For You and I

Festive season 2009 has creeped on us Londoners like drunkenness after sambuca shots: you think they did nothing to you but after ten minutes you cannot even walk straight. I am not really sure when it all begun this time, perhaps somewhere between October and November, and thanks to the helpful bank holidays this year it will probably last until well into the New Year. This has definitely not been as inappropriate as 2006 for me, when I remember having my first Christmas drinks in September and being a total mess by early December, though still soldiering through my unspoken responsibility to party.

Back then I could count on the resilience and naivety of mere youth. Now I am counting on Beroccas and extremely grumpy Monday mornings, associated with severe cases of 'tube rage' (for instance unreasonably asking myself' 'What the fuck are all these people doing here?' whilst in fact pushing my way into an already overcrowded carriage). I also developed a rage for people who hold the lift by being very slow whilst going out ('Shall I go right or left???' type retarded).

Also, back in 2006 I still probably thought that Oxford Street in the Christmas season was 'delightful', rather than an excuse for a nervous breakdown - unless you are trying to get into Selfridges from the back streets of course. By the way, what on earth have Disney movies got to do with Christmas??

Despite these minor lows, Christmas in London is a real experience.

My highs have been a trip to the markets, a lot of festive drinks, buying a real tree with Gavin and in general having fun with my friends and loved ones.

On the other hand, I am still shit at buying presents (I have not yet bought a single present!), catching up with all my friends or generally appearing as thoughtful. A man of sentiment but not much Christmas action I am afraid.

The absence of certain loved ones has also proven to be heavy to digest.

This Christmas Season has been worth remembering so far, also thanks to great background music, such as Lady Gaga's Bad Romance ('I want your ugly, I want your disease', 'I want your love and I want your revenge, I want your love- I don't wanna be friends'...genius!), Black Eyed Peas ('Meet me half way' and 'For you and I') and shamefully 'Fight for This Love' by Mrs. Cole, an anthem to the fact that if you are liked you are loved .

Anyhow, festive seasons in London come and go. When they come they carry the promise of exciting times and new beginnings, of snow powered walks to the pub and wild parties. They go leaving us fatter, poorer, battered, unhealthy but happier and grateful for all the new years resolutions that we have just made necessary for ourselves.

Portrait

The first time I met Livia it was in front of the school, a rather peculiar looking building surrounded by trees and quiet and narrow streets, perhaps five minutes walk from the castle. She was by herself, looking at the lecture schedule, and as I approached the information board it was immediately apparent to me that she was as clueless as I was when it came to figure out how this bizarre place worked. It was the 30 of August 1997.

I had arrived the day before, around three thirty PM, after an endless drive with my parents from central Italy, where we had spent a few days visiting my relatives

We had been rather quiet during the trip, me pondering on the actual scale of what was about to happen and whether I would just crash and burn, my father focusing on driving, my mother wondering whether she was really about to lose me forever.

It was a hot day of the end of summer and as we passed the blue logo on the side of the road my heart started pounding in my chest in anticipation. I felt slightly sick. I rolled down the car windows and let the sea air brush my face. It all felt like it was always going to happen but I simply did not know it.

The whole place was filled with some strange energy, this electricity that hit me as soon as I opened the car doors. It was as though the summer afternoon bright light, the breeze, the green and the colours and the buzz of all the new comers arriving amalgamated together into what would form the bubble we were about to live in for the next two years.

I think I was captured since that very first moment.

Two hours later I was settling in a strange room in a place called Ples (which people said was haunted), I was about to say goodbye to my family in more ways that I could then understand and about to start an unpredictable chapter of my life. I had never been to London and could not start to imagine at that point that I would be moving there in less than two years.

When I met Livia that feeling that I was alienating myself from the rest of the real world had not subsided yet. In reality it would have lasted for my whole time there and somewhat beyond, it was just a matter of getting used to it. It is something that we all share and that we recognise in each other's eyes.

Livia was standing there, wearing an outfit of purples and ethnic looking fabrics that made her look like a mysterious gypsy with formidably large breasts. In reality she was just a socialist Southerner teenager. She was quite small, black wavy hair just touching her shoulders.

As I approached I could hear her swearing under her breath in a delicious Roman accent. 'Fuck''s and 'For God's sake''s alternated as she tried to figure out the schedule using her broken English. It was all about 'blocks' and 'double blocks' of lectures, and each subject had three different levels.

'How does this work?' I asked, almost surprising her. It was the best I could come up with. I felt awkward and lost, and desperate to start making allies. She gave me a quick glance and then went back to the grid. Her eyes were brown and distant, like the eyes of people that prefer to watch and listen.

'I wish I could tell you. I think this is a taster of what's to come', she finally replied.

Transitions

A transition matrix is a mathematical grid expressing the likelihood to move from one state to another. In other words it tells you how likely it is for what is now to turn into something else.
When one looks at the past one will often wonder how come what happened took place and why all the other million of things that could have happened did not materialise.

Why did we choose that particular university course? Why did we go to that party that day and met that special person? Why didn't we accept that job on the other side of the world?
We could have done or not done any of those things.
We sometimes call it destiny or fate. As though some power can move us to one specific cell of the grid, rather than another.

In reality I think that one's destiny is the overall collection of possibilities that can materialise in one's life. Our potential, our ability to be and do all the things that we can be and do is what makes up our fate, whether we fulfill it or not.

Everything outside this potential, anything outside our own 'transition matrix' is the infinity of the things we will never do and be. I think that a lot of people are so busy trying to be something outside their own destiny that they never realise their actual potential. When people 'look for happiness in the wrong place' perhaps are trying to move to a cell that does not exist in their own grid. This is why self awareness is so important.

It seems to me that for many of us the most likely output is to remain in a state similar to the one where we started from. For instance, my most likely output would have been to stay back home in Sardinia, and create a life for myself there like most of the people that I know there.
If I were to trace back all the transitions that have led me to be here, right now, I would probably be able to identify those very special moments in which I moved from one cell in my grid to a far away cell, changing my life forever.

A place like London changes one's destiny. Suddenly massive changes in direction become unnaturally likely, meaning that one can aspire to fulfil their potential, they can more freely pursue their ambitions. I think that this is the ultimate essence of why this city is so special. Why people miss it when they leave it.

They miss it because it is as though by leaving this city we are back to a place where we feel that our destiny has not got as much breath, as much possibility. We feel as though our transition matrix might reduce till we feel that we are stuck forever.

River

The Thames is the Memory of London. Away from the noise and energy of the South Bank it flows slowly and deliberately, touching small canals and crevasses, accumulating debris and secrets along the way. It looks like it makes no noise, though if you observe closely you can see that below the surface currents and mud run deep and with the impetus of things that have existed for a long time.

It looks like it does not follow a clear path, though if you fly over it you realise from its shape that it's the heart beat of the city. The Thames changes personality as it cuts through the city. It is austere and lonely in the derelict areas of the East end; it is lively and full of gravitas in the South Bank where it reflects like an opaque mirror all the things that London is known for ; it then changes again when it goes West becoming almost more anonymous, matter of fact like, and it surprises you every time you see it emerging from the rest of city.

In the last 10 years I have been by the Thames many times, but the memories that come to mind are dancing on a party boat when I was a 19 year old student, looking outside of the windows and thinking how beautiful the Big Ben was; celebrating the Millennium by the Houses of Parliament; walking near Waterloo on crisps winter nights on my way to see 'The Year in Pictures" 2005, the fairy lights hugging the trees in a blue embrace; the lights of St Paul from the restaurant on top of the Tate Modern (one of my favourites in the city); running from Chesick Bridge to Putney Bridge and back - during my London Marathon training; conjuring life changes whilst having solitary walks in Southwark; drinking beer after my management school on that 7 July, trying to take in the full extent of the drama; sipping Pimm's whilst waiting for summer to really come; walking to Waterloo on the morning of the 17 August 2009 thinking that the Thames is the Memory of London.


/* If you have any top tips on things to do and see by the Thames feel free to comment and add!*/

Evil

Evil is an important requisite for change to occur. The way countries, cities, people's lives are shaped often comes as a result of passions that are hard to reconcile with good intentions or tendency towards common wealth . Evil deeply permeates London. It is written all over its history.

It takes only a few minutes inside Westminster Abbey, looking at the monuments inside the dark chapels, the tombs of monarch and their families, to realise how greed, power hunger, desire, obsessions have played such an important part in making this place what it is now. The beauty of such Evil is also disturbing, for it seems to me that all the most remarkable changes are seldom the result of the predictability of calm, whilst are more linked with the restless souls attempting to dominate such chaos.

It's hard to decide whether London is a city that makes one a better or worse person than when we first arrived and indulged in its dark embrace. Like a icy queen offering Turkish delight.

It takes only a trip on the underground to realise how territorial, primordial, selfish, greedy this city is. And it would not be so beautiful if it wasn't exactly like this.

Birth

They say life goes through cycles. We ride a particular ride until some sort of critical mass is reached and we move on to the next chapter. Sometimes these cycles are the weight of the same mistakes that we tend to make, or the process through which we come to realise something important about what we are and what we want. They are like births that we have not asked for, but when they come they change everyting forever.

In my life in London I have gone through a lot of these chapters, of these births. I have been the insicure teenager that spends a lot of time thinking, the twenty-something that works hard and plays hard, the good person, the bad person, the one that feels he has a lot of friends and the one that misses the friends that he has lost. I have been the poet, the drunk, the career crazy, the poor, the not so poor, the lazy, the sexy, the ugly, the thin, the fat, the clever, the stupid, the hurt, the hurtful. London knows a lot of things about me.

I feel a bit like this today. It is my birthday, my 29th birthday. My brother and his girlfriend are sleeping in the other room. I have been awake since 5:30am.

I am not sure whether it is the sunlight that awoke me, or this strange feeling of submerging from some strange depth. I have been down there for a few months, breathing as well as I could, swimming up as fast as I could. This feeling woke me up this morning. I went to the gym and pushed as hard as I could. I sweated, it hurt. I kept pushing.

The sun outside was a cold bright furnace in the 6am London stillness. My dad won't wish me happy birthday this year. I have felt down about it for a while now.

Today though, I feel peaceful. Today, whilst I push and sweat and swim upwards. Today, whilst I bathe in the cold sunlight I feel that happiness is possible again.

Today - of all days, just like a Mrs Dalloway moment- I realise that I am changed in a way it took me ages to understand. Some sort of lesson that sinks in after a long time. A birth, a new beginning that looks like the same as before.

Happiness is possible again.

London knows a lot about me.

Parks

Each park in Central London has got its own personality and it distinguishes itself for a particular reason. Regent's Park is pretty and contemplative-great for picnics. Green Park is the only one with no flowers (hence the name) and conveniently placed near the Queen.

Hyde Park is huge and good for concerts and festivals (I saw REM here), St. James has got the ducks and the squirrels that tourists love and it looks from a scene of Alice in Wonderland in the cold winter sun. When the sun comes out every park in London seems to come alive and fulfil its own destiny as one of the hearts of this city. It is easy to spend whole Sundays getting pissed with friends in the summer, as I also did when my mother came to visit in April.

During my time here the parks have played an important role in the way I have lived London, as I am sure many Londoner would say. Hyde Park was the park around which I'd run all the time whilst preparing for the marathon in 2005, or where I had my 24th birthday picnic during the scorching 2004 summer (we all ended up red and dehydrated, and that was the day when my friend Appy met his future wife), or where I used to have lunch in between classes when I was a student.
Regent's park is the park where I sometimes go to get away from it all, or to jog in the beginning of spring nights. Green Park is the park where I rarely go but where I am celebrating my 29th birthday this year (!), or that I use to cut across the areas of the city that surround it. No more to say about parks.

Trains

There is something completely liberating about jumping on a train, unless it's a bloody commuter's train in which case there is something very brain damaging about trying to jump on a train. Trains are arguably the best way to see a country and the same applies to England. London is full of train stations: Paddington, Kings Cross, St. Pancras, Marylebone, Waterloo, London Bridge, Marylebone, Farrington and so many more, the starting point of myriads of invisible lines that connect this city to the rest of England.

During my time here I have taken many train journeys. These were the Midlands trains that took me back and forth from Nottingham during my first job at Capital One, the Eurostars that took me to Paris for a volleyball tournament or for a weekend ending at L'Unsolite, the Heathrow Expresses, the Gatwick Expresses, the Stansted Expresses, that took me towards my travels, for fun, for work, for desperation. These were the trains that took me to Stoke on Trent on improbable business journeys, that took me to Cornwall for a wedding with my past, to Bristol, to Brighton to visit friends.

RELOCATION TIP

Trains in England are incredibly expensive and if you buy a ticket on the day of travel you will end up paying a fortune.

Trains can be booked online on http://www.thetrainline.com/

If you are a Londoner and would like to add/ammend this tip for the Londoner wannabes, please leave a comment.

The Silence of London

One thing that always intrigues me of London is its silence. The Silence of London is almost a miracle, an extraordinary event one would not expect, which takes place when you are walking down a busy road and magically you find yourself alone, or when you wait for the next tube to find the train empty. It might happen whilst you walk through Regents Park near the rose gardens, or the little alleys between South Kensington and Knightsbridge where I used to work as a barman when I was a student, or the streets of Marylebone. It does not really matter where and how it happens. In those instants the city appears for what it really is: a timeless masterpiece that has been here before the chaos of Oxford Street, before my drunken nights in Soho (would you believe it?) and that it will be here after me, and millions of people after me have come and gone having done their time here. This blog is about my time here, and the 365 days leading to my departure.