Town Mouse
‘Paris doesn’t have much better weather and they spend hours sitting outside cafés’
Are the British learning to love the outdoors at long last?
As I write, the newspapers are predicting a long summer of illegal raves in fields and parks. The Government has relaxed the rules on alfresco dining in pubs and restaurants. Ravers will be going outdoors because it’s illegal to party indoors, and because all the summer festivals have been cancelled.
Already underground promoters have been setting up sound systems in remote locations and charging 30 quid for a wristband to get in.
The new embrace – or, at least, acceptance – of outdoors is something I’ve noticed on my daily bicycle rides around west London. The youth are discovering parks. In Wormwood Scrubs, an unglamorous area of common ground, which borders the prison of the same name, I saw a group of 30 twentysomethings standing near a bench. The girls had unfeasibly long eyelashes and the boys wore tracksuits.
On that bench was a music-producing device of some sort. The kids were drinking out of plastic cups and doing balloons. If you don’t know what ‘doing’ balloons means, get with it. It means inhaling nitrous oxide, rather in the manner of the 19th-century scientist Humphry Davy, who used to hold laughing-gas parties for his poetic friends.
Down by the river in Hammersmith, in the public spaces along the river path, the atmosphere is almost festival-like. There are barbecues, beers and modest music systems. The venue is free, the booze is cheap and there is no landlord to chuck you out or refuse to serve you – what’s not to like?
Of course we were incredibly lucky with the weather in May – the sunniest since records began. With weather like that, multistorey car parks and abandoned spaces under flyovers become impromptu venues in the evening.
For oldies, this mouse predicts a ‘Parisification’ of British cities over the summer, as restaurants and cafés, desperate for cash, find creative ways to operate alfresco and within the law.
And even if the weather is not great, so what? London gets only 1,500 hours of sunshine each year, compared with lucky Rome’s 2,500 hours. But Paris doesn’t have much better weather than we do, and they manage to spend long hours sitting outside cafés, smoking Gauloises and reading Apollinaire.
I think it’s something to do with their generously apportioned pavements. Parisian cafés have awnings and those fierce terrace heaters; so even in
November you can sit outside with a bowl of onion soup and a beer and gaze at the boulevardiers.
Even at this time of year, at 6pm Portobello Road is teeming with people standing about with gin and tonics and it all feels pleasantly European. I much prefer socialising outdoors because I can indulge my disgusting habit of smoking roll-ups. A particular form of bliss is to stand outside the Coach & Horses in Soho all evening, an experience only slightly spoiled by the non-stop attentions of the begging classes.
Paris tells us that pedestrianisation or architect-designed spaces aren’t the answer. Portobello Road has thankfully not been pedestrianised, while areas of London that have been – such as Leicester Square – are killed stone-dead. Covent Garden just about works but has an artificial feel.
Far better to let a bit of traffic drive past as in non-pedestrianised Soho, where much of life takes place outdoors.
Cars don’t mean success, of course. The Strand is not pedestrianised and is a living hell of chain restaurants. Streets need charm and individuality. If some chains sadly collapse, might they be replaced by smaller, independent places with their own character?
In the new POST-COVID world, we could work outdoors, too. All you need is a park bench and you can do your important projects via phone or laptop.
Theatres may also have to adjust to an outdoor system, like ancient Greek theatres – or the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, the brilliant initiative of artist Rowena Cade, who spent her whole life building it, starting in 1929. When I was at university, I played a rude mechanical in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the gardens of Clare College, Cambridge. Bliss!
Still, in some ways, London is luckier than Paris. When I told Mrs Mouse I would like to be like Samuel Beckett and grump my middle and old age away in Paris, she said she much preferred London. I asked why and she gave a one-word reply: ‘Leafier.’ It’s true. We have more leaves in our city. More trees and parks.
The only vexing question of outdoor life is what to wear. Men: please don’t wear those khaki shorts with loads of pockets, or T-shirts with band names on them. Now is the time to invest in linen and cotton. If we’re going to be out on the street, we need to develop our bella figura.