Johnson said ‘Take a walk’ so I took a walk

At this time of global crisis, the editorial team has decided to revive Idle Thoughts on London Walks, not least because a daily constitutional has now been officially mandated by the highest organ of the state, to wit Boris Johnson.

This periodical was launched in those quaint days before Year Zero when we were facing what was cast as an epoch-changing decision on our future in Europe.

Four years on and it’s a case of Sic Transit Gloria Brexit, as Johnson might say. The word that now startles us awake on the clock radio is no longer the B-word but rather the C-word. So much for taking back control.

Anyway, the government, advised by the boffins, has decided we should all stay in unless we have to all go out for some legit reason or another. These include shopping, working – as long as you do something useful, and having a daily run/cycle/walk.

(I’m writing this on Day 1 of the lockdown, so by the time you read it we may all be nailed under the floorboards being fed through straws.)

I’ve opted for option 3 as it involves no equipment and little exertion.

The powers that be have urged us not to wander off too far, so today I just took a stroll eastwards along the Thames via Jacob’s Island. Once a fetid part of the Bermondsey shore, it was a backdrop to what Current Archaeology mag has described as Dickens’ “blockbusting London slum story, Oliver Twist.”

The villain Bill Sykes is on the run and takes shelter there after fleeing North London (we South Londoners have all shared THAT experience!) Dickens provides directions: “… beyond dockhead in the Borough of Southwark, stands Jacob’s Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet deep and fifteen or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called Mill Pond, but known in the days of this story as Folly Ditch…”

When he gets there, Bill finds: “Rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud, and threatening to fall into it, as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage.”
Not exactly a spot to self-isolate, then.

They’ve since cleaned it up, of course, and even repaired the foot bridge that crosses the mouth of the Neckinger.

The shops in Shad Thames were shut but there were a few walkers, although frankly no fewer than usual in the quiet backstreets.

London flaneurs are already well-equipped for walks in the time of coronavirus: even in normal times we don’t talk to each other, hold our breath as we pass and never approach within two metres.

I made it as far as the Tesco’s in Tooley Street but, as I didn’t need anything, I didn’t go in. I know. Weird, eh?

Tomorrow, I might venture a little further – (within the recommended margins, in case the virus police are reading this) – and will report back from the frontlines.

Meanwhile, follow all the government’s advice. No, I’m serious.

Don’t, however, follow the Trumpster’s. After he recommended the “very powerful” drug chloroquine to treat Covid-19, the price went through the roof in Nigeria where three people have already overdosed on it. A man in Arizona died after taking a chloroquine substitute.

I never thought I’d say it, but it’s one time you’re probably better off listening to our own highest organ of state.