Whitechapel Yoghurt

Whitechapel is one of the cheapest squares on the Monopoly board, and now that I’ve been living here for a couple of months I understand why that is. BUT, I’ve been criticised for being too negative in this little blog of Proustian nonsense, so instead of peeling back the Whitechapel yoghurt lid and showing you the dark green fluff indicating that this place has been left in the fridge for a few weeks too many and should only be eaten if you have scant concern for your own internal organs, I will try to focus on the positives. Scrape off the fluff and dig deeper in! Maybe it’s still good at the bottom…

Positive #1: Smells

With its high Indian and Bangladeshi population, the smell of my Whitechapel neighbours’ cooking often sends spasms of jealous pleasure across my tongue. They are usually sharp, spicy, tangy scents that saturate the air completely and come dancing to my amateurish nostrils in waves of hot, thick perfection. They make me hover by the back door in a semi-delirium.

Positive #2: Sounds

There is a short old Bangladeshi man with a grey beard and a faded faruque cap who hunches over crates of green mangoes near Whitechapel station every afternoon. Barely opening his mouth (but opening it just enough for you to see his yellow teeth inside), he says ‘Ayyy mango, mango, mango,’ over and over again. I like his hard-selling tactics. I am growing fond of him.

Positive #3: Sights

Spitalfields Markets are clean, colourful and spacious. Likewise the Sunday Upmarket off of Brick Lane is well-structured and lovely. But it is the people who spread out their knick-knacks on blankets along Brick Lane that I like seeing most. Matchbox cars and size 16 shoes and folded chequered shirts and plastic pearls and battered CD players and tiny vases and lycra masks and two old pots and bouquets of green lighters and coat-hangers of multicoloured ribbons at 20p each and a framed picture of a German-Shepherd in profile are all spread out evenly on tartan blankets and their sellers lean against brick walls smoking and eating red liquorice.

Positive #4: Let’s skip taste and touch and go for the sixth sense: The Ghost of Nikolai

Nikolai was the guy who lived in my room for four years or so before I moved in. I get snippets of information about him from my flatmates, and, from what I’ve been able to piece together, it seems like he was a bit of a loner. He spent hours alone in his room, coming out occasionally to watch marathon screenings of The World at War on the History channel and never once having friends drop by for tea and croissants. Of course I could ask more questions about him, but I prefer to imagine what he did in this little room with too little natural lighting and too many broken power-points. Did he comb his fringe over his eyes, lie on his bed and stare up at the ceiling? Did he tap absent-minded, compulsive beats on the desk with his fingernails? Did he write long lists of Mario Brothers characters, from most favourite to least favourite? Did he find, as I do, that creative spirit is strangled by beige walls and paisley curtains? Ah, but here I’m being too negative again! For all I know he had the time of his life in here…

Positive #5: Let’s forget the senses altogether and turn to: The Irony of Whitechapel McDonald’s

This will take a little bit of research to verify, but I recently discovered that the McDonald’s that I pass every morning on my way to the tube station has an interesting history. It used to be a furniture store, and upstairs it housed the Jewish Social Club. In May 1907, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Gorky themselves all walked up those stairs for the congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Apparently they came to London as part of their European tour, attempting to spread the seed of revolution. Some of them stayed on Fulbourne street, which I can reach in about two minutes from my front door.

Imagine that. From a place where people discussed the horrible alienation induced by the division of labour and made passionate speeches about capitalist control over the means of production, to the plastic-seated, fry-sizzling, fake-smiled epitome of modern capitalism: McDonald’s. How depressing. Perhaps I shall entrench the irony further and go eat a McNugget in honour of Lenin and Trotsky. I’ll dunk it in some Sweet n’ Sour sauce and try to come around to the view of many: that people will always prefer their right to work for chocolate thickshakes than equality.


And so it would appear my attempt at a positive post has failed. I do enjoy irony, though, so perhaps it’s not all bad! Here’s another sign that Whitechapel may have some hidden treasures:

File Me Away

My job involves a lot of filing. Today as I was slotting Olojharan Obolinko down in his rightful place between the dashing Ojoban Obolinka and the delightful Mohammed Obolezarak, I wondered about the likelihood of any of these people actually meeting one day, and the massive sequence of events that had to occur to result in them sitting flush up against one another in a London filing cabinet. Even if you forget that the Obolinko, Obolinka and Obolezarak parents all had to decide that a little Obolinko, Obolinka or Obolezarak would be a welcome addition to their families (except for Ojaban, who was a mistake), and cast aside the striking similarity of their uncommon (some may even say contrived) surnames, there are quite a few decisions these ‘O’ brothers had to make – and quite a few circumstances beyond their control they had to find themselves in – to see them rubbing their filey shoulders together in this admissions office.

Olojharan decided to take a year off after finishing school in South Africa to backpack through Eastern Europe and sample as much štrukli and viška pogača as possible before returning home to ‘real life’ selling phone credit and crisps to people in his father’s shop. That was the plan. But, after a particularly heavy night on the kruškovac in Croatia, Olojharan met Melania. She had a penchant for designer clothes and gourmet nibbles, and convinced our Olojharan that the only way he could fund his newfound love for Egyptian cotton sheets and Armani suits was to launch a career in high finance. So, upsetting his father (and at the same time impressing him more than he will ever admit), Olojharan applies to an economics degree. His details are sent, his photos attached, his numbers punched in. Into the filing cabinet he goes.

Ojoban was the seventh of eight children (his younger sister was also a mistake). He grew up in a tiny house in Newfoundland and always had to fight for his fair share at dinner time. His older brothers were rolling fat things with bad tempers, and, one night, as he watched Ajalan’s chubby fingers snatch the meatloaf from his plate and shove it between his grinning white teeth, he made the decision that he would show them all. He would eat the finest of foods some day. He would never have to share. And he would never get fat. A chef seemed an obvious choice, but, after a failed venture as a kitchen assistant in town (his boss told him he’d never seen someone so clumsy with a whisk), he realised he only wanted to eat food: not make it. Flipping through the Aubergine Quarterly he saw a job advertisement for a food critic. He applied, but was told he needed to know how to write with great panache and accuracy about the inner workings of soufflés. So, with a new sense of purpose, he applies to a combined Arts/Science degree, majoring in English Literature and Nutrition. His details are sent, his photos attached, his numbers punched in. Into the filing cabinet he goes.

Mohammed was born into a wealthy Nigerian family. He was pampered good and proper his entire childhood, snacking on caviar sandwiches and shark-fin soup with truffle dippers. The only ‘work’ he had ever done consisted of telephoning various international zoos offering 200.6 million nairas and 6.2 concubines in exchange for a bald eagle to add to his personal menagerie. So, when his father was jailed for tax fraud and his mother fled to Bulgaria with her lover, it came as quite a rude shock that everyone in the family turned to him to work back the Obolezarak fortune. After a family meeting, where Mohammed spent the whole time stroking Emerald – his blue-winged raquet-tail – it was decided he should enroll in a business degree. Mohammed has no intention of working or studying (quite frankly, he is incapable of either), but his uncle has already paid five times the tuition fees to secure his place. His details are sent, his photos attached, his numbers punched in. Into the filing cabinet he goes.

The ambitious South African sits next to the hungry Newfoundlandan who is next to the slothful Nigerian. They are connected by similar surnames and coincidentally colliding circumstances.

I close the filing cabinet, thinking about all the things that had to happen to result in my hands being the ones to alphabetise and file these three people I may never meet. Somewhere in Canada, maybe my numbers are being punched in, and I’m being wedged between a philandering German and a philanthropic Pakistani.

It may be a small but incontrovertible truth: we’re all next to somebody we don’t know in a filing cabinet somewhere.

A Red Soufflé in Hyde Park

I have often been criticised for my persistent lack of organisational drive. I thought maybe moving to another country might convince my new friends that I do act and not just talk, but unfortunately lately I’ve been acting with the same joie de vivre as a hibernating animal after a glass of warm milk. My new BFF noticed the snoring emanating from my cave and decided that the only thing for it was to burst inside with ice-blocks and waterskis, singing ‘Good Morning’ à la Gene Kelly and announcing the arrival of summer with timpanis and glockenspiels.

To prove to him that I can organise (and to thank him for reminding me that I am a young person in London and not a Grizzly Bear in the Alaskan wilderness), a plan was hatched. It was an organisational soufflé: for it to rise successfully it required a few days to prepare the key ingredients.

Before I impart my recipe, it may help you to know that this friend is also my French tutor, so there are many French flourishes involved. If you do not enjoy a good French flourish, you may substitute this ingredient with some icing sugar.

Sarah’s London Soufflé

Ingredients

1 x red beret
1 x black and white scarf
1 x quantity red wool (at least 150 metres)
1 x picnic blanket
1 x pack of chalk
1 x quantity home-made food labels in French (eg. ‘a knife’ = ‘un couteau’)
1 x quantity basic picnic food, including a baguette and camembert cheese
2 x functioning mobile phones with sufficient credit
1 x desperate prayer to Vishnu that it doesn’t rain

Method

You will need to select a fitting location to cook in. I selected Hyde Park, but feel free to adapt this to your own city or town.

1. Organise to meet in front of the Serpentine Art Gallery in Hyde Park at 1pm sharp on Saturday.
2. That morning, purchase all of your fresh food, don your red beret and scarf, pack your wool, chalk, picnic blanket and food labels. Before leaving home, drop in your prayer to Vishnu (you may have to do this the night before, also, and sprinkle more in – to taste – across the course of the day).
3. Arrive at the Gallery at midday so you have ample time to prepare. Once there, approach the Gallery staff to ask if they would mind you scrawling a small message in French on the pavement near the entrance outside. Take their advice and write the note on paper instead (even though you spent your lunch-break the day before on a cross-London chalk-hunt).
4. Get out your ball of wool and tie one end to a post near the Gallery entrance. Attach your sign that says ‘Suivre moi’ (‘Follow me’).
5. Unravel your wool, weaving it around trees, over footpaths and down hills until it runs out in a place not many people would choose for a picnic.
6. Set up your picnic blanket at this end of the string and affix your French labels to the food (eg. Le Fromage, Le Noix, L’eau, La Myrtille, Un Bol, Un Plat, etc.).
7. Send your friend a text message that says: ‘Quand vous être à le musée, chercher pour l’instructions’ (‘When you are at the gallery, look for instructions’).
8. Try to look as ‘normal’ as possible when strolling families and curious tourists notice your woollen trail and (a) stare, (b) smile, and/or (c) approach you to ask what on Earth you are doing.
9. Wait.
10. Wait some more.
11. Worry about the other end of the string.
12. Panic when your friend sends you a message, clearly having not seen your note.
13. Reply, telling him to look for a little red clue.
14. Keep an eye on the trees in the distance until you see your perplexed friend collecting the string: weaving around trees, over footpaths and down hills.
15. As he gets closer, try to look as nonchalant as possible. Fail miserably.
16. Eat, drink, and discuss steps 1 through 15.

(Serves 2).

The rest of my plan involved seeing The X-Files movie (which, I hate to admit, disappointed me immensely), having a drink in a pub overlooking the Thames in Bermondsey, then heading to the National Theatre in Waterloo to watch Bafta nominated short films which were shown outside up on the Fly-tower.

The hibernating bear has awoken…

Summer

I am sitting in Victoria Embankment Gardens. I wandered here accidentally but have decided to stay. There is a free concert on. Multicoloured deckchairs of blue, red and green are lined up roughly in front of a tiny green stage. Populating the deckchairs are many white-haired men and women, reclining at angles that could make even the most alert of people look three seconds away from a sunny snooze. A bald man in a blue shirt squints as he bites his nails. Behind me a girl is discussing her English lessons in a Spanish accent: her teacher says her grammar needs work. The sun is out, and along the brim of the receding hairline in front of me I see sweat beads glittering. A girl gets up, leaving behind an empty bottle of Iced-tea. Pigeons bob and weave between the legs of the deckchairs, pecking at muffin wrappers. Over the fence is the rumbling of traffic – the sharp squeak of brakes, the honking of boats, the gravelly groan of buses accelerating. People suck on frappuccinos through green straws, tap messages into black phones, click on red lighters to start their cigarettes. I hear a woman’s high-pitched laugh, chairs scraping on the pavement, a group of school kids speaking in German. On Villiers street a group of men are singing ‘I Love You Baby’ as they walk to the tube station. When they finish, people cheer.

The concert never starts, but I am glad I came here.

J'aime Beaujolais

Who cares for paid pleasures or pre-organised festivities? Give me spontaneity and unexpected revelries.

Unfortunately my friend Jean-Marc has beaten me to the punch writing about the pub/bistro in Covent Garden that we are destined to frequent. Unfortunately he has also written about said pub/bistro in a way much more eloquent than I, but I won’t let that stop me. Now we will just have two different versions of the same tale.

After an early evening exchanging bad jokes and consolations in a pub near Seven Dials, our stomachs turned us out onto the Covent Garden streets in search of a menu offering something other than steak, steak with a side salad or steak with a side steak. Weaving around the mish-mash of streets that used to confuse me, we stopped in front of a tiny, dimly-lit bistro. There were raised eyebrows from my companion, and one look at the ceiling densely packed with glass beer steins, multicoloured neck-ties, gnarled brown branches and lampshades made out of faded yellow wine labels was enough to convince us both to step inside.

It was a French bistro/pub called Beaujolais. I’ve never had a ‘local’ before, but now I understand the drive to spend as many nights as possible in a place where the surroundings are warm, the music unobtrusive and the owners shake hands with you when you leave. And, of course, where all the signage is in French and the waiters speak to you earnestly in the language before realising you only understood the words ‘fromage’ and ‘aujourd’hui’.

It was a blessing in disguise that there were no tables left so we had to sit at the bar. After divvying up our plat de fromage we found ourselves the targets of a lumbering, loud (and a little bit lewd) local from Brittany. He’d had his bar stool ‘stolen’ from him and, after many a glare at his blonde-haired usurper, and many French curses that went over my head, he spent the rest of the evening standing half-behind, half-beside the bar, joking loudly with us, insulting my Swiss companion and confusing all the hopeful bill-payers when he refused to take their money.

On the bar between my elbows was a silver plaque: “Honestly, I’d rather be at Beaujolais – Tony Hogan”. It turns out it was a year to that very day that Tony Hogan – a British writer who had spent almost every night at Beaujolais for 20 years – had passed away. Our Jack Daniels-scented bar-fellow and then the owner of Beaujolais and some of the barmen each took time to tell us about this man. By all accounts, he was the very model of an English gentleman. An encyclopaedic knowledge of French history, a willingness to sit down with a glass of wine and discuss any confusions, and never a harsh word to anybody.

Up on the wall was an In/Out members board with locals names scrawled in white chalk. Tony’s name was right at the top, marked as ‘Always In’. From the looks on the barmen’s faces when they described the last day they saw him, it was obvious that this was a man well deserving of their reverence. Their loss was great. The owner looked at our demolished plate of cheeses, then met my eye, shrugged and said: ‘C’est la vie’.

Between the bellowing Frenchmen, the insistence on wine over water, the animated stories and the little French signs everywhere saying things like ‘If you are drinking to forget, please pay before drinking’, I honestly would rather be at Beaujolais than many other places, too. Here I cannot help but quote my partner in Beaujolais revelry to finish:

“Jean-Yves waves regally at his clientèle and turns towards me. 'This wine bar has been here for 30 years and there are only locals here.' he whispers, his salt and pepper (avec hint of Brie) beard rustling and bustling nervously as he leans towards me and continues 'You will be locals, I know it...'.”

Let us drink to Tony.

The Music Edition

Thom the Pied-Piper of Victoria Park

Thanks to a generous Canadian couchsurfer named Elias, last month I found myself in the enviable position of being able to say ‘I have a free ticket to Radiohead!’ to anyone who would listen. Apparently Elias chose me not for my groundbreaking insights into Wittgenstein’s ladder or even my abiding love for Mr Yorke’s voice, but because he discovered from my CS profile that we had one very important thing in common: a shared passion for those dangerously addictive devils in a blue packet: crispy M&Ms.

They were playing on Tuesday and Wednesday (24th and 25th June) in Victoria Park and our tickets were for the Wednesday. BUT on Tuesday night, I was standing in my kitchen, dropping another tablespoon of chilli into my dhal when I suddenly realised I could HEAR the Pyramid Song. I could HEAR Thom’s voice from my stupid little under-stocked kitchen. He was serenading me as I chopped my coriander.

Like a rat lured by pipes, like a dopey forest animal transfixed by Orpheus’s lyre, I was drawn to the music. I wolfed down my dinner, recruited my flatmate Kyle to be my partner in stolen sounds, and ran down to the park, looking like a right plonker with my hands stretched out trying to catch the notes echoing between buildings, rumbling off the parked cars in the street and generally dervish dancing around in bejewelled ballet slippers.

We made it there just as Jigsaw Falling into Place began, and joined the other sound thieves on a hill just outside the concert walls. People had brought tartan picnic blankets, bottles of wine and tea-lights, and every now and then I’d meet someone’s eye who was just as deliriously appreciative as I was to be there. I had only ever heard Radiohead recorded. Live, Thom’s voice remains painfully personal. Even for the thousands of ears who had paid to be there, it was as if we were all behind the fence. He was singing to himself, and we were all just fortunate eavesdroppers.

The next night was obviously brilliant as well – they played Paranoid Android, which satisfied my Year 8 self on the school bus listening to it over and over again on my walkman – but that first night was just so spontaneous and unexpected: like getting home and finding a chocolate ganache cake with a big fuchsia bow on it in the middle of your bed (on a plate, of course).


Mighty Boosh vs. Hop Farm = Fluoro Spandex vs. Oatmeal Windbreakers

The Mighty Boosh festival and Hop Farm Festival were both held in the same field in Kent, but there the similarities end. The headliners of each festival drew significantly different crowds. The Mighty Boosh, for those of you whose lives are blighted by your wilful ignorance of this show, consists mainly of the British comedy duo Julian Barratt (Howard Moon) and Noel Fielding (Vince Noir): the former a jazz-loving ‘straight-man’ with a penchant for tweed and intellectual self-delusion, and the latter a cheeky androgynous electro-boy with a penchant for sequins and Mick Jagger (oh, and a phenomenal hair-do).

Contrast that with the headliner of Hop Farm – Neil Young – and you will get an indication of the crowd-pulling differences of these two festivals. Of course Neil Young is still amazing, it’s just in a slightly ‘older’ way…

On the Boosh festival day I was carried along on a magical dragon-boat of glam-rock ski-suits, sequined cowboy hats, gold spandex, fluoro yellow tutus, purple robes, afro-wigs and men dressed as the pink tentacled head of Tony Harrison. On the Hop Farm day I stood in a sensible field of navy windbreakers, beige trousers, plastic ponchos, and fold-up chairs with bags hanging off them to collect the mandarin skins and cheese wrappers from pre-prepared picnic lunches.

Spot the difference. Exhibit (a) Boosh Festival

Exhibit (b) Hop Farm

Highlights of both days included chasing down American comedian Arj Barker for a photo, chasing down anybody dressed in a costume for a photo, sneaking in a bottle of vodka in the middle of a rolled up sleeping bag (thanks for that tip, Mum and Dad!), the Mighty Boosh’s soup-song remix, Jim James from My Morning Jacket wailing the glittering notes of Gideon in his blue cape, Gary Numan in general, discovering the lesser-known double-function of Oyster cards as Grade-A avocado slicers, and wearing slices of Edam cheese on my ankles. Unfortunately, that last point is not a joke. But at least it wasn’t my idea…

Tubes, Buses and Pigs

Tubular Observations

As obvious as it may be to write about the tube in London, as a daily user with multiple interchanges requiring multiple trudging up escalators, multiple shoulder-barges from people walking in the opposite direction and multiple invasions of personal space from multiple men who submerged their clothes in eau de Lynx body spray that morning, there are a few observations I have to make.

Firstly, I’ve decided that I much prefer the trains equipped with vertical poles to hang on to than the ones with horizontal poles that run down the length of the ceiling. Although the horizontal poles seem more efficient because more people can hold onto them and you don’t have the issue of vertical pole-koalas (the ones who decide it is necessary for them not just to hold the pole with their hand, but to wrap their whole body around it, leaving everyone else to try their best with empty space or the surprised earlobe of the businessman next to them), when you have a sadistic tube driver who applies the brakes at unexpected staccato intervals throughout clear stretches of tunnel and pushes down rather too forcefully when coming to a complete stop, the horizontal pole proves how useless it really is: somehow our feet lose all ability to grip the ground, and we clang into each other like hanging salamis in an unusually windy butcher’s shop.

Secondly, I have learned that you must treat each peak-hour overground train as if you are an arrogant world-class boxer: forget everything you ever learned about sportsmanship or sympathy for your peers; talk yourself up inside your head, and when the time comes, knock down anyone and everyone who stands in the way of that golden championship belt (AKA a spot on the 7.45am Westbound train). If you don’t you’ll end up scuffing your shoes back on the platform, watching the yellow and purple carriage fade into the distance and thinking about the sliver of space between the fat lady and the Rastafarian that was rightfully yours but conquered by the guy who, having long ago abandoned any sense of chivalry or the natural British inclination to queue, showed up at the last second and stole it in a blaze of elbows and laptop bags.


Leaving London, if only for a day

It only took almost four months, but I finally managed to break free from the tupperware container of yesterday’s spiced-vegetable Biryani that is London and make my way to ‘mysterious’ Stonehenge and ‘city-of-the-multiple-pig-statues’: Bath.

I say ‘mysterious’ Stonehenge because, on the one day when gloomy English weather may actually have been helpful in mustering up those ‘what’s it all about?’ sort of sentiments that are meant to burst naturally from your pores upon visiting something built around 1500BC, the weather was so perfect – clouds yawning contentedly in the sky, newborn lambs grazing beside buttercups in nearby meadows, children licking double-decker ice-creams with sprinkles – I could only stand there and say: “Yep, that’s Stonehenge.”

The only ‘mystery’ I encountered all day was why so many Americans come to this country when they expect everything to be the same as ‘back home’. Americans outnumbered every other nationality on the bus about 10:1, and on the hour-long bus trip from London to Stonehenge and then again on the next hour-long leg of the trip from Stonehenge to Bath, the discussions I was forced to listen to consisted mainly of complaints about pitiful portion sizes, pitiful public transport, pitiful trading hours and pitiful customer service. All compared to ‘back home’ where the portion sizes are reasonable, public transport is as smooth as your favourite childhood slippery-dip, trading hours allow you to buy a floral-print sofa and washer-dryer combo at three in the morning, and customer service is such an integral part of the national identity that they’re considering etching ‘The Customer is Always Right’ into Thomas Jefferson’s Mount Rushmore chin.

Peppered amongst the complaints, I also overheard someone asking, in all seriousness, ‘What’s the singular for ‘sheep’?’ and a hearty discussion regarding the horrors of the Australian accent. A portion of it is transcribed here:

“So, I was like dating this guy a while ago, and he was like, so hot, and he was Australian, but I wished I could like plug my ears or something, and just like, look at him instead, because his accent just made me want to barf.”

Never mind that there were at least two Australians on the bus: myself and my friend for the day, Amy from Melbourne. We sat in our orange coach seats, distinguishing ourselves from the Americans by our subtle Australian form of revenge: absorbing all the abuse so we could bitch about it when we were out of earshot.

As for ‘the henge’, there is a thin black rope functioning as a ‘fence’ around the stones and people shuffle up, take their photos, stare at the crows squabbling on the rocks for a bit, and then shuffle back off to join the queue for the toilets. There were audio guides available, but I was happy just to say, ‘Yep, that’s Stonehenge’, do my lap of contemplation and obligatory jumping tourist shot (below) and then shuffle off to poke around all the ingenious Stonehenge memorabilia in the gift shop. Amy found the ‘Stonehenge Rocks’ slogan utterly hilarious, bless her.

On the way to Bath, I have to tell you, I saw grass like I’ve never seen before. Field after rolling field of most perfectly formed, glossy, plush and gloriously green grass. I wanted to pretend I had an emergency so the bus would stop and I could go throw myself into it. You know how you see something so perfect sometimes and you just want to make a dent in it? Like when you open a new tub of ice-cream and the top is so smooth that you get this sudden urge to stick your finger in? I wanted to destroy this grass. I wanted to leave strange rolling imprints so that planes flying overhead would see an armadillo holding an umbrella that had blown inside out.

Anyways, we arrived in Bath and only had 3 hours to spend there. Should you ever find yourself in Bath with only 3 hours up your sleeve, if you hear about Beckford’s Tower, I strongly recommend taking a bus. Amy and I decided that it couldn’t be that far away, and after a 45 minute uphill walk, we were greeted by the lonely Tower Museum ladies who were mightily impressed we’d walked all the way from Bath. Even Beckford himself rode up on his horse, they said. Which leads to my second recommendation should you ever visit Beckford’s tower: try to arrive with at least a vague understanding of who Beckford was before entering. Of course, it won’t matter if you don’t, because these Museum ladies spoke as if we were two Beckford pilgrims come to lay rhododendrons and coloured beads at his hedonistic feet. They said things like ‘It’s just like him, you know, to have made the stairs to the top so small and easy to climb,’ and ‘Of course he would probably have sat up there pretending that he owned the city – that’s something he would do,’ continually rolling their eyes at the antics of silly old Beckford and remaining oblivious to our glassed-over eyes and polite nodding.

Beckford's Tower, Bath

Even though we didn’t have much time left to see the rest of the city, when we came back down from the Tower, we were still too polite to stop the enforced Postgraduate Beckford course that came next. Whether we wanted a museum tour or not didn’t seem to matter. I assume making Beckford Tower bookmarks and tea-cosies all day isn’t the most fulfilling of occupations, so anyone who ventures inside the Beckford walls is a prime target for in-depth tour guiding. I also assume dedicating most of your days to Beckford’s memory can make you a little too obsessed. After enthusiastically taking us over to a glassed-in replica of Fonthill Abbey, where the fabulously wealthy bisexual Beckford spent many years in seclusion after being publicly outed, she leaned in close and pointed to a little grey balcony with a door underneath. “I like to imagine him strolling proud and naked out of this door and going for a swim in the river nearby,” she said.

I loved her enthusiasm, of course, and if I had time I would probably have stayed and indulged her Beckford fantasies further, but we only had about an hour and a half left to see the rest of the city. So we took in the Circus, the Royal Crescent, the Abbey, Pulteney Bridge (which looks more Europe than UK) and bypassed the actual Roman Baths because it cost about £15 to get in.

Pulteney Bridge, Bath

Apart from the Bath stones, which most of the buildings are made out of and make everything look bright and clean, the only other thing we saw a lot of were pig sculptures. Bath must have been having some kind of unadvertised Pig Festival, because sprinkled in unexpected places around the city were these multi-coloured, multimedia Pigs. There were white ones with wings hanging from trees, a silver one with a bow and arrow sitting above the doorway to a coffee shop, a spotty one standing sentry on a street corner, a blue one in the main square, one made out of feathers, one made out of gold mosaic tiles… I read now that they’re there to promote the 3000 year-old legend of Bath’s founder: King Bladud. According to BBC news, King Bladud “discovered the healing powers of its hot spring waters while walking with his swine.” Cool. Any excuse to decorate an entire city with pig statues is fine by me.