Hi all of you (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Grimsmith
- Start date
Cheers! I'm on my second so inspiration is still dawning! Croydon I know well (went to art school there in the 80's) but I'm in fragrant Forest Hill (a little island of culture in the south) Bukowski has been an inspiration since I first read Post Office and related to all the shitty jobs I'd endured, this site is wonderful
Im planning a little Circle Line Pub crawl in April if any of you guys fancy getting Bukowskian with us
Im an Oxford guy but many friends in London
Im an Oxford guy but many friends in London
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Welcome Grimsmith, I see you've met some of the Brits Boys club. Just kidding, you've come to the right place and there is so much to see and here.
You may have to excuse by attitude towards the British a little but I was strongly influenced by the movie A Fish Called Wanda and lines like this:
You may have to excuse by attitude towards the British a little but I was strongly influenced by the movie A Fish Called Wanda and lines like this:
Don't worry, John Cleese is the hero and I know better now.
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Nice little town, but a downer for rough-sleepers!
When I tried to sleep near the 'Authorised Personal Only'-Entrance of the zoological and psychological faculty (in 1993) they kicked me out at 7am, then I went to the nearby bicycle-stand which had a roof (it was raining) and 10min later there came some prick claiming "This is Private Proberty!" and I went some 300m further to another building with a roof on back, with the same result. So I had to leave again.
The next night I slept at the Themse. You may know these buildings right there, two storied, I guess the first floor holds boats, the 2nd floor is kind of a balcony with a roof. I've been sleeping there without being disturbed by people - but the wind was blowing the shit out of me and it was fucking cold cold cold! It was hell, really.
But I liked the book-stores.
;-))
Hi Toxic :-) I'm off for a prowl round the scuzzier parts of Camden today, unfortunately a fair bit of the market got burned down but its still worth a visit and drinking by the canal is a real slice of London's underbelly. I've never slept rough (unless you include my flat which is damned rough!) but had a night in the cells at Croydon police station once, that was educational!!
the only good poet
One retreat after another without peace.
i picked up a good many of my bukowski books in camden, namely compendium bookstore. happy days.
Ambreen
Sordide Sentimental
Why did you sleep outdoor ? Did you have no choice or did you want to experiment it, like for instance Orwell did ( cf Down and out in Paris and London) ? Weren't you frightened by what could happen to you in the dark ?
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I never slept outdoor because I didn't want to end up like the bum in "Clockwork Orange", o.k. it was 'cause I'm a spoiled sissy, but don't tell anybody.
I was working as a support roadie for the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" that went through theatres and had to drive back home after the gigs, there was no hotel for stagehands like me. On the gig in Cologne I tried to make a comfortable place on some roll cases backstage to sleep for a while after duty had been done. Then the drummer started his soundcheck and the sax player walked around the backstage area rehearsing. But I was overtired like hell and didn't realize too much anyway, so I fell asleep and had a dream about my boss talking shit 'bout me behind my back.
I was working as a support roadie for the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" that went through theatres and had to drive back home after the gigs, there was no hotel for stagehands like me. On the gig in Cologne I tried to make a comfortable place on some roll cases backstage to sleep for a while after duty had been done. Then the drummer started his soundcheck and the sax player walked around the backstage area rehearsing. But I was overtired like hell and didn't realize too much anyway, so I fell asleep and had a dream about my boss talking shit 'bout me behind my back.
It was my kind of spending hollidays from age 16 to 25:
Hitchhiking around Europe and sleeping rough.
It's cheap and teaches you something.
(Being French you may know Paris - there we slept at the Gare-du-Nord. Here's a pic from 1987 there.)
Ambreen
Sordide Sentimental
Sure !
But I persist in thinking it's not safe. Remember what happened to Jack Nickolson in Easy Rider ... :D
I actually live at five minutes from Paris ;) I don't know how it was in 1987, but nowadays the Gare du Nord is a disreputable place in a disreputable quarter. A lot of thugs meet here, there are fights between bands and traffics, you could not sleep there again without being bothered. Last year (or maybe in 2007), police chased several bands within the Gare, I saw images on tv, they were very impressive.
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It was back then too. But during the summer, there used to be a lot of young backpackers sleeping there, travelling by train. So we just joined that crowd.
Except: We KNEW that the station closed at night for a few hours. So when we went to sleep early in the night, we layed ourself OUTSIDE the station. (some bums were out there too at that time, but none of the vacationers.) And then at 2am all the kids came out of the station, thrown out, looking sleepy, searching for a niche to put their sleeping bags down. That's what makes the pro: being informed. (Also, many of those kids where cabbaged through the night, because they simply didn't know, how to hide and secure their baggage.)
But you're right: I probably wouldn't sleep at that station anymore either.
Still: you can find some corner with a roof above in EVERY town. It's that easy: "In the gutter, do as the bums do!"
welcome from old blighty
mjp
Founding member
(I moved the 1987 pictures to this thread.)
welcome my friend.
