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pp. 121-122 · Read in the full issue

121

122

Boac

Pacific Jet

London Still Swings

(BOAC Supplement—Advertisement)

By Sue Wendt

It is sometimes said that Swinging London of the sixties has become the myth of the seventies—and that if indeed London does still go the way of the pendulum, it doesn’t do it much more energetically than any where else. I refuse to believe it.

By most standards and for any age group, London must be the do your-own-thing capital of the world.

And I mean any age group. I remem ber hearing a rather conservative Fiji politician say London was the only place in the world where he felt he could walk down the street in bare feet, without a coat, collar or tie and not feel uncomfortable. That’s the least of it. London, if not the only place, is certainly one place where you could walk down the street wear ing next to nothing, with a lion cub on a leash and singing Hare Krishna at the top of your voice and the pas sing populace would hardly turn a hair of their frizzed, shingled, Afro blow-dried heads.

Thirty year-olds look twenty in London and the forties brigade looks v u er y much with it and anyone older than that needn’t despair. It’s simply a matter of joining in. Age is a frame of mind in London and it’s never too late to be up with the latest.

Descriptions are a bit tricky though because as soon as they’re “in”’ they’re out. Trendy was still fairly acceptable when I visited a short time ago, but you could tell it had lost popularity with your actual trend setters. People still said “sooper'” and pottered awkwardly about on elevated clogs, men and women both.

Pemale legs had disappeared almost completely and the dedicated bird watcher had switched his glance from calf and thigh (camouflaged now by flared trousers or Oxford bags, for work or play) to higher things (not much camouflaged by skimpy skinny knits and Jean Harlow satins).

Some of London’s avant designers seemed to think the whole world was emaciated—and if it wasn’t, it should be. Searching for something

trendy in men’s tee-shirts (not for me) was an embarrassing business, since my shopping list said “size 40 chest . The male of the species has apparently shrunk in Europe. I went from one men’s store to another, to be greeted with quizzical looks by sparrow-chested bodyshirt clad assistants who said “No madam, only size 1 and 11—but they’ll

stretch”. Stretch they did. Upwards, giving focus to the navel. It’s the same with female garb. The tighter the better and if you’re built like Diana Dors, you should be ashamed.

Some boutiques are more like dis cotheques and trying on clothes can be a mite trying if you like to primp and posture in private. Dressing rooms have gone communal, so you’re likely to be lumped in together with a whole bevy of young things strug gling in and out of tighter-than-skin jeans and gypsy skirts and jump-suits.

But it’s fun—and that’s London.

This great, gay, monument-studded city has a thousand faces, depending

Shopping in London's Portobello Road.

on one's own inclinations and, of course, financial resources.

It can be potted pate and truffles from Fortnum and Mason’s or his and hers Bentleys from Harrods (where you can buy anything else you fancy, including an elephant); lunch at the Savoy Grill and a box seat at Jesus Christ Superstar; jewel lery from New Bond Street, art treasures from Sotheby’s and numerous other sybaritic diversions.

For travellers on shoe-string budgets, London is made up of less costly, though not less memorable, pleasures.

My London was the Proms and colour telly and all those Sunday newspapers; listening to the hippy minstrels in the tube stations; putting money in the “Save St Paul’s Cathedral” collection box and queuing to see the crown jewels; watching the horsey set proceed down

Rotten Row and seeing—astonishing spectacle!—the English throw off their clothes in public places at the first hint of watery sun.

It was fabulous Indian curries for less than a dollar; take-away spare ribs from the corner Hot Pot; pick ing poppies on the way to Henley; seeing Mia Farrow in her first stage role; visiting Shakespeare’s birthplace; long twilights, fat strawberries and soft summer rain. It was a train trip to the New Forest, with mossy woods, new foals and purple heather on the moors, and quiet ales at pubs with names like The World Turned Up side Down.

London offers endless entertain ments for visitors with limited funds.

They can buy special-rate tourist tickets for travel on the famous red buses and they can live, if they have to, on fish and chips and Wimpey burgers, not to mention Scotch eggs

and cold pork pies. They ca,n see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace quite free of charge and join in a host of uniquely London activites—the King’s Road fashion circus, for instance, exploring the West End and Soho, heckling the soap-box orators at Speakers’ Corner, discovering the tucked-away alleys of St James’s and Fleet Street —without spending a penny.

London is expensive for Londoners and can be more so for visitors. But the man who said “I’d sooner be poor in London than rich anywhere else” voiced the sentiments of thousands of travellers irresistibly drawn, like moths to a flame, to the British capital each year.

Swinging mightn’t be the now-type word anymore, but from this visitor’s viewpoint, the spirit it was used to denote seems alive still, and flourish ing.

For the convenience of travel agents and our passengers we publish a complete schedule of BOAC services into and out of Nadi. All flights are operated by VCIO aircraft.

To Nadi From

London

Depart

Arrive

Fit. No.

Via

Tue

1300

0520 (Thu)

BA591

Jfk/Lax/Hnl

Wed

1300

0520 (Fri)

BA591

Jfk/Lax/Hnl

Thur

1300

0520 (Sat)

BA591

Jfk/Lax/Hnl

Fri

1300

0520 (Sun)

BA591

Jfk/Lax/Hnl

Sun

1300

0520 (Tue)

BA591

Jfk/Lax/Hnl

New York

Hnl

Honolulu

Sydney

Arrive

Fit. No.

Tue

0605 1050 BA591

Syd

Thur

0605 1050 BA591

Syd

Fri

0605 1050 BA591

Syd

Sat

0605 1050 BA591

Syd

Sun

0605 1050 BA591

Syd

Honolulu

Hnl

Hnl/Lax

London

Mon

0105

2150 (Mon)

Ba5°4 Hnl/Lax/Jfk

Wed

0105 2150 fW c D)

Ba5°4 Hnl/Lax/Jfk

Fri

0105

2150 (Fri)

BA 594

Hnl/Lax/Jfk

Sat

0105

2150 (Sat)

Ba504 Hnl/Lax/Jfk

Sun

0105