I toyed with a number of headlines for this article, including
Stuart Bradley and the Unknown EMI Artist, but all of them sounded as much like rejected Harry Potter titles as the above example. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much the best I can do, as the event I’m reviewing was several weeks ago and I wasn’t even meant to be there (I got in by claiming to be a tech reviewer for a national newspaper that was writing an article on social dynamics within the electronic music scene). An elaborate story to construct sober, let alone after a heavy evening of after-work drinks, I credit being able to blag entry to the gravitas of this lie.
With my company’s offices caught between the business-like, uniformed City, and the funky and laid back Shoreditch area, I’m able to get a glimpse of both areas. To the right: proud signboards promoting banks and law firms opened over a century ago. To the left: colourful graffiti walls none less iconic than the bank signboards. As I go for a walk during my lunch break I can wander to either side.
To say I love Shoreditch is putting it lightly. Shoreditch and its many offerings were, and always will be my one true love. All the people, sights and sounds to fill my every possible need. Walking around in what at times feels like a living organism, with art on every corner in the form of public sculptures and graffiti.
The recent riots have been on everyone’s lips this week. Criticism and opinion are spewing out of our mouths, slithering like serpents, and sweeping like hurricanes though just about every aspect of our lives, leaving nothing unaffected. Whether we’re sipping our morning coffee, enjoying a well-deserved lunch break, or downing a pint at our local pub, the riots are all the rage.
According to a well trusted friend of mine, who devotes her life to the perplexing ideologies of superstition, hair will begin to grow in your stomach if you chew and eat your nails to oblivion. I have no nails, so I have a lot to be concerned about. I can’t bear to imagine the thought of coughing up a fur ball, and am certainly not confident enough to ask the street roaming Salem-wannabe cats how to cough some up. Surely my internal hair farm needs a good harvest, right? And, even if it were a good season, I can’t imagine a decent-sized hairball having much street value.
Last week I found myself in Favela Chic near Old Street - a Brazilian bar and restaurant decorated in the style of a shanty town. On one of their famous Friday nights, a silver fox was hitting the DJ booth, and the caprinhas and tequila shots were flowing like it was just another night in Rio.
My innermost apologies to all who oppose the title of my article, but I feel it necessary to blame the Saxons and their inexcusable attempt at naming this wondrous area after a ‘filthy stream that once ran nearby’ – Sewerditch. I’m no historian, no cultural expert, and take no responsibility in offering correct geographical facts or figures. I am simply an observer. A framer. A lover. And here, I share with you my own personal virginal memoirs of Shoreditch.
It was one of those nights. You know the ones I mean – the ones where you’re not exactly sure where you went and what you did, but you know you had fun and didn’t do anything too heinous. It had also been a date night, and at 1 AM the date in question was still hanging on my arm, so I guess it couldn’t have been a total failure; that’s when a guy comes up to us, with a friend behind him videotaping the proceedings and another holding a box.
The East has become the new West. Even the classic city banker with speed dial access to ‘members only’ clubs secretly wants a peek-a-boo into this fascinating area which blatantly is coolness personified. Shoreditch is no longer an oasis for fashion nonconformists; it has now become home to a new breed of hipsters who incorporate a sense of demure refinement into their attire, along with a sense of discernment.
