![]() ![]() ![]() Play them the first drumbeat and they’ll start banging on about Led Zeppelin or Limp Bizkit or how everything can be traced back to the man who wrote the Birdie Song. “I’m not one of those guys who can hear a band and immediately cite their influences and probable heroes. ― Danny Wallace, quote from Charlotte Street They head for Buckingham Palace, and see waving above it the red, white and blue, while the rest of us order dansak from the Tandoori Palace, and see Simply Red, White Lightning, and Duncan from Blue. They very rarely see the Happy Shopper on the Mile End Road, or a drab Peckham disco. They see Harrods, and they see men in bearskins and Carnaby Street. I mean, tourists: they see the Dorchester. ![]() Its tawdriness can be comforting, its wilfulness inspiring. Not the everchanging fast food joints – AbraKebabra to Pizza the Action to Really Fried Chicken – and all on a high street that despite its three new names a week never seems to look any different. Not the graffiti you find on your door the week after you painted over it, or the chicken bones and cider cans you have to move before you can sit down for your damp and muddy picnic. You don’t mind anything once you’re used to it. But also, I love its filth, and damp, and stink. I love its palaces and its museums and its galleries, sure. ![]()
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