London Monsoon - the blue Oyster cult

Man in street.

He peels foil from the cork of a champagne bottle and tosses it to the floor.

"Hey," he says.

I walk by.

"Hey!"

I Look.

"Gimme a cigarette," he demands, eyes swollen, Italian accent.

I look at him. Nice suit - black. Expensive shirt - white silk. I look at the bottle in his hand - Bollinger.

I say, there's a shop there, go buy a packet. You can afford it.

I walk on.

"Hey! Fuck you," he shouts after me.

I say, no, fuck you, Jimmy Somerville.

"Fuck you."

Y tu mama tambien, cabron.

"Come back here, I'll kill you."

I walk. Expensive clothes, bottles of champagne, and he is begging cigarettes off me.

Night bus now. Girl leans over and gives her boyfriend a blowjob.

Only on the night bus.

The rain fell heavy tonight.

Monsoon.

For 20 minutes. Torrents storm south down Regent Street, hiding the deadly potholes in the road under dirty pools of water. I got wet. And then I got wet some more. Keep cycling to raise the body temperature.

But now on the night bus I am getting cold, as the girl in a red ballgown goes down on her boyfriend once again.

I have joined the Oyster race now. The blue Oyster cult. No option. Only way to travel cheaper. Oyster card.

Cheaper for now. Until they phase out all other ways to pay for London transport. The single ticket. The travel card - daily, weekly or monthly. Cash.

Then and only then, when there is no other option, no consumer choice, only then will the price escalate, sky-rocket, to the goddamn moon and back.

Total control.

Privatisation on parade.

Globalised.

No choice.

And everyone will complain. And Oyster and Transport for London and the public and private ownership, the PPP they call it, they will say, Yeah? What you gonna do about it?

Twisted day

Indeed. It was. Woke up sick and weak, and coughing up lung butter. Missed the court appearance, seemingly got little done, a few advancements, then rushed to film in the centre of London. I coughed all the way through the interview.

Then Rickshaw. Fixing shit put time in base, and a 30 minute delay because the NCP operator went anal on my comment about taking her five minutes to answer my call for assistance. Good job I wasn't a mugging vicitm, or worse.

My comment led to me being ignored for some 30 minutes. In the meantime my left tyre went down slow and silent.

The night was clean, no cash, not for most. Then a fight broke out on Old Compton Street. Rickshaws all stepped in to defend the rider from a group of six well-dressed men, one of whom had tried to jump in the rear of his Rickshaw.

I was just having fun, he said.

But his fun went up the nose, no regard for the consequences, no matter how disassociated with him it was, at that moment in time, no matter where it was in the world.

His eyeballs were heavily dilated, so much I could clearly see the moon relfected in them. He drew in aggression like a vacuum. And was getting into it. A story to tell over many bar tables, in between regular visits to the toilet where horizontal mirrors lie ready and waiting.

Now, back home, getting into some heavy research, whilst burning and rendering, and trying to calm down and disinfect myself of the lung butter with hot honey and lemon.

Waiting, waiting, spend all my time waiting...

It seems a long time now, since I was in Russia (Reports 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). It may as well be another life. Back to London, escaped to a Climate Camp for a few days, then work, Rickshaw, back to dark and dirty Soho.

But things are fairly well and true. Money is slowly coming in, through one means or another, work is there, you just got to go and find it, then hassle editors till they say yes just to get rid of you.

Please, pay him, for christ sake, he's rinigng so much my wife thinks I'm having a gay affair with someone named after bodily hair.


Russia was a tough gig, but not as tough as trying to get home tonight. Dead people on train tracks, all tube services down, the ones that were operating stopped short of anywhere in the North West.

I was stuck in there, in the canals of Baker Street, with seemingly no way out. Flashbacks from the third Matrix movie. I am Neo. Stuck in an underground station. No way out. Every exit leads back to where I started.

The buses were full, escaping tubers trying to make it through the downpour. After nearly 30 minutes two N98 buses had passed. Both did not stop. Dispite off-loading passengers some 100 metres down the road, then not stopping to pick up anyone at the bus stop.

I quit, jumped a cab with three others. It cost me £14 to get home, I can't really afford it, but I'm glad I did it now.

A desperate night. And I have to be up at 9.30am to get to court. Not my trial. Not yet, anyway.

Trains, border patrols and island retreats

Friday 14 July.

Made it.

12.38pm.

Collected press pass and jumped the ferry to the official press office to meet contact and try to decide what the hell I am doing here.

The border last night was a headache. A long and drawn out identification process, questioning and searching of train cabin and luggage.

Still, I'm here now. So, on with the job at hand.

The latest information about the anti-G8 demonstrations is all protests are banned. The gathering activists and demonstrators are held up in Kirov sports stadium, where they are authorised to be. Only if they try to leave in mass they will be stopped.

Or at least that is what the concensus here in the press office is saying.

So, that is where I am heading, to Kirov stadium.

No turning back.

Always forwards.

Always grinning.

Oscar Beard, out.

Okay for now.

Chesire cat under a hot tin roof

Thursday 13 July.

Riga, Latvia.

First step of the journrey over and done with.

Cramped and delayed flight.

Begging beer from Italians, always the best way to drink.

11.20am.

And Riga is under an unnatural heat wave.

I may have overdressed for the occasion.

This hostel and many other buildings I can see in Riga have tin roofs. Not good when the sun starts blazing.

The next step of this journey is going to be the hardest, it seems. Riga, across the border, to St Petersburg. The train does seem the safest option.

Just hope the credit card holds out under the pressure. The bank wolves have been closing in for sometime on me.

But first a good breakfast, then trains, then on into an unknown assignment of great personal danger.

Fear and panic all the way.

But the only way now is forwards.

Humvee hard-on

This week I want to be rich.

Rent a limo.

No. Rent a Humvee limo. Stretched. Black.

So big they get stuck turning across the major junction at the corner of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road. And that’s a big junction.

Still, not as bad as last year, when I was on Commercial Street near Aldgate and watched a stretched Humvee pull out from a narrow side street, get stuck - unable to move forwards or backwards - and the entire vehicle jammed between two brick walls. I don't know how it got free, as I had to leave. But it kept me laughing all the way back to North West London.

Yes indeed. Get a bigger car. Faster? To hell with that. Just big and mean and black. Hummer. A Warrior. It looks cool, even in the 2am traffic jams in Central London.

And still the Rickshaws are blamed for congestion.

I wish one day I will write, hey, everything’s cool, made a packet, everyone was nice and friendly and life is great, just like Tony the tiger.

But to bring a reality hammer on the situation, so far that has not happened. The night I made £200 I nearly got close. But my bank hit me with so many charges in three days, I was immediately down £130, eating away most of that money.

But look on the positive side. As Thompson said, learn to enjoy losing. If I didn’t earn that money that night the bank would have eaten me whole, chewed my bony soul around for a while and spat me out, a mangled and ruptured victim of the global banking system.

When you have money, they offer you more money. Loans, mortgages, credit cards. When you have no money they charge you. And charge you again. And charge you for being charged. The downward spiral into “not economically viable”. Doom.

But no. Ahead. La vida es una lucha siempre.

Thursday 15 July.

Friday morning.

Waiting for the bus home.

An inspector waits at the bus stop with me and 20 others.

For the first time ever all the buses arrive on time.

The rumours of inspections rife in the bus driver’s locker room. Just like rumours of care inspectors arriving at the local care home. Be on your best behaviour.

I watch the pattern made by water slopped on to the pavement. It moves, creeps, and takes form. Becomes solid and textured. Patterns appear. Skeletal frames. Insects. I have seen these many times before.

Inspector pokes and prods his electronic notepad, looking intently into the glowing screen with heavy frown of concentration.

I look up.

Bendy-bus.

It pulls up, all 18 metres of the beast.

Inside stand four bus inspectors. Huddled together. Safety in numbers. All looking intently into their glowing electronic notepads.

Even through the window, standing five metres away, you can tell there is no communication. No talk. Only incessant poking and prodding with their display pens. Maybe they communicate through high means. Are they human? Many would disagree.

I look back to the inspector by the bus stop, then back to the four on the bus. Then back again.

All poke and prod.

They are communicating. They don’t look up from their prodding but they each know the other is there.

Despite, colour, features and weight, these five are certainly linked in some way. Same mother. Artificial insemination. Cloning. Test tube. Bestiality.

They are linked in ways we could never comprehend.

Centre Point

Sunday 6.24am.

Sun is up.

Took a photo of Centre Point and sent it to Sue at the sunshine festival, entitled "The End". Surely a contrast to what is going on there, as it is there to what is going on here, in London, as the sun rises over Centre Point.

Earlier we are sitting on the roof of a car park, overlooking the city centre. I am looking at Centre Point and wondering out loud if “they” will ever run a plane into it.

Imagine the destruction.

If a commercial jet plane on 9/11 can fly at three metres from the ground and plough into the Pentagon, then a precision trajectory can easily fly a plane into Centre Point.

It wouldn’t even have to hit the building directly, just the top two floors.

The devastation and civilian casualties would be unthinkable.

The building would probably collapse and the wreckage from the plane would rain down on thousands along Oxford Street.

Complete doom.

Still, the sun is shining.

It’s such a perfect day,

I’m glad I spent it with you.

I just got back from Vie-Yet-Naaaaam.

Do you wanna buy some heroin?

Choice.

Game.

Currys, Next, Superdrug, Ann Summers, JD Sports, KFC, Pret-A-Manger.

Not a bus ride home, more 40 minutes of advertising for the same 20 multinational corporations.

O2, Costa, William Hill, Caffé Nero, McDonalds, Starbucks, M&S, Caffé Nero, William Hill, McDonalds… Jesus, he’s started repeating himself again.