Dover Street is one of those streets perpendicular to Picadilly, parallel to Old Bond, that cuts through Mayfair and ends up at the Ritz.
On Dover Street there is a club with Polynesian flair. They serve communal drinks in ‘treasure chests’– questionable concoctions rumoured to contain rum and/or champagne and/or tequila with colouring and fruit garnishings.
Can I get something else? Would it be rude?
I don’t enthusiastically embrace the concept of communal drinks. Not since the Scorpion Bowl at the Chinese restaurant behind the student union in Cambridge* where we would go as underagers because we knew the Chinese wouldn’t card.
A server walked by. I asked for a beer. No double-take. No questioning look. Some of the others in the party had their own drinks — not just a straws plunged into a Disneyesque chest filled with hard core something or other. I wasn’t the only selfish drinker.
Waiters walked through the party offering hors d’oeuvres. I declined the first tray. Then the second. I was chatting with the hostess.
I suppose I have to eat something. She’ll think I’m poo pooing the poopoo platter.
As I should have. On the third pass, I picked up a sample — chicken on a stick. I do not enthusiastically embrace overcooked and cold finger food. I ate nothing else for the rest of the night.
After three beers, I found myself taking dips into the treasure chests. At first I tried to keep track of my straw. By the end of the evening everyone’s straws were everyone else’s straws too.
Disgusting.
Everyone else consisted of work colleagues. This was not a formal work do, but it was a gathering of most of the company. Someone’s birthday. Compatible colleagues.
But share straws with these people?
I danced until three in the morning.
Early 80′s Madonna and Outkast and Gloria Gaynor.
One of the work colleagues, a gentle giant with a shaved head – a deceptive look: a menacing face covering the demeanour of a lamb, received a bottle to the face because a member of the public – a short aggressive guy – didn’t like the look of our gentle giant. A strong face, little damage. The short aggressive guy was ejected from the match. We danced on.
The taxi driver tried to engage me in conversation as he drove through Chelsea. I couldn’t hear properly, my ear drums still humdrumming from music on the dance floor. I was afraid I couldn’t talk properly; I worried about slurring. I thought about that black cab driver who plied his lone female customers with drug-laced champagne and then had his way with them. My guy wasn’t that guy, but he talked to much.
Butters greeted me enthusiastically. I embraced her enthusiastically. The Mista didn’t even toss in the bed.
*Massachusetts
It’s the first June since we moved to London that the Mista hasn’t imitated the Brits at Wimbledon. With the retirement of England’s perennial favourite tennis son, the Mista assumed that the chant had come to an end, “‘Com on, Tim! ‘Com on son!”
Centre Court teaches me that the chant hasn’t gone away. It’s just evolved.
“Com’ on, Ana. Com on!”
“Com’ on Andy! Com on!”
Tim Henman’s retirement hasn’t spelt the end for the myth of the hometown hero. Others have stepped into his shoes and ignited the imagination of the supporters in their union jack shirts. Most notably British hopes are pinned upon the young Andrew Murray.
Not as highly recognised as her male counterpart, Anne Keothavong, also gets the hoots and hollers.
The chant doesn’t sound very tennis-like; it doesn’t sound like it’s aimed at someone all in white; rather, it’s resonates with working class tones; it sounds as if good ol’ Andy or sweet little Ana need encouragement to climb out of a quarry or reach for a rope to be pulled out of a mine.
“Com’ on Andy! Com’ on son!”
“Com’ on Ana! Com’ on!”
Anne gave it a good go against Venus, but didn’t have the stamina to sustain her challenge. Andy gave the Brits what they wanted.
“Awright, son!”
Coming back from procuring a round of Pimms, my hands full and hoping the wind doesn’t whip around the wrong way and catch my skirt resulting in overly public viewing of my butt, I have a celebrity sighting! Not any old celebrity sighting but a double sighting. The inspiration for the chant himself, Mr. Tim Henman decked out in his commentating uniform, walks by me, surrounded by tough looking folk – his protection, no more than 3 feet away from me, my Pimms, and my perilously risque skirt. I’m busy making myself chuckle with the sound of my Mista shouting out, “Com’ on Tim” when I suddenly notice right behind Tim, now right next to me is Roger Federer. Oh boy!
Filed under: butters, cultural conundrums, going out, London places, present, work
I spent last night printing consecutive frames from Google Maps UK and worrying about what I’m going to wear to Wimbledon. Google Maps UK is my aid in getting me from place to place, and this morning I had to get from One Place to Another to Another. I’ve been to Another on a number of occasions, but infrequently by car, and never managing the vehicle myself. Today, it happens that I am behind the wheel because Butters needs an operation, and to get her to and from the Veterinarian’s office, I need wheels – private wheels because Butters is liable to pee or puke or worse. After dropping Butters for her appointment, I had work-related appointments of my own. The print-out slices of my journey lay on the passenger seat; I had superfluously marked my way with a red pen over Google’s blue path. The superfluous act with my red pen was intended not so much for reference but rather an attempt to etch the journey into my mind’s eye so that I wouldn’t find myself freaking out on the M3.
Have I missed my junction?
Last night, after printing and tracing and trying to etch into my brain this morning’s journey , I turned to my wardrobe, vastly expanded thanks to my visit to the USofA and the convenient exchange rate. Later this week I will be going to a corporate event where the agenda includes strawberries and cream and tennis whites and champagne or Pimms or both. A wise guy at work had me thinking I needed to wear a hat; thus the undue concern with my wardrobe. This morning I had a ‘doh’ moment followed by a confirmation email that cleared it all up.
Watch Wimbledon much on TV? Have you noticed the dress code?
Smart casual.
I love that designation.
No hat required.
Phew.
PS- If you are concerned, Butters is recuperating with a morphine doused patch and a little doggie cast.
The Mista tells me men don’t behave this way. Men behave in a lot of crap ways, but on this particular point, I concede. I imagine men don’t break locker room decorum in this specific way.
A three day weekend has distanced me from the offender and has dulled my annoyance with her chronic impropriety. I have actually forgotten all about Cat Ass Face*, as I shall call the bitch of whom I am about to complain.
Back in the locker room after my workout, I feel exhausted. My sweat permanently odour-stains my athletic bras so I stink of ammonia. My knees ache. I bend my body in half and place my hands on the floor. A last quick stretch before I open my locker, get out of my kit, and head for the shower.
While I’m done here I might as well untie my shoes.
I untie my shoes, get ready to step out of them. Despite my exhaustion and stink, I feel unnaturally good. Otherworldly. Light. Distant. Immune. I roll up from my bent over position, not quite one vertebrae at a time, but slowly and carefully. That’s when I see the little flowered toiletry case that reminds me of Laura Ashley or Cath Kidson. That’s when I lose my cool. That’s when I remember Cat Ass Face.
Fucking bitch.
A flash of brilliance.
I will tell the Internets about her!
A brighter flash.
Do I have my camera? Yes, I have my camera. I can capture it on film! You’re not supposed to take pictures in here! It’s empty. No one’s going to catch you. It’s not like you’re taking a snapshot of Amy Winehouse!
I grope through my bag, grab onto my camera, and snap the accompanying foto. Not hugely damning evidence now that I look at it; this snapshot doesn’t show anything out of the norm. A sweat towel casually lying on the counter next to a sugary-sweet flowered toiletry case.
Nothing overtly wrong.
Except that this piece of counter space is prime time real estate, and we’re just about to enter rush hour. Cat Ass Face knows this. That fucking flower printed toiletry case is her piss on the counter. It’s her way of marking her territory, reserving this little space of the gym for herself while she goes and uses the sun bed and then goes to shower.
Never mind the rest of us.
Never mind that others have gotten here first and not cordoned off little corners of exclusive space for themselves.
Never mind that you have reek of self-entitlement. I’d rather smell of ammonia.
*Cat Ass Face has pursed up lips that makes it look like she’s recently eaten a very sour grapefruit, or rather more graphically, looks like, well, a cat’s ass. In other words, she looks like an uptight bitch.
I’m inclined to hate the Chelsea fans as I stand on the platform at Earl’s Court and wait for the Wimbledon-bound train. I hadn’t realised there was a game at Stamford Bridge tonight. A Champion’s League match at that.
Where have I been?
There was a time I paid attention to such things; if only to have something innocuous with which to fill awkward silences with some colleagues or customers.
The crowding on the platform feels dangerous. Five deep to get to the edge of the platform, and 4 of the 5 are going to the game, and it seems that 3 of the 5 are already pissed. Whooping and hollering and chanting songs. While the rest of us just want to get home. I can’t hear the music through my headphones. I might has well turn the walkman* off. Conserve the battery.
I’m uneasy. Tightening in gut. The result of youthful exposure to a belligerent, violent drunk. The besotted throng pulsating with anticipation and bravado, pluck and alcohol. There are two policemen standing to my right. To keep the peace. The train comes. I know I won’t be boarding it. If I’m lucky the 4 deep will move down into the carriages taking all space available leaving me to stand where I can watch the doors close across the smashed torsos and intermingled limbs.
I am lucky. The train pulls out, and I am at the edge of the platform. Right where the next pair of doors should land. My feet are just over the yellow line. I try to inch back a little bit. I get dizzy standing so close to the edge. I see a mentalist, escaped from the asylum, hone in on me as the next victim of a Tube incident.
The sign says that the next train is bound for Olympia. A collective groan of impatience from the eager fans. Then more chanting, more riling of the opposing fans, more undercurrent of large scale antagonism. More fear inside me.
Shut the fuck up! Can’t you just shut the fuck up until you get to the stadium! People are so fucking rude.
I clutch the handles of my bag, which hangs in front of my knees. I have removed it from my shoulder to optimise my surrounding space.
The Olympia-bound train pulls up; for all intents and purposes, it’s empty. I’ve evaded my imaginary mentalist … this time. The horde lists forward. They want to board even though they know better.
An announcement is made, just audible above the chanting.
“The train along platform four will no longer be going to Olympia. Due to a shortage of Wimbledon-bound trains it will be rerouted to Wimbledon.”
The floodgates have been unleashed.
On the train the chants echo even louder in my ears. Now the fans are jumping up and down. The train actually sways to their exuberance, side to side.
Fucking assholes.
I wonder if the introverted fans are embarrassed by their extroverted teammates. I want to hate the Chelsea fans, but I see that there are more demure blue jerseys than boastful ones. I see there are also annoying red and black rabblerousers. I think I want to hate all the football fans.
I get home and drop my keys into the little bowl on the table next to the door. The Mista hears me.
“Hey girl! Champion’s League is on!”
*I’m using the older, chunkier version of the one I had before the one Butters ate.
Filed under: London places
The smell of Britian’s busiest railway station: granite and hot-tar-gone-cool, the blue collar work done in mines, industrial England and child labour law violations.
The look of the place hardly better than the smell despite the oddly quaint detailing here and there: an eave decorated as the cut out of some vaguely Victorian design. Oddly quaint detailing that does not make up for the flooring: some manufactured material I imagine was delivered in rolls, unfurled and stapled with a nail gun to wooden beams invisible below this gray covering, which reminds me of worn down sandpaper. Stains of different and varying shades of gray where chewing gum has been dropped or spat out and stepped on and flattened over time to make just another layer on top of the grime that was gray and dirty-feeling even before it was grime.
Rush across a continent and into the centre of another, and the grime you’ll find is not gray; it’s a dry and dusty deep orange-red. In that part of the world the afternoon sun shines a most delicious hue of golden yellow and the people recognise it with a word. They call that time of the day, “the time of the day when no one is ugly”.
There should be such ilk of a word, though with a complete contrary meaning, to describe this railway station. Translated, such a word would go like this: the place where everyone is ugly. It is a place that infuses its gray lack of charm, its gray dark, working smell into the pores all those who pass, so no one looks good.
“Here’s the thing: you’d think they would have practised. Right? Wouldn’t you?” The Mista is annoyed, but keeping his temper in check. He, himself, is practised: life-practised, so this type of thing doesn’t really surprise; rather, it elicits bemused frustration.
“What do they call those things: the walkway thing that moves out to the plane? You know what I mean. They couldn’t get it to work.”
So the Mista and his fellow passengers waited 40 minutes to disembark whilst the airport people fiddled with buttons and levers and touch-pad screens* in an attempt to get the movable walkway (What are they called??!!) to move. 40 minutes inside the closed up cannister, breathing recycled air, eager to get home from their respective journeys or to their respective destinations all the while looking 20 or so feet out the window to where they should have been going.
I nod in sympathy. Yes, I would have thought they would have practised, at least the basic things, like getting passengers on and off the aeroplanes.
“And then just chaos everywhere once we did get off the plane.”
I’d prefer details to ‘just chaos’ but I have to let the Mista describe his experience in his own way.
“Really?” I encourage him to continue.
“And, I will NEVER take another taxi from terminal 5!”
“Huh?” That wasn’t a complaint I would have expected. This Mista, for as diligent a budgeter as he is, he likes his taxis (or rather, dislikes London’s public transport). “Why?”
“£55. What’s normally £40 from the other terminals. It cost £15 just to get from Terminal 5 to the other terminal areas!”
The Mista’s description of Terminal 5 on opening day seems to be winding down**, but he hasn’t yet touched on what I really want to know.
“But is it pretty?”
*Not being an airport worker person, I don’t really know with what they fiddled. This is me exercising literary license.
**The Mista does not normally check-in baggage, so he was not subjected to the lost luggage fiasco (all luggage sent to Milan???? Why????). Nonetheless, he has booked all future business trips on BMI with the sole and express purpose of avoiding Terminal 5. Hear that BA?
I tell myself I need to move away from vain egotism. I need to make progress. I need to blog about real life things (not silly little thoughts!), happenings, events — these are the things, I tell myself, that are to be blogged about: momentous occasions, flamboyant scenes, brick and mortar actualities, not a dilettante’s ephemeral notions about a simple name.
I would like to think that I am one for progress. So I dig in my heals and resolve to write about happenings, events, brick and mortar actualities. These are the things that will propel my blog to new heights. These are the things that represent progress.
At the drop of a hat, I invent a new word! Blogress: the general movement of a blog to more relevant and interesting material. I wonder if this is progress! I wonder if this word will catch on. Later I will realise that ‘blogress’ looks like it sounds like ‘duress’, and it just might not carry the connotation I had originally intended. Later I will realise that this entire paragraph is a distraction, a detour. Back to blogress . . . .
happenings, events, brick and mortar actualities . . . . progress . . . .
It was just so obvious, wasn’t it?
Heathrow airport, like this blog, has grand designs to be a flagbearer of progress. First there is the newly launched Terminal 5, an ambitious project that began over 20 years ago (4 years of ‘public inquiry’, 13 years of planning, 6 years construction). Next is the proposed third runway. I can hardly wait.
For those of you who think Americans have no sense of sarcasm, I’ve just broken the mould.
Considering how much Heathrow and my blog have in common, you’d think I’d be able to muster up enthusiasm for Heathrow’s ambitious plans.
Here’s why I can’t:
For the moment, let’s set aside Terminal 5′s well-publicised teething problems.
First and foremost, I live in a SW post code. For those of you who live in my neck of the woods, you know what that means. For those of you who don’t, it means I live under a steady stream of air traffic. American readers might jump to the conclusion that I live in a ratty-tatty neighbourhood, because America has the luxury of “unlimited” space. Airports and flight paths can be planned around the neighbourhoods with enough cash to matter. Not so much in London. I live in a nice neighbourhood. There are expensive homes and flash cars and celebrities even! But, there is also the almost constant hum of a jet engine overhead.
When I first moved to the lower left hand corner of London, I didn’t think I would get used to that hum. I have gotten used to it, and I don’t want to have to recalibrate my senses to an increased hum in the hum.
The new terminal is a done deal. The third runway is still a proposal.
Despite the obvious need (obvious to anyone who has sat in the taking-off queue at one of the two existing runways and watched the line of aircraft coming and going like little silver cannisters on God’s giant invisible conveyor belt*) for better, bigger, more efficient air traffic infrastructure, I stand against the proposal for a third runway. I could recycle the valid arguments that have been made against the proposal, but those would only be countered by equally valid arguments for, and doing so would be disingenuous. The plain and simple truth is I just don’t want any more planes flying over my head while I’m having my coffee in the garden.
That is why a forward-looking girl like myself with personal aspirations of progress, is so squarely opposed to another brand of progress.
There’s more to be said, but I’ve gone on too long. Another time.
*I used to be an agnostic. Until I wrote this post in which I have proved the existence of God: the giant invisible conveyor system is too big to be for anyone other than Him. It’s existence provides the evidence for His existence. God, this blog is getting good.
Last night I dreamed […]. It reminded me of something, I didn’t know what. […] I haven’t thought of it for years, yet now it is clear and detailed. I am again exasperated because my brain contains so much that is locked up and unreachable….*
Almost the whole time that I’ve been reading the book I’m reading, something has bothered me – not so much about the book, but rather about me and my unreliable memory: I have a feeling that I’ve read this book before.
It’s entirely plausible.
Some months after moving to the neighbourhood, I chanced into the Fulham Public Library. I don’t know the number of times I walked by, ran by, strolled by, rode the bus by its Victorian façade. The library was like the fire station (which was just a couple of blocks east of its civic cousin): a large municipal building on the high street, a publicly funded place that (knock on wood) had nothing to do with me other than my contribution of council tax that helped provide these necessary public services to my less fortunate neighbours.
I recalled a chance meeting with another American expat – one who lived in Richmond – when years before I had lived someone else’s life** in W1. She had mentioned that she rented videos from her local library. I never met her again, but the fact that she frequented her local library must have taken seed in my brain where it lay dormant until one day I sat losing the annual budget negotiation with the Mista. The Mista proposed a budget based on necessity (a line item entitled “fun fund” would cover our entertainment needs). I touted a more liberal approach.
“Why’s the Misc. line item so small?” I queried.
I recognised there would be little room for discretionary spending according to the Mista’s budget, and books were expensive in the UK!
Isn’t everything when the US market is your basis for comparison?
I ceded the “Misc.” line item. And within the week I joined the library***. And within the month a new phase of my life started: the phase of rediscovery of the noble institution known as the public library. Every two weeks I went in with one set of books and came out with another. It was during this phase that I rediscovered the venerable Doris Lessing****. It was during this phase that I may (or may not have) read the book that I am currently reading.
Or rereading?
Like the library***, there is so much in the ambiance of the book that is familiar; but there are so many sections, passages, sentences that jar me into sitting up straight and paying overly-conscious attention, that I cannot imagine that I could have read this book previously and not remember.
Perhaps I need to buy some Gingko.
This morning as I pulled on my socks (brightly coloured stripy knee-high things), I thought about my mother teaching the five year old me how to put on my socks. It struck me that I don’t follow the technique I remember her showing me, which was so smooth and efficient; if I remember correctly, she folded the sock, turned it ½ way inside out, put my little toes into a little crack she had made, pulled a bit and PRESTO, my foot was snug as a rug in my sock.
This memory came flooding back to me as I sat on the floor pulling on my socks.
Approximately 45 minutes later I was reading the excerpt at the top of this post from the book that I am reading. Rereading?
*Still reading The Golden Notebook?
**Although it was my name and my body that occupied that year in W1, it was a fantasy. It was not my real life. Perhaps I’ll write about it some time.
***Entering the library for the first time, I was struck by the similarity with its US counterparts. The smell of the books, the bulletin boards, the children’s section, the wooden desk where the librarian took my card and stamped the books I was taking out on loan; I could have been in the library of my childhood.
****I had first read only a short story: To Room Nineteen while a freshman at university.
The main character in the book I’m reading* decides she is going to write down everything, every detail, from one day in her life. Throughout the course of her writing about that day, she wonders whether the conscious decision to write about that day has in some way altered the day itself – would the day have been any different if she’d not decided to write about it?
She gets her period, and realises during the course of a debate with a work colleague that she has gone shrill and emotional. She is annoyed with herself for letting her menstrual cycle impact who she is.
I’ve gone well past those pages, and didn’t mark them as I read them, although I thought to, but didn’t (probably because I was in the tube and a pen or pencil or sticky note wasn’t handy). I thought to mark them because they made me happy. They made me feel like I have company when I’m having my period and am not ‘at the top of my game’. I hate myself when I have my period – or at least for a few hours during the cycle. I, too, feel like I ‘go shrill’ if I’m not careful. I’ve never really compared notes about this particular subject with other women. I find comfort in knowing that way back in 1961 a fictional character would make the pages using this very subject. It makes me feel not quite so all alone in my male dominated industry. It makes me feel like I shouldn’t be so hard on myself when I feel as if I overreact or don’t react in the way I should have reacted. I can be very mean to myself.
I’m thinking about this today because my breasts feel heavy. I’ll probably be irritable in the next week; and if customer demands reach a peak, I am liable to “go shrill”.
I understand that the main character of the book I’m reading is going to have a nervous breakdown, or she at least grapples with mental instability. I know this from the book’s back cover; I’m not there – at her total collapse – yet, but there are hints. This makes me sad for her; I don’t fear for my mental health (not anymore; except for maybe the odd hour or so during my menstrual cycle) so there’s no comfort in another’s proximity to a breakdown.
Right now she’s on the tube. She seems to be cracking along the edges. This I can understand. Some thing’s haven’t changed since 1961:
The rush hour had begun. She was being jostled in a herd of people. Suddenly she was panicking, so badly that she withdrew from the people pressing towards the ticket booth …The city at rush hour – it was impossible for her to get from here, the five or six miles to her flat, in a hurry, save by the underground. No one could. They were all of them, all these people, caught by the terrible pressure of the city. […] There was nothing for it except to make herself go forward, fitted herself into the press of people, waited her turn for a ticket, went down the escalator in an ooze of people. On the platform four trains came in before she was able to squeeze herself into a compartment. Now the worst was over. She had only to stand, held upright by the pressure of people, in the brightly lit, crammed, smelling place, and in ten or twelve minutes she would be in her home station.
The tube can be the thing that drives me crazy.
*It’s still Doris Lessing’s Golden Notebook.
