Exit Strategies

The first time I came to UK I was thirteen years old, and one of the things I still remember was the surprise I had by discovering you could get an ice-cream or a soft drink in a shop that sold newspapers as well. Another surprise was to see cigarettes sold in supermarkets, right nearby the cash desk. Comparing habits between different countries (and/or cultures) has become something I don’t even realise I continuously do now, but at those times it was for me a real shock. Commercial licences in Italy are now a little less severe then before, but still cigarettes can’t be sold in supermarkets (you find them only at the tabacconist, who can’t sell food in the same shop), and you can find soft drinks whilst buying the newspaper only if you are in some fancy small shops selling anything in touristic areas.

Not much has changed here – by this point of view. Shops keep on selling different goods and giving different services at the same time in the same room. So you can get your mobile phone unlocked whilst waiting for your coat to be dry cleaned, or you can get a haircut whilst buying bags.
Whilst walking in Mare Street, I notice a huge amount of mobile phones hanging on the right side of the entrance of a butchery. “Can I take a pic of the shop for my blog?” – I ask. The guy stares at me, and replies “Ask the boss, over there”. I enter this sort of grocery store, meet this man, likely from Middle East, and ask him the same question, explaining I will write an article about this issue as it’s something unusual for us. “Really?”, and then he turns and calls another guy, an even younger shop assistant. “Is it true that in Italy you need licences to open shops and sell goods?”. This last guy looks at me and then at him and replies “Yes”. And then asks me: “Sei italiana? Anche nel mio paese devi avere le licenze. Qui è davvero strano anche per me!” (“Are you Italian? In my country we need licences as well. Here is definitely weird for me too!”), and smiles. He is from Romania, but learnt a perfect Italian by watching Tv shows and cartoons whilst he was a kid – quite a common habit for Rumanians that became an unwilling learning strategy and then a useful competence when they turned adults. “I let you take a pic if you give me the article!” – shouts the owner from the back.  “Fine! You will see it on internet!” – I shout him back.

Another pleasant surprise about London is the existence of so many open air markets selling any kind of merchandise. Markets are wonderful places to grasp the mood of a place. You can experience different way of greeting and talking together between the people, you can understand much about the common food eaten in a place, the gender relationships issues, the city councils strategies to improve an area, the values and attitudes of those working or living nearby and so on. I had the chance to visit a few markets up now – quite different as goods sold. I already told about Broadway Market (where all the young creatives and artists of London Fields meet to buy expensive organic or imported food), and as well I did about Camden and its (fake) punk reminder. Let’s switch to two new discoveries: Ridley Road and Brick Lane markets.

Ridley Road one (in the area of Dalston) is what is more closed to my personal experience of Italian open air markets: housewives meeting and comparing prices, people wandering about without a specific need, dealers shouting the freshness of the seafood they sell. Little differences are what I got used to notice: whilst in Italy you would have a stall assistant collecting for you the food on the quantity you require (kilos, hundreds grams) from a tidy pile of a specific vegetable or fruit, here you have the same product already split in different baskets, each of them going under a specific price (1 pound, 50 pence etc.). And, of course, the variety of imported goods is quite undelievable too, and reminds you constantly the colonial past of this land (not to mention the people themselves): I keep on wondering about the use of huge cactus limbs perfectly aligned nearby other fruit, and still old african men comfortably dressed in tunics and gym shoes – arguing about the quality of a yellow/golden/green coat coming from Ghana – attract my surprised gaze.

Brick Lane is a flea market that take place on Sundays in Shoreditch. You can find quite a few used stuff there, ideally gatherable under the notions of ‘posh snobbish vintage’ on one side, and ‘desperately sadly miserable’ on the other. Nothing in between – apart from (stolen) bikes. But, as it always happens in these kind of makets, people can express their creativity in drawing the attention of potential custumers with odding strategies, such as  placing a perfectly functioning and switched on television right on the pavement nearby a rubbish tin.

But the best DIY attitude is testified by an online resource for professional beggars: the Hackney freecycle. Freecycle is online community of ‘givers’ and ‘takers’ under the notion that what is the garbage of a person can be a treasure for someone else. Membership is free, and everything posted must be free as well. Anything can be given, taken and recycled in different ways, using all your creativity to fullfill your needs. Brigida got four folding chairs that match perfectly the eco-style of her flat. I got an ink-jet printer Epson Stylus probably sold around 2001 that matches perfectly my old laptop bought in 2002, so that none of the two feels old-fashioned. And one day I will be able to find a black toner so not to have to use the blue left one in the space of the black – as I’m doing now. Or I will find a way to refill the toner myself, by buying some fresh black ink and probably wasting the half of it in my hands… Awww, whatever!

Another day wandering around – still not knowing what to do next months, and taking the day off to go shopping and then relaxing, as I needed to… Went to Tesco in the area of Hackney Central Station: “I’m lost in the supermarket / I can no longer shop happily”. Little differences for an anonymous non-place. I found my way by talking to people: “God gave us the tongue to be able to ask directions” – as I used to say to strangers on my first Inter-rail when I was 18, and everybody wondered how this young girl could feel home everywhere, even in perfectly unknown places.

I spent the evening watching with my flatmate (and landlord) “The Boat That Rocked” (on a big screen & videoprojection: sometimes is not bad to enjoy others’ richness!), a lovely good film, with an amazing sountrack, about the first free radios in UK in late 60s. Rebels, pirates – we keep on building on that, isn’t it? The last romantics…

Thuesday passed in writing emails to universities, then, in the evening, I eventually went to one of the best concerts I’ve seen the last years: Kultur Shock, playing at the Camden Underworld. The Underworld is a music club, in the basement of a tipical victorian building. A good band played as supporters, Drunken Balordi. Fine gipsy punk, slightly folk too, sometimes. But really good.

And then Kultur Shock went on stage. And their songs and attitudes are really engaging and immersive! Take a look at the video to have an idea of the two hours I had the pleasure and honour to join. The violinist was the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen, and the singer had such a powerful voice and shy attitude at the same time, that you felt like crying at the lyrics of their songs.

Little differences: people in Italy dance. With different styles, some being a real vision of beauty, some others making you smile as they still have to train – but yet, they all dance and move according to the rythm. Here none of the people of the audience could dance, not even move to the rythm. Running, punching, kicking or, less dangerously, simply jumping. No surprise that “the music of the people who couldn’t play” – the punk – was born here by these beat&melody unconscious people! But I’ve been told that *the norther people* (expecially the ones from the area of Liverpool or the ones who come from different areas of England and then joined together) are much better, ahahah!…

The concert ended at 11pm – quite surprising for me used to concerts beginning at that hour, but this meant no worries in coming back. Even when not knowing where the bus stop to come back was. I asked a little young girl with violet hair, piercings, black clothes, with the @ stuck everywhere on her light jacket. And she moved from her way to lead me to the right bus stop – walking in the coldness of this humid town. “Aren’t you cold?” I asked. “Yes” – she replied with a smile. We said goodbye at the bus stop, and she straight off kissed me on my cheeks. I will probably never see her again, but she is part of my personal beautiful world now – a sister, a mate, an ‘accomplice’ in making the *wider society* better, and more mutually supportive. So thanks, my dear: wish you to keep on behaving this way!