AS the great Albert Camus used to say – I’m paraphrasing here – if you find something you like doing, you should keep on doing it.
A central tenet of the Frenchman’s Absurdist philosophy was that, as human existence is totally meaningless, you can either top yourself or make the best of it by repeated enjoyment of the simple things in life, rather than getting your knickers in a twist like Sartre and the Existentialists.
On this side of the Channel, the Hoxton-born music hall chanteuse Marie Lloyd put a similar message across somewhat more succinctly with the title of her 1914 smash hit ‘A Little of What You Fancy Does You Good’.
It doesn’t much matter which modest pleasure turns you on. Albert was a football mad teenager when he was growing up in Algeria, while Marie sings of the joys of an occasional glass of stout.
The problem at the moment is that even the most banal treats are, if no longer off-limits, at least constrained by the government’s latest runic “hands, face, space” injunction.
Even if Marie could find a pint of stout in London these days, she would have first to queue outside the pub and then enter via the hand sanitation station before ordering her tipple and paying for it by pressing her credit card to the barman’s plastic screen. Not what I call a night out.
Now, if your pleasure is a simple idle walk, there are no such barriers – plastic or otherwise. Albert himself, when he wasn’t playing in goal, used to like to wander aimlessly around the streets of pre-war Oran, delighting no doubt in the activity’s essential absurdity.
I bet though that he had his favourite jaunts, just as Marie no doubt had her favourite boozer.
Moi aussi, Albert. Often, as I head out, I have no idea which way my feet will take me until they hit the street. More often than not, however, they will head east along the river towards Rotherhithe – just over a mile and half an hour max if you’re not in a hurry.
I would rate it as one of London’s Golden Miles in terms of its connection with centuries of the city’s history and had hoped to take you on an extended tour there.
The trouble is your correspondent’s urban ramblings have been temporarily interrupted by a gammy leg. What would be a minor inconvenience to the sedentary is near fatal to the flaneur.
I write partly to reassure followers of the column’s imminent revival and to forestall veiled threats of subscription cancellation from among our wide domestic and international readership.
When Rotherhithe Live eventually surfaces, it will include pirates and pilgrims, a medieval royal hunting lodge, the entrance to the world’s first underwater tunnel, a pint at The Mayflower (today’s picture from our extensive archives), and a church with its own sauna.
Meanwhile, as Albert might have said, if you can’t keep doing what you did keep doing, pick something else in the meantime. Try reading a bit of Camus, he might have suggested (or “rereading” as guests on Radio 4 insist on saying). His 1947 The Plague has been selling like hot croissants since the pandemic started.
I realise that for many the temporary absence of this column will be one more nail in the 2020 coffin. But maintain a stiff upper lip and look ahead to a swift resumption of these ramblings.
Idle Thoughts on London Walks 