Right, I think I'll knock that on the head. It's been fun, and there are, I do believe, a few other places in London, but I think I'll move on to something else. I wish I could write about structures better. I have found with this, more than almost anything else I've ever written, a frustrating inability to quite find the right word.
I wonder if my favourite place in London, all in, in terms of positioning, the feeling it gives me, the outside, and the inside, and what went on there, is Brixton Academy. I loved seeing it there, lit up with the name of a band I loved, back from the main street, on its corner, touts and t-shirt sellers, queues and like-minded friends, I loved the sticky, sloping floor, the sound of it, the ersatz grandeur. I used to get lost in the decor halfway through gigs. I guess I saw Super Furry Animals there four times, maybe five, and they were all great gigs. I estimate I spent, say, 100 hours in total at Brixton Academy, and every single one was a good one.
And I think the section of London most ingrained in me is the Piccadilly between Northfields and Hammersmith, where I did nothing but look at the same stretch of world, without a book, without headphones, for 10-15 minutes one way and back every day for 10 years and beyond.
I did that journey (at least the Hammersmith to Acton Town bit) for the first time in a couple of years, a month or so ago, whizzing past Ravenscroft Park, Stamford Brook, Turnham Green, Chiswick Park, and I thought about how much everything around the tube line has changed since 1986 but the tube line itself has stayed the same.
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