Category: Uncategorized

A Gricer in the Fourth Dimension

It was a quarter past one in the morning and Derek was leading me down a long country lane toward a small town nestled in the valley bottom. The year was 2150, Derek had told me, and the first thing that you notice about 2150, on a cloudless night such as this, is that at 01:15 in the morning, its not completely dark. Its not bright, like at daytime, but its much lighter than a full moon. Enough to make out the details of the land, buildings, trees, pylons etc, but the sky was a deep dark blue, and the brightest of the stars shone through, along with everything else in that night sky that I’d never seen before.

‘See those bright lights up there?’ Derek said, pointing to about twenty or so over sized stars in the sky above. ‘Mirrors‘

‘Mirrors?‘ I said.

‘Mirrors, in space‘ he explained. ‘The sky is full of mirrors here. They channel sunlight, control the weather, and keep the nights warm and bright‘

‘Twenty four hours of sunlight‘ I said, ‘That’s got to be bad for the wildlife‘

‘Well its not good‘ he said, ‘but aren’t you going to ask where we’re going?’

I’d been asking Derek all week where our next adventure would take us and he’d been deliberately evasive every time so naturally I stopped asking. Our next what? Or oh, you’ll see, or who can tell, he’d say. I often thought that Derek would benefit from a punch in the gob, not that I could administer it though. I hadn’t hit out at anyone in over thirty years, and she went and told the teacher on me, besides, without Derek and his mysterious means, how else would I grice in the fourth dimension?

We continued our descent toward the town, following the winding narrow lane, skirting the edge of a large forest that had so far blocked much of our view. Now, as the road began to turn, we rounded the high tree line and could see where we were really headed. Beyond the small town that we were walking toward was a large body of water and an enormous structure spanning it, out to the horizon and disappearing in to the twilight haze and beyond the curvature of the earth.

‘Where are we Derek?‘

‘That,’ Said Derek, pointing to the town below, ‘is Portpatrick, and that…‘

‘Is a bridge to Ireland‘ I said, interrupting him, ‘They did it then, they actually built a bridge to Ireland?’

Derek chortled at me, but I was too busy taking in the view to bite. This was probably the largest structure that I had ever seen. The bridge deck was low toward the shore, but it rose steadily and became a series of cable stayed bridges crossing the open water. The bridge was lit by white street lamps and road traffic was clearly visible by the headlights and tail lights moving at speed. One hundred and thirty years in to future and our love of cars showed no sign of ending.

‘Its Twenty One Fifty‘ Derek said, ‘There are lots of bridges to Ireland…‘

‘And what about the track gauge?‘

‘Its Twenty One Fifty, track gauge isn’t a problem‘

‘Can we cross it?‘ I said, ‘On a train?‘

‘Of course‘ he said, ‘why else do you think we’d be here?’

‘Awesome!‘ I said, ‘But won’t I need a passport or something?’

‘Its Twenty One Fifty‘ Derek said, for the third time, ‘We don’t need passports.’

Another thing I noticed about this future sky was the number of things in it that weren’t stars. Drones, I assumed, and airliners, satellites. Maybe even star ships. A lot could have happened in a hundred and thirty years.

‘STOP RIGHT THERE!‘ An angry man’s voice with a Scottish accent called up the road from a blockade ahead of us. We’d been so busy looking at the bridge and the sky that we hadn’t noticed the heavily guarded check point up ahead of us. ‘STOP!‘

Then there was gun fire. Warning shots I imagine, they didn’t look like the type of shooters that would miss. It all looked very formal and sincere. Instinctively, we both ran to the edge of the road and threw ourselves over the low dry stone wall and in to the forest.

With our backs against the wall for cover, we felt the bullets hitting the other side of the wall, ricocheting in all directions, whizzing over our heads and snapping at leaves and branches mere inches away. Tree debris rained down on us.

‘They’re shooting at us Derek!‘ I had to shout over the sound of gun shot and the stones being gunned behind us. It was only a matter of time before the armed guard was upon us, wanting an explanation that we couldn’t possibly give.

‘Its Twenty One Fifty!‘ Derek said, ‘There’s a bit of a war on‘

‘A bit of a war? Did you not think about that before we got here?‘ I began picturing a white circle drawn around Derek’s mouth, with concentric red circles and a red dot in the middle, a target, right on the kisser.

Derek fumbled with his mysterious device, manipulating its unfathomable functions to zap us out of this time and place, all the while being extra certain that I didn’t get a good look at it. Even now, under machine gun fire and almost certain imminent death, he shielded his precious device from my prying eyes.

‘I forgot about the war‘ he said, ‘I can’t remember everything. I keep telling you, I don’t do politics‘

Then there was the flash of light. I was starting to get used to it, but I still felt scrambled. The sound of guns still rang loud in my ears, and my eyes were blinded by the sudden daylight; they would take a moment to adjust. The damp cold forest floor, and the hard stone of the wall had been replaced by something softer, warmer, but no less damp.

I heard laughter. Figures were beginning to resolve themselves in my vision. We were being pointed at, sneered at, jeered at. We were sat in manure.

Actually, that word, manure, accurate as it was, just doesn’t quite do it justice. We we stuck in a huge pile of steaming horse shit and the passersby were laughing at us. And now that my eyes were recovering, I could see that these folk were in period dress. Nineteenth century, I guessed.

‘Where are we Derek?‘ I said, ‘Not in some other bloody war I hope.’

The people around us had northern accents and were dressed in a mixture of styles both elegant and pauper. No one seemed to be carrying a gun though, and if anything, there was a buzz of excitement in the air.

‘Two minutes‘ Derek said, ‘I’m just resetting the chronometrics…’

‘Take your time‘ I told him, and I stood up to get a better look over the heads of the people walking by. I knew that I could work it out from the scenery, in particular, the big sign by the road. ‘We’ve hit the big one Derek!’ I shrieked excitedly. The rush of being shot and the euphoria of then not being shot at, got the best of me, for the briefest of moments.

The large crowd of people were hurriedly making their way down the cinder path toward a wooden frame fence decorated with bunting. To the left of the opening was a large sign, and in big red letters, the word ‘Parkside Station, Grand Opening.’

If I knew my history, and until I started travelling with Derek, I really thought that I did, then today was the 15th September 1830, and beyond that fence, crowds were gathering to see the world’s first passenger trains. All children are taught about the Rocket, the little yellow wooden steam engine that became the worlds first passenger loco, and I’ve seen it at the museum in York, I’ve even traveled behind a replica of it. But this is the actual real deal, if I knew my history.

‘Its the Opening Derek, the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway! How exciting is that?‘

‘Not very exciting at all if I’m perfectly honest with you‘ he said, carefully putting his mysterious device in to his satchel.

‘What?!‘ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. For a trainspotter like Derek, this should be like a Christian sneaking in to that stable in Bethlehem or something.

‘Well, they’re not proper trains are they? ‘ He said. ‘Not very sophisticated, just wood and pipes, and bits that break.  They don’t even have whistles, or numbers, you do know its all about the numbers‘.

No numbers.
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Curry Diary 2. Of Mice and Men

I had such great plans for the Curry Diary, and the follow up to the Kala Bhuna needed to be something special, something new. The idea was that we’d get the train and ride a few stops up the coast but I didn’t get round to booking a table. Best laid plans and all that.

The best alternative to seeing if they had a table anyway was to do something at home instead, but a combination of shredding my hand with a DIY plumbing job, and shredding my hand again assembling rust proof steel frame flat pack free standing shelves for the cellar, I needed something simple. I opted for a jar of balti.

Anecdotally

Balti was my first curry. Well, chinese mushroom curry and chips was my first curry but chinese curry and Indian curry are two different beasts.

That first curry was a Chicken Balti ready meal type affair in the early nineties. Call it 1993/4. The college years. After an hour on the bus I’d arrive home at about half six and see what was in the freezer, at least once a week there was a frozen balti ready meal and miniature naan bread to go with it.

This Balti was unique among baltis. It cooked for about forty minutes in the oven. And it was a deeper richer, perhaps even burnt flavour than I ever seen sunce. I’ve spent decades trying to find a balti even remotely similar but without luck.

Something like this as I recall.

The Meal

From the shop of Tesco it came. I really wanted something good. A nice slap up family meal at a trusted Indian restaurant. What we got was alright. From a jar.

Peroni, the lager of choice right now.
Jars
Starters

Peroni has somehow become the curren lager of choice, but I wouldn’t usually have it with a curry. King Fisher is for a curry, surely.

If we had been at the restaurant, we would have a pickle tray, the only dip available from our little Tesco was Lime Pickle, but I also got some Barjis and Falafals. I learned how to make Onion Barjis several years ago, and they were always better than store bought. What was I thinking.

For the Curry, I fried up some onion, fried up some chicken, and then added the sauce from the jar. Incredibly easy. Deeply unsatisfying. What was I thinking.

Unnaturally clean stove top…

For the side, I did McCains Fries. They’re cooked in seed oils, frozen, and take about an hour to cook in the oven. They pass for a chip, but they’re no Maris Piper, parboiled and deep fried in tallow. What was I thinking?

It is what it is.

Antithesis

What was meant to be a family curry night, with a short but scenic train ride, a few beers, a good selection of sides and note taking worthy culinary experience became me in the kitchen, cooking alone sipping beers, pouring out the content of a jar over meat. Frozen chips. The laughter and anecdotes and ‘how was your week?s’ that i had looked forward to, turned, replaced with the sound of ‘thanks dad’ and the stomping of feet on stairs and the slamming of doors, as everyone retreated with food to their own spaces.

Oh the humanity.

Lately, it seems like the universe is trying to tell me that one cannot cut corners in life, and what more proof do we need than curry from a jar.

Lesson learned.

Waste Not Though

I have learned my lesson indeed, but I still have a bunch of corner cutting futilities to chomp through. Lets not be over committing ourselves…

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Unfollow Me Bridge

Maybe its an age thing, maybe I just never paid that much attention. But I was lazily scrolling through some old photographs this afternoon when I was joined by the youngest son.

Recognising some old memories he sat with me for a while and we talked about the old days. It was when we reached photos from about 2015, from a trip to a park we used to visit, my scrolling was stopped.

“They changed the bridge!” He said.

By the park theres a canal, and the canal is crossed by an old steel tube Bridge. I based a short story on it The Follow Me Bridge. I was very familiar with it so we argued back and forth.

“It looks nothing like that!” He said.

So we went looking through my old photos for a more recent image of the bridge. And I’ll be darned.

Then
Now
Same bridge but not.

I have some snowy images of the bridge from this Christmas taken on the way back from an evening of drinks and nibbles at the vicarage. About ten years separate these images.

I have no idea when the new bridge went in, I simply didn’t notice. Probably too busy thinking up spooky stories to pay attention to the real world.

But can you blame me, living somewhere as spooky cool as this?

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Track Your Flight

Excellent new feature on Planes now.

There used to be a feature on the Inflight Entertainment where you could watch your progress across the ocean on the little screen embedded into the back of the seat in front. Even though progress across the Atlantic was slow, watching the little plane increment its way across the little map was usually better than the Inflight movie.

I haven’t been on a plane with Inflight Entertainment systems like this for a long time, and I don’t suppose they are necessary anymore, now that everyone carries their own devices. That must be a lot of unnecessary weight they’ve been able to remove.

The problem with carrying your own device though means that flight mode must be active, and that means no Inflight tracking. Until now.

On my last flight they were trialling a new customer app that allows you to order food and drink, duty free etc from your seat. I’m not really interested in that sort of thing, but what did grab my attention was the flight progress monitor.

With Flight Mode on, you can now connect your phone to the local loop network on the plane, and then open up a map that shows your progress. It shows you where you are, your direction, altitude and even speed.

On this particular flight we topped out at 650 miles per hour, at 36000 feet. This is somewhat faster than regular flights but we were very late.

It’s interesting to compare this with the Flight Radar app. Flight Radar is an app that tracks your flight in real time and logs it for replaying later.

Comparison Shots

This is really cool. I use Flight Radar all the time. Usually when something loud flies overhead and I want to know it was. Indeed, the highlight of a holiday in Puerto del Carmen was sitting on the balcony, looking out to sea, and watching the planes circle and land at the very nearby Aracife airport, looking up where they came from on the app. Not that I make a habit of such things.

On the way back from a school trip earlier this year, my son was snapping shots from the plane at the same time as I was taking screenshots of the flight app. When he got home we compared notes. These are two photos taken within a minute of each other, and I could identify the plane in the photo on the right. Modern technology might be evil, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be cool.

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Angel on the Tracks

The train came to a shuddering unexpected halt.

I’ve been a regular on the 16:30 from Euston for over four years. Not every day, no, just when I’m needed down south, usually just for a couple of days every other week or so. Sometimes I get the half five or the half six, even the half seven if I can be persuaded to stay for another pint or so, but the half seven is a risk; there is no half eight to fall back on, and its been known to get cancelled.

So this was a fairly typical journey, different only in that I had my son with me, and it was a Monday.

The school had an inset day. We used to call them teacher training days, but it meant that the school was closed to pupils, and rather than allow the children to enjoy a bit of spare time to themselves, they instead devised a way to ruin that.

Take Your Child to Work Day, they called it. There was a form to fill in, some proviso for insurances, safeguarding, health and safety etc, and the children were given a workbook to complete along the way. An excellent learning experiment, and the perfect opportunity to take the youngest to my Favourite curry house. We do both enjoy a good curry.

So the day arrived and it gave me the opportunity to teach the lesson of the overnight business trip. Pack spare pants, washbag, laptop, a charger and power bank for every possible eventuality. Then was the lesson of the Greggs, for in the vicinity of any good train station, there is a Greggs, and for the three hours it takes to get to London, you need a Greggs.

The trip proceded without hicup, and we did the lesson of finding a seat on the train. We did the lesson of sitting still and chatting quietly. We did the lesson of checking in at the hotel and hanging up our clothes for the next day. We did the lesson of the Curry House and the enjoying of the food.

We did the lesson of watching traffic and listening to sirens all night from our hotel room next to the Emergency Department. Need to remember that when I’m booking the next one. Note to self: avoid hotels next to hospitals.

We did the lesson of the getting up in the morning and making instant coffee with the tiny kettle. The lesson of checking the room for forgotten chargers and toothbrushes for the forty seventh time. And the lesson of facing and then filtering through the hoards of commuters swarming from the secret hatches of The London Underground.

We did the lesson of finding a desk at the office. Except for a stretch of desk permanence in the second half the Twenty Tens, I’ve been hot desking since 2000. Its the norm. After that we did the lesson of the casual chatter in the staff kitchen while making a brew. The lesson of the checking the schedule for the day ahead, checking for urgent messages, and then compiling the priorities for the day.

Then it got boring for the little one as I, as he put it, was just writing emails, and he asked if he could watch YouTube with his headphones instead. I said yes.

I wasn’t just writing emails, I was writing Teams messages too, updating Jira, SharePoint. I was preparing code for deployment. None of which is particularly interesting to a thirteen year old, and I wasn’t going to force him to watch every mouse click and key stroke just for the sake of it.

The day passed quickly, as the busy ones do. We had a pub lunch and numerous stops through the day to discuss progress and fill out his booklet for school. Before we knew it, it was home time, and time to rush for the scrum that is the 16:30 from Euston. Today was different.

Euston station is rarely quiet, and never at the times that I have to use it, but today it seemed a little subdued. We arrived in good time, and using my special app that tells me which platform our train will depart from, we stood at the gate and waited patiently to be allowed on to the platform and board our train. We were joined by a handful of others and when the gate opened our tickets were checked, and we made a civilised run for a seat in Carriage G. There is usually a stampede at this time as seats are limited and if you’re not fast enough you can find yourself standing all the way to Warrington. That didn’t happen on this occassion, and I counted no more than three other passengers in our carriage. Clearly, Mondays are the day to travel north.

We left Euston on time and were soon up to speed, whizzing through the suburbs of North West London, and out in the countryside at full pelt.

After about half an hour, we came to a screeching juddering halt, the sort of stop that sends your belongings sliding off of the table. We were out in the middle of nowhere, stopped at a red signal. Red signals happen quite a lot, but they’re not usually that abrupt. Outside to the right, trains were still running normally on the other three lines. I don’t know what it is about sitting on the express train watching the slower commuter services pass us, but I find that particularly annoying.

After ten minutes, the train manager announced that we were stopped at a red signal, which we’d already guessed, and would proceed as soon as we were cleared to do so. Another six minutes passed, and the train manager chimed in with more information. We were being held just outside of Milton Keynes station whilst a Welfare Check was completed on one the platforms.

A welfare check, not to be confused with a Welfare Cheque, is when the authorities or emergency services intervene on behalf of an individual that they believe to be in danger. In this case, a person standing at the platform edge where we were about to pass through at one hundred and twenty five miles per hour.

We were never told the outcome of this welfare check other than they were no longer in danger, and that we were ok to resume our journey.

As our train picked up speed and very soon was whizzing through Milton Keynes Central, I wasn’t concerned about the delay. I was just grateful that whatever might have been about to happen, didn’t because at the very last second, the signal flipped to Red.

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Curry Diary 1. Kala Bhuna

There is something about Indian Cuisine that keeps me going back for more, and there is so much choice that its impossible to keep track of them all. And then I thought about it some more and realised that it wasn’t impossible to keep track of them at all. I just needed to keep a log of my curry journey. Some sort of Curry Journal, a Curry Diary even. Ta da.

So here we are. Entry one. And as curries go, this one is a cracker.

We Begin With The Anecdote

This is possibly the greatest experience of Indian Cuisine that I have ever tasted. I first encountered Kala Bhuna, what, two years ago now and it took a while to sink in.

It was an after work thing, you know what its like. Someone says “fancy a pint” and before you know it you’re finishing your third pint and its now your round. Then some one says “Is anyone else hungry?” And as if by magic, you’re sat looking a menu.

I don’t know London that well, but those in the know know about Drummond Street, and though it no longer is what once it was, it still remains a treasure trove of Indian and Indian style eateries, and so that is where we went. And at random, from all of the options, we chose the Drummond Villa, and an excellent choice it was too.

Mandatory Pickle Tray

There were a few of us, so the pickle tray was mandatory for starters, and for my main, I have no idea what I ordered, this being before I thought to journal my curries, but it was almost certainly lamb something.

Who had what? Dunno, I didn’t keep a record.

Whatever it was that I had, I no doubt had it with chips and mushroom rice. Looking back on the old photos, the one above probably wasn’t the night that introduced me to the Kala Bhuna, but I’m intrigued by what was served in the metal tray. There is rice, and naan, and portions of four other dishes. It looks amazing.

But thats not why we’re here. We’re here because on one such lovely evening the waiter recommended the Kala Bhuna, and one of us said yes. It wasn’t me, but I realised my mistake when the food arrived.

The Kala Bhuna is a dark curry, almost black, indeed, Kala Bhuna means black roast, and I was intrigued. I did have the opportunity to dip a chip in what was left of the sauce and was immediately impressed. I made a mental note of the name with the firm conviction that I would have this the next we came. I didn’t.

You know what its like when someone suggests a pint after work, and then a curry after pints, and then some more beers after the curry. With the best will in the world, you’re not going to remember two words like Kala Bhuna, or Saveloy Sausage. Saveloy Sausage is a story for another time, though.

And so days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years. Every Indian restaurant I visited, and there were a few, I scanned the menu looking for something vaguely similar to what I recalled of the Kala Bhuna, but I had no luck. Until, that is, about a month ago when I finally spotted it on the menu, and ordered it.

It arrived with a smile, the chiefs favourite dish. Blackened and spicy. But not hot spicy, its a contradiction in a dish, there is almost no heat to begin with, but the intensity of flavour, the heat grows toward the end. By the time you’re licking the bowls and plates clean, it really does have quite the kick to it.

It is now my curry of choice, though I’ve only been in to London twice since discovering it, but it is now also my London Curry Bud’s curry of choice.

We Say Something About The Curry

A bit of quick research tells me that Kala Bhuna is a traditional Bangladeshi meat curry originating from Chittagong. Kala means black in Bengali, and the name comes from the dish’s signature dark blackish-brown color, achieved by slow-cooking the meat with lots of onions and spices until it caramelizes deeply.


Bhuna is a South Asian cooking style where ingredients are fried and reduced until the spices are richly flavored and the sauce thickens. It is usually made with beef or mutton, though I have only had lamb, and is cooked with mustard oil, fried onions, ginger-garlic paste, and a blend of spices like chili, turmeric, cumin, coriander, and whole aromatics. It is slow cooked after frying, making the meat very tender and infused it with a rich smoky flavor.

I rate this 10/10. Bonza!

Enjoying Kala Bhuna

I don’t live in London. I only go there for curry, and work sometimes, so I did some more research on where to find a good restaurant that serves Kala Bhuna near where I live in Lancaster. There aren’t any. Infact, when I searched London menus for Kala Bhuna, only two came up, and the first one was Drummond Villa.

Its seems that if I’m going to be enjoying Kala Bhuna at home, I’m going to have to learn to cook it. Its a good job that I love cooking almost as much as I love eating.

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Dream Psychology

Dreams are fascinating aren’t they? At least our own are to us. There are tomes and tomes written about dreams and what they might mean.

This isn’t a post about my dreams as such. If you try telling anyone about a dream you’ve had the general reaction is ‘so what?’ And that’s fair enough. What this is, is a bit of analysis of the relevance of dream interpretation, by taking a few of my recent vivid dreams, looking up the interpretation, and seeing if it holds water.

Dream 1: The Window

A fairly tepid dream with not much going on. In the dream I was lying on the living room floor, I sometimes do this when my back is playing up, so it seemed perfectly natural. Just laying on the floor watching TV when I noticed someone at the window. A builder. They were removing the window, replacing it.

In real life the window does need replacing but it’s low on the priorities. It turned out that the work had been booked by the previous owner and was already paid for. I left the builder to get on with it.

Windows

The dream then moved to the kitchen, which was more like a staff kitchen. My colleagues were there from a previous job. In real life, my relationship with these colleagues was not good, but in the dream we were friendly enough. We chatted small talk things, and eventually we came to my news. In real life I have had a somewhat important breakthrough. I shared my good news, and they did not care.

What do they care?

There was also a middle aged Indian lady with a walking stick. I did not know her, but she seemed to want me to talk to my colleagues.

Dunno

Dream 2: Cellars

The second dream was a little more abstract, and was one of those recurring ones. The sort about finding extra rooms in your house, I get that dream often, but something I have only just realized as I write this is that home has always presented itself in my dreams as the old family home, but not anymore. Home is now my own house, where I live now.

In the dream there was a mix of it being extra rooms, but the rooms were also underground, in the cellar. I did become aware at some point in this dream that it wasn’t real. Our house is way too small for the amount of unnecessary stuff we feel compelled to retain, and my subconscious must be conscious of it.

The cellars were a bit like the undercroft of a station or something. With rooms splitting off from a central corridor. Most of the cellars were like void spaces, but others were filled with storage boxes and lit by candles, the perfect place to sit and share ghost stories with friends.

In the dream, I was also worried that the naked flames might start a fire. This danger was ever present in the dream.

The dream did move on though, to the upstairs, and the main feature was the front door that would not lock. A builder was required to fix the door before it could be secured.

Dream 3: Business

In the third dream I went into business with a couple of other parents I know vaguely from the school. What was surprising though, in the dream, was that the joint bank account of my wife and me was suddenly renamed to the business of  those parents and was several thousand pounds overdrawn. Naturally, I was a bit miffed and felt betrayed. I was also unclear if we had just a business arrangement or were having some sort of affair.

Thingi

The scenery then changed to what I assume was some sort of leavers ball, and my business was somehow involved in the arrangements. It was early and the party had not got going, and guests were people that I knew from my own school, though I’ve long since forgotten all of their names, I recognised them as such.

Lass

The party soon picked up though, and whatever was my role in this business venture was complete and I was free to mingle and drink beer. I remember bumping into someone from university, who explained that she had broken her nose twice since the last time we had met. Bizarre.

Then there was the eating of food. Lots of food, curry and Chinese dishes by the bucket load. What I noticed about the food though was that it was very much like a variety of frozen meals I used to buy, but have not seen for almost twenty years.

Dancing

And then I joined the dance floor with a partner that had been giving me the eye throughout the night, but what was meant to be the start of a beautiful and elegant dance led to my companion landing flat on her arse when I failed to catch her hand. There is a reason why I don’t dance in real life. People get hurt.

There was a brief incursion by an armed assailant at one point but that seemed to resolve itself, and the business was drawn to a close and we all went our separate ways.

But what does it all mean?

In the first dream, there was building work, and windows. To dream about windows can symbolise curiosity or new perspectives. The window was being replaced, and in real life I am about to embark on a new career . One that will certainly bring new perspectives.

To dream about colleagues is apparently a sign that one is doing well at work. This seems to be the case at the moment. And perhaps these particular ones appeared because they held me back. I will take their dreamy disinterest in my news at face value and remember Matthew 6:7, to not cast pearls before swine, and be grateful that the dream allowed me to say what I wanted, but without giving them the opportunity to trample it.

The second dream had more familiar dream imagery. That of the extra rooms appearing in the house. This is understood to signify parts of our psyche developing. As we grow as individuals, the house of the mind expands. This fits with the career change. The cellars too. To dream of a cellar relates to our belief structures, and accessing our inner self. This might signify my relationship with God, and that I have one now. Or it might just be that the cellar was cool.

Ghost Stories in dreams is a puzzler. I couldn’t find anything about that. But the dream about the front door not locking is indicative of vulnerability and insecurities, which is pretty accurate for my current situation. Giving up the secure and familiar for something new is always daunting.

The final dream seemed to have a lot more going on. Going into business suggests facing a challenge. Yup. The potential of the affair may represent insecurities, and I’ve always got those. The debt suggests a sense of obligation, and I currently have a lot of those, not least in my current job.

The dancing suggests happiness, but I did drop my partner. I felt like I had let them down, which can mean that I need to revisit my choices. Possible.

Meeting an old friend can reflect a desire to connect with the past, nostalgia. Last weekend was spent visiting a railway museum and an outdoor Victorian museum. We rode vintage trams and enjoyed old style fish and chips. Nostalgia is a lifestyle choice for me, but I don’t think it’s something my subconscious would care about. The broken nose, again relates to vulnerability and losing control, which is exactly where i am right now.

There is a lot of interpretation here, but what I have found, just by searching up the main themes from my dreams is that they do translate into a common language. That we can interpret our dreams and derive meaning from them in an intelligible way.

I have written at length previously about the meaning of sex in dreams. And I find the whole subject fascinating. Something that I will probably revisit many times.

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Back to the Office? Not on your Nelly!

As I write this, the Omicron infections are rising, and as a new lockdown looks imminent, it is, once again, temporarily, academic, for the foreseeable.

I’m talking about Working From Home, or WFH as it’s often shortened. Ever since the first lockdown, when anyone who could work from home was instructed to do so, and anyone who couldn’t was paid to stay home. Unless of course they were a key worker. A driver, a nurse, a shop assistant, a butcher; anything that the country needed to operate.

At the start of 2020, the world wasn’t ready for Working From Home, psychologically at least. Pragmatically, many millions have been working from home for centuries in their home businesses: cottage industries, freelancers, and the like.

In 2009 we had snow. Lots of snow. Lots of snow in comparison to places that don’t get snow, but just a dusting compared to the snowy alpine countries that deal with several feet of snow on a daily basis. Switzerland doesn’t grind to a halt when there’s a bit of snow, they say, and it’s true, but they’re always expecting snow. In 2009, it snowed, and I remember being in the office as colleagues gathered at the big glass windows and watched everything turn white. Everyone checked the weather news sites, and one by one, reluctantly, declared that they couldn’t risk being stuck, so left work early.

I was one of the more persistent ones. It wasn’t that work needed me. I was an analyst, I provided monthly figures, but I felt this unfathomable pressure, a duty to stay at my post whilst others lost their heads. “What if they needed the First Time Permanent Reinstatement figures three and half weeks early? I really should stay.”

Eventually the Director walked by and saw me stood looking out the window. I don’t remember exactly what he said but it was something along the lines of “What the bloody hell are you still doing here? You’ve an hour’s drive in this you idiot. Sod off home and be safe, and for God’s sake drive carefully!” There may have been more swearing. Actually, there might have been less, I do tend to embellish my anecdotes with every retelling.

But why am I writing this? Much as I like recalling this tale, I do have an actual point.  There is a thing, call it a condition, that inflicts our industries and encourages bad practice and drives inefficiency. That condition is Presenteeism. The idea that career progression is best served not by productivity, not by what we do, but by what we are seen to be doing.

Make sure that everyone in the chain of command knows what car you drive and make sure they see it in the car park when they arrive at 7am, and make sure it is still there when they leave, even if it’s 10pm. Have a jacket on the back of your seat so when you’re not there, you can’t be far away. Always make time for the CEO and those around them, but always have something important in your hand, and always be on the way to somewhere.  Be aloof, but available if needed. Don’t be afraid to big yourself up and get junior staff to do some of your work. I’m obviously exaggerating here to some extent, but there’s a lot of it going on.

But what does this have to do with the snow? The very next day the whole country woke to a fresh covering of crisp white snow.  When it snows overnight you don’t even need to look outside to know it’s snowed. You can hear. Everything outside is muffled, muted, like the volume is turned down.

Outside on the street, neighbours were returning to their homes, unable to leave the village because of the ungritted roads were too steep to climb. I couldn’t go to work even if I wanted to, so it was lucky that the boss called me on my company phone and told me that the roads were treacherous and under no circumstances must I attempt the journey. Brill, but this didn’t mean that I could just go back to bed, or sit by the window with a hot chocolate and watch the sheep huddle in the field across the road. No. I had a company laptop, I had a company phone, and I had access to the virtual desktop. I had access to everything I needed in the office from the comfort of my own home. Except for the best liver and bacon in the world from the staff canteen, I had everything I needed to get the job done.

But there’s a problem. How can anyone park their car where it can be seen by senior management – remotely? How can anyone be seen to be doing anything at all – remotely. How could anyone demonstrate their value to the organisation if they have nothing to show for their time?

This was a problem in 2009 and it was a problem in 2020, but technology has moved on.  So as the whole world went in to lockdown, and vast numbers made offices in kitchens, bedrooms, and on sofas, thousands felt the icy finger of accountability on their shoulder. “Work from Home?” They said, “Out of the question. Its impossible. A physical presence is critical. One cannot just send emails from anywhere you know. First you must phone the person that you are about to email and for that both you and your colleague need to be at your desks. Then you must send the email, again, from the desk in the office. Then you must ring the person to check that they have received it. And then the critical part, and this cannot be done remotely. You must visit your colleague, or subordinate, and discuss the content of the email while resting against their desk. None of this can be done from home”.

In lockdown, diaries filled with zoom meetings. Meetings about meetings. There were meetings about meetings. Pre meeting meeting meetings. Post meeting meeting meetings. Meetings to discuss the next meeting. Meetings to discuss discussing the next four pre meeting planning meetings and follow up. If nonsense and absurdity had a bastard child it would still be more sensible than that shower. But what does that matter? Everyone is busy, as they should be.

Well not quite. Productivity is right down during lock down. There are numbers and everything so it must true. Even the Guardian says so, and they’re the most unbiased and sensible newspaper in the world ever.  Also, now that lockdown is over, there is a reduced footfall in the city centres, less workers eating overpriced sandwiches and drinking over priced coffee, filling over priced car parks, trains and office space. A terrible knock on effect that we are still yet to grasp the full magnitude.

Except. What about the ones that are rather suited to working from home? The ones that have found that they not only get more work done when they are free of the distraction of others, but they don’t really miss the commute?

There are some who quite enjoy the new way of things. No longer do they set their alarm clock for before sunrise to drop of their children in a breakfast club, for a fee, before enduring a long drive or ride to the office. They quite like that they now saunter to their desk at 9am feeling fresh and well rested.

They like that, instead of sharing a cramped office, at the far side of a long commute, and with others that complain about the smell of cuppa soups, or can’t agree on the temperature, or talk loudly on the phone, or fart discreetly but whiffilly, or pretend they can’t hear them with headphones in, and talk about them behind their back etc, they can just sit down and do their job. Some people happen to really enjoy their job but just aren’t interested in office politics. This peculiar type of worker is often overlooked but they do add value to their organisations.

But why aren’t they worried about their value not being seen by the business? Why aren’t they just as desperate as the others to prove their worth? That difference is another P word, productivity, and unlike Presenteeism, it can be measured, and a value can be assigned. This class of worker isn’t burdened by politics, they simply receive their assigned task and complete it within an arranged timeframe, some times alone, sometimes in collaboration, but always more effectively than when also contending with the commute, or Barry’s smelly lunches.

Of course. Any job that can be done as effectively in a log cabin in the Lake District as it can in the office, could also be done in North Korea for a penny a day. While this is technically correct, outsourcing isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. It was tried in the Nineties with IT, and again in the Naughties with customer service. There are still IT jobs and Customer Service jobs in the UK. Automation is by far the biggest threat to job security, but that’s something else entirely.

Then there are the key workers, those whose jobs cannot be done from home. Some would say it’s not fair on them that others have the luxury of working from home. Sounds stupid but this has been said on forums and newspaper comment sections. Others have said that home workers should have their pay cut because they no longer have to cover the commuting and childcare costs if they won’t return to the office. Imagine the outrage if they were told to spend much of their income on something they didn’t need, or if shop workers and drivers were forced to convert half of the kitchen into an office space they don’t need because it’s not fair on homeworkers if they don’t. But let’s not linger on how ridiculous the argument can get.

The cat is out the bag now, the genie is out the bottle. There is no going back to normal, this is the normal. Big shiny offices, and grubby back offices where the support staff are hidden for that matter, are enormous overheads. Overheads that WFH has now made discretionary. While some businesses have taken the line that their staff will work where they are told, where they can be watched, whether they like it or not, their competitors are telling their staff to work where they perform best and are happiest, and are using the cost savings to improve pay and undercut the unresponsive and reactionary rivals.

The industrial revolution brought mass production and transport that changed the face of the planet. Anyone that didn’t adapt was outpaced by those that did. The digital revolution brought the internet and enabled the infrastructure for homeworking. Like the companies that failed to computerise in the eighties, and retailers that didn’t move online, those that snub their employees preference for WFH will also disappear.

Working from home has given me time with my family I would otherwise spend on the commute. It’s given me longer hours in the evening and more hours of sleep. I’m eating better, sleeping better, drinking less, and not missing out on what matters. And on top of that, I put in a good shift every day and the results are there for all to see.

I’m under no such pressure to return to anywhere, but the voices are out there, calling on us all to do our duty and keep Pret supplied with starving miserable workers looking for a quick bite to eat, and the nurseries filled with miserable infants missing their parents for ten hours a day. Well I say no. Not on your Nelly. And so should everyone else.

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The Moon Under Water: A Response

I listened to George Orwell’s essay while waiting for the kettle to boil this morning and immediately felt minded to write a response.

Orwell writes about the perfect London Pub,  The Moon on The Water, and captures so closely the quintessential essence, the quintessence, of such a perfect London pub that I have little to add, only that he wrote this essay eighty years ago, in 1946, and much has changed, and much hasn’t changed, but still, I felt it worthy of a response. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do. Read it here.

There are many Moons Under The Water now, but Orwell’s is the original. Our Pub, for the purpose of this response, is called the Lune Over The Water, its a sort a play on Words. My perfect pub is not in London, it is in Lancaster, the city of the fort on the Lune. The Lune being the river, the water, on which Lancaster is built, and Lune being the French word for moon, its all really very clever if you think about it.

So Orwell speaks of the perfect pub being one that is close to a bus stop, but is tucked away to where the rabble cannot find it. We can all agree, though perhaps the rabble will differ, that we all love a good pub without the rabble. The rabble have their pubs, we have ours, and never twain shall meet.

He speaks of the ample elbow room of Victorian grandeur, and the original features and decor, uncheapened by modernity. Of a warm welcome and familiar faces. Pub grub and delicious ales served in the proper vessels. Little has changed in the mix of the perfect pub in those eighty years.

To the Lune Over The Water, I would perhaps add only maybe a large jar of pickled eggs on the shelf behind the bar. Homemade pickled eggs of a certain vintage and sour enough to set the drinking pace for the evening. Like the Moon, the Lune is as much a place of conversations as it is for drinking, and we very much want to keep it that way.

There were no jukeboxes in Orwell’s time. Might we risk the addition of a small jukebox in the corner? Or would that invite a newcomer to inadvertently break the conversational ambiance with their poor taste? No. The only good jukebox is an inoperable jukebox. Some stylish lines from a fifties antique offers us some intrigue and a window on the past, its tantalizing playlists trigger conversations and recollections, and stories abound. But, gracefully, we are spared the sounds of another’s loud and invasive noise of choice by the want for a replacement needle.

Hey, ain’t nobody got time for that.

Live music is no bad thing in the more boisterous establishments, where shouting words at the ear of your companion and moving on to the next one is all part of the fun, and those establishments are welcome to it. A charming pub of the quality of the Lune Over The Water has no call for entertainers, for a pub is entertainment enough of itself.

The biggest change from Orwell’s time is the smoking ban. The air may be cleaner, but gone is the smokey charm. And gone too are the cigarette machines. I am self censoring here, no one called them cigarette machines, but we’ll run with it. Somewhere in every pub, often near the door or the toilets was a vending machine that would sell packets of 16 cigarettes, in boxes the size of twenties. The perfect pub sells them in twenties, they would be tax exempt, and by some ill understood legal concession, smoking is permitted in some areas.

Vaping is not permitted anywhere on the premises.

Packet of fahhh… Cigarettes.

Of the decor, on the walls of the Lune there are small framed photos of famous and note worthy patrons of the past, now difficult to discern, and somewhat faded by time and the near century of accumulated nicotine yellow. Where some pubs might make the mistake of redecorating, this one hasn’t. The furniture is replaced only when it is beyond repair, and is replaced with the suitable stools and chairs and tables from those pubs still recklessly engaged in the mistake.



Serving food at lunch, I would call for liver and onions, hotpot, or beef stew. Neopolitan ice cream or spotted dick for pudding. The modern pub has too much choice, we are spoiled for choice in fact. We choose from burgers to pizza, to curry, to fish and chips, even gourmet fish finger butties. This is not the way. A limited choice, or no choice at all keeps things nice and simple. Less is more.

The modern Fish Finger sandwich

Sunday Roasts though. That’s a good honest meal for the weekend. Always two meats to choose from. Sometimes Chicken and Lamb, sometimes Beef and Pork. Every now and then we’d be surprised with roast duck or goose, or even goat, and there would always be some sort of amusing anecdote behind the unexpected menu. Like the time farmer Ted had the problem with the rabbits, and rabbit and ale pie was on the menu for weeks.

And while the food that is served is excellent, the Lune is not a restaurant. You cannot book a table, and the choice is limited. Do not arrive hungry at the Lune, you might be disappointed.

Every pub has a selection of snacks. Its keeps the thirst going, and therefore the drinks, and therefore conversation, and thats how you build the evening. The snacks at the Lune are frozen in time, somehow stocking long gone brands and flavours. Piglets, Hedgehog flavour crisps, and KP Skydivers. Along side the usual pork scratching and peanuts, and of course, pickled eggs.

Piglets
Hedgehog Flavour
Sky Divers
Beef and Mustard. Legendary.
The Best Snacks known to man.

In the evenings, around 20:30, a man called Trevor, wearing a white overcoat would enter the pub with with a wide tray or basket, offering the delicacies of the marine for a small sum. Cockles, mussels, fish sticks, crab claws, and prawns.

Fish, mussels, cockles, crab sticks, crab claws…

Entertainment at the Lune. Need it even be said? No television. No sports. No football. No music videos.

But there is a piano, positioned right where no one will notice it. It is in tune, and it receives a lick of polish every other day, but its used only often enough to not be annoying. Every once in a while, maybe to mark an occasion, maybe when the beer is on the turn and the patrons are going loopy, the whole pub would gather around the key thrasher and an old dear reliving her choir days.

Wild nights around the piano

The Lune is not without its novelties. Beneath the building is a deep well shaft, discovered during structural work, and revealed for the first time in 400 years. This well is capped with glass allowing guests to peer down in to the atmospheric lighting, and maybe see a face staring back at you from the shadows.

The Ladies Toilets are said to be haunted. There are several stories behind who that ghost may be. The coachmaster’s daughter. A pendle witch. A jilted lover. New sightings bring new stories and ideas every other year or so.

In the Gents, next to the Johnny machine is a gullabilty testing machine. A narrow wooden case with brass fittings and a glass compartment displays an old 60 watt light bulb. A small sign by the coinslot invites you to insert a coin, preferably a pound coin. I won’t spoil the surprise by revealing what happens when you insert your money.

Outside, there is a beer garden, plenty of seating for those rare sunny days when you can risk leaving the house without a coat. Plenty of shade for midday, plenty of shelter for when the short-lived sunshine returns from whence it came. As with the Moon Under Water, the Lune too has a play area. Not just slides but the whole gambit, outdoor adventure play. An enormous wooden fort with slides, and rope bridges and ladders and poles and more ropes and everything you can imagine and more. All safe and sound with soft padding of springy ground coated with rubber and a thick scattering of cork and soft bark. Having children should be no impediment to the joys of conversation.

Most importantly, The Lune Over Water is within walking distance of home, and just one street away from the humblest family run fish and chip shop you’ll ever know. On entering the chippy, six pints in, you’re greeted from behind the counter by the cute smile of a young lady that seems to fit available but not available but not unavailable, and hello what can I get you in to the small space between two cheeky dimples. The freshest haddock and cod, fried in beef dripping, and the crispiest batter you can get, and a generous serving of chips, drenched with lashings and lashings of salt and vinegar, wrapped in yesterday’s news and eaten with a small wooden fork on the walk home, beneath the brilliance of a clear moonless night.

Much like the Moon, the Lune doesn’t exist. But there are, or there have been, many such places about Lancaster that would qualify as the perfect pub. In the Three Mariners you’ll find a ghost, in The Sun Inn you’ll find a well, and though its long gone now, the John O’Gaunt had a gullability testing machine in the gents.

I recall many great nights out. Back when pubs were always crowded and the beer affordable. Now, many of our beloved public houses, are dying. Barely worth opening in the midweek for the amount of footfall they see.

I can think back on countless nights, unbroken runs of perfect nights out, where the beer was perfect, the company was perfect, the atmosphere was perfect. Like the Moon, the Lune doesn’t quite exist as I would like it, but after a few beers, every pub is the perfect pub.

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Tubular Anecdotes

As a northerner, a resident of the sticks that are way out there, I grew up almost entirely reliant on scant service buses, and as such, only visited the places to which the buses went. Cities, like London, with their subway systems were a great source of envy for me. Trains, being not just cool, they can take you anywhere. Using these systems, like the London Underground, give you a different perspective of them.

My First Time

My first experience of the Tube must have been in the very early eighties, and I was very little, and don’t remember very much of it. A family trip to London on the brand new Intercity 125s, and that’s about as much I recall. So my first genuine exposure to the tube was around 1994 when I visited a friend in Watford.

Being a young adult of limited means, a student, I was using the National Express, like in the song, and the way from Watford to Barnsley was via Victoria Coach Station. And the best way to get to Victoria was an Intercity train from Watford Junction to London Euston, but that was something that only happened to people with money. The cheaper alternative was the semi fast commuter service in to Euston. Cheaper than that was the slower DC line to Euston. And even cheaper than that was the Metropolitan Line to Baker Street, and then the Circle to Victoria. An hour longer than the next best option, but it cost about £1.50 instead of a tenner.

I remember this journey particularly well because of much it contrasted with my expectation of London and the South of England. To make the coach from Victoria I had leave early, before seven am. And it was still dark, foggy, snow on the ground, and to get there I had to walk through a lonely municipal park, and for the entire twenty minute walk, I didn’t see another soul until I arrived at the tube station and purchased my ticket from a chap behind a little window. The train was waiting for me at the platform, and as far I could tell, the train too was empty. I had an entire London Underground train to myself. The first stop was a couple of minutes down the line, Croxley, and no one got on or off there either, and the snow was crisp, fresh, undisturbed.

It was the darndest thing, and I began to doubt the realness of my situation. Was I dead?

Obviously I wasn’t. The whole of the South East had just over slept or something. Having an entire train to myself wasn’t going to last though, and from then on it began to fill up and by the time the train arrived at Baker Street it was standing room only.

The thing I remember most about that train ride, aside from the emptiness at the start, was looking out of the window of a London Underground train and seeing open countryside and suburbs, and with a dusting of snow no less. The closer you get to London, the denser the housing gets. Victorian terraces that stretched as far as the eye could see, four of five, or even six stories tall, smoke bellowing from the chimneys. Very Mary Poppins.

Recalling this journey made me realise something about myself. This trip was the first and only time I ever used Baker Street station without a certain song getting stuck in my head.

From a certain music video…

The onward train from Baker Street wasn’t as pleasant as the first. The station wasn’t as empty, in fact it was positively heaving. And when I did manage to board a train, well, “like a tin of sardines” might be a well worn cliche by now, but its yet to be beat. It was packed. I was unable to raise my arms to hold a hand rail, but there was no danger of losing your balance as the train jolted about beneath the streets of London. I can’t even use the word jostle, for that would imply some degree of freedom of movement within the carriage. There was none.

Gone too was the scenery. We were now deep below ground. The delightful snow topped open countryside and suburbs was replaced with armpit. A lot of armpit. Armpit in ever direction, as far as the eye could see. I’d never held breath so long, and the diesel fumes and tabacco smoke of the open London air never tasted so sweet.

Credit:  UK Photo & Social History Archive

Since then, I have used the tube many times and found it just as unbearable at rush hour, but quite pleasant at any other time.

Their First Time

A year or so ago I was working in London and thought it would be a good idea if the wife and kids traveled down to meet me for a weekend of sights and sounds, and travel down to meet me they did.

Waiting at Euston

It was a weekend of firsts, for all of us. It was the boys’ first long distance train ride, first time in London, first Black Cab, first West End show. It was my first, and last, Uber. It was also, the first time on the London Underground for the kids, and it did not go well.

We were staying at the Kings Cross Plaza, quite a walk from any tube station but I was absolutely adamant that we should have the experience of the London Underground. It would be fun. It wasn’t.

The nearest tube stop was Russel Square, so we walked there. I was particularly looking forward to showing the kids the steep long escalators that go so far down that you cannot see the bottom. Russel Square is not the station for that sort of thing. The platforms being accessed by lift. A very busy crowded lift as it happened. It took us a while to figure out how to buy tickets too. The whole system is geared up for using contactless tickets. You just present your oyster card, phone, or bank card to the gate and it opens for you. There was very little provision for passengers traveling with children that did not have oyster cards, mobile phones, or bank cards.

When we did finally make it down to the platform, it was quite exciting. You could hear, even feel, the rumble of the trains, the whoosh of air as trains whizzed through the tunnels, and that musty old ozone smell that is unique to the London Underground. This was what we’d come for.

The first train burst out from the tunnel and slowed to a screeching halt. The doors slid open for us to board, but we couldn’t, beyond the door was a wall of people, several layers deep. There was no boarding that train. We let it go and waited for the next one. It was the same. We observed the locals forcing their way in to the carriages and after watching the third train leave without us we resolved to give it a try.

We (wife and I) each took a firm hand of a child, straightened our backs, and took a deep breath as yet another train drew in to the station. I had the hand of the eldest, and as the doors opened, he stepped aboard along side his mother, who held tightly the hand of our youngest. Without warning. The doors slid shut, separating me from my assigned child, and my youngest from his mother. I pulled him away from the platform edge.

“I’ve got him” I shouted to my horrified wife, “Meet at next stop!”

And then they were gone. The train whizzed out of view and we had no option but to wait for the next one. I shudder to think what might have happened had the kids boarded the train together first, or been left on the station without us.

Onboard the train, our separated family unit was the talk of the carriage. All were disgusted that this could have happened. Where was the warning that the door was closing? Where was the guard? I don’t know why I didn’t make a complaint, this was a serious breach of railway safety rules. This one event would have been enough to put the kids off London, but that was only the outbound trip, later, we had to return to the hotel.

It wasn’t until much later that we returned to the Plaza, by then it was late, after eleven, and the platforms and trains were all much quieter. I think we used Leicester Square, and there was a relaxed friendly atmosphere as most passengers were wined and dined and returning from a pleasant night out. The train came in and we boarded without incident.

Just up from us was a young man sat hunched, his head in his hands. I only really registered that he was there at because it was just as I was looking in that direction that he suddenly belched the content of his stomach on to the carriage floor. It stank. We got off of that train and waited for the next one.

Quieter at night.

Larping a Commute

The thing that inspired this post to begin with was a recent trip to London for a few days, and my usual hotel haunts were unavailable so I ended up staying further out. Baker Street is well within walking distance of Bloomsbury but I rather liked the idea of pretending to be a beleaguered weary tube commuter for a few days. Larping, for the unitiated is Live Action Role Play-ing. I doubt that I will do it again.

Its nice for cities that have metros, they are fast and efficient, but in rush hour, they really aren’t fun. They are hot and sweaty, the London Underground has a constant temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, or there abouts, which is why it always feel so warm, even in winter. Even before I arrived at the station, there were crowds of people overtaking me on the pavement, a stream of people, a river, nay, a raging torrent of commuters.

Through the station gate and you have to make a payment to gain access to the trains. Everyone knows where they are going and work on autopilot. You hear the sighs from behind as you fail to complete the card payment at the gate in one fluid motion, adding crucial seconds to their journey. Baker Street station is on the junction of 5 lines, interconnected by tunnels and bridges and subways and walkways. Its easy to get turned around and find one’s self about to board a train in the wrong direction. Luckily, during rush hour, there are plenty of trains, but they’re all full, and it takes a few trains before one appears with a gap in the door way to accommodate you.

The ride itself is bouncy and awkward. You don’t want to catch anyone’s eye in case it got weird. I don’t know what would happen if that did occur, but I feel like it would be bad.

Baker Street to King’s Cross is three stops. More than enough to get the taste of a central London commute, and when you get there, you follow the swarm up the escalators and along the wide subterranean avenues. On the first day of my larping, there was some sort of delay, and crowds were gathering, hundreds of people penned in line like sheep. Its always a relief to break out in to the open air again, and promise ourselves, never again.

Please Can You Help Me

On the last day of this trip, after checking out, I made my way to the office for the last time. I had planned to take a photo of the commuters penned in like sheep to illustrate this blog post, but it was clear so didn’t bother. I took a wrong turn however and found myself walking beneath and along the undercroft beneath the magnificent train shed roof.

As I wandered past the shops and outlets beneath the railways of the international rail services, marveling at the Victorian opulence, my eye met that of another. To be fair, it was the pie that I noticed first. A disheveled young lady with a thick blue coat and backpack was eating a pie. She changed her course to intercept me. I had every intention of walking away but she said something and I had to stop.

“Please can you help me” She said.

Something about big cities and crowded spaces with strangers sort of shuts down your responsiveness to others I find. Like not wanting to make eye contact with others on the train. Whats the worst that can happen? Well, they might want something for a start. I was more than prepared to mind my own business and go about my day. For a moment, I was reminded of the movie Liar Liar, when Jim Carey’s lawyer that cannot lie character was asked on the street “can you spare any change”.

If I replied with anything other than yes, it would have been not only a lie, but it would have been a heartless lie. So I stopped and turned to face her. “What help do you need” I said.

She was very softly spoken and seemed to choose her words cautiously and deliberately. I do not know if she was recalling a well practiced script or thinking on her feet.

“Thank you for stopping and talking to me” She said. “I am homeless and destitute and I need to get money for a ticket”.

I am accustomed to this play. We have it up north, but its not usually a disheveled young lady asking politely. More often then not its a coarse “Scuse me pal you haven’t got twenty pence for the bus home have ya?” spoken in an accent not unfamiliar in one of the larger cities to the western edge of Lancashire.

“How much do you need?” I asked her, and she told me. It wasn’t a trivial amount, nor was it excessive, so I gave her what little cash I had on me. She thanked me, and said bless you. And its difficult to fathom because her expression was unchanged throughout the entire encounter, until I said “Bless You” in return.

Its almost better to believe that I had been scammed out of a small amount of money, than to think that there really are destitute and homeless people dependent on the generosity of commuters on the London Underground.

We don’t see that up north, not in the rural communities. There is no one around to ask for money for a start, and its difficult to imagine being asked for help every day without having to harden the heart a little. As useful as the underground is, I am glad I use it rarely.

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