Return of The Lum

Calling all Lums.

Finally, after over a month in the digital wilderness, I have reconnected with the rest of the world.

Let me tell you, its no fun back in the 70s. Sure, it may seem like a golden age to us 40 somethings. All long hot summers, Chopper bikes and collars on your shirts you could wipe your nose with. But being without connectivity in the 21st Century is just not natural.

Especially frustrating as I have had more to reek about than Eyjafjallajokull the spiteful Icelandic volcano that has spent 30 odd years thinking how to get us back for the Cod War. Or has it. Did you see anything in the sky, any soot on your whirlygig, no, nor me. It was obviously some massive world government conspiracy to hide alien contact. That would certainly explain Clegg and Cameron. I look and listen to them and I just think of Kang and Kodos from The Simpsons.

As regular followers of The Reeking Lum will know, I have, taken a job in London for a couple of years. Now, I’m no stranger to the English capital, but have always been lucky enough not to have to spend any more than 4 days in it at a time. Now though, I have to live in it.

Finding a decent place to call home is the first challenge. A whole flat to myself, because I’m not a Saudi prince, or Chelseas new centre forward, is beyond me alas, so that means sharing. The first place I went to see was, well, like something off the telly. Unfortunately for me, the telly I have in mind has The Young Ones on. It was heaving.

I didn’t expect the first place i went to see to be a swanky loft full of Estonian strippers, but it would have been nice if the girl that answered the door at least looked like she came from the same species as me.

The words men use to describe ladies are sometimes almost poetic, svelte, elegant, chic, foxy or voguish, but the word, that immediately sprang into my mind when the door scraped open, was dumpy.

In poetic terms, i can only think of frumpy, stumpy, bumpy, mumpy, pumpy and lumpy, each one, perfectly appropriate to this creature and great if your naming the 7 dwarves that lived just outside Chernobyl, but not great if you had to write a sales brochure for her.

However, the second place was much better, nice house, roomy loft conversion, a flat mate that doesn’t appear odd in any way so I took it.

I quite like it too, it easy for work and its quiet. Actually, too quiet. I did a little research, and where I live, Hither Green, just to the south of Lewisham was mostly built about a hundred years ago by a property developer who was a notorious temperance society member, which means an almost total absence of pubs or resteraunts. Now, that cant be good.

There is one pub, handily for me, right next door to the train station. Its no Stringfellows and can be best described as functional, but at least its a pub. To give you an idea of the kind of classy place it is, I took a note of the brands on the gantry tonight.

If you fancy a gin, then it will be Brigadier London Gin you’ll be getting, a dark rum, then what about a wee glass of Bootlegger please barman. A craving for a nice warming brandy will have you asking for a Jules Clairon or a whisky, for a taste of home will mean you having to request, rather awkwardly, for a The Charles House, which doesn’t even make sense. But brand of the bar goes to the “premium” vodka, taking pride of place and taking up two optic places was the enticing Minkoff Vodka. The brand marketeers cleverly suggesting the target clientele in the name.

I’ve been a month down here and the thing that strikes me most is the volume of people, there is no getting away from them, they are everywhere. Today I saw a man, a tall 50ish grey coiffure haired man, wearing ladies clothes, this wasn’t in some dodgy soho bar, it was in the foyer of the HQ of a major international bank.

A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to Piccadily in the morning for a breakfast round table event hosted by Computer Weekly, I know, all rock’n’roll. On the way, and this was just after the election put the Tories back in, I saw a homeless man in rags picking up fag doubts right outside DeBeers, the big diamond mafia godfathers place, is that how you spell doubts in that context?, anyway, picking old fags up off the street, so he can strip out the tobacco that’s left and make his own fags. I couldn’t help thinking that even his life under the Tories may be about to get worse.

That's my first reek for a while. I feel better already but don’t want to bore you all, so tune in next time folks, for the continuing adventures of a soft bodied man in the city of a million knives.

Lang may yer lum reek