It's all over

The trip ended on Thursday 4 June. Apologies for the lack of posts recently - but things have been a little hectic and I lost my camera so no photos. The camera has now been found, so I will resume these posts at the end of the week. Plenty to tell, including the surreal experience of sleeping on a floating pontoon in the middle of the Thames at Westminster.

Rowing over the North Circular

29 May: Southall to Ladbroke Grove; 6 miles

I didn't know I was under attack until I turned around and saw the swan coming for me. It started as a noise, but such a loud noise, I thought it came from one of the light-industry wharehouses that line the canal around here (Wembley). Compared with the old Victorian industrial complexes that line London's waterways, the new factories don't really look the part. Even if they are heavy industry, they manage to look, with their lightweight slabby buildings, as though they are merely assembling computers very vigorously. The noise was something like a helicopter's rotor blades starting up - whump, whumph, whumph, getting faster and faster. I looked back and saw a swan skimming along the water towards me, feet and wings thrashing the surface. It slowed to a halt, tired, a foot away from the side of the boat, starting malevolently at me. Being stared at malevolently is always more powerful when the starer is staring out of the side of its head. An ancient fear of battle with the beasts is awakened. The swan then puffed itself up big, like an angry cat and repeated the manoeuvre twice. The power of it was frightening, and I grabbed an oar in readiness to fend it off, praying, please, please, don't make me strike this amazing creature on its slender neck. I hate swans, but to have to do such a thing would have sickened me. Thankfully the swan eventually retreated, but I've experienced this since - it's hatching season and the birds are very protective. A second later, I was in the single most deserted spot I've ever seen in London; walls on each side of the canal, and a long island in the middle, tarnished by disuse, but still wearing some of the pride of its original purpose. Twenty feet below me, unaware of what was just above, the North Circular roared with cars, glistening and panting in a traffic jam as their drivers went to work. Finally, this was it. I'd rowed over the North Circular.

A call from Boris Johnson

Two days ago, as I was ascending the famous Hanwell Flight of locks, my phone went. It was Boris Johnson's office. Could the mayor come sailing with me for a photo op? It was a bit of a surprise - but not entirely. I had lunch with Johnson's PR man a month ago (he's the one who has to get old Boris out of trouble every time he sticks his foot in it!), and we thought it could be an idea. Publicity (and a laugh!) for me, and for the mayor, a chance to be seen to be in favour of rejuvenation of the waterways of London - which I believe he is. Boris Johnson is far busier and more important than me. He's what Nick Hewar (Apprentice fans will know what I'm on about!) would call a 'big guy'. I am what Nick Hewar would call 'not a big guy'. So I offered to tweak my timetable to allow a photo op of me and BJ rowing. I will wait and see what happens on Monday. If he comes at all, I'll not get much notice, and perhaps he will arrive with a cavalcade of bodyguards in black cars? I sincerely hope so. Boris is quite a big guy physically too, about 16 stone I reckon, but it'll be fine if he rows, as he'll be in the centre of the boat, and I can squat in the stern. Anyone his size (or even my size) upsets the boat a bit if sitting on one side of it. And I wouldn't want to tip him into the canal - even though the publicity involved for me and my cause would be immense! Witness, after all, the news coverage he got from his near-accident on his bike. Watch this space as they say. Other than that, trip's going well, not much time to write anything interesting or thought-provoking. Lots of unexpected planning, most of it boring some quite cool ('permission from the PLA to transit the Thames Barrier' has a pleasant officer-class military ring to it...). Will update as soon as I can. And thank you anyone who has either sponsored me, taken the time to read these posts, or who is following me.

Photo: these are the bridges of the Acton Lane Power Station. An amazing contrast between new and Victorian industrial architecture.

DAY 1

27 May, Surbiton to Brentford, 9 miles

Engine trouble, persistent rain, a handful of a boat for one person and a bit too gusty at points. Oh - and I hate rowing. The question presents itself? Have I gone on holiday by mistake? I'm not sure yet. I made the first planned leg from Surbiton to Brentford, which is quite comforting, in about the time I thought it would take. But being in a new boat on a windy day, and sodden - I had too many things on my mind to take the surroundings in: there is life on the Thames. That's the first thing you don't see from the banks. Some malevolent - dirty mussels growing on slimy lock walls, spitting water as the level goes down; dead carp half chewed in half from unseen teeth below. And joyous: the Canadian geese with their tiny chicks, a large black cormorant fishing; and at one point, a mammal diving. I only saw it for a split second - could it have been an otter? Photo: this is where the tidal Thames joins the Grand Union Canal: west London's equivalent of Limehouse Basin.

The dark river

Anyone who knows the Thames, at least the tidal section or 'London river', soon becomes fascinated by its deadly force. It might appear pretty from afar, but go close to it and you will see it sucking against pilings and bridge stanchions and surging through gaps, a brown blanket hiding decay and death on its riverbed. The river has changing colours and can sparkle on a summer's day. But the glints of light don't belong to the river. They belong to the world above it, and they flash a warning, like that of a poisonous animal. The sinister nature of the London River is something no witness could have failed to notice, and in fact this emotional reaction causes a distortion to the truth of how dangerous the river actually is. People often talk of undercurrents, and of the horror of falling in, and how you'd drown. There seems to be a preconception that the river is the stuff of nightmares with the unreal power to rob you of your faculties so that, once in, you'd flail around, mind poisoned, unable to swim or think rationally. As far as I'm aware, there are no undercurrents on a river like the Thames. I can only imagine undercurrents being formed by thermal layers caused by huge, moving bodies of water in the open ocean - like the Gulf stream. Unlike most people, I have fallen into the Thames many times and even jumped off the Albert Bridge on a hot summer's day. I have felt no undercurrents. What people don't generally realise about the Thames is that in summer, when the tide comes back in over mud baked hot by the sun, the Thames can be nearly as warm as a bath. There is certainly a strong current running in the middle of a tide - up to 3 knots, or even a little more on a fast spring tide squeezed through the centre stanchions of a bridge. The main danger would be getting swept under something like a moored barge, and I imagine this is how most deaths (including suicides) occur on the river. Nevertheless, the river does carry some scent of the many who have drowned in it over the years. Joseph Conrard believed the river, particularly its estuary to "appeal strongly to an adventurous imagination." He noted also noted the spookiness of being on such a black, industrial waterway, just a stone's throw from a city the size of London - but utterly alone. These days, the river is even more empty, and, allegorically at least, just as deathly: "It smells ancient because it is ancient. The water that flows back and forth over millennia accretes to itself the sweat of industry, the poison energy of progress and the tang of endless death."

Lying about films

This is even more ridiculous than lying about books (see earlier posts). Saying you've read War and Peace is at least slightly impressive in a masochistic way. You've spent weeks, months even, reading a really dull book: you definitely haven't got ADHD. You have the attention span of a generation of readers for whom the only alternative was roasting chestnuts, singing Gilbert and Sullivan operettas or, if you were a child, playing with one of those stick and hoop combos old-fashioned children used to play with . But lying about liking a film?! On one hand, I'm inclined not too go on too much about how much I like the film Father of the Bride. I mean, it's a bit embarrassing - but it does embody the increasingly underestimated virtue of actually being true. At the same time I hate even more going on about 'impressive' films I like - so I won't. None of them is as good as Father of the Bride anyway... In truth, most of us like some films that are shit (and not just goofball, OK-to-like-it shit, but proper embarrassing, sentimental rubbish!) and some that coincide happily with a broader consensus of what's 'worthwhile'. It is therefore very suspicious that so many people seem only to like critically acclaimed films. They are the same ones who say they like Shakespeare, but are seldom, if ever, found at RSC performances. And never seen, 'Hamlet in Hand', so to speak. Spooky! Another strange fact: everyone I know has seen Titanic yet few admit to liking it at all. Or they only liked the TUFF bits - like the sinking of the boat! These are the people I really feel for. They were obviously expecting it, based on trailers, word of mouth and reviews, to be like Mullholland Drive. They must have been terribly disappointed to find it wasn't. 

1. Mulholland Drive

I saw this with a bunch of people who were as bored, not to mention confused, by this, as I was. When the film ended, they all said they liked it, and I (poor fool!) said I didn't understand it! None of them could explain it strangely. They just knew that it was difficult, by someone named after cheap lager, and... they liked it goddamit. Because it's by Stella Artois. They particularly liked the bit where the woman was miming into a microphone on stage. That was my favourite bit too, which doesn't say much as it's one of the most cliched jokes/illusions of all time (the piano that plays itself, Top of the Pops, etc etc).

2. Battleship Potemkin

Oh pull the other one! Even the poster for it (see above) makes me feel as bored as a kid in a church. 

3. Citizen Kane

Ditto. This is respected today for its ingenuity at the time of its production. But actually, life has moved on a bit since. Final Destination III is far better in every possible way.

4. Easy Riders

Folksy rot. Altough I do like that thing he does with his arm...

5. The Grandmother

David Lynch! Difficult! Brilliant! 

I would like to add the Big Lebowski, which, with its wilfully surreal, 'American indie' take, I absolutely hate, but I suspect people genuinely do like it. My equivalent is probably Society, which I can only describe as a 'conspiracy melt' flick. It's probably pretty dreadful in truth and I wouldn't expect anyone to like it - or even to bother pretending they did.

Engels and the Thames

Das Kapital is, of course, the big one: in fact, it would be a very good book to lie about having read (see Lying About Books, pts I and II, below). Less known is the work of the younger Frederick Engels, a peer (not a protege as is commonly assumed) of the great Karl Marx. Engels was, first and foremost, a journalist, and he was only 24 when he wrote his account of working class life in England in the mid 19th century. It is called The Conditions of the Working Class in England. I guess he thought a more mellifluous title would have been a bourgeois touch! I bought it recently (it's cued up at no 3 on my reading list), but had a peak at the front page, and was amazed to find a description of the Thames. When people think of the Thames, they generally think of Dickens as its master chronicler in fiction. Come to think of it, Dickens had a lot of the journalist about him too, although he wrote realistic fiction. Anyway, enough of my words: here is what Engels said about the Thames, presumably while sailing upriver:

I know nothing more imposing than the view which the Thames offers during the ascent from the sea to London Bridge. The masses of buildings, the wharves on both sides, especially from Woolwich upwards, the countless ships along both shores, crowding ever close and closer together, until, at last only a narrow passage remains in the middle of the river, passage through which hundreds of steamers shoot by one another; all this is so vast, so impressive, that a man cannot collect himself, but is lost in the marvel of England's greatness before he sets foot upon English soil. FOOT NOTE: This applies to the time of the sailing vessels. The Thames now is a dreary collection of ugly steamers.

It seems as though young Engels is seduced by the props of commerce; but in the next paragraph, the gloom sets in: "These Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human nature to bring to pass all the marvels of civilisation that crowd their city."

I look forward to reading on...