Monday 19 October
If you are fit and well and not laden down with luggage, it is wrong to think you can ‘go slow’ at rush hour in London. Do you really wish to infuriate your fellow commuters by making them 45 minutes late for work? Remember: speed is always of the essence.
Going slow is probably a lovely idea if your commute involves a 20 minute cycle up a cobbled street, saying hello to the butcher the baker and the candle stick maker en route, and requiring nothing more complex than making sure you don’t run over a cow along the way. But if, like me, you have a one-and-a-half-hour commute that can so easily be transformed into a two-hour commute by some open-mouthed 45-year-old-chap plodding along at 0.25mph and making me miss my connection because he’s panting over the latest Harry Potter, then truly you deserve to get your leg sucked down the side of an escalator.
Making transportational connections in London requires balletic poise, the ability to immediately utilise an unexpected gap and manners. If you’re operating within a tight and crowded space, toes will be trodden on, you may cut someone up, there may be light bodily contact. The rule? Be English about it. If you bump into someone, say sorry. If someone bumps into you, say sorry to them as well. Then you can have a nice self-deprecating chuckle about how English you’re both being Let old people go first, help people with buggies up the stairs and if a space opens up, for the love of God, move into it!
At my local station, trains come in from deepest darkest Kent and are very crowded by the time they arrive in my little suburb. You have to contort yourself beyond your wildest imaginings to find even a standing space and sometimes, you may not even get on at all. I generally tend to stand in the usual place (my commute is a work of strategic genius: there is little point in trying out ‘new’ bits of platform’). One morning, the usual two diagonal queues of people formed by one set of doors as a train pulled in. Three people got off. The smartly dressed woman at the head of the left-hand queue, took a slight step back and then graciously waved on the right hand queue so they could board with almost unheard of levels of elbow-room. Both queues look perplexed: there was sufficient room for both queues to filter onto the train simultaneously. Soon the carriage was at almost-full capacity and several lucky latecomers who’d sprinted up the platform had managed to gain entry (via the right-hand queue). There was agitation within the left hand queue who grew agitated, and started bumping and jostling, whereupon the smartly dressed woman turned around and cooly announced: “It’s not a race”. The man immediately behind her promptly snarled: “And it’s not a fucking tea party either!” How right he was, how right. If I ever see her again, I will promptly perform a citizen’s arrest.
So rule number one is to always remember that it’s not a fucking tea party: to obtain the least stressful journey for both you and your passengers, prioritise your own needs and move quick and efficiently. Rule number two is to learn to achieve Zen-like calm under any circumstances or you will swiftly go mad. Test yourself. Can you read a Russian classic in the fetid darkness of a stranger's armpit while someone wedges a sharp-cornered suitcase between your thighs and listen to the grating monotone of a small child persistently intoning “I want a poo. I want a poo. I want a poo”? No to all of the above? Well keep trying until you can. It’s sink or swim unfortunately. If you think you are going to lose the plot you probably are. Stay focused on that trickle of sweat between your shoulder blades and think of the sea.
Transportational Zen-master I may be, yet even I have my limits. And these limits are usually reached on the connecting bridge between Waterloo and Waterloo East. This should take four minutes to traverse on a good day, but can just as easily take eight if all the people in front of me wish to proceed at a snail's pace because they are marvelling at the asphalt, playing with each others hair or are mesmerised by an article about ferrets in London Lite. The bridge follows an inverted motorway principle. True slow walkers (the elderly and people on crutches) stick to the outside edges of the tunnel, where there are rails to hang on to, should they be required. Slow walkers who for some reason have convinced themselves that they are not actually going all that slow stick to the centre, and there is a narrow sliver of space between the two directions where the nimble-footed dart along so as not to miss their trains.
As I pulled elegantly into the fast lane, there was a slight bump against my back. How unusual. I proceded, and a short bald man danced in front of me and spat: “Thanks very much for spilling my coffee!” Poor little man I thought, he is probably unwell. The voices must have spilled his cappuccino for him. “Sorry” I said sincerely enough to make him look momentarily taken aback. But he wasn’t about to let it lie: “Yes – so you should be. You should look where you’re going.” I then twigged that the bump against my back had been small, bald man charging into me with his coffee. “I don’t have eyes in the back of my head!” I protested, despising the cliché even as it passed my lips. Bald man was already backing off, shaking his head exaggeratedly in a “women” kind of way. Yes, ok, ok, I had an oestrogen surge and then got overbalanced by my breasts and my handbag. But then, then I spotted his coffee. Lidless. “What kind of imbecile tries to run through central London with no lid on his coffee?” I shrieked. “You deserve to spill it! I hope there’s none left when you get to where you’re going to! And I hope you’re going somewhere shit!” He stuck two fingers up at me and I shouted “Novice!” much to the bafflement of our fellow bridge-walkers
Quite seriously, in 12 years of living here, the only time I have ever been served lidless coffee is when sitting down in a café. He must have specifically asked for lidless coffee because he fancied himself extra-especially nifty at getting around. Maybe in the mornings he carries his packed lunch in, balanced on his head. If so, I hope a pigeon flies off with his corned beef sandwiches.
On arriving home I stood over my crate of non-alcoholic beer and screamed: “Why is none of this non-alcoholic beer alcoholic?” The hamster stopped chewing her bars for a moment to give me a liquid-eyed look of pity, and I stumped off to the kitchen in a rage.
Units dodged today: Six. This kind of incident could ordinarily have resulted in an emergency text to Two-Woman - “Do you want to meet me in the Marquis?” followed by an enormous ranting session over three pints of Stella.
Non-alcoholic beer of the day: Stella NA. I love the name of this beer. I keep calling it Stella Non-Applicable. It’s good, but it suffers from being the non-alcoholic version of a beer I really love. That little whiff you get when you open the bottle is exactly the same as with the real thing. The end result is sweeter and perfectly pleasant… but disappointing because of what it is not. And sadly I can’t give you a link to this beer, as the Stella Artois website seems to be an exercise in forcing you to watch every commercial they’ve ever made rather than telling you about the bloody beer itself and I’m about to hurl my laptop out of the window in a fury. Have another link to The Alcohol Free Shop instead. They sell Stella NA. If you serve this to a friend, pick the label off first so they will not feel let down.
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