Dizraeli

This is an old story really- a day that happened more than a month ago. But I have to tell you about it, because I haven’t yet.

My old friend Billy Macrae is a photographer, and has an unparalleled eye for the same small street detail that I hope I have an ear for: the stories which unfold in places where people don’t stop to see them, in tube stations and on shopping streets; supermarkets and demonstrations. Together, on a sunslanted evening in July, we dove into London- Billy with his camera and me with a pad and pen - to see what we could see and tell. 

The story we found was Calm In The Chaos: writing rhymes cross-legged on the pavement of Oxford St, while the constant river of legs and feet emerged from the Circus and tumbled around us; finding pigeon-perspective from the top of a phone box, eye level with the surprised faces pulling past on the top decks of buses; playing with the light cast through the grilles in the Angel tube tunnels. Billy photo’d, I wrote. And it’s funny how people’s responses are altered by the presence of a camera: shoppers saw me seated in the middle of the wet pavement, and frowned with a mixture of unease and disapproval. Then they saw Billy, taking pictures of me… the media light went on in their eyes (…it’s OK, it’s all for the camera…) and Big Brother smiles cracked across their faces. Like, we can act Free, as long as it’s for show; to symbolise something somewhere else. I want to go out and do it all again, without a camera there, and see how the river runs then.

Anyway- we stayed out for hours, clambering over aspects of central London we wouldn’t usually, and then collapsed into cafe seats on the street near Soho. It was a good way to spend an end-of-the-day. Thanks Billy.

A couple of the results of this session are on this very website- one shot of me hanging over an edge in the sunlight, with rhymebook in hand; another of me crosslegged in the Circus. There are loads more brilliant pictures, though- Billy is a genius. You can look at a selection of them here.
Make sure you do, it’s a wicked website with hundreds of projects that Billy’s done. And if you’ve got money, give Billy work! Nice one.

Dizraeli

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