Kings Road in Chelsea used to be a great place for people watching. Back in the days when I first arrived here, it was one of the city's funkier streets, made even more entertaining by the groups of punks who would terrorise the tourists by asking them for money for posing for photographs with them. Punk, as you might know, is said to have been born in the Kings Road, in a small boutique owned by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren called Let It Rock, although that was all before my days.
Today, there is very little that is funky about Kings Road. As with many of London's streets, it houses the same chains which supply food, drink and clothing to some of the city's wealthiest residents. Posh Yummy Mummies start off their days having low-fat lattes and blueberry muffins in Starbucks before driving off in their 4x4s to their yoga classes, leaving the kids with the Philippino nanny, who together with professional dogwalkers (yes, in this city you can even make money walking people's dogs) are the area's most common sight.
Let me just say that if I didn't work there, I would never even dream of heading in its direction.
Well, on my way home from my assistant's farewell dinner on Tuesday night, Kings Road - or Markham Square, which is just off the Kings Road, to be precise - became the scene of a major drama. At dinner, someone had talked of their taxi driver mentioning "a shooting" on the way down, but it all got lost in among the office gossip, and the subject was never brought up again.
The first indication that things were not quite normal came after dinner when we turned round the corner from Old Church Street to find no traffic - which only happened once when there was a major traffic accident. Up in the night sky, a helicopter hovered, shining a searchlight onto the middle section of Kings Road, just by Marks & Spencer. It was then that my first text message arrived: "It's all happening in the Royal Borough" wrote my friend up North. "Hope you're home safe and sound." Ehrm, no actually, I'm only feet away from the drama, I replied. If only I could find out what it was!
As we got closer to the scene, we noticed that there were vans with huge satellite dishes, camera crews, journalists, police... it was obviously all happening around there. My colleague was getting visibly tense and decided to jump into a cab. Being the inquisitive type, I was not going to leave without hearing the story.
"Some guy has locked himself in the house and is shooting people randomly," said the first person I asked. Had he killed anyone? "Not yet," said my source.
For the next 10 minutes or so I hung around waiting for some excitement. All in vain. By then, the food I had eaten (oysters, crab and rhubarb crumble) and the wine I had drunk started to take their toll on me, so I decided to start making my way home via the backstreets, as the road to the tube station was cordoned off. Walking along the back streets, I caught snippets of the story, "His girlfriend called the police ....", "He lived on the square ..." Then came the sound of what sounded to me like petards, but must have been the final shower of bullets that killed the guy - who it was later announced, was a 32-year-old successful barrister with a military background. I was told yesterday, that he was an Iraqi War veteran but I've not heard a confirmation of that.
By the time I got back to the open part of Kings Road, it was all go: police cars, ambulances, fire engines, all screeching their way through the street. It was then that I got my second text message, this time from my brother in Malta: "There was some shooting on the Kings Road, you're nowhere near hux?" it read.
Today, there is very little that is funky about Kings Road. As with many of London's streets, it houses the same chains which supply food, drink and clothing to some of the city's wealthiest residents. Posh Yummy Mummies start off their days having low-fat lattes and blueberry muffins in Starbucks before driving off in their 4x4s to their yoga classes, leaving the kids with the Philippino nanny, who together with professional dogwalkers (yes, in this city you can even make money walking people's dogs) are the area's most common sight.
Let me just say that if I didn't work there, I would never even dream of heading in its direction.
Well, on my way home from my assistant's farewell dinner on Tuesday night, Kings Road - or Markham Square, which is just off the Kings Road, to be precise - became the scene of a major drama. At dinner, someone had talked of their taxi driver mentioning "a shooting" on the way down, but it all got lost in among the office gossip, and the subject was never brought up again.
The first indication that things were not quite normal came after dinner when we turned round the corner from Old Church Street to find no traffic - which only happened once when there was a major traffic accident. Up in the night sky, a helicopter hovered, shining a searchlight onto the middle section of Kings Road, just by Marks & Spencer. It was then that my first text message arrived: "It's all happening in the Royal Borough" wrote my friend up North. "Hope you're home safe and sound." Ehrm, no actually, I'm only feet away from the drama, I replied. If only I could find out what it was!
As we got closer to the scene, we noticed that there were vans with huge satellite dishes, camera crews, journalists, police... it was obviously all happening around there. My colleague was getting visibly tense and decided to jump into a cab. Being the inquisitive type, I was not going to leave without hearing the story.
"Some guy has locked himself in the house and is shooting people randomly," said the first person I asked. Had he killed anyone? "Not yet," said my source.
For the next 10 minutes or so I hung around waiting for some excitement. All in vain. By then, the food I had eaten (oysters, crab and rhubarb crumble) and the wine I had drunk started to take their toll on me, so I decided to start making my way home via the backstreets, as the road to the tube station was cordoned off. Walking along the back streets, I caught snippets of the story, "His girlfriend called the police ....", "He lived on the square ..." Then came the sound of what sounded to me like petards, but must have been the final shower of bullets that killed the guy - who it was later announced, was a 32-year-old successful barrister with a military background. I was told yesterday, that he was an Iraqi War veteran but I've not heard a confirmation of that.
By the time I got back to the open part of Kings Road, it was all go: police cars, ambulances, fire engines, all screeching their way through the street. It was then that I got my second text message, this time from my brother in Malta: "There was some shooting on the Kings Road, you're nowhere near hux?" it read.