'Would you mind please going back to Shoreditch?' reads the graffiti in New Cross, though in more robust language. Although it can't mean me, I keep this in mind when taking the 78 from outside Asda which in quite a quick journey from the Old Kent Road goes to that strange other place. My destination is actually Whitechapel (for the gallery's Paolozzi exhibition) a little before the final stop, but this is still a trip showing yet again that there are always two sides to wherever you are in London.
Making the right turn the 78 makes in this direction at the Dun Cow, there is the distant hope (or 'finger up to the rest of the country' as some see it) of The Shard. A reminder of where we are, in more than one way. It appears in the distance over a building site / industrial land or something, the tape around which suggests it's going to be something to do with tourist accommodation.
Tower Bridge Road starts to feel like you've moved somewhere else. Premier Inn is already along here. Small flats with smaller balconies that house a chair over the traffic are here, and they must cost a fortune – not sure how much but as the really posh ones around the corner were originally going for £17,000,000 they're probably in the 'unaffordable' bracket too. And along Tooley Street, the office of Southwark Council – apparently, much to their annoyance, caught themselves between the two worlds they straddle, and seemingly, for now anyway, much preferring to shake hands with those on this side of the bridge.
Behind the Tower Of London pop up buildings including the walkie-talkie (20 Fenchurch Street, with SkyGarden), the gherkin (30 St Mary Axe), the cheesegrater (Leadenhall Building) next to Lloyds – all the structures with silly names. Alien to the tower, but all symbols of power really, and the comparing of contrast and similarities between the old and new, value and cost, culture and commerce are...well, obvious I guess, but unavoidable.
And soon after Whitechapel. E1. The mix of workers leaving their office buildings for a break and, um, fresh air, and students mean there seems to be more smokers around here than elsewhere. It's funny how you notice that now.
The gallery almost marks a break along Whitechapel High Street. Right next to Aldgate East station there are plenty of office buildings heading back, but further along, towards Shoreditch, you can see the difference, for better or worse however you see it. It seems Peckham now may have taken over as the place people will love and hate and love to hate, and there are connections even here in Whitechapel – a Nags Head pub, the pub name in Only Fools and Horses, and Peckham beer in the gallery's refectory. As the website says 'The Whitechapel Refectory and After Hours are brought to you by Luke Wilson and Cameron Emirali, the duo behind 8 Hoxton Square'. Hoxton. A Whitechapel gallery serving a beer brewed in Peckham.
Coming out of the train station was a group meeting a guy dressed in character, taking a tour – the Jack The Ripper tour, of the sites of the murders. Walking to the 78 bus stop coming here I'm sure I saw a bus heading this way which was to do with tours like this, parked and leaving from the Old Kent Road gas works. Just to hammer the point home I'll say – Shoreditch and Peckham now have lots in common. One difference is we've had Only Fools... and Desmond's. Shoreditch had Nathan Barley. Maybe that will change.
It feels fortunate to so readily have this place and the exhibition within it to go to, and the beer was good too.
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