London – a cultural blueprint for 19th-25th February

The February dawn breaks passive-aggressively into a Monday that puts the ‘morning’ into ‘mourning’, and then takes it out again. A bird drifts, scuds, flips, dies, and then turns out to be just a bit of leaf. Distantly, the distance distances itself. The BT Tower turns its nose up at its surroundings and shrugs at Hampstead Heath, which does nothing in return, because it’s a Heath. Below, culture begins to burble, murmur, churn, subside, froth, be a bit sick in its own mouth, and then overflows, grittily, into every nook and granny.

First, naturally, Eastwards, where a connective collective, The Piss, are hosting a face-breathing workshop in Leytonstone, but not the one you’re thinking of. Their leader, Sara Forcefa, maintains that face-breathing, or “freething”, is the only way to truly experience oxygen, a “sort of mind-within-brain exercise that cleanses thoughts of lumps”, in Forcefa’s words. They’ll be operating this “mind-shop” every morning this week near some bins outside the shop from between hours of morning and late morning. It’s free, currently, on account of Forcefa’s allergy.

A hand lurches from the shadows of the South, sinks you down to Norbiton, where, on Wednesday this week, excavations of London’s first ever crisp will be reaching completion. Local historian Burgundy Colgate has been crying for a week in anticipation, the stupid dickhead. Norbiton’s post-eminent Walkers Walkers, a group strolling the streets of KT2 covered in crisps and dips to raise awareness of the survival of local wildlife, have issued a statement that they “plan on setting up a street food stall near the site selling purely earth” in tribute to the momentous, momentary occasion of nothingness.

Barnet beckons! The entirely non-royal Borough of Barnet will be sinking its lacklustre chops into the third annual Boiling Festival this Friday, celebrating the Borough’s former resident Braille Gregg’s discovery, in 1916, of the boiling point. Every Barnetto will be required, by law, to cook water on their lawns for inspection by the local special constabulary, the Bubble Bobbies convened for the occasion. Any Barnetto found with water at a greater temperature than 100C is invited to a party in the Barnet Town Hall/Racecourse, in which they may or may not have fun, almost usually at random. 1970s comedian/painter Big Friendly Alice will be DJing (disc-jockeying) for, based on rumours, between an hour and more than a day.

Lastly, slither downwards into the abandoned Email Tubes, a network of entirely pointless pipelines deep under Southall. Built in 1987 when no-one actually knew what an email was, or what shape electricity took, these tubes stretch for 6 weeks under swathes of deepest West London. Most measure mere metres, more measure more miles. A tour guide, Robin Heckwad, will be guiding tours deeper and deeper into the network. It is unclear whether Heckwad knows what he is doing, but his argument in favour of exploration (“the means by which brains grapple with not-brains”) is persuasive, and fourteen infants have unwittingly, perhaps unwillingly, but certainly unwinningly, signed their names agreeing to adventure into this e-venture. The tour will only be taking place once, for as long as it takes. Meet at Greenford Underground at 7am on Saturday. Street food provided.

London blinks, and thus another week ends, or weekends. Culture folds itself in half more than seven times, renders the impossible possible, then falls off a shelf into a shredder, to be taken out by the binmen mostly on Fridays. Sleep, eat, breathe, and we’ll meet again.

#London #Thingstodo #Whatson #Leytonstone #Norbiton #Southall #Barnet