I’ve been walking in London, nothing too fancy. It was tiring but I was tired BY London, not tired OF London, a distinction Dr. Johnson would surely appreciate.
I used to live and work in the area and I always find myself there any time I'm in Central London.
Of course large parts of Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road are barely recognizable from even just a few years ago, though fortunately those twin Brutalist peaks of the St Giles Hotel and Centre Point are still in business.
There was this wonderful bit of idiocy on a building site just north of the St Giles.
You know I suspect those lads up on that gantry have never so much as skimmed Derrida’s Writing and Difference. This is the fun-loving man himself, walking:
Much as I like the Tottenham Court Road/Charing Cross Road nexus, I’m not sure I’d take anybody there to try to impress them with the wonders of London, but as I was standing on the corner waiting to cross Oxford Street I saw and overheard two young women, teenagers I suppose, maybe out oft owners though they didn’t look like innocents, and one of them was saying to the other, ‘I’ve never been to this part of London. It’s really NICE!’
This pleased me enormously.
I'm not in the business of giving advice to tourists but if I were I'd have suggested they pop up to Whifield Gardens, now supposedly improved as part of the 'greening' of Tottenham Court Road. I'd have suggested they savour the fact that this used to be a graveyard associated with grave robbing, and very close to the spot where the last V2 fell on London.
It looks like this:
