Everything Changes All of the Time

Everything Changes All of the Time was one of my favourite books when I was a kid.

A bus ride down any high street visited sporadically suprises you with the changes that happen suddenly and without notice showing you how true a statement it is. It shocks you that staples in your repertoire of places to go are no longer there or have changed hands. A pub shuts, is redeveloped, Ruby in the Dust is now an Arab restaurant of some kind, Islington Green Bookshop is a travel agents, the fish and chip shop is gone, there's an All Bar One next to the Mitre and can't even remember what was there before and on and on. Constantly upgrading or downgrading, up scaling or knocking down or building up. Chains, independents, exclusives, cheapies. How's the neighbourhood doing? Going up or coming down. I remember Covent Garden when it had all these sunken gardens developed in vacant lots, when Upper Street was all pound shops and ladies underwear outfitters. And yet despite the gentrification or the fall of the neighbourhood there are some things that are constants in the all changing world - Fatty Lloyds on the corner of River Street and Amwell Road, the butchers we used to go to when I was a kid, Jimmy's Shoes on Essex Road, the deli on Amwell Street corner with White Lion Street, The Kings Head Theatre Pub, Tratoria Verdi Southhampton Row, the £100 umbrella shop on New Oxford Street (can't remember the name).