The Rothschild banking dynasty have built their buildings on the same bit of the square mile for over 200 years. Their latest project, New Court, is on St Swithin’s Lane and I’m in there doing a pre fit out condition survey.
It’s going to take at least two days so I’m holed up in The City, miles from home. This ghastly Premier Inn was not my idea; the company has a business account and I have to use it. My room phone accepts ‘all major credit cards’ and the internet is only £3.00 for 40 minutes – is this really the shape of the future?
I used to ride round here a lot when I was a DR for the newspapers at Wapping. How many hundred times I must have fizzed past with something urgent on board before this hotel was even built. Back then photojournalism (and newspaper printing) was all film based. Deadlines were tight and we used to flit from football match to ad agency to crime scene making pick-ups and drops.
The bike messengers were a crazy bunch of guys, no mistake about it. Based in a portakabin round the back of Murdoch's plant, in Wapping, all winter the guys would bitch and whine in this steamed up den with naked models plastered over the walls. The service was run on a rotation basis so you'd do your drop/pick-up and return to sit it out in the cabin, waterproofs round your ankles. Bike boots are generally too big to get waterproof trousers off easily so picture the scene. A group of hairy-arsed blokes with their trousers down talking big about women. It was all a bit distasteful the truth be told.
Things changed in the summer when the place looked more like an airfield during the Battle of Britain. The bikes parked up in a line ready to be scrambled, guys leaning out of windows squawking instructions at each other. Leathered-up lotharios lounging on the broken furniture that had been discarded outside, all febrile with the interminable waiting to be called up. Where to next? What stitch-up were those in Control dreaming up?
Filthy Phil, Johnny Handsome, Bubble and Squeak, and there was this guy dressed like a U Boat captain who bought a black GSXR 1200 off Pond Weed, who’d wheelied it into a gas bottle store, smashed the fairing and wanted nothing more to do with it. This bike without its fairing looked like it would slope off into the night, as he slept, to kill puppies. I’ve never had a bike like that, actually I did have a TL1000S for a few months, so that’s not strictly true, but I don’t think I missed out. I've never had the talent for out and out sports riding.
Anyhow, the replacement carb for the Black Bullet has arrived and I’m in bloody London. I need to get back home ASAP and take care of this repair.
It’s going to take at least two days so I’m holed up in The City, miles from home. This ghastly Premier Inn was not my idea; the company has a business account and I have to use it. My room phone accepts ‘all major credit cards’ and the internet is only £3.00 for 40 minutes – is this really the shape of the future?
I used to ride round here a lot when I was a DR for the newspapers at Wapping. How many hundred times I must have fizzed past with something urgent on board before this hotel was even built. Back then photojournalism (and newspaper printing) was all film based. Deadlines were tight and we used to flit from football match to ad agency to crime scene making pick-ups and drops.
The bike messengers were a crazy bunch of guys, no mistake about it. Based in a portakabin round the back of Murdoch's plant, in Wapping, all winter the guys would bitch and whine in this steamed up den with naked models plastered over the walls. The service was run on a rotation basis so you'd do your drop/pick-up and return to sit it out in the cabin, waterproofs round your ankles. Bike boots are generally too big to get waterproof trousers off easily so picture the scene. A group of hairy-arsed blokes with their trousers down talking big about women. It was all a bit distasteful the truth be told.
Things changed in the summer when the place looked more like an airfield during the Battle of Britain. The bikes parked up in a line ready to be scrambled, guys leaning out of windows squawking instructions at each other. Leathered-up lotharios lounging on the broken furniture that had been discarded outside, all febrile with the interminable waiting to be called up. Where to next? What stitch-up were those in Control dreaming up?
Filthy Phil, Johnny Handsome, Bubble and Squeak, and there was this guy dressed like a U Boat captain who bought a black GSXR 1200 off Pond Weed, who’d wheelied it into a gas bottle store, smashed the fairing and wanted nothing more to do with it. This bike without its fairing looked like it would slope off into the night, as he slept, to kill puppies. I’ve never had a bike like that, actually I did have a TL1000S for a few months, so that’s not strictly true, but I don’t think I missed out. I've never had the talent for out and out sports riding.
Anyhow, the replacement carb for the Black Bullet has arrived and I’m in bloody London. I need to get back home ASAP and take care of this repair.
