Save the Travel Book Shop in London

I am not sure you are familiar with London, it's stunnig views and little secrets. But I do feel I need to write about this and do something.

There's a small bookshop in Notting Hill, London (UK), the Travel Bookshop , which is about to close down unless someone buys it. They have had problems for the past few years and have been looking for a buyer since May. Nothing happened. But it's worth talking about it and try to do something for a number of reasons. I should be 'professional' about it, write a list of reasons why it has to be saved. Truth is, I am getting way too emotional about it.

I used to live not far from there. And I used to walk to Portobello a few times a week. I spent a few good hours in the bookshop. It is a fantastic place, full of love for books and nice people. I went there the first time because the movie 'Notting Hill' (starring Julia Roberts) was partly shot there. But it was obvious, from the very first time, that the place was special itself.

Please save the Travel Bookshop!

London - W. Blake

London - William Blake

I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

The Great fire of London

In 1666, the first week of September, there was a fire in London, the so called Great Fire of London. It was a real disaster and destroyed so many buildings, homes to poor people.

As you all know, something similar has been going on in the past few weeks, in London. I am not here to compare the events because both break my heart into pieces. But there's a poem which describes what it is all about, or, rather, the essence of it.

The Coming of War: Actæon - by Ezra Pound

An image of Lethe, and the fields
Full of faint light but golden,
Gray cliffs, and beneath them
A sea
Harsher than granite, unstill, never ceasing;

High forms with the movement of gods,
Perilous aspect;

And one said:
"This is Actæon."
Actaeon of golden greaves!

Over fair meadows,
Over the cool face of that field,
Unstill, ever moving,
Host of an ancient people,
The silent cortège.