Escapism

When I began the idea of dating myself, my first idea was to see the latest Spiderman release – I love Spiderman and I reckoned my date would love him equally. But a little research told me that first, I really needed to catch up with the storyline in Avengers Endgame. That film is now only showing in the West End and I couldn't fit that in last weekend because I was dating my mum in Rochester. Which is why I went to see the latest Tarantino last Sunday instead.
For those of you yet to see it, I cannot recommend it highly enough! 
It's still with me and I'm tempted to go again.

But a trip into That London shouldn't be a single-purpose ticket and so I decided that prior to the film I would visit the Oxford Street branch of Flying Tiger because there is an item they sell that I hanker after. So I caught the 10am train from Chatham and found myself in close proximity to three young women. I'd guess between 16 and 20 years old, but most likely 16. They were wearing precious little apart from body glitter and unfeasible false eyelashes and they had set out on their table 2 bottles of wine and 2 litres of dark-fruit flavoured cider which they managed to almost entirely consume during the 50 minute journey. Jade was constantly harangued by her louder companions for not keeping pace. I hope they enjoyed their day out but I had a nasty suspicion that tearful emotion or a bout of vomiting might spoil it.

Tiger, unfortunately, was out of stock of the item I was after, and so I bimbled back down towards Haymarket. In Leicester Square I was entertained by a very fit young breakdancer who was an excellent showman and incorrigible flirt as well as brilliant with children. It was perfectly obvious that he had not been raised in Britain but appears to be fitting in very nicely. Along Coventry Street I spotted a woman dressed in exactly what I had had already in mind to blip, and had she been alone I might have braved asking her if I might take her portrait, but she was in company and I hadn't the courage to ask.

I stood and waited, along with crowds of others on both sides, for permission from the lights to cross Haymarket. While we waited for the little red person to become a little green person there was no traffic, but better to be safe than sorry. At the moment the little green person appeared a woman with child in pushchair stepped into the road from the west side towards the east. With the synchronicity of a well rehearsed flash mob, everyone on the east side facing west thrust their right arms forward and showed her their palms. She stepped back. She could not see what we could, which was three armoured police vans hurtling towards us with blue lights flashing and sirens wailing. They passed, the little green man turned red again but we all crossed anyway. The shock of it all had reduced the woman with child in pushchair to tears.

I walked down Haymarket to the cinema, whose doors were not yet open, so I was treated to the spectacle of a small scabby rabble of standard-bearing and chanting white supremacists stomping up the opposite side of the street entirely surrounded by police officers. I'd guess it was unplanned, there were only about 50 “patriots” and about 30 police officers, whom I can only assume had been in the screeching vans moments earlier. It was quite apparent, even from the opposite side of the street, that the Nazis did not welcome their police escort.

I did not particularly enjoy the film. I enjoy Marvel SuperHero flicks as a genre, but I prefer those which focus on an individual: So I love Spidey, Deadpool, Antman. I'm quite fond of IronMan but only because he is Robert Downey Jr. He's not actually a SuperHero is he! He's a rich boy with a lot of technology, just like Batman. I like Guardians of the Galaxy too, for quirkiness, and Thor, except in Ragnarok. I guess I prefer the more intimate focus, and not vast interplanetary battles, despite the fact that a former workmate and friend seems to be best buddies with my assumed brother, Thor.

But I have difficulty with facial recognition; the vast majority of screen artists are indistinguishable to me. I used to confuse the person who plays Thor with Brad Pitt, but now that Brad Pitt has lost his Pretty LittleAngel I mistake him for Beau Bridges. DiCaprio, of course, is always unmistakable, but he is never a Marvel goon. So I was confused at the end of the film; Was the woman who Captain America had retired for the same character who died on the planet with the Soul Stone? Or a different brunette? Had I been given a Post-It note to highlight that X died to save the world, that would have saved me a lot of time and money, but the day was saved entirely by the events with the police up and down Haymarket.