JONATHAN STONE
From Imagining to Managing

May 17

Walking down during late morning today. Everything has opened up again . Maybe they were expecting crowds, but the streets are surprisingly empty. Lots of shop assistants hanging out on the street touting/waiting for customers. But strange to see shops open. There has been so much development from actual building work to rebranding : new signs new ways of selling but... few customers. A collective sigh of relief as many expect a return to 'normality' .. but .. surprise surprise, normality' doesn't exist...Well partially... The world has changed...

Hmm...' normality'. It’s a complete illusion spawned by 'them' (Er ...the murky people in the shadows that control our lives and do stuff).

You don’t have to rush around! Everything is open today, everything is competing for attention. That speeds people's thoughts and hearts and plays havoc with people's decision making and balance, but this speed, it’s not necessary. To take in this amount of info its not necessary. No individual byte is bad but all together they accumulate into a messy mass of confusion. if you are decisive you don’t have to do go here there and everywhere trying to chase things . Its not your concern but they make you think it is. I liked it when there was less.

less people, less stuff, less noise, and ... less madness.

 

April 25th

I left home at about 7.40. Coffee at Pret with tables outside in the cold where I sat and chatted before walking  through the park. I bumped into an old friend in the park. Lovely to see her. She was friendly and crossed the road to speak to me. I didn’t recognise her at first, but gave her a hug when I did. ‘ I see you are not concerned about covid’ she said then started ranting about it( she has long Covid). And said she was feeling suicidal 'but you look well and smiley' I thought. " maybe the thought of committing suicide ending it all made her happy? Then on I walked past Great Portland Street tube and down Cleveland street.

I was tired and footsore so paused and had a coffee in Rathbone Square. A  nice place to sit - grass and blossom with new flats around. But it’s a little development by Mitsubishi Estates who are the developers ( big bad) demolishing our tower and making a £900 million development on  the South Bank. But sitting here and looking around me- I’ve seen worse thoughtless insensitive developments.

 

I passed by a spa bar massage place. I looked at the place - buddhas looking tranquil next to price lists of cocktails, and a  neon sign inside on the bar wall, bare brick painted glossy black Jenny Holzer style saying

‘ALL I EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING’.

They are not going to buy anything if  they realise the fruitlessness of buying cocktails, hanging out and paying for expensive massages. If anyone gets the sense to realise what a rip off the place is... but I shouldn’t judge, as a dear friend says, 'everyones doing the best they can'. Hippy business  people with more capital than sense making money betting that people don’t get enlightened, is that the best they can do.

I walked on ...

In Covent Garden there was a baroque string quartet sound coming through that first I thought was recorded and coming through speakers, then  I walked round the corner and I saw it was live music. There was a string quartet three women and a man playing Vivaldi Four Seasons seasons really well and no one listening as it reverberated.

 

April 20

I left home at about 8.15am and went to get coffee at Pret Baker St where I walked and chatted to the Harley Street receptionist who  is always reading a book. She works in a big house containing several doctors consulting rooms on Harley Street, I walked on down through Cavendish Square, Oxford Circus the town slowly coming to life.  Through Soho,  Carnaby Street, proudly announcing that it had lots of bees and 725 window boxes, then down Beak Street Great Pulteney Street, where there were 2 blue plaques -one for  Polidori who wrote  the Vampire, an early gothic novel and another for Josef Haydn  who lived 'in a house on this site in 1791, I then walked along Brewer Street where I took a photo of an ironmonger with a fantastic window display of brass fittings.

I got to my little 12th floor eyrie on the banks of the Thames at about 10.30.

 

 

13th April

Where are we going to find honeybees in central London? I dunno! it’s a secret but I’ll give you a clue- it’s it’s near the cherry blossom and tulips. Regent Park for sure, but also maybe there are bees nests  on eaves maybe chimneys maybe at St. Paul’s Cathedral...

Walking down through centre of city, there are many more people about than before. I find it intimidating and disorientating until I begin to withdraw inside and be aware more of my inner state and imaginings. Am I just picking up peoples resonance and ego rather than the streets I walked through in previous days? Dunno maybe.

I could take photographs of rows and rows of empty chairs outside cafés and things waiting for custom don’t believe everything that the conventional media tells you about things getting back to normal you can put a completely different spin on this if you wanted to.

Pathways open up as I walk past St Giles  Church and walk past Phoenix Gardens down Saint Giles passage Mercer Street then I will cross Shaftesbury Ave, on past the theatre showing the Mousetrap and Ivy, then down to Saint Martin’s Lane...... No, no not passed Mousetrap at all I’ve got confused by my cross street- Mercer Street all the way down to Long Acre past all the old warehouses houses and  new mini  malls.

On the Southbank I know this place sometimes I see older bedraggled and bewildered people, unaccustomed to sunlight sitting on benches gawping at the younger people  also unaccustomed to sunlight  with new energy around them. People from a long time ago that look like ghosts adrift and disoriented in the modern world . I have one foot in the present, and one in the past . I am so lucky.

It’s not about putting order into the chaos of the old things past things it’s about making new things now and put your attention on making things now.

Nothing gets finished

Everything is in process

Buildings get finished but the city? never ...

Look at the cranes!

I could easily get disoriented by the noise, but have set myself the task of staying calm amidst the  noise of this place. So its back to 'festina lente'.  The Venetian printers' motto. Exploring the nature of fast calm. 

It’s easy as the precision of my faculties wants to panic, lose balance and get disoriented but throw my focus onto the new and discard the past and be wary of the trauma and pockets on 

 

 

12th April

Walked through Regents Park then down Cleveland Street, Soho Square, St Martins Lane, Charing X, Hungerford Bridge and on to my 12th floor eyrie. Too many people, too much noise! I like being the healthy functional optimistic one when the streets is quiet and cowering, but immediately feel ill myself and want to be the  cowering one when there's all this going on and the streets are crowded. Maybe a historic day but didn't want to take any pictures. I feel a bit fragile and tentative today (he says boldly).

 

 April 5th 

A nothing day. Winter returns (...Er ... nothing  really ) Oh ....  despite the clear blue sky it’s turned very cold again. (But nothing  really... ) Walking is hard sometimes, sometimes it is easier for me to walk on road than pavement but the  street surface is not smooth either- most streets have been dug up  so often because of rapid techno change - and (er  nothing really) they need to instal new broadband gas water lx or policy directives from 'them' on high saying 'dig it up', maybe to keep workers busy. So there is  a patchwork of different tarmac, smooth enough for traffic but to Ataxic me who trips often and needs to walk on smooth surfaces, its  not smooth. (Nothing really). The first chapter of this London Walks work is drawing to a close and will become a more occasional thing as music  and Imaginary Events take my attention.  But there's always something, even when your  routine tricks you into thinking there's nothing really)...

 

March 30

In Soho Square I sat on a bench in the sunlight on my way down here. What a scene. Many workmen with hi-vis waistcoats on tea break sunning themselves on benches next to elderly transvestite and gossiping office workers. Every body is sitting out sunning themselves today, with warmer weather at last and partial lockdown lifted, a sense of relief and opening, its springtime. I walked on through Covent Garden and got coffee and snack near Waterloo Bridge, looked for somewhere to sit and eat and saw the old church in the middle of the Strand, usually buried under traffic noise and city bustle but now an oasis of calm. I sat on old stone steps under pink blossom of trees in this forgotten place.

Empty full empty ...The car park behind the London Stoodios tower is full again with the white trailers cars and lorries of another film set.

 

March 24

Walking down Regent Street, at Heddon Street, where Bowie used to have his office, and they filmed the cover of Ziggy Stardust, I saw a sign saying ‘where coffee culture merges with cocktail culture.’

More Meaningless Marketing! There is just glossy advertising and expensive marketing everywhere but due to lockdown, no people to read it. Their marketing strategies become naked and very very very very obvious and pointless, like performing to no audience.  Meanwhile money pours out in this changing city.

 

March23

I was  walking down a street in Marylebone and passed a woman  talking to another woman at the front door of a small  tidy house but probably a hugely valuable property. 'I don’t wanna make a profit out of you! first of all I like you very much’ . I overheard as I walked by. What are they talking about? I thought but to stop would have been weird and so although I wanted to know more about this mystery I walked on and turned a corner into Paddington Street and heard the loud smack of boxing gloves. ‘How aggressive’ , I thought sniffily, ‘more men doing boxing training. Why are they disrupting the relative calm with this energy?’ and walked on, but when I saw the bit of open space at Paddington Gardens where the fitness trainers and their sweaty victims gathering saw where the sound came from .I was surprised to see and hear it was 2 women in serious training.

‘Women are into boxing too! ’ A friend said. ‘Yes, yes!’ I think, ‘I am so misunderstood! But still we assume if it’s the sound of boxing it’s blokes! or should I say ‘I assume . I don’t want to make a point that everyone (we) thinks that way’ ? I wasn’t being  judgmental, or maybe I was but not about gender I was judgmental about the popularity of boxing now. It’s almost trendy! Seems primeval to me! People hitting each other! Whatever the gender! Haven't we evolved?

The only time I got into it was years ago in NYC, from the comfort of my cinema seat seeing the film about Frazier vs Ali in Kinshasa where Ali trained himself for weeks to take all the punishment he could from Frazier who he knew had a fearsome punch, then in the fight just taunted him to get him riled so Frazier become stupid and careless . So Ali won by  massive psychology  and a spiritual strength but I still think its a bit stupid. If there is cleverness in boxing I am missing something?

 

At Piccadilly  Circus I saw statue of Eros, people beginning to sit on steps around it. When they renovated it and put the statue back the direction of the arrow was towards Whitehall and St. James (royalty and government) rather than up Shaftesbury Avenue, towards traditional pleasure centres of Soho and WestEnd as originally intended. A simple mistake or is there a subtle plot to suggest Eros resides in old power?

 

March 22nd

I went into studio early- about 8am, and then walked home, leaving 11.45. At south end of Waterloo bridge I looked over the wall at the riverside. Workmen are dismantling the aesthetically ‘temporary‘ looking wooden bar and restaurant building near Waterloo bridge. Another business wrecked . A changing landscape. there is unlikely to be a 'normal' to go back to, but whats new?Walking through Covent Garden and Floral Street through Soho guided by my feet and the need to get home. Street routes seem to suggest themselves.- Little Newport Street and on through Gerrard Street where I bought some dumplings for lunch snack. Diagonals  and alleyways open up, and then Cavendish Square, Harley Street, Marylebone.

 

12th March

 I went into studio from Acton via tube contemplated doing Piccadilly Line some of the way but was persuaded not to rush so caught the District line tube the whole way. In the bigger scheme of things it didn't matter cos I got there arguably minutes later but so what? I read on the trip, so did more by being slow, my attention was not on anxiety of getting there.

 

11th March

I walked down across Regents Park and picked up a green branch of an unnamed plant I found on ground (it was a windy morning, many  broken twigs and branches), to Great Portland Street tube then walked down along diagonal street in Fitzrovia (forget the name) that becomes Newman Street near Oxford Circus and had rest, takeaway coffee and took photos of coloured bottles in window of Italian restaurant in Rathbone Square and then continued on my way ... arriving at South Bank about 10.30.

 

10th March

I was going to walk counter-intuitively through park to see how far it was but it began raining so I caught the tube, feeling so bad that I didn't walk. It’s quiet here, the 12th floor is empty except for one man who gets in early. It becomes a hive of activity later in the day.

 

9th March

Today it’s about slowing down finding appropriate speed. I am impatient today. I am anxious, I am staggering all over. My balance is not great. I want to go fast so I have to slow down or I’ll  fall over and be a casualty. I walk by Cavendish Square, Oxford Circus, past the church with the steeple and ornate brickwork on the street that meets Wells Street, through Eastcastle Street (past the street sign that says Adam and Eve Court) to Newman Street then Rathbone Square to Rathbone Street,   then through to Endell Street, Betterton Street, the Aldwych Theatre where I saw Ian Mckellen in the Alchemist in 1977, India Place, then the Portuguese cafe next to Somerset House for a smoked salmon bagel, before crossing Waterloo bridge. 

 

8th March

I was looking in window of a shop near Baker Street that made bespoke tweed suits and was welcomed inside the shop by a man called Guy who said he ordered his tweed from Duke of Buccleuch in the Scottish Borders, I said I know the borders. I walked on down Chiltern St and near the big chemists on Wigmore Street, while I was on phone, I heard a friendly female voice saying "hello, Jonathan !" And it was Gaby who had lived in Daventry Street many years ago. She was buying some shaving kit I think, for her husband’s birthday. I hadn’t seen her in ooh 20 years but we chatted in street for a few minutes like old friends about people we both knew, about parents, about deaths, illness etc and laughed lightly at our  mutual morbidity and talked about survival with a smile. It lifted my spirits all this idle chat about  Death and Survival hmmm...

I walked onto Hungerford bridge west side walkway ahead of the busking sax player with the hat ( he looks east European) who plays the saxtune from the Gerry Rafferty song Baker Street and theme from the Godfather. He , always immaculately dressed plays for the few people about. I don’t know how he survives, not enough to gather crowds The lift doors closed just before he got close. I didn’t know if he was being unfriendly or COVID cautious but he did not rush I note my impulse to take it personally but maybe he has just slowed down.

Walking back some of the way, at  the point of low tide, between out and in, the river is so still., its like an eclipse. Everything seems to stop, even in this city... apart from the belligerent transgressive lockdown traffic.

 

4th March

Feeling unsettled this morning, I left house at 8.45. Walking from home to studio is a cleansing act - it cleans my mind of anxiety and worry - a walking meditation that brings the present to me. 

In Weymouth Street just off Harley Street in a basement below a big smart old house a dental technician with a thick lenses eyepiece is bent intensely over a desk making a life size model of a patient’s teeth and jaw, then beyond past BT tower and a boarded up Tower Tavern pub the area has seen better days and is quiet and empty apart from the clanking sound of scaffold poles as building workers in white helmets and hi vis jerkins prepare the next renovation ...

Then down to Centrepoint and I picked up sail cloth for curtains from Arthur Beales shop in Shaftesbury Avenue connecting the past to the present, I and others bought cloth for performances many years ago. They still stock the same cloth. It will be my curtains.  

And on ... considering there is still a lockdown there is a lot of traffic on main roads in centre of town.

 

3rd March

A Misty grey morning. I walked through Regent’s Park then on way to Fitzroy Square. I saw a house with a blue plaque saying Sidney Bechet lived here, New Orleans- London connection, then passed an Indian YMCA and called a friend who had mentioned  an Indian YMCA with fabulous food and they confirmed it was the place. Fine Indian food for a fiver. 

I will reward my tum 

When lockdown is dun 

Then on through university land beyond Gower St- Birkbeck and SOAS. Meandered all over trying to find a straight route but messed up between Russell Square and Waterloo Bridge and walked all over the place near the big Freemasons Centre, Drury Lane and Bow Street. I should have just cut south from Russell Square would have been much quicker...

 

2nd March

Left home about 10, and walked along Marylebone Road and then cut down through Cleveland St. Never been all the way down it before but so near to many places I know well but haven't been to for years- Near Fitzroy Square where Barnaby made shutters many years ago, the Post Office Tower.

Then walking over Waterloo Bridge A grey misty morning low tide with big sandy muddy stony banks between the gently flowing river and the river embankments, a glimpse of what once was. No river traffic, no wash, all boats moored...but it’s an illusion-they've imported the sand, maybe even the river mud is artificial.

 

1st March

What is special about walking down from home to studio? Not street views; Google’s got it covered - but visual uniqueness, observations of people and behaviour, oddities, changes. Threads, sutures, connections connecting place to place, people to people, staying balanced in chaos, staying still amidst competing loud energies, staying focussed in an increasingly disorientating world.

 

Looking out the window at this cityscape, musing how the buildings, the form of the city, the roads, the infrastructure that look so permanent are not a whole picture despite the apparent rational certain solidity and existence. 

Each building is the physical manifestation of someone’s dream, together the buildings and streets become a collective dream from which a city accumulates... it’s buildings it’s street it’s wealth and buildings ... they seem so permanent yet they can disappear so quickly if the belief goes, like the Berlin Wall in 1989. But London still somehow continues, subdued by lockdown, changed by lockdown, but still there ...

In Chiltern Street Jas Musicals where I worked quite recently has gone, Woodlands Indian vegetarian restaurant in Marylebone Lane has gone. I have known both those places recently and they seemed thriving and thriving gives the appearance of permanence, but thriving one day and gone the next .... changes are now so rapid.  And so many once moneyed places that have looked smart are all closed up now; tables and chairs overturned to reveal repairs and sticky tape underneath, the cosmetic cleanliness and richness of these places just disappears. Walking down New Bond Street in one shop a piece of art has a drawing with estimated price of £40,000 - 60,000. So they have spent a lot on the marketing of the drawing with a moving video of close ups and different views of the print, it looks like a French drawing about 1920. I haven’t heard of the artist but that doesn’t mean much. I'm not an expert, but sometimes the marketing of an object is more beguiling than the object itself.

 

25th February

I took the old money route down here and walked past the Ritz Hotel and noticed they have plastic plants in their window boxes-real mini daffodils but behind it a plastic mini hedge. tacky! I know it’s all closed up, but come on! This is the Ritz! Plastic?!

 

Near Parliament Square, workmen in hi-vis clothing were putting a fence round a fence at the entrance to the underground. I 9magine them saying self righteously, 'Yes we’re putting up a fence. I am not just a workman, I am THE fence manager and as a manager I wear a hi vis jacket in case of emergencies.’ A fence around a fence? Maybe it is to stop people putting unwashed hands on the inner fence. Maybe someone is inventing useless tasks to keep ‘them’ busy.

 

19th February

(verbal) Coming down through Chinatown and then seeing with my eyes the way down Great Newport  Street and then down towards I think Seven Dials I am at now. Routes just suggest themselves  to me.

 I have an internal sense of direction and there seem to be streets going down roughly the right way. My sense of direction keeping me moving towards the South Bank.

 

17th February

Got tube back don’t have time to walk. The tube felt filthy. The cleaning of  trains is -perfunctory maybe by spraying disinfectant over dirt they feel it’s job done? Or maybe they are prioritising some tasks and looking clean is not one of them. Dunno. I look at the lights in this carriage- half are not working- the desire to exaggerate and say ‘over half the lights are not working’ is always there; it’s bad but not that bad!

 

16th February

Walked down Marylebone Lane. At the back of Debenhams they were clearing the store which went bankrupt in the lockdown. shop fittings chairs shelf units all going out onto the street as they cleared the trading floor of a once huge proud flagship Oxford St department store. Maybe I'll get something from there. Walked on down the posh shops of New Bond St but now so many empty shops as businesses presumably without extensive cash reserves have either given up  or gone bust. It is noticeable that further down new Bond St towards Chanel as the super rich shops reside there are fewer empty shops. I walked along Savile Row towards Piccadilly and saw the bespoke taylor’s upstairs shops were closed but busy in their neon lit basements. It started raining hard  so got a 12 bus to Westminster bridge down walked here past County Hall and Waterloo stopping off at M&S food to get a sandwich. The floor of the Studios has been painted now.

 

Walk back:

 At the the foot of our building, parked in the street there is a  big film unit big PANALUX van parked. They must be filming something big in there.  Oh I find out its Danny Boyle making film about the Sex Pistols. Walked back by Debenhams and got white office chair for free as they had various things for free on street.

The past may be irrelevant but if remembered becomes present again.