The idea for an overnight ‘power walk’ through London came while crossing Waterloo Bridge after a late gig at the Southbank Centre. It was winter and a vicious wind sharp with ice barrelled down the Thames. Either side huddles of pedestrians sheltered beside buildings to monitor how the adventurous fared before following their stagger across the span. I hunched my shoulders and turned my back to it, crab-walking with a wide gait to prevent being flipped arse over tit. My gaze fixed on the modest skyscrapers glowing like Roman candles planted in the financial district. They looked exciting and alluring, like a freeze-frame of Goose Fair in full swing.
Braving frost-nip, I turned to look upstream. Where the steel and glass castles of the money manipulators shined from the inside out, the stone bastions of old power lining the north bank were floodlit, bathed in a mellow but morose light. Their heyday was over, the Empire gone and the centre of power floated downstream. But they are hanging in there, playing at old school politics like it is still relevant.
So my idea was to plot a route through the big city taking in the financial, trade, cultural, governmental, royal and legal (in that order) seats of power and just see what I could see in the course of a meander from 11:00pm Saturday to 9:00am Sunday. I had no expectations except the joy of wandering through a London bereft of hordes of hell-bent pedestrians on a mission. A friend joined me and added an overture taking in some of ‘Dickens’ London’, starting from the great Victorian wanderer’s home on Doughty Street, a stepping stone from our propitious start and finish at the wonderful St. Pancras station.
Here’s the map and, in deference to Henry Thoreau, we travelled clockwise.
It was a fabulous perambulation, with so many spacial oddities, human cameos and revelations of urban wildlife, so many sights best seen at night and architectural surprises, even in areas I thought I knew. But the route needs honing, partly because sections were closed for the night, notably The Temple, but mostly because it proved to be a psychogeographer’s dream for somebody like myself. Once walked, it threw up tantalising alternatives and potential improvements that need exploring further to pump the Power Walk up a notch.
And it seems others are equally fascinated by this alien cityscape, this pocket of the UK unlike any I recognise as my homeland. A few folks have asked me to take them on the journey. None were dissuaded by my terms and conditions; that it happens close as possible to the winter equinox and we go (equipped) regardless of weather or smog. I’ve experienced London at its worst and, for out-of-towners, this is an expedition.
But a hot flask and chewy sarnie at five in the morning sat in St. James’ Park between Buck’ Palace and the Foreign Office is an experience, and as foreign as they come.
