Slow Club Diary: End Of Week 6

By philosophie Last edited 168 months ago
Slow Club Diary: End Of Week 6

Follow one Londonista trying to put the brakes on with Slow Club.

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Reconnect with nature: whether it's nesting herons in Battersea Park or strutting pelicans in St James's
I’m biting my nails and tapping my foot. I’m staring at the thing on the table with a look of insatiable longing. I try to go into another room, but it’s calling me, stalking me. I’m addicted.

But not to cigarettes, drugs nor alcohol. I’m addicted to the Internet - which made last week’s Slow Club task particularly difficult.

Just pick a bit of technology and “switch it off for a period when you would normally be using it”, suggested Slow Club, innocently.

Well, everything in my life revolves around the Internet, from work life to social life. Every culture vulture in London needs a constant eye on the web so they don’t miss out on the million and one things going on. Just think…the one thing you do miss could be the thing, the coolest thing. What everyone’s talking about.

But this is precisely why I had to do it. So, outside work hours, I stayed away from the Internet to see if I had overlooked a different side of London…

Slow Club reminded me that the dawn chorus is particularly loud and spectacular once the spring starts to come, and London is full of wonderful places to hear a chaffinch or blackbird, from the London Wetland Centre to Regent’s Park.

But, in a triumph of laziness, I went with Slow Club’s second option and opened my bedroom window at around 5am. It certainly beat the snooze button. There is something deeply relaxing about hearing this stream of indecipherable language; like gaining entry into another world.

When I next went for a jog along my local Wandle Trail, I didn’t plug in my iPod Shuffle - I ran to the rhythm of birdsong around me.

Sometimes nature intrudes on London when you least expect it. Walking the back streets of Clerkenwell Green, I suddenly heard the whistling and chirping of birds up above. To be so near Upper Street’s hip, human pulse - and yet find peace. I love my city!

Last Updated 01 March 2010