In simpler times, I wandered the streets aimlessly until I saw something worth writing about.
That ended when someone forced me to stay in the same room as two artists giving a presentation. They said people like me weren’t simply aimless wanderers, but something altogether more meaningful: flâneurs, leisurely explorers of cities who were sometimes known to walk a lobster through the streets.
Not that I would bother to walk a lobster in Hackney: people would just assume I’d bought my lapdog some body armour.
I already knew about flânerie from some reading I did as a teenager; but I still enjoyed the talk, largely because it’s fun to watch people pass indifferent work off as Art by sticking ornate labels on it.
When you boiled away all the piss, the two artists had been reading a lot of Iain Sinclair and had got interested in psychogeography, a concept neatly summed up by Situationist Guy Debord as:
the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals
Heavily influenced by Debord, the artists preferred to get an eyeful of the geographical environment by devising variations on the dérive, a term which could be crudely translated as an aimless stroll off the beaten track.
One method the artists used to create a dérive was by tracing a known route on a map, and then transcribing it as a series of ‘lefts’ and ‘rights’. They would then reverse these and, starting from the same place, see which unexpected places the new route led them.
It was a pleasant enough idea, and they spent many happy hours trying to convince the office workers of a medium-sized market town to give up a lunch hour in favour of the pastime. They even had a video of the one, mildly embarrassed person who did volunteer. My favourite bit was when the dérive directions quickly led him onto a main road that, had he followed it, would have taken him several miles straight out of town without the option of turning.
That’s a mistake that would be very difficult to make in my crowded part of London, but it’s not a risk I’m prepared to run. That’s why I have created my own Hackney dérive, which I will be undertaking in eight, short stages over the coming weeks. In each stage I will use my walk to spell out one letter from the word “BOLLOCKS” on Hackney’s streets, as outlined in the map above. This will take me to new places and help me see old ones with fresh eyes. Then I’ll come home and write about it: that way I’ll be able to find out whether this new method is any more effective that my usual aimless wanderings.
My proposed route is outlined below. If you have any information you would like to pass on about the following roads, or their districts, please let me know.
B
Portland Avenue » Darenth Road » Lynmouth Road » Stamford Hill » Lampard Grove » Alkham Road » Windus Road » Belfast Road » Stamford Hill
O
Lynmouth Road » Oldhill Street » Clapton Common » Braydon Road » Kyverdale Road
L
Osbaldeston Road » Cazenove Road
L
Fountayne Road » Northwold Road
O
Moresby Road » Warwick Grove » Mount Pleasant Lane » Upper Clapton Road
C
Southwold Road » Upper Clapton Road » Lea Bridge Road
K
Lower Clapton Road » Millfields Road » Lower Clapton Road » Downs Road » Cricketfield Road
S
Downs Park Road » Amhurst Road » Dalston Lane
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Comments
How do you find the time for such grand schemes? I am terribly impressed.
Puss
Sounds like a fun idea for a series of posts.
one method the artists used to create a dérive was by tracing a known route on a map, and then transcribing it as a series of ‘lefts’ and ‘rights’. They would then reverse these and, starting from the same place, see which unexpected places the new route led them.
I’ve done that before when bored, usually with the aid of an A-Z. I never realised there was a name for it - I thought I was just getting happily lost.
[…] Dérivative Bollocks […]
[…] is an account of the second leg of my mildly cynical (though open-minded) dérive, for which I am trampling the word “Bollocks” onto the streets of […]
fantastic ! What a great thing to do, I should love to walk through a city in such a way. And surely then , you must have read Paul Auster…The New York Trilogy?
[…] is an account of the third leg of my mildly cynical (though open-minded) dérive, for which I am trampling the word “Bollocks” onto the streets of […]
[…] is an account of the fourth leg of my mildly cynical (though open-minded) dérive, for which I am trampling the word “Bollocks” onto the streets of […]
Moved from Bath to Stokie in late 1960, I spent about 5 years there and have maintained connections ever since so have watched it change (or just stagnate)over the decades. I know the area can be grim, but you appear to be wearing your sourpuss cynic specs everytime you step out. Cheer up man there is some good stuff out there if only you give yourself a chance to see it.
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