Synchronicity is a wonderful thing, when you can get it to
work for you. This morning, I was fretting away at what I really hope will be
the very last revision of the “Humour, Stereotypes and Stigma” section of Chapter
3 of “Tourist In Your Own Town : The Subjective Geography of Everyday Life”
(forthcoming). I heard a clattering at the letterbox, and went downstairs to
investigate.
Among all the usual rubbish from banks and so forth, our
postman had delivered an envelope, bearing an oak leaf logo and addressed “To
The Occupier”. It featured the question, prominently, in white on red, “When
was the last time a place made you smile simply by thinking about it?” My
immediate reaction was to wonder how they knew what I was thinking, and to speculate
whether this was a veiled reference to Sidcup. Or Slough. Or Scunthorpe, some
of the places mentioned in Chapter 3, which I had just been pondering. I’ve
also had Catford on my mind recently, but that’s beside the point, and I have
seen the doctor about it and had some blood samples taken. However, amazing coincidence
or not, since the senders of today’s communication were the National Trust,
seeking new members - I’m one already, so it’s nice to know my subscription is
being thoughtfully employed - I imagine that this was not exactly what they
were referring to. More probably somewhere like Sissinghurst, Stowe or Saltram,
if we’re going to ssstay with ssssibilants. Alliteration has allottoanswerfor.
The humour of place names is far too good a subject for a
short blog – you’ll just have to wait for the book – but I can honestly say
that, until this morning’s facetious interpretations, the last place I visited
that made me smile, actually while there, and completely involuntarily so, was
Neasden. Yes, I’m slightly surprised at myself too. Over the years I’ve become
inured to the humour value of Neasden, so beloved of Willie Rushton, for
instance, with his little song, and I’ve passed through it many times without even
noticing, let alone giving in to a micro-smirk. On this recent occasion,
however, it took me by surprise. Pausing there momentarily, on a train en route from Queensbury to Dollis Hill
(don’t ask), it was the intonation of the recorded announcement that got me: “This
station is Neasden”. The slightly longer than absolutely necessary pause before
the name, which was spoken in a fractionally lower tone - suggesting an
adjectival intent, a judgemental one, perhaps something synonymous with, shall
we say, “crap”. I almost erupted into a spontaneous LOL guffaw. Not the done
thing on the Jubilee Line, I fear.
For a less obvious source of toponymic mirth we have to head
north to Derbyshire, and to the delightful small former mining town of Codnor,
in the market place of which are the fabulous Cattermole Buildings. Seeing them
always makes me smile and, by association, so does Codnor - just by thinking
about it. Buildings give character to a town. Rome has its Colosseum, Berlin
its Reichstag, Hollywood its Bowl, Codnor its Cattermole. A town with a
Cattermole is a town I like. Codnor is famed in the history of television
commercials, of course, for “That Codnor Moment”, every pipe smokers’ idea of
nirvana, and in a song on Simon and Garfunkel’s classic “Bridge Over Troubled
Water” album, namely “El Codnor Pasa”. I mean, these were boys from New York City, and they
certainly had their cultural antennae pointing at where it’s at. So we’re not
talking parochial here; Codnor hasn’t gone entirely unnoticed.Sadly, though, I have to report that neither Neasden nor Codnor feature in the National Trust Handbook (I’ve checked), but then again, all kinds of things make people smile.
