Adventures in North London

Last Tuesday night was a strange one, and not just because I stepped out into the streets of King's Cross into bucketing snow. I happened to be in King's Cross to attend an x:talk fundraiser with my friend Sarah. After work I walked up north, arriving in King's Cross about 45 minutes earlier than planned. However, there was lots to look at while I waited for Sarah. The upside of the sun going down at 4.30pm is that all the bars and restaurants and houses look so inviting and cosy, full of warm, happy people and glowing light. Sarah told me there is a word for this in Danish - hoogli (??) which doesn't really have an equivalent in English.

It was also pre-Halloween so some of the shop windows were full of extremely tempting themed treats.



Some interesting graffiti along the way (I never see much in the way of really cool graffiti here, despite being in the land of Banksy)


x:talk provides English language classes for migrant sex workers in London, and the fund raiser was held at an extremely pleasant gay bar not far from King's Cross station. I was not shoved or ignored once at the bar, the music was excellent, and everyone was chatty and interesting. There were also a number of live performances including an S&M reading by a delightful lady in a leather dress, and a rather cryptic piece by this young man, who also did a reading and then stood at solemn attention with a red cloth over his head while a clip from Dolly Parton's The Littlest Whorehouse in Texas was played on the TV behind him. He seemed very earnest and emotional about it all but I wonder if there was something I missed.


He was also wearing the most hardcore shoes I've seen in a long time. Good on him, I say.