The adventures of Momus in Britain

This past week I've seen otherwise. Why has he fallen so suddenly from grace? Or was I wrong from the outset?

Momus in "unable to recognise Girls Aloud" shocker.

There isn't anything interesting about Momus' dislike of London because he is so certain that he dislikes it. He would write better about what he loves in London. Or what disgusts him about Berlin/Tokyo.

The black BMW driver lecturing the homeless/junkie bloke sounds made up. If not then Momus may want to make sure he didn't unwittingly stumble onto the set of Cliches 'R' Us.

Poor students in Hackney live in shitty flat shocka! "What's the asthetic?" he asks. "What's his point?" I wonder...

I'm tired, but this chat is something we have to do before we can sleep. I try not to cough or seem too self-righteously sober.

These are FRIENDS he's visiting? Right? People putting him up for the night after a tiring journey only to have him tell the world (or the tiny part of it that reads his blog) that their flat is a shithole, they smoke too much, they are inconsiderate boring E-heads? Do they know he has a blog?

I didn't feel safe walking around with my laptop in a bag. The atmosphere didn't feel benign at all, nothing like soft, safe neon nights in Tokyo. Minicab sharks, cars pulling up behind pedestrians. You're in there, protected, and I'm out here, not. I'm just going to have to hope you have a good heart. People in hip hop hooded tops looking hard in kebab shops. It all feels like one of those Streets videos where a bunch of tanked-up British guys end up with blood streaming down their faces. 'Mate, mate, I don't want any trouble, mate.'
But no-one actually said or did anything remotely threatening towards him. Apart from wearing hoodies, obviously.

'Bling bling: fashion designer John Zhao shows off his crystal encrusted iPod'. Britain speaks fluent bling bling. Britain, from top to bottom, embraces the showy materialism
This (along with all the other rants about marketing) from someone who lived in Tokyo? A city that consumes, period.

He's right about the transport all the same...

(Onimo so ridiculously OTM)

Berlin is no doubt a much cleaner and civilised place but then again so is Singapore. The bottom line is that London culture is about a thousand times more vibrant than Berlin's, much as I like that city.

The train station has a sign on a seat that says "No smoking". What do they take us for? Why not say "You're a cunt, aren't you"? (punctuation is correct) The assumption of guilt. But our hosts later tell us that people do smoke. Often. Fuck.

Marketing! Slick! The girls in bikinis don't interest me at all

hahah this is because they're not in sailor schoolgirl uniform right?

Once again, I stifle a yawn and make the same old responses; yes, London (and, ergo, Britain) can be a horribly threatening place much of the time - but you learn to live with it as there are so many good things about it; yes, Tokyo is a fabulous, exciting place and is safe, clean and things work - but it can do your head in in other ways. I know, having lived there a long time, like many others on this board, and like them without the bubble of adulation that Momus is undoubtedly couched in at times when In Japan and Among The Japanese.

Like Onimo said, the inconsistencies in Momus's article are legion, and reflect a hate that was never in doubt, no matter what experience M was to have when returning to the UK. It's like when my Mum would have a go at me when she came home some days, no matter what I did, just because she had to.

NO MORE SNOBBY, SLEF-AGGRANDIZING BLOG POSTS PLS

A white man gets out of the train and comes into the flat to reform them. 'Look at yourself, mate, you've got to stop using the stuff. Clean up your flat, man, have some aesthetic, get out of this state you're in, it's a fucking shame on you, man!' He's a winner, the junkie's a loser. Clean up a flat, have an aesthetic, get a laptop, join the winners.

PEOPLE FART IN GERMANY AND JAPAN TOO, ON TRAINS.

We connected to the Internet. There's a livejournal entry; bloggers pay tribute to other bloggers. There's lots of Momus and lots of n/a. 'nothing like soft, safe neon nights in Tokyo.' Marketing, innit? Some other blogger drifts around, a bit more bloated than I remember him. There are loads of blog comments of people saying how perennially great the blog entry was. No dissenting opinions at all. A lot of applause.

ok i stop now :)

Oh and-
"The bottom line is that London culture is about a thousand times more vibrant than Berlin's, much as I like that city."

now i love london and have no intention of leaving: but unless you're either a. fabulously wealthy, b. in a grime crew on the sly or c. not referring to any sort of independent film, art or club culture, this is mentalism.

That's me to a t, not that I was ever young and cool.

Genius...and the makings of a TV programme: "Momus on the State We Are In."

all of these descriptions need the reader to already agree with you for them to make any sense.

I sometimes wonder if liberals become conservative when they get older as a bitter reaction to the realization that their team has lost; this is often the way I find myself thinking when I'm in full-on "I hate everyone around me" mode.

"You know, sometimes I think the British, Russians and Americans won WW2 because they were simply more brutal than the Nazis. I mean, the Nazis didn't nuke anybody, did they?"

*the traffic is bad
*there are expensive cars
*police sirens blare regularly
*the food is bad
*there's ugly art
*there's both rich and poor areas, buildings, people
*stuff closes early
*there are drug dealers and users
*there are pickpockets
*people can be rude to strangers
*it's hot in the summer
*there's violence
*people drink a lot

... And he's going to New York next??! Someone please hold his hand while he's there. Apart from the food and things closing early, NYC is probably worse in all of those areas. I love it to pieces, but it certainly is, to use his word, brutal. Unless he starts choosing to live in more 'comfortable' areas, which it seems would make sense for him (even though they're also the most boring neighborhoods).

no harder than he on the LDN surely.

still, that's probably just the north for you.

Uh-oh. I appear to have watered the pub's window cleaner. Nick looks up from watching morons v. dorks FITE! on his livejournal about London sucking or not (the answer to this question is of course 'it depends on how much money you've got' and THAT is what sucks) with THE FEAR and worries that we're going to 'get it' if we go outside.

Woman from pub comes outside and asks shouty cockernee man what's wrong; roll on tirade: "I saw this geezer go in and the NEXT THING! The cahnt's done it on PURPOSE! I saw him look at me, straight at me! I'll 'ave 'im" etc whilst up here Nick is going pie-eyed freaking out about getting the shit kicked out of him. I'm trying not to start laughing too hard but point out that no apology will be forthcoming due to overuse of the word CAHNT.

I am looking forward to hearing Nick's version of this in light of telling him that no fucker gets away with calling me that, and indeed, no fucker did. When Ed got home from work he treated it as a logic problem: why would a window cleaner complain that bitterly about getting wet on a hot day?

Revive!

I'm moving back there in a month, and I'm scaaaaaaared...

a) you've got a choice
b) other things in your life are going badly, and you think they would go better elsewhere
c) the city is really overpriced (in other words, the things that are oppressing the people that rob you are oppressing you too -- you're being doubly robbed by the cost of living, and the people who can't hack it, and hack you instead)

A big factor in all this is GINI coefficients.

Ha ha, I like how you put the (hopefully) after older and not wiser, most people do it the other way! Fresh!

I'm now looking forward to a visit to Bill Drummond's pub.

Remember this? Momus just re-posted the link to his blog... on his blog. It's been three years and he's wondering if anything's changed?

Our friends return from the pub, extremely drunk, and sit with us, smoking heavily, demolishing a bottle of red wine. It's, like, 3am. I'm too polite to tell them I don't smoke, and they don't seem to notice. Well, it's their house. The conversation is about drugs. E can't believe I've never taken any. I say it's because drugs tend to make everyone act the same way. E illustrates my theory by alternating aggressive questioning with declarations that I'm his best mate in the entire world. Several times he shakes my hand. We're two Celts who gave substantial chunks of our life to London. Why? The girls sit on the folding bed and speak Japanese. They won't stay long now they've got their MAs. I'm tired, but this chat is something we have to do before we can sleep. I try not to cough or seem too self-righteously sober.

Funny that no-one at the time pointed out that the whole paragraph and memory is self-righteously sober. Anyway, I'm not here to pick faults with a three-year old post on a blog that I like written by someone who on the whole, though I may not always agree, I've always had time for.

How do you think Britain has changed, if it has, over the past three years? Have to say, however much I dislike the place, I can't, nor ever have, identify with Momus' view of Britain as a place of menace and violence. It is a place to shop (maybe it has always been a nation of shoppers; well since the introduction of the motorways at least perhaps).

Still... there's not so much Robbie Williams these days. Got to look on the bright side.

Kumakouji makes a good comment on that blog (as he regulary does):

...sorry, but if you extend that description to the whole of the UK, You really do live in a bubble of centralised Cities and the artworld. Take a step outside it sometime. I remember you saying you found rural Japan "boring", and I find that really sad for someone who claims to be so into ecology. Nature isnt a "theory" to blog about, its there to be enjoyed.

I've also had my suspicions about Momus as travel writer for a few years now since he dismissed Hong Kong - one of my all time favourite places - as something like 'Birmingham pushed onto a small island'.

yeah it's more like leicester

I'm amused at Manchester being mentioned as a locus of violence upthread, I have never seen an ounce of trouble in manchester. Or liverpool. Or london. Maybe I've just been lucky.

Southport, otoh....

weren't there riots in manchester a few years back?

at least joey barton is off the streets

I must have missed them. I don't recall any.

And yes, now we can all sleep safer.

2001, brah.

it was just before i got out there.

don't think there were riots in manchester in 2001. bolton and other places. england can be menacing and violent but i would have thought momus liked that sort of thing, being a flaneur/dandy type.

Momus != Morrissey

Oh aye, there was some kerfuffle in oldham, maybe? Not strictly Manc. I was referring specifically to nights out on the lash in Manchester city centre of which I've had more than a few, and, as yet, no trouble.

A riot, though, is an event with a specific cause, and surely does not equate to the ever-present undercurrent of menace of which people speak. It's not like you'd walk Britain's streets afraid of a riot breaking out. I understand concerns over swaggering, braying groups of lads but I find these, on the whole, ignorable. This is, of course, a personal response. I can understand why people would find them intimidating.

The riots were in Bradford and (I _think_) Oldham.

xxxp

^^^not very pretty i tell thee

I listened to his biggest charting hit and it was like an acid house version of the theme from "May to December". Dubious credibility!!

How do you think Britain has changed, if it has, over the past three years? Have to say, however much I dislike the place, I can't, nor ever have, identify with Momus' view of Britain as a place of menace and violence.

Three years ago, the place did seem to be menacing in some way. On the bus or train to work, there seemed to be a row or a fight once or twice every week, drunk people, who were often very young, aggressive and in your face seemed a common sight. It was all very depressing, and it made me want to emigrate, find somewhere a little less densely populated. It was really a fuck awful time.

Now things seem different, I can't remember the last time I saw a punch-up, not for a year at least. It seems less threatening going out on an evening for some reason, I think people just seem less in your face generally?

The good thing about the way things were back then is that it got me into doing my electrician's qualifications, doing something to make my life better.

I didn't bother reading Momus' piece again, he seems to be a bit repetitive these days.

France has had more social unrest recently than the UK?

Disappointed they didn’t get him a reality TV series where he visits different parts of the UK to get to the soul of the country. John Harris with better dress sense and better ideas.

Did John H go out (and/or marry?) a teenager too? Find the whimsical revisionist nature of this post very strange