Brick Lane on a Sunday afternoon is a place of variety and spectacle. There are stalls, musicians, people showing off their latest fashionable clothes and lots of places to eat curry. Who could ask for more?
What you want to buy lots of inexpensive leather items as well? You think you've caught me out? You're wrong, you idiot. They have loads of shops for that as well.
And they have a shop which sells banana frappes, which are the best kind of frappes by miles (out of the three I have had so far). Oh brave new world that has such coffee-based drinks in it.
I used to be suspicious of the fashionable, but now I believe that any attempt at self-expression is something that should be applauded (well maybe not when people express themselves by gunning down everyone in their class, but you know what I mean) and I enjoyed the trendy people's attempts to shock or confound the norms of society.
My favourite spectacle of the day has to have been a group of three people who were walking nonchalently down the street, wearing eye-catching clothes, with unusual hair-cuts and hats and so on (to be honest I can't remember too much about them, you're about to find out why), but walking with them was a really tiny horse. You know, one of those little miniature pony things that are about the size of a big dog, but unlike a big dog are in fact a horse.
That certainly takes some beating on a casual Sunday stroll. It was really made by the fact that they all managed to maintain a disposition of this being a normal thing to be happening, despite the fact that everyone stopped and stared.
We wondered if they kept the horse in their house like a pet (it was small enough), or whether they had hired it for the day. Ten years ago I would have hated them for their pretension, but today, in the spring sunshine I applauded them for making me smile and for going to the trouble of having a small horse.
The massive numbers of humans out today made me think again of how unltimately pointless and insignificant our individual lives are in the grand scheme of thing. So there's no point in worrying about our own ultimate pointlessness, we should try and enjoy the time we have on this rock spinning through space and bless the non-existent gods that we live in a time and a place where we can express ourselves in such ridiculous ways.
And also drink banana frappes if we want.
And curry for lunch.
My second favourite sight was a man sitting on the pavement near the stall with three pornographic DVDs laid out next to him, which I presume he was attempting to sell. Maybe he was also expressing an artistic sentiment. That for all this outward show of individuality and artistic flair, we are ultimately disgusting sexual creatures... with only three choices.
Maybe he was just trying to make some money.
Whatever the case, he was as welcome there as anybody else.
