The morning spring day sun came streaming in through the window. A soft breeze blew through and cooled my face. Often in these situations I feel terrible, but I hadn’t drunk that much and this mornings wake up from the springtime elements put me in a good mood. I looked at my watch 0510… eugh! I lay in my bunk and I dozed in and out until about 0900, when I got up, showered, changed, and generally faffed around. I skipped breakfast and started walking.
I had two things in my itinerary. This evening I was meeting Jonny, Pablo and his wife, Elly, at the Roundhouse in Camden to see the legendary Sisters of Mercy. This will be the third time that I have seen them there, and at least the fifth time over all, but I have the feeling I’m forgetting another time somewhere else. I’m trying to count up the number of times I have seen them while I get my Starbucks, I’m stuck at five, but that just doesn’t seem right to me. I carry on walking to my first stop of the day as I ponder further, and listen to my podcasts.
I arrived at Mount Pleasant at about 1100. I sat on a wall outside and finished my tea, and let the podcast finish. Then I went into the post office museum. I had an allotted time of 1300 but that was for the mail rail part of it. The rest of the museum, which is down the street, I am allowed to visit at any time. So I go there first and look around the main exhibition. It starts with the history of the postal service, the old horse and carriages with the horns announcing their arrival. There were all sorts of old nick-nacks behind glass. Then there was the 19th/20th century and the modernisations which came. The use of telephones and morse code, vacuum tubes and telephone boxes. All of which were very hands on, with working telephone boxes which had recorded audio clips when you dialled certain numbers. You could also call the other boxes around the museum. I’m sure that would have been great for kids. I sat in a small cinema area which showed on a loop, old information films for 10 minutes, where they explained the process of designing a new stamp. There were a few more panels to read about considerations when designing stamps, as well as some interactive bits that I left for the kids that were running about to play with. The final area, should have been investable to me, but, alas, it was at first a shock. This is a museum about the history of one of Britain’s great bedrock institutions, of course we need to deal with a great deal of slavery and oppression. In this case the focus was very much on the packet ships which were powered by coal, and the slaves which mined and transported it. The whole exhibition took about an hour and 15 to walk around. Just enough time for a quick browse of the gift shop before my turn on mail rail.
Mail rail is down the street from the main exhibition. You go in a separate door where there is another gift shop and the entrance to a kids post office themed play area. Of all the different sections of the museum the child’s play area was the only one with any significant queue. I walked past the queue of children and downstairs to the railway, where I was guided to the waiting area for the train. There was one man and his child also waiting. We were joined by one full family and one other gent on his own. This barley filled half of the train, so I got a carriage to myself. Thank the lord for that because these carriages are tiny. I’m not exactly a pro-basketball player, but I struggled to get my legs in. How they expect to fit two adults and two children in all together, I will never know.
The train does a loop of the passing tracks around Mount Pleasant, there are many offshoots and track points which serve as points of interest. There is an audio commentary which includes the voices of former employees of mail rail. When the train pulled into platforms, they used projectors to show how the station was used. It was quite effective. The whole thing lasted about 20 minutes. After we got out there was a further exhibition with more detail and interactions. There were a lot of cups which you could put to your ear and listen to more stories from the same voice over who was on the train. I think it was a good move to leave the story about a crash in the tunnels until after we were all out! All in all I guess I was in the museum for about two hours. Was it worth £18? Well I can say I’ve seen it. The mail rail was the best bit by far, which I can do again for another £6 and I can visit the rest of the museum again for a whole year for free! Quite why you’d need to do it again, I’m not sure, I think this is one of those “I’d understand if I had kids” things. But I don’t, so I doubt I’ll be back. I’d say overall 3 stars: a bit pricey but interesting, I’d wished for a bit more from the main exhibition. I could have done with a room of stamp stuff, not just a few panels.
So I was on my way by 1330. The sun was shining and I was regretting not packing my sunglasses. The sun was beating down, and I had my jacket tied around my waist. But I wasn’t going to let a thing like that get me down, and I walked to Camden. I mostly took the footpath along the Regents Canal. The path was busy and, in places, narrow. I shouldn’t wonder if in high summer people fall in. The area just north of St Pancras station is a very quaint chocolate box image of what modern town planners think the canals used to be like. It’s very sanitised but pleasant. The grass is clipped and wildflowers bloom, but only where they are supposed to. As the path meanders towards Camden the graffiti becomes more gritty and real. The buildings become more utility and less playful. And the people give less fucks. I pass a woman who is painting an anti Israeli slogan on a wall with a paintbrush. She is taking her time as everyone passes her on the towpath. No one bats an eyelid as she glides her brush slowly and with purpose. This was no quick graffiti. This was a message she wanted to be clear and neat.
Eventually as I walked the smell of ganja in the air told me that I was nearing Camden proper. The markets have all been updated in recent years since the fire a decade or so ago. I had time to wander so I tried to get lost in the back lanes. I’ve been here too many times for that. I know where I’m going, even though the shops have changed. Some of the big hitters are still there. Cyberdog, for one, I thought about going in, but I peered through the doorway to see an IKEA style one way system. I looked at the other shops around, where were the cheap t-shirts and the knock off pocket watches? Where were the cheap sunglasses and the goth clothing boutiques? It’s very multicultural now, so much more is given over to good food, not just the overpriced noodle bar I remember from my youth. The noodles are still there though, so I allowed myself to feel better by knowingly being ripped off at £14 for half chicken, half red curry and noodles. The soul has gone from the market and it’s not coming back and no amount of noodles will bring it back.
I text Jonny. He is walking in from Catford, training for a future jaunt of ours. He’s going to be in Camden soon, but not soon enough, so I said I’d meet him in Brewdog, which is on Bayham St. This is directly next door to the job I had finished not 24 hours previously. I had a pint of Fruit Burst (4.4% pale ale). A nice pint but not worth the £7 price tag.
Jonny and I made our way on to the Ice Wharf, where we sat in the canal side garden. This is possibly my favourite spot in all of Camden. Cheap, good quality ales, a view to die for, sitting in a sun trap, watching the world pass on the tow path on the other side of the canal, and the occasional boat. When the weather is nice it’s idyllic. As it was, it was a bit cold, but the rest stood, so we caught up. Watched the world go by. A fight between two homeless guys ensued on the towpath. There was nothing we could do from this side of the canal but watch in fascination as the two men had each other in headlocks. Neither really came to any harm. It says a lot about the people of London that most walked past without a word. Not caring about the fight. Until the German shepherd, belonging to one of the men, took umbrage with a chihuahua. As you can imagine the noise of the small dog being thrown around was… unpleasant to say the least. Now the people of London step in. It’s one thing hurting eachother, but a dog ‽ No sir!
Soon enough it was time for the gig. Pablo had already called to say he was running late. He had spent the day on a stag do. So it was just Jonny and I for the queue. The couple Infront talked to us about this and that, but mostly their recent visit to see The war of the worlds, the musical. I too had seen TWOTW a few years ago, so we compared and contrasted the differing lineups. This passed the time while the queue dwindled down. Jonny hasn’t seen it, so he said nothing. I feel bad for not moving the conversation on to something he can join in with, but I didn’t really have much time. The queue moved surprisingly fast. As we approached the front I said to Jonny, jokingly “you never know, Joe from school might be in there”. He was an old school friend who also likes the Sisters back in the day, but he wasn’t going to be there, he lived in Devon these days.
Pat downs and ticket checks complete. We got a drink and stood near the back for the support band. They were a Deftones wannabe band called Oversize. I liked their style, but they needed to work a bit on how they addressed the crowd. I always wonder about the wisdom in constantly pointing out that they are just the support. They played what seemed like a good length set and they had some talent. I think sometimes the worst bit about a set can be the sound guy making everything too bass heavy, causing too much reverb around the venue. For these guys, you could understand that might be a deliberate choice, so I didn’t let it bother me too much.
As Oversize finished the phone rang. It was Pablo and Elly who were just arriving. I asked them what they wanted to drink, so I could get them a round in. As I turned around who was there? It was only Joe from school. We spotted each other and both of our jaws dropped. We hadn’t seen each other for years. It was a joy to see him. A few moments later, Pablo and Elly arrived. Elly stood back and made the joke that she was getting in the way of a school reunion. We swapped a few stories for 20 minutes before the lights went down and the sisters came on.
By now I have seen the Sisters of Mercy many times. And I had seen the reviews so many times of how Andrew Eldridge’s voice can be a bit hit or miss. I’ve never seen one of the bad ones, so was today going to be it? No. His voice was as good as ever. The sound guy kept the settings from Oversize, so there was some bass distortion. Pablo made the cynical yet very much still valid observation, that the bass distortion might be deliberate to hide some bad vocals. All I know is that it sounded good to me.
Joe went to the front with the rest of the gang that he arrived with, but he soon came back to the back to see the rest of us again, about half way through the set. As the set progressed the hits got bigger and better, and we sang our hearts out to all of it. The set finished. The encore Started. It could only end with this corrosion. We sang some more, probably annoying those around us with our football hooligan style of vocal harmonisation. And just like that, the set was over. What was months of waiting, for an hour and a half, which seemed to be over like it was just a few minutes.
After the gig Jonny had to make a quick getaway, but the rest of us stayed out in Camden, catching up until the early hours. I finally got back to my hostel at about 0330.