17 June - Travel & Not happy

The other day after a series of unfortuante events, as I like to borrow, I found myself alighting in Stratford on the DLR only to then have to get on the Central line back into London. It was illumintating to see a landscape that may as well have been the moon for all I care. The station seemed modern and busy but I wouldn't have wanted to get out. I think they make satellite boroughs too close to cities. There should be no banlieu, but clear demarcation zones left empty between a town and another. This is not London I thought, it never will be and pity all these people who have to live here. I repeat, it might as well have been the moon.

This longwinded journey out to journey back in was pleasang enought thoug. I have no problems with transport if I can sit down and read. I have no problems with work in general, necessary evil, when I get to it I don't dislike it but I dislike getting to and from it. I cry for every single hour I lost that way. I'd rather be Proust and sit /read/eat/sleep in bed than constantly having to move inside the bowels of the underground.

Take this morning. There was a guy in a suit on tube listening to annoying stuff 3" from my head. Then another comes in, older type, grey hair, suit, listening to 150mph heavy metal, I can’t make out any vocals , it’s just the relentless guitar wang wang want that I hear. I wonder how he gets into work does he need a sort of ‘kill kill kill/sell /sell/sell attitude’? Or is he a maintenance guy? (in some work environments everyone has to don a suit believe it or not). I can’t move as it’s a packed train, I want to start a conversation at one stop ‘Hi, I notice your headphones are Sennhisers, they’re meant to be really good, how much do they cost? And if he says a lot, I’ll say, but you’ve been conned monsieur, they leak sound all over the place, it is the most monstrous heavy metal...you moron'. But I don't dare of course. Am not afraid to take him on, but I know my eengleesh crowds, they'd side with him simply because I have disturbed his space. I have visions of one day being killed by a mob on a bus because I was the one who said 'Do take the fucking step forward that woudl fill that space over there I can see would fit 3 of us small girls and let several more people on, instead of hanging on to your position and blocking like mad simply because you're getting off 7 stops from now you asshole'. Yes, one day I will say it and I will die. But I want you all to start a campaign and get me at least a commemorative plaque on the spot where it happened. We can go choose it now, maybe by Elgin Crescent.

People will ask (well no they don't since this is all in my head and nobody knows) why do I want to go and live in overcrowed Delhi or Mumbai where the flesh pressing would be extreme. But they don't understand. It's not the flesh pressing that annoys me. In fact I find beauty in the ability that the subcontinent dwellers have to fill any available space with not inconsiderable grace. They bend as one with the crowd. Space is found, filled and then released to the next person. It's rigidity and territorialness that I can't abide. When I walk in a crowd it's like a ballet, I'm fluid and fast and I don't bang into you. But the plodders in a straight line are the opposite, putting up themselves as obstacles, unable to see the empty paving stone that they should step on. I have no problem with Bangkok, only wtih Covent Garden or something... Oh I mustn't go down this route. Why accelerate madness. I'll go think of something else.