PSYCHOGEOGRAPHIES 4: LONDON STREET

Submitted by Editor on Fri, 10/04/2015 - 15:22

DAVID HILL EXPERIENCES THE NORTHERN FANLIGHTS

Have you ever been to the New Town's distant northern shore, where the rooftop permafrost combines with neck-top iciness to produce a chill homage to Nordic misère?

In 1874, the Icelandic national anthem was written and composed in this EH3 boreal zone, in the place still known back then as London Street.

With the sad clarity of hindsight, we understand how this innocuous beginning, this dipping of toes into glacial waters, all too quickly became a Scandi-deluge.

More perceptive locals nowadays refer to it as Nordic Town. Certainly, it's a road that hasn't had Georgian-ness on its mind for a very long time.

Should you ever venture this deep into the New Town, you'll immediately be struck by the street's affinity with the Far North. A smell of Scandinavia, it could be said, pervades throughout.

The first thing you'll likely notice is the street's distressing and devastating addiction to Swedish motor cars. You’ll see the junkies, pathetic figures, wherever you look. Around here, they don't just lurk in the shadows, but get their IV fixes, brazenly, in full view of everyone. (IV, for those not familiar with the medical terminology, means Into Volvos.)

This fixation, however, goes way beyond the vehicular.

The Street formerly known as London also pays homage to the excellent Finnish tradition of relaxed, family-friendly saunas. I can't, for the life of me, understand why gentlemen customers always seem to make such hasty, heads-down exits from this fine establishment.

It must, I've decided, be down to an urgent and understandable desire to buy a Scandinavian lamp or table at the design shop next door.

On your Norse safari, you will also, I'm sure, notice how certain residents look like they long ago initiated passionate love affairs with devastatingly good-looking Danish pastries. The pastries, no doubt, have long regretted these dalliances, but now appear unable to escape their lovers' clutches.

One such possessive individual can often be found sitting on their doorstep, soaking up the meagre northern rays. I sometimes tip my hat in greeting. It is to Nordic Town's eternal shame that this usually elicits a response that has all the joie de vivre of a wet winter's weekend in Stavanger.

Yes, sadly, the street's froideur is, in origin, as much psychological as meteorological. The combination of the two does not make for a pleasantly balmy climate. Here, be warned, you will require a warm coat and gloves at all times.

Even the street's trash-strewn squalor must surely be seen as homage to the North. Confused? Let me explain. Observe its monumental shittiness, even just for a moment or two, and try to resist clutching you face in existential despair like the agonised figure in Munch's The Scream. It can't be done.

Perhaps London Street's determination to present to the world an image primarily of leaking black bin bags, half-torn gull-proof sacks, and general muckiness is intended to be read as an earthy metaphor for a love of Nordic noir.

Or perhaps not.

In any case, it tries its very best to evoke one of the grimier Oslo suburbs. Those who look favourably towards that region's socio-economic model, I urge you to come to London Street, for it's already been enacted here. Be careful what you wish for.

London Street, it has to be said, you are very difficult to love. At a deeper level, way beneath these Scandinavian accoutrements, you're all too Edinburgh.

In spite of your fortuitous birth, you now endeavour to make the worst of yourself. You're a brother to Great King Street, but the king's street, even as it's slowly choked by traffic fumes, retains plenty of regal charm. Yours, London Street, long ago set sail for Reykjavik.

Not only traffic-clogged and noxious, you also try to inflict Death by Turd on us: merder, as it should be called. Originally, you were to be known as Anglia Street. Now, you have all the panache of a rusty Ford Anglia in beige.

You're like an old nobleman reduced to poverty, yet still, for some reason, determined to keep up appearances. You don't realise that all we see is the shabbiness of your once magnificent coat, your tatty trousers, your dirty fingernails.

It appears your gull-proof sacks will, at some point, be departing. Unlike other streets, you lacked the wit to manage them. To be honest, I worry about your ability to cope with any arrangements that require more than a reptilian brain to successfully execute.

Time to let the tundra reclaim London Street.