Inspiring Sights

The creative buzz of Hoxton starts to peter out after Clerkenwell Green and officially ends at the dip in the traffic lights. The piano music of a ballet school tinkles down Herbal Hill Street--one of the many Hill streets off Theobald's Road, If you go up one, you find Ben Sherman's studio, Another with a flaking sign for munitions and pub--the gun club, an arching staircase, an underpass in ironwork, a studio for rent, two coffee cups neatly placed on a bridge on Roseberry Avenue--one with a napkin from a fancy Italian eatery-the other with stains. How neatly they placed them. Why didn't they just put them back at the cafe? A pricey Thai take away, a couple arguing outside the fulbright office, I think of Ilya's parents--how they met on the ship, a man leaving a mews passing a health club I have a free pass to, a gang of traffic wardens going home, people spilling out of The Lamb, people starting on cubes of parmesan at Ciao Bella, a man sits with his dog alone with his pint at the Perserverance, the Muslim clerk looks at me differently as I purchase a lone beer myself and think of Txomin, The Spice of Life before the new furniture and the official plaque that read "the best secret in town."