#100 Carlisle Place

Carlisle Place.  I lived halfway down the block from 1987 to 1992.  I was subletting part of a larger apartment from the MP for Wantage, Robert Jackson.  My friend Mark used to come over and we used to talk about the future - his in politics, mine in business.  Mark later became the Member of Parliament for Central London in 2001 and moved into this very same street in 2005 so when I go back to London I end up walking past the very same buildings.  It's interesting to come back to a single street repeatedly over decades.  Some things change - the cars, the road signs - and some things don't - the railings, the brick, the tree at the front of the picture.  New sensations layer in on top of old memories in a very comfortable way.  Mark's election counts are supervised at the Sports Center that is round the corner to the right at the end of the street.  That's the same place I used to swim before work.  Mark's apartment is almost directly above the Costa Coffee that I frequented long before Starbucks swept across the world and when a good cup of Italian coffee was rare.  Peter, who ran that small shop, is now long gone but Costa Coffee still brews.  And across the street the trains still come and go from Victoria Station dragging millions to work every day and pushing them home again.