Nicknamed the ‘posho Euro’, he sat opposite me in a rooftop bar, chainsmoking. The cigarettes mustied the pashmina around his throat. The waitress came over. “Hello, yuz?” A Polish inflection. “I’ll have a whisky and soda, please.” He looked at me. “Oh, whithky and thoda? I love you awready,” a smile, a frank expression. He…
Author: Matthew MacLachlan
Matthew MacLachlan has studied and lurked in London for several years. He previously worked for The Week magazine and has written for History Review and The Jakarta Post. He is a lawyer and a broadcaster, and lives in Shad Thames.
Characters – Ghost Sailor
Thirdly came the sailor. A chap. Youngish, lithe but grisly with brown hair, reddish about his face, falling down moplike about his ears. He was handsome and sat around the other side of the reservoir, near a slipway outside a tatty boathouse. Wearing dark overalls and latex gloves, he was hunched over an upturned topper,…
London Characters: Wispy Lady
The second character I happened across was a day after the first, whilst my father and I were cycling past an oast house set in deep countryside by a reservoir. I say ‘deep countryside’ but, as the astute reader knows, such hardly exists in the immediate bestrew of London, and so I ask graciously, with…
London Characters: Elvis
Yesterday, whilst I was in crisis, my father and I met a character. It was at The Anchor Tap, a quiet nook by the river, and I met my father there to reflect on the difficulties of the modern condition, its monotony, the repressive fatigue of working in London, enervation at the close of difficult…