Hummer Rage

As I was standing by the zebra crossing near the flat yesterday evening, I saw some guy driving a Hummer down the street.

I looked at him and it and thought

“What a fucking c***.”

Who drives a Hummer down Essex road?

Who drivers a Hummer at all? That too in the city.

A poser with a tiny penis that’s who.

I have a little travel rage today.

Mystery Unfinished Sentences on London Bus Stops: Update

The mystery deepens.

It gets curiouser and curiouser.

Yesterday on the bus home from work I definitely noted that 3 of the 4 sentence-signs were missing.

I was actively looking out for them you see. (Sometimes I forget and don’t watch the stops.)

In fact that was sort of why I published that post a few days ago (I wrote it in late Jan), I figured it’d better go up while it was still partly relevant and at least one sign was left.

I assumed someone working at TFL was just taking them down. (Vandalism and all that. You know how uptight they are.)

However today I looked out for them, just to see if they’d all be gone, and lo and behold!

They were back!

Not just back, but looking distinctly cleaner than before!

What is going on?? Who is this person taking these signs down, cleaning them and putting them back up again?

Or is my mind playing tricks on me?

Is my fragile eggshell mind cracking??

Oh god.

My mind is all gone.

I must try to get better photographs if possible. Maybe tomorrow or on Sunday.

(Indolence allowing, and man, am I indolent.)

Mystery Unfinished Sentences on London Bus Stops

Over the last few weeks I’ve discovered an intriguing and mysterious series of unfinished sentences lying on top of the bus shelter roofs.

Really, I mean that quite literally.

You know when you’re on the upper deck of a bus, sometimes you see strange random objects placed on the top of bus shelters? An old shoe, a rubber ball, a hat – All manner of lost oddities either from drunken scuffles or wayward students.

A few weeks ago on the way home from work, I saw the first one on the top of the shelter 3 stops before the stop at Angel.

At a Particular Speed

I didn’t give it much thought, after all I had seen stranger things on the tops of bus shelters.

However a week or so after that I saw another one.

Or a Particular distance

I wondered if it was a broken up road sign, chucked up there by some drunken student.

My more romantic side thought it was maybe part of a poem, to be found at the top of bus stops around London, to be pieced together once discovered.

But it didn’t seem to make much sense as either.

I told myself I would be ready and waiting with my camera the next time I was on this route back from work.

Easier said than done however, for various reasons.

1. I only use this route on the way home from work in the evening.
2. I needed the be seated on the left and in the front of the top of the bus for the best possible chance at getting the shot, but it entirely depended on how full the bus was and also where the bus driver pulled up.
3. The bus kept moving. So annoying of it. Just when you want it to stay a while at a stop, off it went.
4. My camera phone needs a bit of time in low lighting conditions. Very tricky also to get my hand not to shake.
5. Sometimes I’d just forget to look out for them and they’d pass me by.

So I had no luck for a week or so, but one evening I saw a third bus stop with yet another phrase on it!

To Go Or Move

I didn’t have time to get my camera out and 2 bus stops passed me by unphotographed.

I was so excited I actually got off and walked all the way back to try to get another bus and photograph all 3 in one go.

Unfortunately the bus I chose was packed and I couldn’t get the seats I needed. Damn those busses.

Even with no. 3 located, it still made no sense.

But at last, by pure fluke (the bus had stopped for about 5 minutes there), I saw what I believe is first one in the series, on the bus stop outside Kings Cross Underground.

Exciting! I think it makes the phrases coherent now.

T_AVEL

1. T_avel (Travel)
2. To go or move
3. At a particular speed
4. Or a particular distance

I’ve found no others at after this one.

There are still so many unanswered questions.

Who left these there?

Was it deliberate? Or was pulled apart from some road-side sign?

Are there other bus-stops in London with scraps of sentences?

If there were all sourced and pieced together would it construct a paragraph? Some poem? A hidden message?

I’m tempted to take a bus ride tomorrow just to check out the ones before Kings Cross.

But I like the element of chance in finding them. The perfect timing required for the bus to pull up in the right spot, and for you to be seated in the right spot. I don’t know if these would be as enjoyable if found though deliberation.

PS:

I found a bus stop near Euston where someone had put an entire turf of grass on the top of it. I pointed it out excitedly to the ex who grunted and hissed at me,

“I’ve seen it already! No talking!”

The Goa Airport

Hideous statues at Goa airport. I mean, who commissioned these monstrosities? And then grouped them for Christmas? Like that's doing anyone a favour.

Back dated post (such a bad habit) from my Goa Trip & New Years Eve. 

The next morning, while still buzzing from the night before, I went for swim after breakfast. The ex was still groggy and refused to leave the hut.

It was amazing. Really it was. I think I was still high, which made it feel even better. I wore my sun glasses in the water.

Then me, the ex and PhD all smoked one last one before we left for the airport.

PhD got into an argument with a young, mustachioed policeman at the Goa airport entrance about how they should open both airport entrances, therefore making everything more efficient and that he shouldn’t just accept the status quo but try to change things! Yes We Can! Jai Ho! I have dream! Friends, Foes, Countrymen!

Clearly the effects of the smoke had worn off.

The ex tried to drag him away but he wouldn’t budge. This lecture/debate lasted 15 minutes. His hindi is only marginally better than mine, so it was with some horror that we left him to it and joined the line for security (X-raying the bags)

Maddening bureaucracy and pointless red tape cripple the Goa Airport. (PhD had a point after all, but don’t annoy a cop just as you are about to board a flight is all I say).

One Goa airport rule is that all airlines have their own security stickers for your bags post-screening. Imagine that – Printing all the different types of stickers for each airline, then managing who is being screened for what flight and then matching the stickers correctly. Logistically it’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever witnessed.

Since my mother made us reach the airport some 2 hours in advance for our flight – She fucking tricked us! She told us there might be lots of traffic and we should leave early! It was a scam. I’m sure of it. There was no traffic. She loves to get people waiting at airports. Some OCD thing – So security weren’t even ready for our flight – Surprise surprise, our bags got the wrong sticker.

When we went up to the check-in counter, the counter lady said,

“Aare! You can’t fly with the wrong stickers on your bags! You must screen them again.”

PhD promptly had a fight with the counter lady. Most definitely the mal had worn off.

“What difference do the stickers make? They are all generic anyway!”

The counter lady seemed baffled, both by the use of the word ‘generic’ and his casual rejection of the immutable laws of the Goa airport. Then he said,

“We’re leaving the bags with you. This is your problem! You made the mistake and you should sort it out for us! Why should we screen them again? Come on guys, we’re going to the waiting lounge.”

I thought, I’m not leaving my bag unattended you madman!

Luckily no one listened to him. No one ever listens to the academics, thank god.

By this time the ex was getting rather hot under the collar. The ex gets very agitated with unforeseen occurrences. It’s so cute.

The ex then scolded me severely for taking that photo above of the mind blowingly hideous airport statues instead of sorting out our luggage issue.

Plus I had 2 lighters in my bag because Goa Airport, unlike all other airports in the world, still implements the ‘no lighter’ policy (even if the lighter is in your checked-in luggage), just because they can’t be bothered to change it.. So I had to open 2 suitcases to hunt for the lighters.

There was a hidden 3rd lighter which I only found back in Bombay once I unpacked! Hah! Take that Goa Airport!

Then we settled down to find some snacks. While we stood in the queue at a food counter waiting to buy some samosas, PhD got impatient, (Yes We Can! Challenge the status quo! Jai Ho!) went off on his own and returned with an armful of samosas.

Unfortunately everyone else waiting patiently in the queue had just been served. So in the end we had nearly 4 extra plates of huge samosas.

I told PhD he really should run for Mayor of Goa.

Urban Tube Myths

There are the occasional urban myths about incidents on the tube. Most of these incidents seem to involve something unsavory. I have 2 such stories…

One is from Riddhi, told to me in all seriousness.
Like all good urban myths this story is prefaced by

“This happened to a friend of a friend of a friend who then told me this and its TOTALLY TRUE!…”

So a friend of a friend of a friend of Riddhi’s told her, then she told me. Got it?

A girl was traveling on the tube, late at night. When the tube pulled into the station of so-and-so stop she noticed that the last carriage was empty, and heeding her mothers warnings about getting into carriages that are empty went into the one next to it, which had 3 people sitting in it.

So she sat down opposite them. There was two men and in between them was slumped a girl who seemed to have passed out drunk.

A few stops later a man got into the same carriage. He took a quick look at the 3 people opposite this girl, and suddenly looked horrified. He quickly sat down in a seat right next to her.

She sort of noticed all this, but said nothing. You try to say nothing and notice nothing on tubes. This is proper ettiquete in London. I approve. Don’t be friendly, don’t get involved.

After a few minutes this man leaned towards the girl and whispered quietly,

“Listen, you should get off at the next stop and go into another carriage.”

Surprised, naturally this girl questioned him. Why should she do this?
He replied,

“Look at that girl between those two men…she isn’t drunk.”

“She’s dead.”

———–
Riddhi pronounced the last line of the story with such morbid earnestness that I couldn’t stop laughing.

How 2 men could drag a corpse through the ticket barrier without being noticed is beyond me.

But its a good story.

The next story, again 3rd hand, was by a friend of a friend of a friend.

This girl (why is it always a girl?) whose Alsatian dog dies. She’s very upset, but being broke can’t afford the cost of a cab to the vet.

So she puts the dead dog in a suitcase and takes it on the tube.

As the dog is pretty darn heavy, she’s struggling to lug the suitcase up some stairs. So while huffing and puffing this guy comes up to her and asks her if she needs a hand.

She gratefully agrees. So he heaves her suitcase up the stairs and asks “oof this is so heavy. what have you got in there?

embarrassed because he can’t possibly tell him she has a dead dog in there so she replies, oh nothing..just some…old records.

So they reach the platform and the tube arrives, she thanks him for helping her and he says no problem at all.

Just get in first and i will hand you the suitcase.

So she gets in, he starts to hand her the suitcase.

Just as the doors are about to close, he yanks the suitcase back out and on the platform.

The doors close, tube moves away and the girl is just staring at him as he waves to her, standing on the platform holding her suitcase.

He thought he’d nick a bunch of possible valuable records, but all he got was a dead dog.

The End.

Now I’m off to Espain, I have packed my esuitcase and will be drinking esangria.

I forgot to take out any Euros though. Doh.

No time to spell check toodles!

This isn’t art

This isn't art its shite

Saw this scrawled on a poster on the tube.

Ah ha ha ha ha

Thought I’d share.

Never Throw Stones Beta

R is for...Rocks

Based on A4′s sterling recommendation, R. & I decide to take a loafing chakkar to this “pink rupee friendly” shop called Azaad Bazaar in Macapau central (Bandra), the only gay shop in the village.

If you happen to live with your folks in Bombay and if you plan on engaging in non-PG rated activities, you have to go somewhere where granny, auntie, uncle and third cousin brother won’t see you. The somewhere is the problem. Everywhere has people and people are annoying.

So R. drives, this is a pretty good solution, barring the traffic. You are enclosed in a portable room with music and air-conditioning. We painstakingly drive through garage gully, which has a wedding party moving at snail’s pace across the road.

The bride looks oldish. She is fat and is wearing jade greens and bright reds while walking under the usual bridal umbrella. She faintly resembled a bejeweled, decorated toad under a creamy mushroom.

I point out the toad-bride gleefully and R. viciously suggests all weddings in Bombay ought to be and should be banned. Additionally all people who cause traffic jams, even for a minute, shall be thrashed.

Bombay traffic is like the wild wild west. There are no rules but the rules made by the brave. If your car can survive a car crash, you win. I once knew a guy who carried a big stick in his car, just to beat up people who cut him. This guy was, clearly, a psychopath, but nonetheless a psychopath with a driver’s license.

I can’t drive, so it all seems quite stressful. You know yelling, gesturing at taxi drivers, mader chods and fuck you’s all the time. My danda is bigger than your danda.

R. says I need stones. Big stones.

But I only have small, small pebbles. So maybe I’ll never drive.

Speaking of pebbles and stones, we drive past the ‘Rambo Circus’, the event du jour in Bombay (aprox. Rs. 500 per ticket). R. suggests we visit and chuck rocks at them. There is an elephant in captivity and they make it perform humiliating tricks. I’m with R. on this, in sentiment, but I have no stones to be running about throwing stones. That’s her boyfriends job.

Rambo Circus, Elephant oppressors

So instead I offer R. a Christmas present of a bag of large rocks. I tell her I’ll monogram them, I’ll paint them in rainbow colours. She can chuck them at taxis, rickshaws, wedding processions, cheap circuses, anything she likes. Her victims will look down and see this rainbow rock with a mobile number and name, maybe a slogan

“Apake pat’thara hai kaphi bada?”

It’ll be a great calling card. R. will be infamous. Notorious. I think this is an excellent idea. For some reason R. rejects my kind offer. She only will throw anonymous stones.

Later I see a rick which has “RIDDHI” written on the back of it. I’m very happy. It’s a sign. A sign that she should throw a rock at it. Again she refuses. She loves to say no to me.

We finally get to Azbaz, which is a cute, tiny shop full of rainbow coloured items and T-shirts with slogan. There’s a little curtained corner outside where you can help yourself to tea/coffee and sit and chill.

A4 spoke of fields and fields of baby dykes hanging out there. Baby dykes with cropped hair and leather wrist cuffs, low slung jeans and quiffs, full of love-lorn angst and bravado drinking coffee and eyeing each other up.

A4 also mentioned that 5pm-6pm was the best time to visit since most college students were done by then. We were unfortunately (stupid traffic) unpunctual and missed our time slot. There wasn’t even a single, teeny-tiny baby dyke in sight. Not the one.

We were going to sit there but R. wanted to ‘send it’ and I’m too paranoid to be doing that in an open public space. Right at that moment a bunch of gays turned up so we bounced. (check out my Bombay lingo. Aren’t I ‘hip’?)

Maybe I should use the Azbaz notice board “Wanted: Posse of lesbians. L word style. Baby dykes optional”

The Death of My Dream

That's exactly how I feel. Bastards

I had this beautiful dream once.

A dream where I would be free, the wind blowing through my hair, as I cycled to work on my little Brompton. If I needed to I’d fold it up and carry it on the tube for longer distances. I’d cycle to work everyday, then I’d cycle home.

I’d have a little wicker basket for groceries, which in time could also accommodate a small dog. I could go to the country by train with my bike and then cycle around the fields with my wicker basket and my little dog. It would all be so serene, so perfect, so ideal. No more running for tubes and cramped compartments, just me on my two wheels, easy rider.

That’s never going to happen now.

I’d like to open with my feelings about this issue by saying I hate those strikers. Real actual hate. I wish them hell. I wish them to only be able to smell potty and sundaas and nothing else for the rest of their goddamn striking bastard lives. I curse them to an eternity of the most tiresome and tedious of sniveling colds.

I had to get up at 6:15 to try to get in to work on time. Ridiculous. Bollocks.

After much experimentation with my alarm clock I have finally settled on a 45 minute snooze routine as the only thing that will get me out of bed. There are also 3 set alarms that go off every 15 minutes. All those alarms also have 9 min snoozes. So every 5 minutes or so an alarm or a snooze goes off. The ex is unbelievably tolerant of this and am I am deeply grateful because nothing short of incessant alarms will get my ass out of bed.

Which is why I had to get up at 6:15 to try to leave the house by 7:15-7:30. (If I quote times and there is a later one I rarely if ever opt for the earlier one. I’m always late and then worrying about being late. It’s a vicious cycle.)

Angel to Kings Cross was gridlocked badly. I debated furiously back and forth in my mind over whether I should try to cycle at least to Kings Cross or if I was brave, maybe even to work. I saw all the cyclists cruising along, weaving their way through the traffic and I was filled with envy. Here I was trudging along on the pavement like a schmo.

After much hesitation, I finally took the plunge and walked towards the docking station near Sainsburys. All the bikes were docked. Somehow I was partly expecting (hoping if I’m honest) all of them to be taken (strike and gridlock and all that). I saw a girl try to unlock one and it didn’t work. I took a deep breath and stuck my key in. My key didn’t work. I tried again and failed. My duty done, I didn’t bother anymore. I was secretly rather relived not to have to attempt to cycle to work sans map (forgot it).

Well, the easy rider dream is dead. I couldn’t do it. And I doubt I’d be weaving amongst the traffic, I’d probably just hit a car or end up pushing the bike along to Kings cross on the pavement, where it’s nice and safe. I am afraid of traffic and cars and I can’t seem to turn right. Anyway I’d rather just read my book on the bus.

Got to work by 9:15, no mean feat considering the chaos across London.

The office shutters were down and P had been waiting outside since a quarter to 9. Really odd.

Where was A2? and J? And AL?

He shrugs, (he’s very French that way, a lot of shrugging) who can say?

Have you called them?

“Non”

So we call A2, call J – get voicemail for both. Eventually after another 10 minutes we head off to a posh little west London café. I think something must have gone wrong for A2 to be so late (it is now 10:15 and he lives close by).

A1 must be flipping out. I ask P if he’s told A1, but P says he doesn’t want to rat anyone out (this puzzled me, how would it be ratting out? A2 might have legitimate reasons and besides A1 would notice no one had been online for an hour) Besides it’s not his problem, P says. Fine, fine. More shrugs. He is trés French.

I suddenly feel very contented. Strike day is tiresome as hell but here we are, unexpectedly sitting outside in the sun (it’s a lovely and warm day for October) drinking hot chocolate with mascarpone while smoking and I simultaneously feel so European and chic, yet there is also this delicious sense that we’re bunking a class.

Sure enough though, when A2 shows up eventually and gets on Skype, A1 is flipping the fuck right out.

And when A1 flips out he really, really flips.

He is shouting at the top of his lungs

“WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE??!! I DONT CARE IF ITS A STRIKE! I DONT CARE! WHY ARE YOU LATE ?? P YOUR AN HOUR LATE!! YES YOU SHOULD HAVE KEYS! WHY DONT YOU HAVE KEYS?! WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME? A TEXT OR AN EMAIL? NO, A2, I DID NOT GET YOUR EMAIL! NO YOU DIDN’T SEND IT BEFORE 9! YOU KNOW I’VE BEEN WAITING!!”

Poor P is slightly annoyed at the unfair accusation thrown at him. Then he makes that pffttsh dismissive noise at Skype that the French make, which I really enjoy.

A1 kept on shouting, even though A2 was trying to explain that it took him 45 mins to get in and P didn’t have keys and J was travelling from zone 4. A1 shouted for quite a bit more, then calmed down suddenly. I worried I’d also get shouted at but luckily I wasn’t mentioned. I think A1 doesn’t shout at girls even when he wants to, so far he only has shouted at MD, A2 and P (whew)

We now refer to him as ‘shouty shouty. A2 being the good brother went and told him that we did. A1 felt bad but laughed.

They are quite nice bosses.

The rules of the internet state that no matter what you search for, you will find a LOL cat

Now how can you be mad at that?

Summer Sky Documentation

I’ve been partly documenting Kings Cross over the Summer as I wait for the bus on the way home from work.

It helps pass the time if the bus is taking too long and I can’t resist the twilight colours.

It’s now too dark to take any photos as Autumn’s early nightfall sets in. So that’s that for the Summer I guess. Sigh.

Early Summer

Late Summer

Early Autumn

Early Summer

Late Summer

Early Autumn

Early Summer

Late Summer

Late Summer

The Cold Shoulder

In the process of obsessively blogging nonsense, and shirking the real work I should have done I also was really late in picking someone up from the airport.

To make matters worse the tubes decided now was a great time to breakdown, specifically on the line I needed to use.

The Charing Cross branch of the Northern line, usually so elusive, was thriving today.

But the bank branch? The one line I truly, truly was banking on (hah! I joke at a time of crisis), the line that might just help me make up for lost time?? Would I make it???

No.

Signal failure. I was doomed.

Victoria to Stockwell, get off at Stockwell, get on a train that’s going via Ch X, then get off at Kennington when I realize it’s the wrong train, hear a message that says the Bank line is closed. Realize the train is the only damn train.

Fine I say, I’ll take the Ch X to Leicester Sq. change to the Piccadilly, get back off at Kings Cross Pancreas and then back on the northern line to Old St. All will be well.

All goes according to plan until I reach Russell Sq, one stop before Kings X,

“Ladies and Gentlemen Kings Cross will be closed because of signal failure, a bus service is available from Russell Sq….”

Swear profusely.

Get off Russell Sq, run out of the tube, desperately look for busses, give up, call impatient and angrily festering person, grovel miserably, say I’m taking a cab, call Addison Lee, some idiot women tells you that they don’t pick up cash customers from train stations only addresses.

You argue that they have picked you up before, she says it must have been a one-off but its company policy not to allow…. hang-up.

Flag down a black cab on the High St. Phew! Finally!

Mentally curse cabbie for driving at a snail’s pace.

Then realize he’s at a red light. Damn those red lights.

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Why why why god why????

I walk up the stairs and the waiting person smiles a little, am I saved?? Is it possible I am forgiven??

No.

It was a ruse.

I will be punished for this incompetence.

This person is now more frigid than the current London weather (-6 to -16 degrees C)