Spending a couple of weeks in East London, close to Whitechapel, there’s no reason for me not to head to Brick Lane…it’s arguably one of London’s best street markets at the moment and whilst it’s often mobbed with tourists (especially at the weekends), if you arrive early in the morning, there’s plenty of opportunity to grab a coffee and start looking for new street art.
And love is all around, or at least all over, when I stare at the walls. I could post endless shots here (the walls are a paradise for budding photographers) but here are five of my favorites, all relating to matters of the heart.
In no particular order…
You know it’s not the same as it was…
Few are immune to having been told that the love of their life is no longer interested in us.
It’s painful stuff to hear - brutal, heart-wrenching, ‘can’t go on without you’ kinda stuff - but so often its precipitated with something far more anodyne,
Something along the lines of ‘…you now it’s not the same as it was.’ Of course, it’s a fact well known that nothing in life stays the same. So why, when it comes to matters of the heart, do we struggle to accept this?
2, Bet Lynch
Who didn’t love Bet Lynch, the busty blonde barmaid, whose presence in the Rovers Return pub who first made an appearance in the much-loved (and much-mocked) British soap opera ‘Coronation Street.
Bet, played by Julie Goodyear, made her first appearance on the programme in 1966 and went on to star in the show for 25 years more.
Graduating from barmaid to landlady, she was a real character, dressed in her trademark leopard print and sporting a beehive hairstyle.
Walking around the pub with a cigarette perpetually hanging from her mouth, she was probably one of tv’s most well-known stars in that period.
4. He talks about you in his sleep
Yes, but what kin of talk is it?!
Hopefully the loved-up kind but one never should take this kind of thing for granted.
of course, this also begs a bigger question, namely are we more truthful when we talk in our sleep (the subconscious being left to run riot) or is it all just fanciful nonsense, mere gibberish?
In this sense, I suppose i’m more of a Freudian, regarding dreams as the royal road to the unconscious. And if a man said he’d dreamed about me, I’d probably be quite flattered.
3. Love and Death
Two of may favorite subjects.
We crave love, we yearn for it, for many of us it is a priority in our lives.
Death, we crave less - we prefer not to think about it, if we can avoid it.
And then, of course, I’m reminded of Woody Allen’s great satire, with plenty of jokes about Russian literature, philosophy and the meaning of existence.,
No doubt it helps that I’m an enormous fan of the Brother Karamazov, Ware and Peace and Crime and Punishment so I get the inside jokes.
Watch this space for more Brick Lane street art…
5. It’s a Match
Ah, the infamous Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor, with her pouty lips, elaborate costumes and smoldering stares - no wonder Richard Burton fell for her more than once.
Throughout the film, the chemistry between them is palpable (this being filmed at a time when they were both married to other people) but as has been oft commented, ‘the heart wants what the heart wants.’
Taylor is the ultimate diva, dazzling at every turn, and as a movie it’s a spectacle of excess. Fun fact - Taylor did her own makeup for the film, including the dramatic eyes.