Soho Grand

Soho Grand…

3 days before the start of Lockdown 2.0 in the U.K., due to a unique concoction of unforeseen variables that where out of my control, I was left stranded, forced into a situation that left me without housing for a short period of time. In that time, I felt dire, in desperation with raised anxiety levels that triggered thoughts to wonder if this is how “homeless” people in poverty left so carelessly disregarded are made to feel?

Of course, my plight was far from that, & I do not claim to know what it is like to be homeless 24/7, but the extreme disregard of how I was treated did make me wonder with great anxiety if this is how one left with no place to sleep might feel? My hope is that no one is ever left in the same predicament; to all the haters that put me in that situation: sending you much love #iamstillstanding 😘

Thankfully, after a furious to-and-fro of DM’s with some helping hands, I found myself in auspices of a beautiful new apartment in Soho. And so(ho), from dire straits to SoHo[e]’s bright lights, exotica, Bohemia & colourful grit, I made myself a temporary new crib.

However, stripped of its usual vibey buzz due to Lockdown, SoHo’s social vibrance was deadened to a quietened poverty….

The eerie silence of SoHo spoke with an alarming cry. It whispered to me of a Soho that can be all things to all men, catering comprehensively for those needs with which money can buy, free to see it as you wish. Boarded up eateries that regularly overspill into the streets of Soho screaming in silence to be “open free” to welcome the eclectic broad minded of us to wine & dine, amidst a famously cosmopolitan village that’s tucked away behind Piccadilly.

With its own mysterious village life, deserted for now, it claims [when open] to be one of the most vibrant centres for food in London, yet simultaneously, there remains a raw edge that gives you a glimpse of the fact that the same streets can draw the nastiest & most sordid nursery of crime in London. Obsessed now by its ambiguities, I can’t make up my mind as to just how “grand” Soho’s “poverty” really is…?