Tuesday, Ring Road, Supermarket...

Ok, I have been holding out but here, at last, is my update:

I am conducting a clandestine love affair with a little place called Roehampton Vale. If you've ever had the misfortune to pass through the- er- location, you will understand how absurd that sounds. It is little more than a widening in the road with Putney Vale cemetery on the one side and a 24-Hour ASDA and one of the campuses of my esteemed University on the other. I have an appointment there every Tuesday morning at 11.30 AM which, due to a deficiency on the part of my alarm (not loud enough!) I invariably miss. I think Iris Murdoch said something along the lines of: some places in London are necessary and some contingent; well, the latter part of that is certainly true of Greater London from Tolworth on in. To paraphrase Radiohead, it is all ring roads and supermarkets...

A propos of my pathetic life, I have been trying to come up with an apologetic explaining my passion for the place and, so far, I have found very few answers. The university sports field is certainly expansive and picturesque and, I think, borders Wimbledon Common but this, in itself, is not enough. The university building beside the field is very ugly, the worst example of 70s Polytechnic architecture; meanwhile, the busy sliproad and the noise of traffic blots out any possibility of enjoying all that open space...

In all honesty, I think it is the Supermarket. Ever since Ireland, when I used to go to one on a Sunday morning and read all the music magazines in the cafeteria, I have harboured a perverse affection for them. When I came to know of Ginsberg's poem, 'A Supermarket in California' this strange passion only intensified.

Besides the Supermarket, I guess I just enjoy my Tuesday morning outing. Even a few buildings beside a by-pass is a change of scene for me and it also presents a chance to catch up on my reading: The Benn Diaries or Alan Clark's Diaries or any of the other boring tomes I have been lugging around for roughly a decade.

If I ever become a famous writer, I hope they blue plaque that ASDA; something along the lines of:

"Here Hampton sat on a plastic chair and enjoyed many a Cup of Tea, pondering the futility of his existence".

I will take great posthumous joy watching my disciples struggle out to that place, only to become completely disillusioned in my work when they see the sort of situations that inspired me!

Ha Ha Ha.