops few big brands. I like it more and more. People on the street cosmopolitan mix. Even the shopping centre has visual chops

This place rocks. Better than Morden the headline. Red brick block speaks of old style municipal money and pride.

25th Anniversary of Shorn the barber’s shop. There’s solid in this transitional world - 25 years of barbering.

Huge MIR Food Centre - piles of produce outside - big food shops such a turn on. Repetition and colour is always exciting - Warhol. Similar to the store that finally warmed me to Cockfosters - but that comes later.

Commercial graphics also exciting - eg this banana.

A hundred meters down the road something so odd it took me a while to work out what was going on. At first a large handsome hotel..bur then the cars - why so many random cars squeezed around it. See the boarded up windows - it’s handsome wreck. But such a huge wreck sprawling down the road - like Peter O’Toole in My Favourite Year. This is a mother of mock Tudor - cinematic in extravagance. Edgware must have been a rich dude place. Imagine hordes of fat red faced bowler hatted pinstripe suited types getting pouring out of steam trains to get pissed every night on G&T/pints fancying (and more) the bar maids/men and rolling home to be rude to their wives. Totally tops High Barnet’s Red Lion.

Beautifully constructed, the carved angel lintel, epic high gateway. I was so happy.

And next to the ruined parent the brash child, vulgarly commercial Verto Plates. Energy, confidence and ‘realness’ in the mash up of cheap signage, niche marketing and mock Tudor. Verto sells 3D Gel and Carbon number plates (??), Electric number plates (?), Japanese number plates (?) and 4D number plates (???!!) A time machine in an Edgware number plates shop - this place is truly edgy².

Stroll on cheerier and cheerier to have found all this richness. Down the road apiece another crumbly palace of past and present pleasure. Shaam Banqueting Hall it turned out to be and it currently hosts magnificent celebrations for Muslim families. [So far I haven’t found anything about the history of the building will keep looking.]

So dear reader, here I am 30 minutes in Edgware’s wonderland, already buzzing with enthusiasm for this intriguing burg when - bang - I’m staring into the eyes of these buggers…A white Roller with matt black bonnet and a fucking Ferrari. As Wet Leg so stirringly put it “I think I lost my shit, some kind of fucked up trip..”

[At this point it is 3.44 am and even though to continue the Wet Leg lyric “I kinda like it cos it feels like being in love” I’m coming down off the Parkie meds and should admit defeat and go to bed.]

Wednesday 19th April, 15.34 Front Room parkway

Back to the big cars story³. The whole shiny shiny showroom was full of them.

[this parkie can be such a drag, having spent 2 hours plus tidying up everything up to here I’m now crashing again…might have time to do some later today…]

Having checked out the cars (not my thing at all objects of curiosity not desire) I wondered for a moment if I had the chutzpah to go in and ask why the showroom was in such a seemingly unlikely locale. Decided I did not - maybe next time.

As I’m putting this together I see the excellent contrast between the flash motors and the shops opposite. Especially like Funtoe across the road.

Further down the road this excellent signage keeps me cheery.

And I’m a sucker for punny shop names - is this peculiar to the Brits? Do Americans or French do this?

I seem to have broken Substack…keeps sending me odd messages about the end of an email…So I’ll have to make this a two parter.

1. I like taking snaps - quick shots - which is particularly apparent in this episode. It’s a thing I sort of nicked from WG Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn which has inscrutable small black and white photographs thatconfuse more than illustrate.

2. On the subject of time travel (a bit of a stretch this but it’s my game and I can do what I like with it and you can all piss off if you don’t like it) Mark Fisher see note in ep?? refers at length to the truly wonderful 60’s ITV time travel sci-fi series Sapphire and Steele starring very young Joanna Lumley and David McCallum. As Fisher points out it makes not compromises to the audience - no hand holding like today - you pay attention and work it out. You can see the series on Britbox or very bad copies for free on Daily Motion eg https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6rfeq4

3. Maybe if I’d just been wandering along not paying attention all of this would have seemed un-noteworthy. I’m writing that now in case you’re all out there yawning and fidgeting and thinking what is he banging on about - FFS its just another messy suburb LOL. But having got that off my chest I think the whole place is worthy of attention - and appreciation.]