Happy Halloween

It's day of the dead again. 

I sent off my absentee ballot paper today in the hope that we can trump the Trump and stop him being elected. That's scarier than any ghoul we could dress up as. 

The Love Knot

A novel by John Slavin

Set in between the wars in Weimar Rebublic featuring two English women tussling with artists and poets and coming into contact with the beginning of Fascism and the rise of Hitler pre-leadership. 

A literary novel written as a sequel to DH Lawrence's 'Women in Love'. I like the style of writing but at a third of the way through the book I don't like any of the characters, men or women. Perhaps it's too old a theme - women looking for the husband who will love and look after them, supposedly fiercely independent women who rely on others... 

Kensington High Street

People in Kensington still travel. There are more travel agents than anything else in the High Street. Unlike Tottenham High Street, where the majority business is bookmakers. There is only one bookmaker in Kensington High Street. People like outdoorsy sports especially skiing and rock climbing. They use expensive bikes. And eat out. They still buy books. And they park on yellow lines during the day (I guess that happens in all High Streets).

Opposite my work a maid, (in a maids uniform - little blue stripy dress and a white apron, like Jennifer Lopez wore in Maid in New York) was outside the house sweeping. Maids dress a little like nurses. Blue uniforms, white short socks and white sensible shoes.

In the lift a terribly English man is talking to a terribly English woman (middle English - no accent as such, him: strawberry blond hair and beard, her: mousy brown ponytail).  It ended up here, he pointed to his neck just below his ear, I never really understand the lip kissing thing. Its embarrassing enough with your own parents, she pipes in, but someone else's! I leave the lift. Thinking about discomfort of meeting people. I've overcome that a long time ago. Socially meeting women is a cheek kiss the first time and same for the elders of the Panther's (either sex), and later on that cheek kissing informality becomes lip kissing or very-close-to-mouth kissing. The Panther greets my father that way. Actually its nice. Its so much more welcoming than a handshake, that feels ever so standoffish now. Moving away from stiff upper lippish Englishness. Good riddance to it!

Corner cafe

It was a late evening last night - selling stuff and food at a flea market, got home after a long clearing up session at 12.30. Today I am exhausted. Literally aching all over and tired. I found the closest thing to a greasy spoon that I think the neighbourhood will muster and I'm drinking a long strong cappuccino and waiting for eggs benedict. They are playing Pink Floyd. As the track Money begins I become aware of someone behind me tapping their foot heavily in time. A youngish man says flat white when the waitress asks and then says I'll be back in a couple of minutes I have to sit in the car. The waitress comes to the door and calls down the street large or small? The waitresses speak French. My eggs come. Perfect without giving instructions. A welcome pick-me-up. Flat white man pops back and sugars his coffee before hurrying out. The tune changes to Comfortably Numb. Cars go past. 

I've just been reading about Amy Schumer, then a tragic tale about a tetraplegic woman who has the anxiety in extreme form when you feel you are missing out (my whole younger life was one long worry about that) because she is - not able to get up by herself and finally about a white collar man who bought himself a boiler suit. Panther bought a boiler suit and does love rocking it - yes it's practical but there are also the benefits of having it tied round your waist teamed with a vest or in extremely hot conditions a bare chest (I can hardly speak about it I am so overcome)... And then I'm misreading the advert in the cafe window (backwards because I'm inside and the paper faces outwards) fluff time staff wanted I read. 

Lift

As I walked up to the lift back up to training at Westminster City Hall 10 Queens Gaurds in full uniform with red jackets and bear skin hats came trailing out of the lift. Some with hats in hand. Heavy clopping in the marble floor from their boots. 

Kensington High Street

It's hot. A crocodile of private school girls lines up to cross the street. They are wearing awfully old fashioned pale blue gingham summer uniform dresses with white piping and white round collars and straw boater hats. Marshalled by some strict looking teachers in high vis vests.

Reasons to be cheerful

A random stranger (woman) on the escalator today excused me and told me she absolutely loved my figure (me - I'm not usually that keen on it), she felt odd after and said she wasn't a lesbian or anything but felt she had to say. It made me feel good about myself and made me smile - which is a good thing. 

Now I'm listening to Bentley Rythym Ace (of some time ago) which is further lifting my spirits. 

Continuing the integration

Dog walker dressed in black training outfit walks through Kensington Gardens with 4 dogs, all neatly walking to heel, quietly, without the hint of a tug. 

Shortly after a largely muscled man jogs past, he draws attention because he has two mini parachutes holding wind behind him (I guess to increase the pull and improve the training). 

3 older ladies sit in an extended golf cart (a sort-of golf cart limo) being driven around to look at the Palace. Their driver giving a guided tour on route. 

The entrance to the palace is guarded by armed police. Signs saying photography is not allowed are all over the place - the next street over is full of embassies (Romanian, Russian, Israel, Nepal, Slovakian). It's quiet. Street is empty apart from a tanned man with a huge gold chain bracelet and a cigar being driven in a large black silent car.

And I return to the office politics. 

Punk rock old lady

She looks German - short blond hair, streaked to disguise the grey. With her son, who sort of looks my age, perhaps a decade younger (I'm 46 unbelievably when I think of it - don't know how I got that old). She is wearing lemon Bermuda shorts and a teeshirt of multicolours with pineapples all over it and necklaces with beads. What I'm really looking at is her makeup. Her eyes are a multi-coloured extravagance - blue nearest her eye, then orange and finally yellow up to the eyebrow. Matched with orange lipstick. It's bold. It reminds me of my punkish days in the early 90s. I miss being that bold. I used to channel a look I had seen on Siouxsie and the Banchees. I had bright pink hair at the time and had to paint my eyes so that they didn't disappear under the colourful mop. I did a blend of bright pink at the outer edge and red into the eyeline, with a long and thick black eyeline and a lot of black mascara. I thought I rocked. I was on the tube one day with my mum, crowded we were hanging onto those dangly things (remember those?) in the centre of the carriage. A Rasta man leaned over my shoulder and said to me, I don't normally like women with a lot of makeup on but if anyone challenges you, tell them you are emulating the beauty of the birds, much to his girlfriend's displeasure. I thought, yeah! That's it! My mum was just concerned about the girlfriend but we were getting off the next stop. I feel like it's time to rock the beauty of the birds again. 

West London Oddities

The flamboyance of a Worker dressed in blue pinstriped suit, colourful shirt and tie, with a handkerchief in the breast pocket. Styling this with a moustache with curled ends and a smile. 

Wealthy older man standing outside his flat, dressed for the warm weather in a black jellaba with embroidery round the neck and down the front, long stripped trousers, Birkenstocks and a shawl. His white hair and beard died coppertone orange. Couldn't decide if he might have had ginger hair originally or just likes red hair (like I do - which is why I dye mine red). 

Customers eating outside Bill's restaurant on the way to the tube. One pairing includes a woman who has brought her cat with her - it's on a harness leash, is sitting on her lap, and is one of those hairless breeds that looks sort of Siamese. 

The taste of 1978

Today at Pop's we have mostly been channelling 1978. He came down wearing his white jeans that I remember from the 70s - he sewed patches on them. And then he opened a bottle of wine he had laid down in 1978. Mostly it tasted thick and winey (not my favourite but I'm not a connoisseur).

He was cooking chicken fried steaks - comfort food from his youth. 

Morning smiles

Getting onto the westbound circle/district line platform at Victoria for the inevitable wait for a circle line train, was greeted by a strong Jamaican accent welcoming all the lovely people, telling us to make like Bolt because the train was ready to leave. Moments later a change of staff came down including a fierce looking steely grey haired man who dragged Carl off to give him a telling off - I've told you so many times, Carl, calm your messages down. 

What the managers of TFL don't seem to realise is that the comedians and unique announcers bring a much needed lifted spirit to those of us trapped on the underground. 

Big up to Carl.

And at my destination there was a number 9 bus (new style route master) with the conductor riding the platform with the door open. I remember the joys of old, waiting to disembark from the old buses, hanging onto the pole in the middle of the platform, hair blowing in the wind, face like a dog with its head out the car window. Small things...

Telephone box

It's been decades since I frequented a telephone box (I was a fairly early adopter of the mobile phone) - we used to use the one in my granny's hamlet (only facility it had, other than dilapidated stone buildings without rooves that the sheep sheltered in). 

They seem only to exist now for tourists to selfie in and for hookers to ply their wares (asses, tits, poom-pooms all decorated with stars).

Views from the escalator

Red patent leather brogues with a white sole, worn with rolled up black jeans and no socks. 

The rabbit and the bear

On a commuter tube in the morning. Victoria line to.... A woman sits tucked into the arm of a huge man, shorts and sneakers, big beard, tufty fringe standing up, puffy eyes from sleep. She is reading a book, mouth slightly ajar. She turns towards him, her teeth protrude slightly, she leans over his massive shoulder, craning to kiss his cheek, and nuzzles him with her nose. 

A rabbit and a bear. 

Screenface

Lunch time Holland Park. Route through the park to Kensington High Street. Me and the builders of the neighbourhood are hanging on the benches. 

I'm noticing how many groups of people walking down there together are just face in screen. An orientalist couple. Side by side but locked in individual screens. 4 young men in shirts and chinos striding back to work (I imagine), four phones outstretched before their faces. Two boys and a girl, three phones out. I'm thinking it's crazy people have really forgotten the art of talking. They are probably texting one another.

Later another builder joins our bench. He's very polite. We start talking about the neighbourhood. I tell him I'm sorry they all have to take their breaks in the side of the street. He says they have to, to be able to smoke. Very strick rules in these fancy houses. No smoking, no swearing, no sitting.

Anyway, he tells me these people are Pokemon hunting. It's a thing apparently. It's in timeout this week and everything. Grown people. All over the place. I don't know how you catch them. Or even what they look like but I can tell you - there is definitely one near the outdoor opera at this moment. 

Snot nose

Cute children clinging to the pole in the centre of the carriage enjoying the roller-coaster-ish effect of the train lurching around on the track at high speed. The girl had a trail of green snot hanging out of each nostril. For the life of me I couldn't understand how her mother didn't notice and then I couldn't look anymore from revulsion. 

Working in Posh Neighbourhoods

OMG they steam clean the pavements in Kensington. Who knew? It takes two men and a double ended machine. Extraordinary.

Ultimate Oxymoron

Camouflage outfit - top and pants, in the colour way of yellow and neon pink - the question in the office was - where are you going to hide in that? Look at me! Don't look at me! Hide in the 1970s maybe. Or against some graffiti... 

Escalator

It's been a while since I had a good escalator story. But I noticed it a couple of weeks ago and checked it today. At Manor House tube station there are two old escalators flanking a middle one that has been recently renovated. At rush hour in the evening two go up (the left hand and the middle one). Previously I was standing on the left one watching people standing in the middle overtake me. The middle one must be faster. So today, and I don't know why this pleases me so much, but in the race of standing passengers on moving staircases, I chose the middle escalator and overtook 5 people spaced with two steps between each. A significant win and worth the choice, I think you'll agree.