London Culture
Tory MP Jake Berry said, ‘For many who live in London, things like the opera house and the ballet will be the heart of their culture.’
I reckon he should define ‘many’ before making such bold statements about events that cost up to £150 a ticket.
London culture will be all things to all people, each with a different opinion of what the capital’s culture is. There will be a different perspective according to age, background, environment, financial capital, and taste. Some, who live within a TV Culture, define people and areas by TOWIE, Made in Chelsea, and the latest scripted reality show, Peckham’s Finest. Others, who get out and experience life, will know that none of those shows portray reality.
I asked the editor about his word-count of 500, and he replied that it is ‘a movable feast’, which put me in mind of London’s Foodie Culture, where people watch hours of cookery programmes, salivating over dishes they’re never going to cook, while others frequent the latest hot restaurants in town to Instagram themselves pushing a Superfood Salad round a plate.
My London culture is defined by my two personas. The pre-prison Micky Holland who had to kick open doors that were closed to him, and the post-prison Michael Holland with a degree, a teaching job, a journalist job and who now finds plenty of doors open.
The Michael came when a girlfriend said she didn’t want to go out with someone who called himself Micky! It also made my mum happy because she hates Micky and had her own high horse to ride even when we were a single-parent family round the flats. As a kid I would cringe when my mates knocked and asked if I was coming out: ‘There’s no Micky lives here,’ she would say as she spat out the offending word. ‘There is a Michael.’
As Micky I had a school dinner in the middle of the day, and went home for my tea at night. Why else did we call them dinner ladies when they were a world away from Ladies Who Lunch?
Leaving school, I started work in the City and in our dinner hour the other clerks introduced me to Spaghetti Bolognese. It was new and exciting. Exotic, even. And, of course I had chips with it! We all did.
The Micky years I spent in pubs and clubs, talking about crime and committing crime, and being told by the maître d’ in a posh restaurant that ‘One doesn’t have baked beans with duck à l’orange, Monsieur…’, while bringing me petits pois instead. It was a time when I got a taste for fine-dining, which one fine day came crashing down and I found myself having to find the positives in a daily bowl of porridge.
Now, as Michael, I don’t order duck à l’orange with beans. Besides, French dining is so passé…I also have a job as a restaurant reviewer and my Mum gets the hump if we turn up and finds the office has booked the table for Micky Holland!
‘There’s no Micky Holland eating here… There is a Michael.’
For professional reasons, I stepped into the Quinoa Culture. It was full of Quinoa Qunts. I have had avocado ‘smashed’ on sourdough toast for brunch, and had new potatoes ‘crushed’ with dinner. Not because I particularly like them but because I like to fit in. I know better than to order a Full English in a little boujie place that has opened in a railway arch we would break into for fun as kids on the estate; where every item on the menu has either artisan, free-range, or sustainable in the description.
And no sourdough bread has ever crossed my threshold, neither has an avocado, although, I am partial to a little couscous indoors occasionally. But only since I found out you just soak it in boiling water for eight minutes and it’s done! What a result. Quicker than rice, pasta or taters.
So, my life switches between worlds where people call me Micky or Michael, and where I love to see the confusion when the two worlds collide. And as for food, until Manze’s start serving crushed potatoes with the pie and liquor I’ll be happy.
About the author;
M. Holland admits he has been winging it for 20-odd years and looks forward to the next 20 doing exactly the same.