Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Strolling the canal

Returned to London from my parents' house in East Anglia on Sunday evening and saw the wonderful Abbas Kiorastami film The Wind Will Carry Us at the NFT. This funny and beautifully shot film follows a film engineer and his crew as they travel from Tehran to the remote Kurdish village of Siah Dareh on an unspecified mission to do with a sick woman.

Towards the end of the film, the protagonist meets an elderly doctor who lectures him on the glory of creation. According to him, death happens when "you close your eyes on the beauty of the world". Though I've only seen two, it seems to me that Kiorastami's movies are less about grand narrative and more about noticing the beauty of the world, from the yellow cornfields whizzing by through a car's windows to the gnarled trees standing isolated on Iran's rugged and desolate terrain.

Inspired by Diamond Geezer's excellently detailed account of his walk along the length of London's Regent's Canal -- 8.5 miles from Paddington to Limehouse -- we decided yesterday to walk along just a small segment of it, from Little Venice to Camden Lock. Despite being a Bank Holiday there were very few people on the towpath, and it had just rained before we arrived, so everything was brightly lush and green, and incredibly peaceful. At the end of our journey we ate delicious chicken kebabs and Thai squash curry at Camden Lock market. Can't wait to walk the 6.5 mile stretch from Camden to Limehouse.

Photos of our stroll

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