La blessure secrète (the secret wound)

Oh dear, does Viva feel somewhat guilty about not having posted anything recently? Distant reports are always so nice to salivate over. Is it being too sentimental to remember that there was something so very special in receiving postcards - as if the beach sand was ever clinging to the card, lavender embedding itself from Arles. Can anyone hear the little voice amid the post-reportage roar of the Chelsea Clinton wedding? But in the words of Tom Cruise's mindless but fun caper Knight and Day, everyone was sure to be 'safe' and 'secure'. Wouldn't one have loved to be a mosquito on the pool to make the fly on the wall jealous;) But enough. Enough. And what wedding present do you buy a Clinton for Wedgewood's sake! Now that's a test of originality over protocol. The democrats are the ones in power for F*'s (Freedom*'s) sake! It's not as if Chelsea will sashay into a shoe store and be refused a sample, now is it?

Perhaps my lack of London newswire is a bit like getting a part in a play, a film or a new job but for various reasons it just didn't happen or work out. And though you're telling the truth, it's rather embarrassing to have to admit to it (through no fault of one's own) - particularly from a New York perspective where things either happen or they don't and in-betweeners are sticky issues. Let's just say that Viva's possibly the most untypical New Yorker ever to set eyes upon London. No gush, no goo, no ahhhh's. In New York things get done (or at least fixed - or at least for no other reason than someone will sue). In London they sort of do and most definitely sorta don't. Yes, yes we've all had the NYC building 'supers' who seemingly concoct excuse after excuse for not having repaired something - (In fact my NYC apartment sub-letter Raymond {that's with second syllable accent and an invisible, silent 'e' appendage}: managed to get some of my minor repairs done- even though he was forbade contact with any human life-form in the block.) But if that's what a silent 'e' achieves long may it sigheeeee....

And we all know that the subways are crap on weekends- just when all the possible 'resistance' of law suiters are away in their upstate Hampton hideaways. But compared to the London Underground, the subway seems if not heaven then certainly a most attractive alternative hell: one always feels room service will arrive even if it's served on a very cold plate.

Complain about the sweltering NYC summer whatyouwill but without air-con, temperatures are stifling (even on the buses) in the London summer. Journalists in the past have measured this and apparently the conditions (on tubes) wouldn't even comply with EU (European Union) criteria to transport live cattle. But the first air-con train has just arrived! Like the Paris Metro, compared to the subway, the 'Tubes' are remarkably clean - except for many who often just willfully leave their rubbish for fellow passengers to wallow in. As for cabs (taxis) one might as well commute from Trenton, New Jersey as regularly pay return cab fare across London. But there are so many Russian billionaires here now who really cares about the rest of us and our little journeys?

Well, Mayor Boris Johnson (Conservative) sort of does. Or thinks he does. Everyone thought of him as an Etonian buffoon before assuming office, as compared to the adroit socialist 'Red' Ken Livingstone. But he's surprised pretty much everybody. Including 'Ken'. In the last few days 'Boris' bikes (sponsored by Barclays Bank to the tune of some 25 million pounds, hmmm) hit the streets. He quipped that it took a Conservative to enact a Communist policy. Not being a cyclist myself, investigative reportage in such matters isn't a forte, but the bikes seem a brave, positive move when most other urban transport suggestions seemed doomed. Crossrail in 20?? is keenly awaited. BBC Four TV recently devoted a season to the bicycle.

A harrowing half-hour documentary every city dweller should see is One Under (available on demand from Channel Four). The title means 'tube' staff colloquial for suicides onto the underground tracks. Is it any different to the NYC subway? Well in essence perhaps not. Cities are cities and people, sadly, are people. Oh Mensch as Gustav Mahler said or rather Nietzsche. (Interesting to compare with doco The Bridge). But it would take several book chapters to elucidate my thoughts on Londoners. London is a fantastic place to visit but would one want to live here? Australian singer/songwriter (and Brit resident) Nick Cave once said that at least you can be miserable in England and for it not to be stigmatized (as it is in 'happy' down-under) - or indeed as we know in pill-popping America. (Remember watching the Tony Awards broadcast ( Next to Normal year) with all that joyous singing followed in every commercial break by all those drug ads and their stringent warnings that what you're taking my have cataclysmic side-effects)!

There is a above-all a sadness about London, though, garnered equally from my artistic knowledge of England - (...now don't get me wrong it's a fun, bustling, cosmopolitan joint). Many American composers have wide open intervals in their music e.g. Aaron Copland or those jarring, jagged or distilled minimalist rhythms yet compare this to the dying fall of English composers e.g. Vaughan-Williams, Finzi, Britten. But methinks you'll just have to wait for the Viva book :) as it's all far too complicated for a few paragraphs.