7th February 2001 - 8:35 p.m.

I have a job interview arranged for the afternoon and so, inevitably having to buy a travelcard anyway, I decide to get my money's worth and spend the whole day in Central London. To the Tate Modern, then. I haven't been to the Tate Modern before, and am secretly slightly ashamed of the fact. But if the Tate directors are going to instigate this schism, this vulgar chronology of art, my reasoning goes, then one might as well have one's fill of the 'Classics' before moving onto the more recent works. So I have been wiling away many a day in the Tate Britain and now, finally, I feel ready to step beyond it. Into the Modern...

"There's nothing they won't do to raise the standard of BOREDOM".

In this ghetto of Modern Art, the romance of Rodin is equal to the Manifesto of Futurism is equal to Yoko's bottom is equal to.. Each has worth in as much as they form a part of this monolith of modernity, a stormcloud over the heads of everybody trudging through here today, earnestly attempting to come to terms with the impenetrable. Perhaps I am speaking of the overpowering nature of the display. But... that's not quite it. Everything in here, we are expected to accept, has importance not because of what it is, or what it communicates, but because it forms a part of some spurious ORDER. Every exhibit is a FACT in this constructed history and, as a fact, is no longer open to question or further scrutiny. Yes, that's it. And the reason that so many of us are left cold by this Show of Strength is that works of art are not facts, not pieces of evidence. And being required to view them as such ensures that one becomes aware of this parallel universe - much as one might become aware of a niggling pain in one's ear - but is condemned to stand forever on the outside, searching through one awkwardly-themed gallery after another, following the sounds of laughter and pleasure and wine being poured, in the hope that it will lead one to the entrance, an entrance being bricked-up with every new imposition of evidence and ennui.

I enjoy the Gilbert and George exhibits most, because their glossy veneers allow me to check my reflection whilst standing before them - just making sure that I’m still alive, just reasserting my humanity.

Debord, quoted in the new ‘Century City’ display: “All sound and rage, signifying nothing”.

"The city is the most democratic of environments", a sign tells us. And underneath: "Admission: £10.50".

Only the Warhol gallery really does itself justice within the sterile environment. Prints signifying only their own cultural import, representing only iconic value; art made for robots by robots. Veneer, sheen..

And this isn’t, I should make clear, an anti-modernist rant. Of course Rothko can hold his own against Carravaggio, but in these kinds of surroundings, you wouldn’t really be inclined to bother with either of them. And I don’t - I make my exit as soon as I’m clear-headed enough to do so, abandoning Rothko, Duchamp, and Bourgeois to the all-pervasive boredom.

As I scribble my impressions into a notebook, a group of pensioners leave the gallery and congregate around the next bench to mine. One turns to another: “I just couldn’t stand any more of it - it’s the biggest load of old crap I’ve ever seen”. Regard all art critics as useful and dangerous.

Perhaps I should spend the evening in a bar, blowing next week’s food budget on liquor (“I don’t drink to forget - I just drink”), and I’m tempted to head back to Bradleys and prop myself up on a stool, reading, whilst the clientele chatter behind me. But, what with the interview and all, I am sans make-up, and am now feeling very naked, very vulnerable, and, anyway, decidedly wretched.

Into the blackness, then. Further out into the night.

My feet by now already bruised, I wind through Leicester Sq., Charing Cross, Soho, onto Trafalgar Sq., noticing the spectres on the horizon, dark figures clustered around a cenotaph.. ‘Women in Black’, voices against the bombing of Iraq, mothers of the murdered - a ghostly conscience in the hedonism of London nightlife. Turning away, I stumble down The Mall, towards Whitehall, discovering St. James’ Park for the first time. On past the quaint sign directing visitors to ‘The Cakehouse’, and down, down, down, my legs delivering me unto a solitary bench.

Silence.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The hidden London.

A silence of waterfalls and wind brushing up against the rosebushes and the occasional hum from the skies - look up at the aircraft circling and circling before disappearing over the imposingly formal buildings of government. A crane, as though pressured by some invisible hand, slowly begins to turn towards me, and then away again, its underneath spot-lit by some lamp-post far far below.

A sweet Mexican boy approaches me for a light, and returns a moment later to give me a Guatemalan cigarette (‘Robios’), his last, as a parting gesture.

"Once before I die/ I found peace in my heart.."

But we can’t stay in this curiously stilled world forever, and so we move once more towards the river, following the illuminated shell of the London Eye. Through Whitehall, past an abandoned guard in an antiquated helmet, beyond a sign proclaiming him to be one of the ‘Queen’s Life Guards’ (forgive me, readers - I couldn't help but laugh at the thought of the Queen being berated for ducking and bombing). Walking before, behind, beside, civil servants and junior ministers and press-spokeswomen, and being struck, quite suddenly, by the realisation that this is my natural environment; this is where I should be working. Not with the studes and pseuds, and their “We’re all a bit mad here, as you can probably tell!”. But in the domain of deceit and lies, and cover-ups, and wholehearted wrangles about nothing in particular. The world of embittered besuited men and private drinking clubs. Of fallen ideals. Of Gay Mafias.

By now, I'm tiring of the crowded solitude, but still not ready to return home. "Where do you go, when you don't even know what it is you desire..?". Myself, I retire to easyeverything in search of contact with someone, anyone, even if they're hundreds of miles away in front of a PC in Stockholm. Just for the evening, just for this moment, I believe in words again. Because, really, we have little else to fall back on. I smuggle some wine into the cybercafe, converse with virtual-strangers, and type up this curious day. Until I reach a point where, my typing having caught up with all that my mind has to offer, I have to finish.

Fin.