Man on the Spot, on Dispatch from the Razor's Edge

"No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. It will cause no commotion to remind you of its swiftness, but glide on quietly."
- Seneca, "On the Shortness of Life"

Late afternoon, gorgeous and autumny out, so I dart out of the office to go stand in Trafalgar Square in the rusty last sunlight. I find the spot I got photographed in on my first time ever in London. I find I've changed a lot more than the spot has.

This being prime trophy photo territory, I'm nearly instantly recruited into driving a nice SLR for a couple of Italian businessmen; then a credit-card-sized digital for a couple of Japanese women. They exclaim in awe when I count down the shot in Japanese. When I explain (in Japanese) that I studied it in college, they clap their hands in amazed delight – precisely as if I were a particularly cute and surprisingly well-trained organ grinder monkey.

In front of Nelson's column, they are taking down a large cinema screen, which for the past few days has been showing trailers for films in the London Film Festival, which starts up tomorrow. At last year's festival, on my birthday, I ducked out of work to queue for a return ticket to Lost in Translation; my birthday present to myself. More recently, about a month ago, in this same square, I saw an outdoor showing of Battleship Potemkin - with a new score performed live by the Pet Shop Boys. How's that for an only-in-London experience.

On the stroll back up the Strand to the Adelphi (my building, formerly a five-star art deco hotel), a double-decker red bus goes by with an advertisment for an opera promotion: "See a tenor for a tenner." I laugh out loud. "London . . ."

london

Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very long walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

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Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.


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