No Surprises

A warm and sunny lunchtime, and St James's Park is that curious combination of tranquil and crowded that only Central London parks can manage. The deckchairs that dot the lawns are mostly taken; every patch of shade under a tree is colonised; office workers lounge on the grass, eating their sandwiches as an impromptu picnic; the paths are thick with people. But there's no pushing or shoving; no collisions; everybody has managed to create a perimeter of personal space, carrying it around with them; wrapped in themselves or together with companions, determinedly soaking up the late spring sunshine and the fresh, green smells; watching the sun glint off the small lake; looking at the fairytale spires and cupolas of Whitehall over the water.

Camille O'Sullivan whispers her cover of No Surprises through my earphone as I wander towards Buckingham Palace, soft Irish accent and chiming piano against the quiet desperation of the lyrics, when I spot a glint of gold on a bench ahead of me. But it's not metallic; it's a soft shine, like a sheet of golden satin. And it appears to be coming from a man sitting on a bench. As I come closer, it doesn't resolve itself: the man is elderly, slight, sitting relaxed with his head back, and he has what looks like a thick bracelet around his right wrist.

Drawing level, I see the man seems to be asleep. He's dressed in something like faded motley: a cotton baker's cap, which might have been red once and is now a softly faded pink, with frayed fabric fringing the peak; a blue and yellow jacket, equally softened into powder and lemon pastels; pale canvas trousers; black plimsoles that have surely run their last race. Curiously, his eyes are hidden behind plastic wrap-around sunglasses with oversized kidney-shaped lenses.

The gold bracelet moves around his wrist and raises its narrow, diamond-shaped head. Its tongue flickers out, tasting the breeze from the lake, with its whiffs of goose and moorhen. The body of the boa constrictor is thicker than its keeper's wrist at its widest, and it is coiled at least three times around his arm; its tail disappears behind the man's elbow. Its head, blunt-nosed and wide-jawed, sinks down onto the back of his hand. It's maybe three feet long, I guess, and looks sleek and content, basking like everyone else, maintaining its personal space and that of its owner.

The old man shifts slightly as he snoozes, his arm brushing across his knee. The snake uncurls a little, settles itself into a more comfortable position, and raises its head again, regarding me calmly as I walk past.

No alarms, Camille croons into my ear. No surprises.


Home, home on the trains

Tucked into a corner seat on the way to work, I'm reading my book; an atmospheric story set in Wyoming and Montana, peopled with taciturn old cowboys and a new, curiously tech-savvy breed of railroad hobo. Reaching the end of my chapter, I look up: and meet the eyes of a character from the novel.

Whipcord thin and tanned like soft, worked leather, he's weathered and mournful like a range-rider without a horse. There's nothing showy or fake-Western about him; he shifts his legs uncomfortably, obviously more used to riding-boots, although his sand-coloured, dusty workboots are creased across the toes, with well-worn soles. Blue jeans worn and faded at the knee; a blue shirt showing below the hem of his short brown denim jacket, buttoned up to its mustard-coloured corduroy collar. The edge of a pair of glasses shows from his breast pocket: half-lenses for reading the saloon-bar price list. Tattoos show on both sides of his wrist below the cuff: old, blurry blues and greens.

His face is narrow and tired-looking; gravity has pulled on it and is turning his narrow, hawkish features into a mournful mask, with deep, shadowed bags under his eyes and worried creases across his forehead. His hair is greying; more iron than the jet it once was, pulled back sharply from a deep widow's peak into a straggling ponytail. HIs eyebrows are thick and winged, echoing the upward slant on his cheekbones and giving him a Native American cast; tracker's blood, or hunter's, somewhere in his ancestry. Below the thick but neatly trimmed goatee beard, his mouth is turned down at the corners and accentuated by folds of skin along the jawline; he couldn't look more downcast if his ranch had been repossessed. The furled telescopic umbrella on his lap looks shockingly anachronistic and he handles it gingerly; it's in its right environment and he's the awkward visitor.

At Tottenham Court Road, the woman sitting next to him — plump and kindly-looking with soft curly hair, wrapped in a black felt parka — leans over and murmers something, her mouth close to his ear. He turns to look at her and animation sweeps across his face; dark eyes opening and a slight smile twitching the corners of his moustache. The sadness of his expression turns into a look of patience and wisdom; he squeezes her hand and kisses her on the mouth as she stands to get off the train. It's a surprising moment: he'd seemed so self-contained that seeing him connect with another human, and one that doesn't share his air of being ripped out of another reality, is almost jarring. Once his partner has left, he casts a gaze across the carriage and settles back into his prairie reverie, eyes hooding again and mouth turning down.

We both get off the train at Oxford Circus, and I end up directly behind him on the escalator. He rides the steps leaning forward, one foot one step above the other, his whole lower arm resting on the handrail, still and poised as a falcon on a fence-rail. At the top, he slows, and I walk past him; he rubs a thumb between his eyebrows and waits. Waiting for the wind to settle. Waiting to catch up with time. Waiting to step into the Wild West End.

Thoughts and comments are, as ever, welcome.

Appearances can be deceptive.

It's a classy, but not flashy, bar in a smart Mayfair hotel. A long, narrow room with dark walls and carpet; huge, faded, gilt-framed mirrors at either end reflect three crystal chandeliers back and forth to infinity. Big comfy chairs, small round shiny tables, solicitous staff rush around with trays of glistening glasses, with bowls of olives and nuts, whisking away finished drinks.

In the corner, a couple laugh over a shared joke. They're mismatched: he is elderly, in his 70s, his collar overflowed by fine silver hair at the back and fleshy jowls at the front. He's dressed impeccably in a dark, tailored suit and a shirt whose whiteness and crisp French-cuff styling doesn't disguise his corpulence. But he's animated and attentive, chatting and gesticulating and focused completely on his companion.

Which isn't surprising. She's young, slim and extremely beautiful. Ebony-dark skin with a high forehead and elegant cheekbones, a wide, generous smile in a heart-shaped face, a thick cascade of straight black hair, a long, slender neck rising from the smooth M-shape of her collarbones. Like the bar, she's not obvious, but classy: high heels, but not vertiginous; skirt mid-thigh, but very tight; fingers manicured, but not coloured; a single gold pendant, small sparkling ear-rings. Her suit jacket is slung over the back of her chair; her patterned blue blouse is open low over a smooth swell of cleavage. She's sitting in the corner, looking out over the whole bar, but her attention is fixed on her older companion, keeping up a flow of chat and a throaty, bubbling laugh.

We all assume, perhaps unfairly, that she's an escort and he's her client. One of the group, a regular at this bar, says she's seen her here before, with different men; but she's been here with different men herself, so who knows? Whatever their relationship, there's nothing sleazy about this encounter: two people, seemingly enjoying each other's company in a glittering, comfortable place. No overt flirting beyond eye-contact and attentiveness; no touching of hands to emphasise a point. A quiet intimacy and a feeling that there's personal space that's not to be invaded, but it's that kind of bar. Luxurious.

There's a commotion behind me and my chair is buffeted; no mean feat, considering its bulk and weight. A male voice, grating and slightly nasal: 'I'm slim, but I'm not that slim.'

I twist in my seat. He's not that slim.

A suntan the colour of chicken tikka and curly, greying hair like wire wool; jeans and a leather jacket; he looks scruffy, but the sort of scruffy that takes serious money to manage. I can't see the flashy watch but I know it's there. He isn't looking at me; he's looking over his shoulder at two younger men in suits whose gaze roves over the bar. They haven't been here before. He has.

I raise an eyebrows slightly and, with a little effort, shift my chair a few inches to one side to let them past. We're between them and the couple in the corner, who are still sipping cocktails – something long and iced for her, a Martini glass for him — and continuing their conversation. The three men slump into seats and fuss over menus; brillo-hair man flips his menu around and points at various cocktails. There's some slightly raucous laughter, and the sort of talk which isn't exactly about business and isn't exactly bragging, but somewhere in the hinterland of both. But the tables are widely spaced, and talk doesn't carry; the couple in the corner are comparing mobile phones, we're discussing the vagaries of Welsh chefs and the merits of a Singapore Sling over a Perfect Manhattan, and I can pick up the odd brand name mentioned by our new neighbours.

Eventually, the couple in the corner finish their drink and call for the bill. The man hands over a platinum credit card and does the appropriate ballet with the waiter, the electronics and the tip, and then excuses himself and leaves the bar while his companion puts on her (impeccably tailored) black suit jacket and checks her (flawless) make-up.

Brillo-hair man catches her eye.

She gives him a long, steady look.

He stands up and comes over, squeezing behind my friend's chair (not that slim) and leaning over to talk to her. She pulls her jacket closed.

The chat is quiet. I can catch phrases like 'I didn't recognise...' and 'wasn't sure' from him, and nothing at all from her, although she's smiling and nodding. Is there some tightness around her eyes? I try not to stare. He asks a question; she reaches into her bag — black and shiny as the polished granite bar-top — and pulls out a thick diary, closed with an elastic fabric band. She leafs through a couple of pages and makes a note, while he smiles and nods.

Can he see, in the corner of his eye, that the older man, her companion, has come back? Does he notice the expression on the fleshy, high-coloured face, almost blank but watchful? Does he see her glance upwards and make a gesture with her left hand, fingers together and palm down?

Would he care if he did?

The couple get up to leave and walk towards the door, both thanking the barmen who are painstakingly mixing. As one of the staff open the door for the couple, brillo-man settles back in his chair and grins at his companions in a manner he probably thinks is raffish. I hear him talking about 'a gorgeous six-foot Brazilian girl.'

Later, I relate the encounter to a friend 'Wonder if he knows that the Brazilian was a tranny?' she says. 'Cos she so was.'

Appearances can be deceptive.

For those who are interested, the Coburg Bar at the Connaught Hotel. The Sazeracs are fantastic. Any comments are welcome!

A couple of quickies...


On a corner crowded with lunchtime drinkers, enjoying the sun but shivering slightly, a skinny, unshaven man blunders over the road. The bulky cardboard box in his arms blocks the view of his feet, and he stumbles on the kerb. The contents of the box judder around: the naked upper torso of a shop-window dummy, nipples carefully glossed in candy-pink; a lower leg, whose toes stretch out to the sky, and a green, wobbly rubber snake.
-----------------

Small, dark and incredibly dapper, the young Asian man is in an impeccable brown pin-striped three-piece and a fantastic pair of ivory-on-brown co-respondent brogues.
'Nice shoes!' I say as he walks past.

He stops in his tracks, the wheels on his brown leather trolley case almost squealing as he comes to a halt.

'I can make you a pair!' he replies. 'Here, have a look!'

The case is an old-fashioned miniature trunk, all reinforced corners and brass metalwork, with an extending handle cunningly grafted onto one side. He flips it onto its side and clicks the locks open, swinging up the lid and revealing the carefully-stacked contents, in interlocking trays: leather samples, sketches of suits, swatches of wool and silk. I swear there were some cologne samples too, in those little glass vials with the dropper lids. A jigsaw of suavity.

'If I custom-make a last for you, the shoes'll cost two grand, but after that, it's a lot cheaper,' he says.

'Suits too?' I ask. I like suits.

'Mate, suits is what I do,' he says, handing me a card.

'Well, if this isn't bespoke service, I don't know what is,' I reply.

I can well believe he's about to start measuring me up, on the pavement at the entrance to Carnaby Street. And they say Swinging London is dead.
-----------------


and while we're on the subject of suits...

Errol the alterations tailor, the man who fixes my suits, has sent me out onto Berwick St to find some fabric to reinforce my overcoat pockets; it needs relining before the weather gets cold again. So I've levered myself into a cramped corner of Fabric King to rummage through a box of tie silks, as directed by the crop-haired young man at the counter.

A small commotion makes me look up.

'Man! Lookin' for suit fabric!'

If there's a picture in the dictionary under 'gangly', it looks a lot like this. Well over six foot, loose-limbed and very slightly stooped, the Rasta seems to have at least three elbows in each arm. Dreads caught up in the inevitable red-gold-green wooly hat, his narrow face is beaming, creasing deep seams from nose to mouth and revealing glittering gold incisors. He's dressed in burgundy overalls, huge dusty boots and a high-vis vest, and none of it looks bespoke. Except maybe the hat.

'Yeah mate, feel free,' says the assistant, a young crop-haired type, waving vaguely at a wall full of rolls of cloth.

The Rasta goes over to a shelf heaped with heavy dark grey worsted.

'This good stuff, yeah,' he says, rubbing a piece between finger and thumb.

The assistant comes over, looks at the Rasta dubiously with his head on one side.

'Pretty heavy,' he says. 'This for you, mate?'

'Naw, 's for ma cousin.'

'Where's he live?'

'Kingston, Jamaica!' the Rasta says, bouncing on his toes.

'Aw, mate, that's gonna be too heavy,' the assistant says. 'Make a suit out of that, in Jamaica, it'll be like wearing a sauna. Come down here.' And he leads the way down to the narrow end of the shop, where there's barely room to pull a roll out before it hits a wall display of buttons.

'See this?' he says, gingerly pulling out a shimmering silver-grey roll. 'Italian mohair. Lovely stuff. Really lightweight. Make a beautiful suit, cool as anything.' He sweeps a hand over the smooth surface, rippling the prince of wales check pattern.

The Rasta shrugs with most of his body, lopes over and runs a finger, gnarled as an olive twig, over the fabric, twists his knuckle into the roll. He curls his lip slightly, flashing gold.

'Nah, man, it's too t'in! Can see right t'rough it! If I send that to ma cuz, 'e'll 'ave a fit!'

One stride takes him back to the worsteds.
'Dis da stuff, man. Mek a suit will stand up by itself. Look great, man!'

In the meantime, I've found some fabric and the assistant takes a break from his exuberant customer, slices me a four-inch strip with a swoop of his shears and charges me the princely sum of £1.20. I take it up to Errol, who is busy berating his apprentice for fixing some lining too tight into a Vivienne Westwood jacket.

'Good stuff,' he says. 'About a quid?'

We agree on a price for the relining, and I hurry back down the stairs into D'Arblay St. Over the road, the Fabric King is still arguing with his fluorescent customer, who is gesticulating, arms wide, filling most of the front of the shop.

'Quality, man! Gots to 'ave quality!'
-----------------

Meanwhile, back on the Tube...

Is he dreaming of Sweet Gene Vincent? Feet stretched out across the aisle, his pointy black shoes are jittering gently to some internal rhythm; he isn't wearing earphones. Weathered blue jeans and a green bomber-jacket with a check lining, but not as an ironic style comment — this is his life, he breathes this in every day.

and the jump-back honey in the dungarees,
Tight sweater and the ponytail...

He's in his fifties, easily; face lined like soft leather and a silvering scrub of neatly-trimmed Vandyke moustache and beard. A rayburst of crows-feet wrinkles frames blue eyes, and his hair is receding but still thick and the colour of wet sand. At the back, his comb has pulled it into two wings, converging on the nape of his neck in a perfect duck's arse; above his forehead, it rises in an improbable four-inch peak, shaped like the bow of a ship, rising straight up towards the ceiling of the train and sloping gently back to the crown of his head.

Will you guess her age when she comes backstage?
The hoodlums bite their nails...

His arms are folded across his chest and his fingers, nestled in the crook of his elbow. They're tapping out the unheard but irresistable beat.

and your leg still hurts and you need more shirts,
and you got to get back on the road.

The music stops and he levers himself up, like a jack-knife blade coming out of its handle. He walks off the train, shoulder rolling. I was wrong: the music hasn't stopped. The music never stops.
-----------------
Thoughts, comments, spare change all welcome!

She's a character from science fiction. And it's not because she's in metallic clothes, because she isn't; it's not crazy plastic hair, or vertiginous-soled boots, or white contact lenses. None of them.
She's tall and slender and oddly ageless; mid-forties at the youngest, late-fifties at the oldest. Beneath the fringe of a sharp black bob, her face is a strong-boned triangle, with wide brows narrowing to a pointed chin and a short, turned-up nose. Angular glasses are saved from harshness by their deep burgundy frames; the arms blending into the top bar in a heavy, sculpted double swoop, arcing in line with her eyebrows, the rest of the frame narrow and dark, skimming her cheekbones. The lenses distort her eyes; she's severely myopic.
She's pushed her large bag, an upright wheeled holdall in matt black neoprene, against the glass panel beside the door and is half-sitting on it, half-leaning on the panel. Her long legs tense to support herself and her thigh muscles ripple the fabric of her black cheongsam, making the chocolate brown embroideries of ferns and small flowers catch the harsh carriage light. One black-stockinged shin emerges from the slit in her skirt; she swings it across the other leg and taps her toes on the carriage floor.
It's warm in the carriage, that stifling heat from dry air pumped up from the seat-backs, but despite that she's wearing a fur coat, old-fashioned with a wide collar, mid-thigh length. It looks like real fur, mottled brown and black, with the slight lumpiness that comes from many pelts stitched together. It would stand up to a St Petersburg winter; it must be sweltering inside it. But she wears it casually, open over the embroidered black fabric, showing off the regularly spaced brocaded toggles. The fabric gapes slightly between them, revealing black lace and pale skin.
She's engrossed in a book, carefully flicking the pages with one red-lacquered thumbnail. It seems rather incongruous that it's an autobiography of Shirley MacLaine. 'A charming memoir', says the back-cover blurb.
Maybe it's the ageless maturity or the quietly cross-cultural clothes that give her the look of the future. Something from Blade Runner or a William Gibson novel. Easy to imagine a set of implants behind that black bob, cradling the base of her skull across the occipital ridge. Silicon nanofoam permeating vat-cast hydroxyapatite, set into channels cut into the natural bone. Flush with the skin just below the hairline, they show as rounded oblongs of silky brushed aluminium. Spring-loaded slots crown the finials behind each ear, guarding sockets for memory wafers. At the centre of the curve, pointing down the spinal cord, an inverted teardrop of power electronics, finned in a fractal fern shape to disperse the heat of the circuitry.
Back in the 21st century — and doesn't that still sound like science fiction? — she's probably in fashion. Nobody else could get away with that razor-cut sharpness or the smooth futurism of that black neoprene. As the train slows into my station I slip an old ticket into my novel, a new Iain M Banks, and shift to get up. She looks over at me, her finger keeping her place in Shirley MacLaine, and raises her eyebrows.
'Gonna nick your seat, now,' she says, softly, and grins. Twenty years fall away from her face.


He's asleep with his head back, is my first though. But on a second glance, he's lost in the music humming and ticking from his earphones. Eyes firmly shut behind the late-period gold Elvis shades, the sort with the wide stems with holes in them, and lips slightly parted. His hands rest on the armrests, fingers flickering with the chugging rhythm.
If it weren't for those sunglasses, he'd look scruffy, going on disreputable. Dark, frayed jeans, nondescript trainers, a dark beige hoody with the name of some American college on it. Almost certainly a pose; he doesn't look American. Something about the grooming always picks Americans out: a manicured look, even when they aren't. This bloke is pure North London, from the hair grown out just the fuzzy side of cropped, to the stubble like black moss over cheeks and jaw and the skin stretched tight over the adam's apple as his head lolls against the back of the seat.
The steady hiss and growl from the headphones is unmistakeably classic soul, and something about the combination of hair and shades catapults him back across the decades. He rolls his head from side to side in time with the music, his eyelids flickering. Just like Ray. Just like Stevie.

I've recently moved offices, from the horrible Euston Road to lovely Soho. However, this means that my journey to work has switched from two Tube lines to one, and I was a bit concerned I wouldn't spot as many interesting people. I needn't have worried.

The best way to tell someone's age is to look at their hands, so they say. They're clearly wrong. His hands are as plump and unlined as a child's, despite his white hair and lined face that place him in his seventies. They're also huge. His thumbnails, neatly trimmed and filed, are almost an inch across; the fingers long and thick, with prominent knuckles.
He's a large, bulky man; overflowing the seat so I have to hunch up to the right to make room for him. His blue anorak could double as a small tent; you could easily wrap a baby up in the wooly West Ham hat sticking out of his pocket. His hair is disordered from pulling the hat off; the fine silver strands tangled into a thatch. If those knuckles were marked and roughened, you wouldn't be surprised; there's something of the old brawler about his build and posture. But there's isn't a mark on them. His intent expression and the stillness of those shovel-like hands mark him out as something different from what you might expect.
On his lap is a newspaper; a broadsheet, folded into quarters. And on top of that is a chessboard; a cheap travel set in a blue plastic casing, about six inches to a side, blue and white squares, red and white pieces.
He shifts next to me and I glance up involuntarily, expecting to meet his gaze. But he's fixed on the chessboard. He's set up the chess problem from his newspaper and slowly rotates the board, one way then the other, with steady movements of his fingers. The board stops. He slips one of those spade-shaped thumbnails under the top of the red knight and flicks it upwards, catching its base with the pad of his index finger and sweeps it in its small arc across the board, clicking it against a white pawn. With movements too quick to follow, he's lifted the pawn from its socket, dropped it into the tray at one side of the board and notched the knight into its place. Stillness again, and a flurry of movement, white side to red side and back, right hand playing red and left white, the thumbs moving as fast and precisely as the most practiced Nintendo jockey. He turns the board at his measured pace and stills again; red is dominant on the board. Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
He stretches his index and middle fingers along the sides of the board, pressing them against the plastic, then flips a fogged, cracked plastic lid up over the pieces. He stands, head bowed under the ceiling of the carriage, and slips the board into his pocket, on the other side from the West Ham hat. The commuter crowd seems to give him space as he shuffles for the doors. He carries his Grandmaster's silence with him.


There's nothing unusual about his outfit, not really. A certain type of Shoreditch media hipster has been wearing that style for a couple of years now, although they tend to be the older ones; the youngsters are all in skinny trousers and narrow-brim trilbies these days, or clashing neons and asymmetric hair. But this one's a stalwart of the older style. Sharp oblong glasses with narrow lenses and heavy black frame; a brown cloth cap sat squarely on his head, with reddish-blond curls escaping around the sides. A white shirt under a brown tweed jacket, trendily two-buttoned. Mustard-coloured corduroy trousers, obviously slightly too long; the legs are rolled up at the bottoms, showing his bright red Converse boots.
He stretches his arms up and yawns widely, not bothering to cover his mouth, then snuggles down against the straps of his pushchair and closes his eyes. His mummy leans over and wipes a thread of saliva from the corner of his mouth. The little boots kick as he dreams about crossing the studio floor for the next take. You've got to start early, to be a 21st century media star.


'Nah, mate, Waitrose! I said Waitrose! You listenin' to me, man?'
He elbows his way to the back of the 205, shiny blue puffa jacket and glinting gold in his ears and at his throat.
'Yeh, man! They're buildin' a new Waitrose on it!'
The bus pulls away from the Old Street roundabout and down the City Road, past Bunhill Fields, where Blake and Defoe rest in the peace denied to the rest of us on the bus.
'Waitrose, man! That's what I said!'
The statue of John Wesley, standing in the courtyard of his house, seems to turn its head and roll its eyes. Or is that just the lights and the rain?
'D'ja get me, man? Waitrose!'
The bus judders around the corner towards Liverpool Street and the fan of high-end supermarkets lifts his phone from his ear, the light from the screen sliding across his deep brown skin. He looks at it as if he can't believe what he's seeing.
'Man, you is listenin' wiv deaf ears, yeah? Waitrose!'

They're as exuberant as puppies and twice as annoying. You could never call the Northern Line platforms at Bank quiet, but there's more space than usual, and they seem intent on taking up most of it, barrelling down the stairs and slaloming around the clusters of people.

The girl stands on her own near the edge of the platform, jacket done up, scarf snuggled in tight, short blue skirt, tights and boots. The first of the boys takes a run at her and skids to a stop inches away, arms spread wide and face pushed out as though he's kissing a girlfriend. She recoils and steps away from him, stumbling slightly on her blocky heels; one earphone falls out. He spins away and his friend, taller and darker-haired but less broad, dashes past yelling what's probably an apology in a language that sounds Eastern European. 'Sorry about my mate, he's an idiot!' But as soon as he's past her he giggles and accelerates, swerving around a pair of black teenagers who scowl in his wake.

The girl frowns and mutters something and puts her earphone back in, tries to shake it off. But the encounter has planted a seed of unease between her shoulder blades and I can see it take root, dragging on her muscles and pulling her in on herself. She'll carry that tension around all day.

The boys continue their clowning routine, laughing and gibbering as they cross and recross each other's paths. They're in their 20s but act like kids high on sugar; the darker-haired one picks up an intercom from a help point and mimes shouting something into it. The train pulls in as they reach the end of the platform and they turn and swagger back, all elbows and metronome shoulders; they make feints at each set of open doors. The other passengers on the platform shift awkwardly, trying to gauge where they're getting on. Faces darken and close down; eyebrows knit; everybody looks away from them, avoiding eye contact. I walk fast back up the platform and slip between closing doors, three carriages away.

They are kings of their little world and high on their lives, and they drip a little poison into everyone in their orbit.

This one actually happened quite a while ago, but I've been urged to write it up.

They clearly don't know each other, but they have two things in common — age and class. Bundled up against the cold in overcoats and scarves, the gentleman wears an old-fashioned check cap and the lady has a cosy headscarf. He holds her arm as they board the train in the windy West London no-mans-land on the way to Heathrow, but she's supporting him as much as she supports her.

'Oh, thank you,' she says, in the effortlessly penetrating cut-glass tones of the truly posh. 'Thank you so much, I was afraid I wasn't going to get up into the carriage.'

'That's quite alright,' he replies, in a voice you can imagine encouraging the troops at Arnhem. 'No bother at all.' But he's red in the face and puffing, and half-falls gratefully into his seat.

They aren't shouting, and they couldn't be described as loud. But their voices carry around the sparsely-populated carriage as they make the sort of small-talk you might hear at a tea-dance. Faultless manners and old-school decorum, and you can see that everyone else in the carriage is paying rapt attention. Newspapers stop rustling. Pages of novels are unturned. The volume on MP3 players is surreptitiuously lowered.

'You said you had children? A boy and a girl, wasn't it?' the lady asks, her head on one side, her face attentive.

'Oh, yes,' says the gentlemen. 'They're both fine and happy, grown up now of course. Jane's doing something in social work, living near Brighton; it's an area called Kemptown, if I'm remembering correctly.'

'And does she have a young man?'

'Weeeell...' he drawls, his eyes unfocusing slightly and a wrinkle deepening between his eyes. 'Actually, there seem to be two young men around; they have some sort of... arrangement I don't really understand. They don't seem to both live there all the time, but they're both... around. But everyone seems to be happy with it, and she has one son by each of them. And it's a terribly bohemian area.'

'Like a village?' she says.

'Oh, very like. It's not my place to question, I think?'

'And what about your son? What does he do?'

'Yes, he runs his own business. He was doing something in the City, but he decided to pack it in and do something he always wanted to do.'

'And what was that?'

'He opened a sandwich bar with his wife.'

'A sandwich bar? It's not one of those places where you can't sit down, is it? I can't abide those.'

'No, no, there are seats, of course there are. And you can get other things as well, hot soups and so on, and I believe there are salads as well.' This is said in the tones of a man who has heard of the concept of salad but will have no truck with the reality.

'And it's doing well?'

'Yes, very well, I understand.'

'Oh, good! That's marvellous. I do sometimes get peckish, you know, and a well-made sandwich is very welcome. What's the place called? Is it somewhere I could keep and eye out for?'

'Yes, it's called EAT, so he tells me.'

The man opposite has raised his newspaper to hide his face, and the pages start to rustle as his hands vibrate.

-----

He was clearly a handsome man in his youth. His hair is still thick and chestnut-brown, although receding into a widow's peak and greying at the temples. His face is fleshy and characterful, etched with sharp lines from his nose to the downturned corners of his mouth and around his shadowed eyes. He carries himself, too; although he's standing by the padded bar by the door at the end of the carriage, he doesn't slump against it. No, he stands upright, his hands well away from his pockets and his bag by his feet.

His eyes are narrowed and his face falls into a slightly scornful look; an air of suave malice, perhaps, like John le Mesurier used to exude in Dad's Army.

It's the sort of face that should be above a suit. A dark-blue pinstripe, you'd expect. Not cutting-edge, but smart and well-cared-for, with a white shirt and a striped tie. Black brogues, probably. A camel-coloured overcoat. A briefcase. It's a solicitor's face, or a banker's; maybe even a barrister's.

But the bag on the floor is a black canvas courier's satchel, and the feet stand squarely in green Reebok trainers. The trousers don't have a sharp crease; they are sandy-coloured combats, with bulging side-pockets that stretch the fabric. And the jacket isn't tailored; it's a green canvas camouflage fabric, open slightly over a grey zipped sweatshirt whose hood dangles over the jacket collar.

A young Asian man gets on the train, his hair oiled back, the shiny stripes in his black suit catching the light. He does up his jacket buttons and jerks his shoulders back a couple of times. The older man's gaze sweeps up and down; his left eyebrow raises in an expression of perfect disdain.

'Trying too hard,' I imagine him thinking. 'The attitude is the thing you need.'

He picks up his scruffy bag and settles the strap across his shoulder; brushes his hand down it like it was kid leather. His scornful gaze stays rooted to the young man all the time.

----

The old generation and the young; Grandad taking the children on an outing. It's the first day of Chanukah, and there are an unusual number of Chasidim on the trains, probably off to synagogue parties.

Grandfather doesn't have the usual distracted air of the Chasidim. His face is hawkish over a luxuriant but neatly-shaped beard, still mostly black but grizzled with white. He's wearing the day-to-day uniform of the Chasidism; sensible black shoes, neatly pressed black trousers, black gaberdine overcoat, unbuttoned in the late-Autumn-like weather; suit jacket, white shirt buttoned to the throat with no tie. His hat, a black homburg, sits squarely on his head; the rim of his black yarmulke is just visible at the back, and his iron-grey payess, the sidelocks of the truly devout, are curled in front of his ears. His eyes dart around the carriage, stopping regularly to check on his grandson and granddaughter, still and solemn in front of him.

The little boy is maybe nine, and dressed in kiddie-clone Chasid style. The black shoes are trainers, fastened with velcro straps; the trousers as neatly pressed as his grandfather's; the long coat rather stylish, with a buttoned strap across the small of the back. One hand in his pocket sweeps the side of the coat back, revealing the tassels of his undershirt hanging below the white shirt. His payess dangle freely to the level of his chin, and the back of his head is shaved close, almost brutally, in an Army-style crop. His yarmulke is black velvet, held on with an inevitable kirby-grip.

The girl, probably only six, is the only one who looks like she belongs to this world. She's dressed sensibly, of course, but her pink hooded jacket and red skirt could belong to any little girl, as could the warm, thick white tights and the trainers, which are pink and flowery to match her jacket. Fair hair in bunches, she wriggles and looks around, glancing up at the reassuring bulk of Grandad behind her as she grips the handrail slightly.

Her brother slips his hand down the pole so it rests on top of hers, as his grandfather gives his shoulder a squeeze. It may not look like it's their world, but this is their place and their time.

She clearly loves her bag. It's big and oblong and as cosily stuffed as a cushion, and she's cradling it on her lap, arms crossed protectively in front of it, right hand clutching left wrist.
She's even dressed to match, its faded red complemented by the pillar-box shade of her short padded coat, its warm biscuit tone echoed by the paler beige of her loose-knit jumper, its worn shabbiness played up by her baggy jeans, faded and flared over her grubby white Chuck Taylors.
And the bag itself? That's what caught my eye, through the window of the train as it pulled in. Is it really made from a cement bag? It certainly looks like it; the faded red spells out SHAH CEMENT in big blocky capitals, and MADE IN BANGLADESH underneath that; the bold semi-circle graphics are surprisingly elegant; the red logo sits within a small navy-blue laurel wreath. The fabric has a coarse weave, each strand a good quarter-inch across, and it looks like it's worn into softness. The top of the bag and its handles, flopping loosely around the girl's hands, are red ribbon, embroidered in gold. Her only other nods to the ethnic look are her bracelets, jade-green beads and a bracelet of chunky silver links, with stylised angel charms, the sort you'd hang from an upmarket Christmas tree.
She clearly loves it. Is she trying to say something? Is it an ironic comment on cultural appropriation: your junk is our fashion? Or does she just love the design? She's only young, but a semi-circular worry line ridges her forehard, giving her a quizzical look. She loves her bag. It means a lot to her.


It's a tough life, being the first line of defence. Mid-morning on the concourse at Euston and they're clearly supposed to be alert and with-it, sniffing out the drug dealers down from Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. But it's been a long morning already and their attention is wandering. It must be hard to concentrate when you're being tickled under the chin by a sparkly-eyed toddler in a pink spotted coat. And that tiled floor is so cool and comfortable, just made for sprawling out on, chin on the floor and legs splayed out in front of you.
It's tough on the front line. And just because nobody takes you seriously when you have big brown eyes and soft floppy ears, it doesn't mean you don't do the job. This is important dog business, and you are important dogs. Yes.


The cold weather isn't kind to old soldiers. But that's no reason not to be smart. The scarlet coat stands out vivid against the grey pavement and the silver car, one hand — in spotless black gloves — grips the top of the open door, the other grasps the elbow of the tall black-clad bystander who's helping him up. Steel-grey hair neatly brushed under the round black peaked cap; his green eyes are as bright as the ten inches of medals glinting on his chest and the three golden stripes on his sleeve, below an embroidered crown. Gold braid down the black trouser-legs too, and the stout black shoes are — of course — brilliantly and immaculately polished.
He hoists himself out of the car and the bystander helps him onto the pavement, while the driver fetches his case from the boot. Once a regimental sergeant-major, always a regimental sergeant-major: he pulls the Chelsea Pensioner coat down with a sharp tug, getting rid of the creases which — of course — were never there. The medals jingle and he brushes a hand across them. He doesn't even glance down. He doesn't have to. He knows every one of them.
He pats his helper on the shoulder and thanks him with a smile, then squares his shoulders and looks toward the station entrance. Age may have shrunk him, but he's still a big man.

The woman over the aisle is tall and narrow; her long coat, soft fabric skirt, page-boy cropped hair all black. She's leafing through the financial pages of the Evening Standard, the pink paper standing out against her monochrome. She licks her finger to separate the pages. Each time she raises her hand to her mouth, she wrinkles her fine, sharp nose and flares her nostrils, as if the stories of gloom, greed and incompetence she's reading have left some putrid residue.

She catches my eye as I get off at Bank and for a second I wonder whether I know her. But I can't do; I don't know any Muslim girls who wear the hijab. But she looks so familiar: the oval face and pointed chin beneath the gold border of the wheat-coloured scarf; the dark, mournful almond-shaped eyes; long, straight, narrow nose; small, serious mouth; the complexion that would be called olive, but is actually closer to dark honey. Even the downcast, intent expression. It all registers so fast and goes straight to some part of my brain - you know that face.
Of course I do. I've seen it hundreds of times before, glowing from centuries-old wooden panels pictured in books, on TV, in galleries, in candle-lit churches.
The headscarf should be blue.
She should be looking at a baby.

He's going up but facing down, and he's the only person on that escalator. He's small, middle-aged, grizzled, and something about the way he stands and the tilt of his head marks him out as a Scouser before I even hear his voice. Not that I can avoid his voice, because he's yelling at the top of his hoarse voice. But even that isn't what draws my attention first. He's got the knotted neck of a large black balloon wedged into the top of his flies, and it bobs at groin level in a way that isn't lewd, or even ridiculous; it's somehow fitting.
"Why do people worry so much about things that 'aven't 'appened?" he yells, gesticulating at the crowd of people jostling for the up escalator.
"If it 'appens, you worry! 'Appen!" - his left hand shoots forward, palm down, edge forward - "Worry!" - right hand chops forward. "'Appen!" - left hand - "Worry!" - right hand. "'Appen! Worry!"
"If it 'asn't 'appened, then why the fuck worry? Save your time! Save your breath!"
"It's the game of life! It's the game of death! It's the game of London!"
And with that, he spreads his arms, bows, and takes a step back without looking behind him. He's exactly at the top of the escalator. He turns, straightens his back, and marches out of the station, his balloon jiggling in front of him.

Evening at a crowded Tottenham Court Road, and there's a flicker of colour just below the track. It's a crisp packet, silver, blue and white, and it's vibrating, gently.

A sleek brown shape appears from under the rail: one of the Underground's little Tube mice, flicking its tail from side to side and nudging at the crisp packet with its nose.

The packet crinkles. The mouse chitters and sits up on its hind legs. It's thinking about something. Fast as liquid, it scoots around the bag, pauses at its open end for a split second, then darts inside.

The bag jumps a couple of inches in the air and flips over. A black and brown sphere rolls out of it and resolves itself into two mice: our hero, and a larger black rival, who had obviously been blissfully licking delicious greasy cheese-and-onion residue from the foil until he was so rudely interrupted. He tenses his haunches and launches himself at the interloper, who squares up to him: come on, you bastard, come on... ohshithe'stwicemysizeandlookatthoseteeth

Discretion is clearly the better part of valour and our intrepid scavenger hides behind one of the rail supports. For about three seconds. Then he's back into the bag, much to the disgust of its original occupant, who was investigating something promising underneath a shredded page of Metro. He gives chase and the bag once again does acrobatics, twirling around and developing momentary bulges.

Then quiet. No sign of either mouse. Have they made up? Is there some kind of mousey crisp crumb detente going on? No, what's going on is the train coming. The breeze from the tunnel catches the bag and, as the front of the train arrives, it spins and dives into the well between the tracks.

No sign of the mice. I imagine them, clutching together in panic and then, once the bag comes to rest, disengaging, giving each other a quick look, and going on their separate ways with a studied, Tom and Jerry nonchalance.
We shall never squeak of this again.

Their sweatshirts say they're from Vauxhall Primary. They're maybe ten, skin tones from chestnut to honey, hair in skinny plaits, in cornrows, scraped back, fanned out. And they are vibrating; at the age when they're high on hormones and glycogen, all angles and excitement. Four in a row, rocking left to right like the chromed spheres of a desktop toy; a secret passed from the first to the second, then the second to the third, then on to the fourth, then a gale of laughter.
'She what? Noooo! You lie!'
'I tell ya! She started devlelopin'...'
'Dev-what?'
'Devlelopin...'
'DEVELOPING!'
'Yeah! When she was seven!'
'O my days!'
More laughter, and another secret runs from mouth to ear to mouth. They rock with laughter, hands over mouths and then waving away the fresh scandal into the carriage.

Opposite them and next to me, screened from them by the standing commuters, is one of their classmates, nose sunk in a book. The pages turn. Her teacher reaches down, plucks the book from her hands - dislodging a playing card bookmark - looks at the cover and passes it back down. The playing card falls against my foot and I retrieve it for her; she glances up sidelong and mumbles thanks, inaudible.

The four girls opposite look her way. Just once.

Another in an occasional series...

She sweeps onto the train at Moorgate and everybody looks up and keeps looking. A tall, slim black woman, her face sculpted like a sports car: wide forehead, swooping cheekbones, pointed chin. Her eyes and lips are painted a metallic purple; her lips fade to delicate pink at the inside, and are pursed in annoyance.
She's wearing red, bright red: a narrow cut scarlet trouser suit, sharply pressed creases running down her legs. Over that she wears a gold mock-crocodile skin trenchcoat, bristling with straps and buckles; the notched scarlet lapels of her suit jacket over the trench's collar. Immaculately constructed. Her long hair is straight and pulled back in a loose pony-tail. She flings herself back into a seat and lasers the carriage with narrowed eyes: don't look, what are you looking at, get the fuck out of my face.
At Angel, she unfolds herself and stalks off the train, turning sharply down the platform, shoulders back, muttering under her breath.
A Wildstorm superhero, on her day off.

Lunchtime in the West End, and a middle-aged man crashes to the pavement on Regent Street. His glasses spin from his face and under a stationary bus, while he twitches spasmodically.

Ten seconds later, two people are at his side. A young woman reaches under the bus — which is now moving — and retrieves his glasses. A man in a pinstripe suit makes sure he is breathing and checks his head, which is bleeding where he hit the ground. Five seconds later and another young woman stops and puts him into the recovery position, while the first woman calls for an ambulance.

Another ten seconds, and people have formed a protective cordon around the man, while the security guards in the Apple Store make calls on their radios. A policeman on patrol from Oxford Circus hurries up and checks the scene worriedly, calling ambulance control to make sure they know where to come. A slim, sharp-dressed man runs out of the Ted Baker store with a First Aid pack.

I can hear sirens approaching.

They say that people are rubbish. Not in my city, they aren't.

(Blogging from the Apple Store, opposite a Buddhist monk)

In other news, my blog access is still blocked from work, but if you'd like to read my opinion piece on Big Bang Day (which I still think is a daft title), then go here.

An occasional series...

On Saturday, waiting at a signal at Leytonstone Station, a man and his dog get off from a carriage further down the platform. The man saunters, a tall, slim black guy with a shaved head, tracksuit trousers and an Arsenal shirt. The dog waddles on the end of a stout leather lead; it's a large white bulldog. Wearing a matching Arsenal shirt. Across its back is the name 'George'.

This morning, sitting a couple of seats down from me, is a man who is visiting from late Nineteenth Century. He has immaculate, closely-shaven and sharply defined muttonchop whiskers. He's wearing brown brogues with thick socks, plus-fours, a matching brown checked waistcoat with a heavy steel watch chain, an immaculate white shirt and loosely-tied cravat, and a leather flat cap the same colour as his shoes. He gets off at Holborn, obviously to check on his time machine, hidden in a stone sarcophagus in the Egyptian Gallery at the British Museum.

I swear it's true.