Essential Snobbery 101: Ritzy on Piccadilly

A London Weekend

A fascinating London weekend it was, in which most of what was intended was achieved, including the benefit that being over the age of sixty offers; a third off transport fares, if you remember to show up with the bona fides for your age.

On the Piccadilly line of the London Underground, the glimpse I caught of buttons on the back of a jacket suggested an untucked, ruffian look from the front; with a tie rather than a bow tie or cravat, it was a tailcoat of undecided pretensions to putting on the Ritz.

The Ritz and Recognition

Indeed, I did alight at Green Park and exited onto Piccadilly on the side of The Ritz London, one of the swankiest hotels in the city, opened by César Ritz in May 1906.

I could never walk down Piccadilly without being acknowledged, and I was quite dressed down, standing out simply because I wore a straw hat, carried a walking cane, and had a jacket finished with an elaborate pocket square collage.

The doormen at the Ritz doffed their top hats and even muttered a greeting, which I returned.

Heading to Fortnum's

I was on my way to Fortnum & Mason, a walk that takes you past The Wolseley Piccadilly, the Caviar House, Burlington Arcade across the street beside Burlington House, the home of the learned Royal Societies too.

Fortnum's is always busy, yet a very different busy from Harrods in Knightsbridge, which I only ever entered once at someone's behest; the less said of the garish, gaudy place, the better.

Inside Fortnum's

In existence since 1707, this shop is famous for its teas and other exquisite foods. It has been picketed many times for selling foie gras, the making of which does not greatly concern me, as the taste is as different from pâté as fish roe is from beluga caviar.

I have a predilection for Earl Grey tea, and they have many blends, of which Smoky Earl Grey wins every time. It is best to have the loose tea dispensed at a counter by weight rather than buying packaged tea bags or the ready tins, which can be more than 33% dearer.

Along with some Lapsang Souchong aromatic tea and Strawberry with Fortnum's Champagne Preserve, which takes the edge off the sweetness of the jam, that was my first visit in about seven years.

Leaving Piccadilly

As I left for the station, the doorman at the Wolseley offered a greeting; not the one who always took time to compliment my dressing, but they do see enough to know the difference between being dapper and just snooty.

He had a bowler hat on, and I had to ask where he got it, as mine, bought from a gentleman's outfitters in Ipswich some thirty years ago, was looking the worse for wear.

He recommended a milliner near Liverpool Street, but that might require another visit to London.

There is a quiet, unbothered sophistication about Piccadilly; the London tour buses gather at the entrance to Green Park just as a patron of The Wolseley urges his dog to take a pee. The carefree appearance demands a dress code enforced on the serving, whilst remaining non-existent for the served.

Putting on the Ritz

A short note on the places that punctuated this walk: The Ritz London, opened in 1906, was the realisation of César Ritz, the Swiss hotelier whose name became shorthand for refined luxury. Fortnum & Mason, founded in 1707 by William Fortnum, a footman in Queen Anne's household, and Hugh Mason, his landlord, has supplied the British establishment with provisions for over three centuries.

The Wolseley, by comparison, is a relative newcomer; a former car showroom turned grand European café, it opened in 2003 and has since become a Piccadilly fixture in its own right. Burlington Arcade, opened in 1819, remains the original covered shopping promenade, still patrolled by its top-hatted Beadles. The Royal Societies along Piccadilly include the Royal Academy of Arts at Burlington House, where the learned and the artistic have gathered since the eighteenth century.

It is no accident that the Ritz lent its name to a song. When Irving Berlin wrote Puttin' on the Ritz in 1929, he was reaching across the Atlantic for the very idea César Ritz had built into a brand. The original lyric pictured "Park Avenue", with its "high hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars", as the place to dress to impress.

The 1946 revision moved the scene to "up on Lenox Avenue", but the spirit remained the same; to put on the Ritz was to wear your best and walk as though the pavement belonged to you. 

Piccadilly, in its quieter, more unbothered way, has always done the same. Park Avenue performs its wealth; Piccadilly assumes it. The doormen still doff their top hats, the bowler hats still need replacing, and the tailcoats of undecided pretensions still ride the Underground, hoping nobody notices the buttons on the back.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

The UK: What You Get At 60

UK Benefits & Concessions at Age 60

There are entitlements that accrue to those who have reached the milestone age of 60 in the UK, though those benefits are not universal, depending on which region of England or nation of the UK you reside in.

On a point of principle, I have decided to avail myself of every single benefit being offered, both for saving money and for being recognised and celebrated for reaching this new age. I got my Senior Railcard on Monday, but I decided to check what else I was eligible for.

Asking AI, with a few caveats, to indicate only the concessions and benefits I automatically receive by default—excluding means-tested benefits or those available at pension age—it would seem we really can go to town if we so desire. Where I can, I have added references, but broadly, enquiries should be made where necessary.

Please indulge in them

🎯 Automatic age entitlement • 🚫 Not means‑tested • 🚫 No pension age required

Correct as of 📅 26 December 2025. Share freely.

🚆🚌 1. Travel & Transport

🇬🇧 UK‑Wide

• 🚆 Senior Railcard (60+) – Around ⅓ off rail fares across Great Britain
  📍 How to claim: Online, Railcard app, or staffed rail stations
• Railcard deals on Money Saving Expert
• Senior Railcard
• 🚌 National Express Senior Coachcard (60+) – Discounted long‑distance coach travel
  📍 How to claim: Buy from National Express (online or phone)
• Senior Coachcard on National Express

🏙️ Greater London

• 🚇 60+ Oyster Card – Free off‑peak travel on buses, trams, Tube, DLR, Overground, Elizabeth line
  📍 How to claim: Apply online via Transport for London (TfL)
• 60+ London Oyster photocard

🏴 Scotland

• 🚌 National Entitlement Card (60+) – Free bus travel across Scotland
  📍 How to claim: Apply via your local council

🏴 Wales

• 🚌 Wales Concessionary Bus Pass (60+) – Free bus travel across Wales
  📍 How to claim: Apply via your local council

🏴 Northern Ireland

• 🚌🚆 Senior SmartPass (60+) – Free bus and rail travel on Translink services
  📍 How to claim: Apply via Translink

🏡 England (Outside London)

• ❌ No statutory age‑60 travel concessions
• UK Petitions: Extend free bus travel for people over 60 in England
• 🚐 Some councils offer discounted community transport
  📍 How to ask: Local council transport services

🏥 2. NHS & Health

🏴 England

• 💊 Free NHS prescriptions (60+)
• 👓 Free NHS eye tests (60+)
• 👂 NHS hearing tests & hearing aids (clinical need)

🏴 Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland

• 👓 Free NHS eye tests (60+)
• 💊 No prescription charges (all ages)

🎭📚 3. Culture, Leisure & Learning

Senior Discounts – Entertainment and Leisure on Careline 365

• 🎬 Senior cinema tickets – Odeon, Cineworld
• 🎭 Theatre & concert concessions
• 🖼️ Museum & gallery discounts
• 📚 Public library membership
• 🎓 Adult education fee reductions
• 🧠 University of the Third Age (U3A)

🛍️ 4. Shopping & Everyday Discounts

• 🛒 Supermarket senior discount days
• 👕 Retail & clothing concessions
• 💇 Hairdressers & personal services
• 💳 Pharmacy loyalty schemes

🏛️🌿 5. Memberships & Heritage

• 🌳 National Trust (senior membership)
• 🏰 English Heritage (Minimum age 65) / Cadw / Historic Environment Scotland
• 🌺 Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) – Individual / Joint Senior Life Membership available.
• 🏊 Local leisure centres

🤝 6. Community & Social

• 👥 Council‑supported senior clubs
• 🏃 Dedicated over‑60 activity sessions
• 🙋 Volunteering schemes (expenses often covered)

🚫 Not Included (By Design)

• ❌ State Pension or Pension Credit
• ❌ Winter Fuel Payment
• ❌ Council Tax Reduction
• ❌ Free TV licence
• ❌ Disability or income‑tested benefits

Walking the time tunnel of gay youth

To London without a cat

London was a destination over the weekend by reason of an error in my hotel booking last month where I had inadvertently made a non-refundable hotel booking for March when I was planning for February. A situation not helped by the fact that the first 28 days in a non-leap year are the same for both months, you have to be alert, or you will be caught out.

It reminds me of a time when I booked a flight to depart in the third week of the month and the website automatically presented the next month for my return that when I finally saw what I had booked, I was going away for 5 weeks instead of a week. Were it not that I had booked a ticket that allowed for alterations, I would have been paying through the nose to sort it out.

Shorn a sandal to scandal

Now, I only discovered I had booked a hotel for the wrong dates when I was checking for the address to give a black cab at London Euston Station, it came up that my booking was in 28 days. There wasn’t much I could do than to immediately make another booking for that weekend whilst planning that I would return to London in 4 weeks.

As I told the black cab driver, I was going to Dolphin Square, he did not need giving any directions, it was until later that I realised I was going to a place of political scandal and notoriety, famous for the Profumo Affair amongst other notable controversies. If it once housed 70 MPs and 10 Lords, you only needed to speak the language of the walls to hear some intriguing and hair-raising stories. O was not planning on contributing to the list of ignominy.

The apartment was quite well-proportioned, with sash windows, no air conditioning, or modern conveniences as a dishwasher or a washing machine. There were flat-screen televisions in the living room and the bedroom, ample storage space, but wireless internet came on one voucher for one device. I had to tether other devices off my mobile phone. It was at best a bachelor’s pad on the fifth floor.

To memories of youth wasted

Its proximity to the north bank of the Thames made for an easy route for my walking exercises as I walked up Grosvenor Road then crossed Chelsea Bridge to the south bank onto the Thames path to Battersea Power Station to veer off onto Nine Elms Lane, past the US Embassy and to my left I was surprised that despite all the new developments there were parts of an old gay haunt still standing strong.

About 30 years ago, on Sundays, we attended the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to watch drag acts including Lily Savage, until the pub closed at 2:00 PM and off we went to Market Tavern for the afternoon, a darkened venue that served a Sunday lunch of chilli-con-carne and rice whilst we danced away until the pubs opened again at 7:00 PM. Whilst the Market Tavern has long since gone, the memories did come flooding back.

To memories of lives wasted

Then I walked past Vauxhall and the MI6 headquarters where for the first time, I did see someone, a lady, leave the building. You always had the feeling the workers there secreted themselves into the building by some secret passageway, but that would be a little farfetched, it is people like us who work there, not an alien lifeform.

Walking on toward the St Thomas’ Hospital where the wall facing the Thames hosts the National COVID Memorial Wall and a veritable sign of government ineptitude in the handling of this pandemic that has to date claimed 162,738 lives.

I took my turn back over the Westminster Bridge, by the Houses of Parliament at Westminster Palace, the scaffolding was now taken off the bell tower of Big Ben and wended my way to my accommodations to start my day of social events. My 10,000 steps done and a bit more too.

Training for London

Holly was a doggie

Boarding the train, the train manager announced with an all too familiar accent, quite probably Nigerian, especially with the way he said shop, with a b sound at the end. Meanwhile, I feared we would have to endure the frequent coughing of the man sat almost opposite me, especially in these pandemic times when everyone appears to have dispensed with their face masks.

Thankfully, he alighted at Stoke on Trent, just around the time he was becoming a nuisance, as not only had he forgotten a rather essential facemask, but he should also have brought his headphones too. My reserved seat was occupied when I made it on the carriage, I gestured to the lady as I looked for a place to put my luggage, little did I know that she was occupying two seats because of her dog.

The dog, and I know nothing about dogs was Pomsky, a crossbreed between a Pomeranian and a Siberian Husky, quite presentably nice looking and friendly, her name was Holly, and I am pleased she did not see me as prickly as ivy.

A rather senior moment

On arriving at London Euston Station, I did some shopping and made to check for the address of the hotel where I was staying. My shock at the realisation that I had been caught by the February-March paradox of non-leap-years, as my booking glared at me with the notice, ‘In 28 days’. I had booked for March and what to do?

I could not beat myself up in the things I had allowed apart from having booked a deal I could not cancel, I simply logged on my app ignoring the predictive screen that appears to present the next rather than the current month, in the assumption you do not make urgent bookings and scanned through the list of outrageously expensive to generally affordable deals to book another stay, for the two nights I was in London.

Holly is my host

The black cab driver was unusually helpful and consequently engaging, he came round to help me with my luggage, and we talked at length about how London had changed from about 30 years ago. Quite good banter it was places that had changed hands or been lost to history or his brushes with the challenges to his Knowledge of London, it is amazing how the obscure can be revealing.

On getting to my apartment hotel, the ladies at the reception were helpful and friendly, and at this hotel, they are known as hosts, I had even had my accommodations upgraded, what do I know? She helped me to the lift and gave me the room card, her name, Holly. Fancy that!

Coronavirus streets to lively markets - XLVIII

Local markets alive

It is interesting to be distracted by observation to notice things that are quite serendipitous especially after review. My trip to London was mainly to see friends who reside in boroughs as far apart as you could imagine for someone from out of town, for I was in Richmond on Saturday and then Haringey on Sunday.

On my return from Twickenham, I met a lady with lots of leftover bread at the station who manned the Celtic Bakers store at the Twickenham Farmers' Market and then on Sunday, after being taken for a circulatory ride by a black cab, we were out to the City & Country Farmers’ Market at the Alexandra Palace Campsbourne School.

Just smile for a while

The wide array of foods and goods locally sourced and fresh without the dead hand of over-processing by the food industrial complex makes one think it might be prudent to seek out a farmers’ market in my locality.

The store holders had different temperaments, one could not be bothered to notice us, another was an effervescent conversationalist, please to see us, willing to oblige and present to advice and tips. You can imagine how much time we spent with him before having to visit another stall just because he had run out of something we wanted.

Noticed fame and noted infamy

There, just above the stall was a blue plaque honouring Emma Clarke, reputed to be the first black female footballer who played in the first public national match for women on Nightingale Lane in 1895. Then to think that for most of the first part of the 20^th Century the Football Association took a conservative stance against women’s football.

Blue plaque to Emma Clarke - pioneering black British female footballer.

Round to the other side of the market venue on the school premises, we stocked up on vegetables and me, a bottle of ginger and banana kombucha made by a man who seemed to have more than a passing interest in me, I guess we just notice each other by some invisible radar.

Not that Yoruba

Moving on, there was a stall with language books, I picked the one for Yoruba off the shelf which was interesting in that they there teaching Yoruba pronunciations by using English phonics which I thought strange because the sounds would at best be approximations and when spoken would sound quite foreign too.

However, one critical element was missing, the diacritical marks necessary to show that Yoruba is a tonal language such that words that look like homonyms without the diacritical marks are not homophones because of the intonations and are essentially heteronyms.

Oiled his wallet nicely

We withstood a whole exegesis on walnut and cobnut (hazelnut) cold-pressed oils, if we could remember anything of what we were supposed to learn, the pitch was persuasive enough and he made a really good sale. The walnut oil will suit my steam cooking as it best used on food that does not take direct heat.

I was last at this market probably 3 years ago, and it was a wonderfully pleasant sunny day for fourth week of October.

Coronavirus streets from Manchester to London - XLVII

It is still wild out there

I have tried to ignore the COVID-19 situation in the UK almost to no avail. It probably would not have concerned me that much until I had to travel to London. I booked my audaciously exorbitantly priced travel ticket with a seat reservation and arrived on time at the train station to board my train, whereupon the train on boarding platform was a train delayed, the train scheduled to leave before mine.

As we waited on the concourse with the main indicators showing my train as expected to depart on the same platform, the platform indicator suddenly switched from 18:55 Delayed to 19:15 On Time.

Sardines to the train

Just like that, Avanti West Coast, the train franchise company was going to load two sets of passengers meant for different trains on to one train without announcing the heretofore delayed train had been cancelled and the newly designated scheduled train meant to leave on time, soon was delayed too.

Seat reservations had become a mess as the reserved seats for our train had already been occupied by passengers of the earlier train, who had boarded earlier quite completely unaware of what was going on and no explanation was given.

When I found a seat beside my reserved seat, the train was already overcrowded and fully declassified. There is no point paying the full whack for first class seats on Avanti West Coast because it would be devalued to standard class before the train has departed the station.

No pandemic situation here

There were stickers inside my carriage to ‘Respect Social Distancing’, that was impossible and as a representative of company wrote to me on Twitter, they were following government guidance. From my vantage point in an aisle seat set in the middle of a 63-seat carriage, only two of us were wearing face masks in what was essentially a closed carriage.

Everything that should not be happening during a pandemic found expression here, a complete lack of concern for that fact that times were quite serious, we were in a seated yet crowded space, confined with poor ventilation, that the air-conditioning could not keep the carriage cool, and literally everyone without face masks.

9 carriages hurtling down to London from Manchester for just over 2 hours, full of whoever, strangers all, none checked for vaccination or COVID-19 status, if there was a place for a super-spreader situation, this was it. God forbid the worst.

We are ignoring a problem

It compounds several levels of irresponsibility from a lethargic government unable to proactively act to arrest the growing infection rate in the UK that has for weeks topped or rivalled the stakes globally, to companies like Avanti West Coast operating under the cover and license of government guidelines that if anyone catches anything, there would be no means of tracking and tracing for proximity and contact to get anyone who might have been inadvertently exposed to quarantine.

You then wonder if without any equivalent premises control measures for trains to gain a grip on this Coronavirus pandemic, these modes of transport are not part of the problem with the UK facing the possibility of another long lockdown at home if the lock outs from countries abroad don’t begin to gather pace already. For Morocco has already barred flights from the UK. [BBC News: Morocco bans UK flights due to Covid cases rising]

Our Coronavirus streets are not going away, anytime soon.

Coronavirus streets in London - XXXVIII

We are not there yet

The pleasure of the walk is always fun. The discovery of London by foot and the surprise of finding strange and new places you have only heard of or driven past. It is the condemnation of the Tube to a loneliness it could never have thought could befall it. We are in the age of the pandemic, the Coronavirus has left us seeking the natural away from the superficial and we are the healthier for it.

English placenames are Shibboleths of possible embarrassment for I do remember playing the Monopoly board game thinking Angel Islington had the sound of the first syllable of island when in fact it began with the sound of is, for I began in Islington. Yet, I saw Angel, the London Underground station that is, danced by Sadler’s Wells and could have been a phantom of operatic earache in Shaftsbury Theatre.

The West End is alive

In the court of Palace Theatre were crowds gathered to watch Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, queued up in a press without spacing, their expectations of entertainment probably delivering them from the plague of COVID-19 or so they think. I pulled on my mask without a second thought.

Into Old Compton Street, I strutted, a haunt from the 90s, now fully pedestrianised and barely passable because of al fresco dining, raucous and gay like a summer camp of queens or drag that would make you blush. There is no pandemic here, and you are not invited to the masked ball, as we have come to live life, to die would be unfortunate, and those who passed on will be remembered after we have enjoyed ourselves, is the message on the streets of London.

Nay, be not one of the Les Misérables that is doing time with the butler in Arthur, and I really did like Sir John Gielgud, he died at 96 and a theatre is named for him. Les Mis as we know it, once did 19 years at the Palace, it is the West End, the world of theatre and spectacle. That was after Oxford Street and Carnaby Street much changed from what I remember, memory is not just a lane but a bustling city of dreams.

History and pageantry

Eros did try to smile on me and Haymarket I ignored at Piccadilly Circus and turned onto Regent Street St James’s and do not be bewildered, the possessive James peculiarly carries a full apostrophe S and The Court of St James’s is the royal court of the sovereign monarch where the Queen receives ambassadors to the Court of St James’s never to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Now in peak Establishment territory, I was at Waterloo Place with statues of famous Field Marshalls, kings and politicians making an avenue of the revered, Florence Nightingale even lights her lamp here in the day and the night, if you have the vision for such. Down the steps by the Duke of York Monument whose fame is recalled in the risible The Grand Old Duke of York nursery rhyme.

To the river and over

I cross The Mall to Horse Guards Road with Horse Guards Parade where the monarch’s official birthday is celebrated in June at the Trooping the Colour, to my left and St James’s Park to my right, I could have ventured a walk to Buckingham Palace to see it for the first time, but that would be another time, for I was pressed and the toilets closed.

The Palace of Westminster, the British Parliament with all the surrounding famous buildings including Westminster Hall, came into view, but I could barely see Big Ben, it was bedecked in scaffolding and I crossed the River Thames on Westminster Bridge onto the South Bank with the London Eye on its last rotation for the day, my sister called from America as I was lapping a soft ice cream on a black waffle cone after which the Tube took me back to Angel from Waterloo Station.

Coronavirus streets in London & Manchester - XXXIII

Ladies, of the night

We can somewhat agree that England is opening up and the lockdown eases. In London over the last weekend, on one of my long walks, at Camden was a bevy of raucous females exhibiting everything but ladylike behaviour, outside the public house, unsteady on their high heeled shoes, clothes hardly protecting their modesty, screaming at the top of their lungs. It was scary.

Yet, it was a sign of the return to a sort of normalcy you would have thought our year-long sequestration might have ameliorated. How wrong I was. On Sunday, the Starbucks café was busy, with people sat at tables sipping their coffee and working on their laptops. That one of them ignored the sign on the table meant to allow for social distancing was unnerving, but I got my café grande latte and stepped out to have my drink.

Sitting about in restaurants

When my friend arrived to meet me just outside Vauxhall Railway Station, we walked up the Albert Embankment promenade by the River Thames as far as the London Eye Ferris wheel before we had to get a cab to the restaurant we planned to go to, where we both had to register using QR Codes and were shown to a table we chose distant from others for most of the time we were there. It was busy.

Back at home, to the right across the road, a coffee shop had closed permanently. So, I was pleased to see the Central American restaurant across the road to the left with its doors open and probably patrons sitting inside having a meal. All this still comes with caveats, the Indian variant strain is gaining prominence, the final easing of the lockdown in June is looking at best tentative.

Unlocking the rails of travel

Travel in this day

The weekend past presented the first time I had travelled out of Manchester by train since December 2019, considering a friend had once said the places I visited the most in Manchester were the train station and the airport. I was always on my way out, though the year of lockdowns meant one was forced to explore and discover Manchester itself.

We donned our masks, socially distanced and we boarded the train and took up our outrageously priced reserved seats. The announcement throughout the journey to London suggested we were going to arrive late because of a fault on the line. We did arrive over an hour later and that meant we were entitled to a full refund for that leg of the journey.

In the look of things

Though as I have said before when I pay for a service, I would rather have the service than be compensated for the loss of it. The advent of Great British Railways in the grandiloquence of its name which is redolent of the symbolism that the government attaches itself to without effectiveness would leave much to be desired. We might even get it interesting if Michael Portillo who hosts an eponymous programme on the BBC was asked to head the new company.

The hotel I last visited sometime in 2018 had a welcoming concierge and reception, my room had been upgraded ere my arrival. The view from the 9^th floor was a spectacle of the ancient and the modern of the means of transportation with the River Thames to my right and the railway tracks to the left, whilst across me were luxurious apartments probably bought with foreign money that has upended the London property market.

The River Thames to the right.

The railway lines to the left.

To Leicester we went

My plan to meet friends and the first opportunity to hug someone was as therapeutic as it was rewarding. Out to Leicester on Saturday morning, we found that the Fortnum & Mason café at St. Pancras International Station was not open even though I had called their customer services line to determine if it was. A family bereavement meant we could not meet with who we were expected to see in Leicester.

In trying to occupy ourselves, we made for the Leicester Richard III Visitor Centre which was closed that we were left with visiting the Leicester Cathedral which had a Gaia exhibition on that we were supposed to have registered and paid for, but the ushers made allowances for us to contemplate in a chapel before we looked around the exhibition and the cathedral and returned to the station for our journey back to London.

On returning to London, we shopped for teas at Fortnum & Mason before I walked back to my hotel on the Albert Embankment, probably in the wrong shoes and it took the best part of 2 hours.

Lest we forget

For Sunday, I had planned to meet my best friend of 37 years. We met up at Vauxhall station and walked up the Albert Embankment and just before the National Festival Hall, it began to rain. The wall of the St. Thomas’ Hospital facing the River Thames was a poignant memorial for the COVID-19 victims, red hearts painted for as far as the eye could see with names and inscriptions. This is what we must never forget.

The National COVID Memorial Wall

The National COVID Memorial Wall

The National COVID Memorial Wall

We took a cab to Vapiano on the Bankside had a meal before walking up the promenade from Tate Modern to pick up my luggage from my hotel and then began my journey back home which was not as peaceful as it could be as a lady literally spent the whole time on the phone. I got home just before 11:00 PM and that was the weekend done. Another friend had visited my apartment and cleaned it up in my absence, gladness and bliss. Life is good.  

From Prides of the past to the future

Prides without marches

June is considered the Pride Month even though my local pride in Manchester is one of the last in the Europe, taking place in the last weekend of August that includes the last Monday as part of the August Bank Holiday in the UK.

I normally will only attend a Pride march but rarely the other activities, in Manchester, I only have to step out of my front door with a foldable chair to watch the march go past on my street. Berlin offers a better spectacle in July as I take a room in the Hotel Berlin Berlin that overlooks the march from at least the first floor. I might go to the Siegessäule or the Brandenburg Gate to see the performances for a few hours before departing for some quiet time.

Prides around Europe

Until last year, I had not missed a Berlin Pride usually known as the Christopher Street Day (CSD) in German-speaking countries in recognition of the Stonewall riots of 1969, except one other time in at least 12 years. It was like a pilgrimage of at least 4 days, sometimes longer, allowing me to do other things besides.

When I lived in Amsterdam, we celebrated in the first weekend of August, the Pride march on canal boats, I never vied to get on any of the boats because it was at least a 4-hour slug, however, it was always good to have a vantage position to view the colourful floats as they moved along with music blaring out of megawatt loudspeakers ready to deafen you.

At one time, I was in Playa del Ingles on the island of Gran Canaria, their Pride is usually the second weekend of May. Unfortunately, most of the Prides would be cancelled this year, about 500 on one count, some will be adapted to take place online as digital Pride events. [See link below.]

Prides of the future

In June 2016, I joined up with the Barclays team called Spectrum for the London Pride which we were a main sponsor of, it was the first time I had walked in a Pride march in the UK apart from being a spectator or going to park activities after the parade.

I cannot say what the world would become after the pall of this pandemic is lifted, the way we would manage crowds and marches for all sorts of celebrations and how life might change between the consideration of risk and damning the consequences. However, I hope that in the aftermath, we would all celebrate our common and diverse humanity.

There is a Pride march in the not too distant future that my husband and I would participate in, marriage is on the cards; it would be the joy of our lives for Brian and I to pose and say to the world, Happy Pride Month.

Pride Month: List Of LGBT Digital Pride Events As 500 Prides Cancel Amid Coronavirus - Forbes

The European Pride Organisers Association – COVID-19

A score years from Amsterdam

Arrival Schiphol

Twenty years ago, today was a Saturday, I had packed a suitcase, left for the airport and boarded a flight to Amsterdam. At Schiphol Airport, Dick van Galen Last, now deceased, who I had met in Paris some 3 years before was waiting to collect me having offered to give me boarding for as long as it took to find my feet.

Thus, began my over 12-year sojourn in the Netherlands, the culmination of a series of events that began in January 1999 when a relationship of almost 7 years came to an end. It presaged a turbulent year of career upheavals, house moves, job changes, and a period of interesting adventure.

I was in London, having gone back to work in Ipswich where I rebased myself for 6 months thinking things had changed in my head from the 3 years before, but I learnt that situation was not a solution to turmoil. The job I took up was not offering the fulfilment I had hoped for and so I resigned as the end of November, just at the cusp of the Millennium, depending on where you place it.

Mid-life marauding

In the New Year, I returned to my original lodgings in London and found that the search for work was fraught with difficulty, applications going out by the truckload, responses returning by the trickle and interviews rarely leading to offers. That was when John Coll, also deceased, suggested I see an occupational psychotherapist.

We met for a chat in Central London whilst I relayed what my circumstances were. His view was that I was doing quite well even if I was not getting the results I wanted. It was also a difficult realisation of having gone through probably half a million pounds in earnings without having much to show for it. There are two things I took away from our conversation, that I was going through a mid-life crisis a decade early and the need to change something radically in my life, location, career, or purpose.

A romance in Europe

That set me on the quest to look for work outside the UK, something I was quite reticent to consider for years. In that same conversation, I was informed that Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands presented the best choices for opportunities. Soon, I was on a flight to Munich for an interview with Compaq, I was not as forward-looking as was expected, I dismissed Intellisense in its infancy as bunkum. I stayed in Munich for a week, it was just before the Dot-Com bubble burst, how I tried to persuade a stockbroker in a Munich sauna to cash out as if I was that prescient.

Back in the UK, I scored an interview, it was conducted at the office of a recruitment agency where set questions were posed to us and the whole charade recorded on video for the customer to review in a team of technicians before selecting those they thought knowledgeable enough. I got the job and was commuting the Reading whilst still looking at prospects on mainland Europe.

A clean break

For the first time ever, I was in a shift pattern of work, 12-hour days every 4 days and 2 days off. The pay was not close to my peak, but the hours made up for it. In the second week of taking the role, I heard back from a prospect in Amsterdam, they wanted a face-to-face interview and as luck would have it, it fell on the days I was off. I took an EasyJet flight to Amsterdam, attended the interview and returned the next day when my laptop suffered a battering at the hands of baggage handlers.

I have not flown EasyJet since then. On my return, I received an offer for the job in Amsterdam. On having a conversation with my manager in Reading, we decided on a quick and clean break, it was fine with me. I hated the work environment, people were promoted beyond their capabilities to manage the team, it was cliquey and toxic, I was glad to be shot of the place.

That is how I began the Dutch phase of my life history, it would be one of the best decisions I ever made; the opportunity to begin again, make a new life, find new friends, and live new experiences. Much as I tried, my conversational Dutch was poor, I became an Englishman abroad.

London: Bussed to distraction,

Before it all happened

At the end of our journey, as we thanked the bus driver for the trip, I walked up to the driver to commiserate about the somewhat sordid day he was having. In fact, a good few of us had not enjoyed the bus ride and it was no fault of the driver, but of passengers and schedulers.

This was on one of my unannounced trips to London, I boarded the bus from East Street in South London to Euston, route 68 it was and journey expected to take about 34 minutes. I had the time.

I would normally have taken a Priority Seat, seeing that I use a cane and I was laden with shopping from the Agege Bread shop on East Street having taken a leisurely 1.6 mile walk from Vauxhall rather than use public transport that would have taken just about the same time. [My Blog on Agege Bread]

Disconcerting conversation

The Priority Seats were already occupied by those who did not need them, especially one where a man had his arm comfortably draped over the head of the aisle seat with him sat by the window, making it difficult for me to take the seat behind backing onto the side of the bus. Yet, that was the better seat to take, so I snuggled in.

The man, quite volubly Nigerian and as cantankerously annoying as you can get was ensconced in a mobile phone conversation for the entire length of the journey and I can only imagine where he got on. The volume of his speech in another language I could not care to comprehend him enough to want to call him to order, though I doubt the scene that might have developed afterwards would have been nice. We all endured it.

Pissed off from a screen

The driver, however, had to contend with schedulers who because of certain events in London had the buses running outside schedule that he was advised to slow down to help even out the schedule. In the ensuing conversation, we learnt that we were already going at 10 miles an hour on a 20 miles an hour route causing congestion and inconvenience to others.

The scheduler insisted the more unconvinced of the chaos he might be causing on the roads from the comfort of watching screens and tapping keyboards, that the driver let it be known that he had been a driver for 30 years and that he will not have his intelligence insulted. I raised an eyebrow whilst seemingly agreeing with him. He was doing his best.

Tripping up on London place names

A few stops later, a lady got on with a rather large suitcase and an accent that was caught in the Shibboleth of London place names. She was going to Aldwych, but managed to pronounce it with an ‘s’ replacing the ‘d’ and ‘w’ that is sounded like Alsish. It occurred to me from her accent that she also might be Nigeria and somehow, my ear trained to such accents and having an idea of the route, I surmised she was going to Aldwych.

The driver was none the wiser, she however, got on the bus and made to sit beside the chatterbox man who shifted uneasily to give space without breaking from his conversation. However, she needed help with directions and he was about to give her the wrong information based of apparently knowing assumption.

I intervened, first by letting her know the proper pronunciation of Aldwych and that the stop she wanted was the Aldwych / Kingsway stop where she could board the bus on route 9 to Hammersmith. It transpired that she was really going to Victoria and though it was a circuitously contrived journey to go from where she boarded to Aldwych, to Hammersmith and then to Victoria, she was more comfortable to do that than take the London Underground. I was not going to dissuade her, but she had enough information about what she needed to do.

The power of example

Over the next few stops, people boarded and disembarked some needing directions and asking questions until a point where someone had found to use the bell as some musical instrument. You only have to ring the bell once and the Bus Stopping sign lights up on both decks, it also alerts the bus driver to stop at the next bus stop.

This unnecessary peeling of the bell in the midst of the cacophony of our conversationalist who had hardly paused to take a breath since I got on the bus some 30 minutes before had the driver make an announcement that whoever was ringing the bell should behave.

A mother and child descended from the upper deck and rather than get off she decided to have words with the driver about the fact that she son was under control and that he had every right to ring the bell. Her unladylike manner at the highest volume she could muster and then leaving having been quite abusive to the driver was enough for everyone to conclude her ill-discipline was fully developed in the child. Such is the power of example.

We finally cantered, as it were into Euston, the talkative conscious enough to disembark and give way for me to have a quick chat commiserating with the driver, who had one more trip to Camberwell before playing another route. I was in time to make my train too.