We were here for David Bowie tourism, mainly the press launch of the David Bowie Is exhibition tomorrow. To set my mind at rest, we popped into the Victoria and Albert to check that my printed email was going to be enough to get us in, as I hadn't been issued with any sort of pass. We needed it sorting as I couldn't have gone all "do you know who I am?" in a city where nobody knows me. The swipe card for the hotel room said it didn't recognise me, so I knew I was on to a loser. The pad on the hotel room door didn't have a 'Nottingham's Mr Radio' option, so I just tried again until it worked. The woman on the information desk told us that the print out would be sufficient, which was cool as I didn't want to be made look an idiot on the morning of the press launch. One of my greatest fears is looking ridiculous.
With that out of the way, we were free to head into the West End for Bowie tourism. Last year we came down for the night for me to do some filming, and it turns out that we arrived on the day of the unveiling of the commemorative plaque on Heddon Street. This time around, we decided that we had to go and see this piece of history for ourselves. My first surprise was that Heddon Street is more of a backstreet alleyway than a street. You would miss it if you weren't looking for it, as it comes sharply off Regent Street, (somewhere I spent every day when I worked there).
It doesn't look like this anymore.
The K-West sign is apparently exactly where the plaque was erected.
In contrast with the grimy back street depicted on the cover of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, the Heddon Street of today is a smart collection of fashionable bars.
Last year I lamented how people work in historic places without really knowing why they are working somewhere so important. If you work in Heddon Street, then surely you should be aware of the cultural significance of the area. Everyone likes David Bowie don't they? We took pictures of ourselves by the plaque, and someone came out of the door with bags of rubbish. To make matters worse, the stupid cow didn't move out of the way when I pointed out what we were doing.
Maybe she was trying to add to the authenticity, as Ziggy Stardust was sat among the rubbish? As she agreed to take a picture of the two of us together and fucked it up, I'm guessing she was just ignorant to the history of where she worked. There are several bars down there, when conducting the job interviews they should ask if they know what Heddon Street represents.
I popped into a restaurant at the end of the street, and asked if the phone box right in the corner was in fact the phone box. Thankfully they knew what I meant and answered in the affirmative.
Actually, it is and it isn't. The phone box is in the exact location as seen on the back cover of the album, which looks like an odd place to put a phone box, even in the days of heavy phone box usage. Shoved right in the end corner of what at the time was a scruffy back street, one shudders to think what a telephone box would have been used for back then. The red phone box you see on the back of the LP was removed and replaced with a more modern box. Showing a respect for history and culture that I'm not used to seeing, living in Nottingham where the council have no regard for anything and will eventually have turned the whole place into student flats, an original K-series phone box was placed on the site in 1997. Originally covered in Ziggy related graffiti, we were both disappointed to see how clean it was, as we wanted to write our own message. Despite this, there is a tiny tribute that you could miss if you weren't paying attention...
I know what you're thinking; that's more Aladdin Sane than Ziggy, but it's the thought that counts.
I didn't check until we were back at the hotel, but Mandi didn't get the whole phone box in, so I could have been anywhere.
Incidentally, the phone box has a phone number. In the evolution of telephones, I had forgotten that you could actually phone to a phone box. Years ago, when we had no land line, arranging a time to ring someone or to take a phone call had to be done exactly on time or the recipient would give up and go home. There is a hideous memory right at the back of my mind, that anyone with experience of living in That London will share, and that is spending what seemed like hours in a phone box with a bag full of change and a copy of Loot, being told time and time again that the flat you were ringing up after had "just gone".
Anyway, it gave me an idea for a way to promote Moonage Daydream that is totally unworkable as I'll be back in Nottingham tomorrow night. I tell all the music press that a new edition is online, and to promote it I'll be doing all the publicity interviews via phone call to the Ziggy phone box. I'll wait by the phone for an arranged amount of time, and maybe do a bit of filming for my YouTube channel. I'm sure if I arranged it well enough in advance, I could pull such a trick off. It would also give us a night in London, unless I did a day trip.
The phone number is 020 7 7348 719
===
My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)
