I'm going to give you a poem today, and one that's based on a true story. It was just before I graduated from Chelsea School of Art and Design in London back in '97 and we were preparing the Final Show. I popped out for a coffee on the King's Road, a road reknowned for its fashionable shops. Also the haunt in years gone by of the Sex Pistols and pals.
I'd been into a branch of this place before as they were a chain. They were modelled on a French brasserie and were a kind of sanitised Bohemia. At the Covent Garden branch a friend and I were accompanied by two guys in scruffy jeans and toolbelts and were made very welcome, so I didn't think there'd be a problem going into the Kings Road one with my long dreadlocked hair. Especially given that they were neat and I was carrying some bags - clearly I could afford to be there. And why would I? I was 'welcomed' by the most virulent display of what I suspect was good old-fashioned snobbery, given that Chelsea is mainly inhabited by the super-rich nowadays.
I did have fun writing it and it went down espcially well at a performance pots' evening right opposite the hotbed of ...ahem... 'bohemia' itself! think this was probably one of the last times that the service industry in London was dominated by Brits. If they were as polite as this fellow, then I'm so glad we welcomed Poland into the EU. Please don't go!
The Dôme
The man at the bar eyes me with contempt,
Coming in from the downpour, a little unkempt.
But hey! That’s the score when you’re out in a storm,
A nice cup of char will help me get warm.
The bags at my feet are packed full of buys,
And my monthly spending has shot to the skies.
My pilf has been splashed, no time for regret,
A drink at The Dôme stops me getting wet.
The man at the bar, not a move does he make.
So I take a seat, assume he’s on his break.
Still after ten minutes he’s not here with his pad,
With a look of derision his sour face is clad.
But a table of blondes he rushes to serve
With arse-licking duty, the simpering perv.
So I get the message, hey I’m not wanted here!
Served with a scowl and then shot with a sneer.
All roads lead to London, and it’s quite plain to see
That there’s fun to be had from A through to Zee.
WC2 has shops, bars and zest,
From Brixton to Westway squat parties are best.
In Camden there’s music and the finest attire,
A temple of marble rises from Neasden’s mire.
But in Royal Ken and Chel, where they claim to have class,
Their heads and their lives are ensconced up their arse!
So proud little man, don’t come out in a rash,
’Cause the Kings Road’s long been a centre for fash.
I can’t be the only one looking like me,
Who occasionally fancies a class cuppa tea.
Just ’cause you wait tables at a place called The Dôme,
Doesn’t mean you’re upmarket or that you own your own home.
When you claim you’re exclusive, stop having a laff!
’Cause at the end of the day you’re just a glorified caff.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
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2 comments:
No wonder the well-shopped rich continue to perpetuate childish games like "art careers" to the disadvantage of "everyone else" too poor/stupid/remote to "get it"...
they're so sensitive to the hollow criticisms of those they lord it over. You and your "poem" are pure silverspoon twattery. Eat a shitpie, honeylark.
I'm glad you're over it and it never really bothered you. Yeah, that server...what a rube, going back to his cheap flat making a fraction of what tea-drinking art students piss away on seasonally-recycled, emotion-bolstering wardrobe pieces. Yeah, what a bastard... he must have not recognized your bohemian white-girl dreadlock as your sign of empathic soildarity with the lower classes to which he belongs and you most certainly don't. And to think, you might have made a soul-searching life change to be a non-profit dinner gorger to help ease the plight of his people had he been just a tad more aware of your downward cultural nod to his kind. You know, servers... indigenous dark peoples... rap/rhymes/"poetry"... creative "work".
Well, it was a surprise to log in again and read such an erudite "remark". And all the more so from someone who doesn't have the balls to leave his or her name. By all means critique, but do have the gumption to give me your details and we'll chat.
But I will set a couple of things straight here. I may be white (wow! What a crime! Hang her!!!) and may have had dreadlocks and gone to art school, but that's really where the similarity to so-called privilidged bohemian ends. If I did come from that background I would say so but I do not. Neither do I come from the background my dad did, and did everything he could to get out of which I suspect you know nothing about. I come from an average neither rich nor poor background. I do not discriminate against people who are supposedly "higher" or "lower" than myself, though it sounds as if you do. I would suspect you of having an axe to grind which is significantly larger than the silver spoon you reckon to be in my gob.
The server himself was as white as me - and probably you! And it was at a time when most people in the service industry were English. The problem I had with this man was that he was just plain rude. I would not have had a problem if he'd come over and said he didn't want to serve me.
As for the "empathetic solidarity with the lower classes", get over it! Do you have any, or are you still rebelling against bath night at your expensive boarding school?
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