A long-needed night out with the fellas, partaking in food and laughter and the occasional burst of political rant. It’s good to be a group again, and strangely, it feels as if we never parted.
Stopped over at Seldin’s for a while, always good to catch up with my former mentor.
Although I have come to expect shameless public advertising from the British, I am still disappointed when I see ads pasted on ridiculous surfaces like the handrails of escalators and on the floors and ceilings of ordinary buildings.
And my disappointment with the Germans comes from the fact that their transatlantic travel accommodations are severely sub-par compared with those of the British. One movie, CRT screens, no Nintendo – I mean, really people.
Layovers in Frankfurt, sleeping in plastic chairs, security checkpoints. By now, it’s just another day in the life.
Jumped on the train as the doors were closing. Not gonna miss this one!
Looking for a seat, I see a young girl with an A1 case taking up 3 seats.
“Can I sit there?” I ask and she adjusts herself and her case as much as possible so I can steal the isle seat.
Seconds later, the train was away and the journey home had begun. Then a voice came on the loudspeaker. And in the classic robotic voice with its generic inoffensive accent we heard “Please make sure no personal belongings are blocking seats for other passengers.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, as could the girl sitting next to me.
“Sorry about this” she said apologetically. She had wide eyes and healthy skin. Clear signs of teenagehood. She was thin, but healthy, didn’t look like a smoker, no terrible amount of make-up, very normal. But attractive none the less.
“It’s ok, I’m at art school as well” I replied, trying to be subtle. I didn’t really want a conversation, but I sort of got one. She was coming from the London College of Fashion, fresh from an interview, had to show her stuff and all that.
So after an hour or so of riding the train to Aldershot she gets up and scrambles to gather all of her stuff, including the massive case with masking tape name labels on all sides of it. I stood up and stepped in the isle so she could leave and as I was about to sit down again, in the now-vacant row where the case once sat, I noticed she had dropped her glove.
I grabbed the glove and turned to give it back to her but she had already left the train. I stuck my head out of the train door and yelled “Tanya” and waived the glove in the air so she could see it. She rushed back to the door amid the crowd heading in the opposite direction and took the glove from me just as the whistle sounded.
As the doors were closing she asked “How’d you know my name?”
To which I replied “It’s written all over your case.”
The preceding story is 85% factual.
The day began with me waking up to realise that I haven’t charged my ipod and thus have to walk, ride, ride and walk to work in silence.
The day ended with me debarking from the train realising that I have lost the middle button on my jacket.
Everything in between was pretty much as you would guess it. Working at a tragic pace and being confused the entire time – not taking a lunch. And lest we forget the joy of buying relatively last-minute tickets on the internet. Oh, and the pound is up against the dollar, again.
No gym, no sleep, nothing good on TV. Looming deadlines, increasing personal debt, and drilling for oil in Alaska.
If I drank, this would be a drinking day. Happy St. Pancake’s Day.
Felt like reminiscing over a few chats from the past few years. And yes, these are taken way out of context.
In doesn’t snow in London. The Thames doesn’t freeze over and the pigeons in Trafalgar Square don’t even attempt to fly south for the winter. But in the past week or so, it has been attempting to snow, including a weekend of perpetual flurrying, with no accumulations.
These are a few shots are the snowfalls, including the churchyard off Clerkenwell Green.
Preaster festivities with the Greeks. Dancing, music, drunkenness and other random acts of being a postgraduate students.
