I like to write and sometimes I can talk far too much too. Like I piss people off without realising; is this a problem with me or them? Or you dear reader?
Both really. Still, everyone does sometimes I guess. Sooo here goes...
George Bush. Enough said.
Why don't you use your indicator?
Just lazy or do really just want to meet new people and kill them? This is real for me as a former motorcycle courier in London - and they use them (indicators, silly) almost all the time over there - where every day was a dice with death, especially when it snowed. Standing around outside some greasy spoon in Soho trying to warm your hands on a stewed cup of tea of dubious origin, smoking and joking with some of the weirdest colleagues I've ever had the pleasure to work with.
I got the job because when they asked me a couple of routes I was able to recall the names of the tube stops in sequence. Good thing they chose the Piccadilly and Northern lines!
First day at work, 7a.m. on a borrowed bike, a smoke yellowed waiting room with a little door from where the bits of paper with the first jobs were periodically issued. Cups of tea. Crap dailies. No-one raced off clutching heir slips, and I followed suit, as one does. At 7.15 the reason for the reluctance became clear: the driver with a van-load of packets from up North arrived and was fulsomely greeted. Think Norm from Cheers, without the squeaky clean set, the jowls, or Ted Danson.
This long-haired South African then sat down and rolled a huge joint which circulated around the Shepherd's Bush bikers, upping the general noise by several notches and turning my decidedly nervous head decidedly giddy. The man then rugged up on a broken sofa and went to sleep. No time to dally - you're paid by the job, so it's now or never. Terrified, lost and stoned as a badger I'm out in the maw trying to stay alive.
Nuts you say? Imagine if I'd never done it!
One day I'm hustling - that's how you do it - into the Marble Arch roundabout, where the cops on bikes are sheltering from the rain underneath. Four lanes of heavy traffic meeting several lanes off the Edgeware Road, from whence I arrive behind a large, silver Mercedes.
Trick with joining these roundabouts is to move in at speed and establish position/merge. There being a gap you could park a steamship in passing, I expect the Merc to have grabbed his slot and I'm looking right to find mine, opening the throttle as I go...
Bang! I'm suddenly spread-eagled on the boot - um, trunk for the US reader - the bike is leaning suspiciously too close to the back of this fine piece of European engineering, with it's meticulously applied paint and gleaming chrome, we are in the middle of the outside lane and I'm looking through the rear window at a Very Large West Indian Gentleman, and he does not look happy.
Dude, neither do I! As I slide off the slope I notice the deep gouge of my handlebar's path over the metal. This is looking bad - the cops are watching, and Mike Tyson seems to be getting ready to hop out for a discussion. Please forgive me my quick-thinking response under pressure - catching my malefactor's eye, I give an emphatic thumbs up, he breaks into a huge white grin and stabs the gas into the traffic and disappears.
Couple of prods on the kick-start and I'm out of there - no longer a stone in the river of cars and trucks. I dare to glance at the cops and they appear to be laughing amongst themselves.
This was a great time; I can still navigate London without an A to Z (that's "ed" - like in Pulp Fiction) twenty years later. Much of the work was running jobs for film companies around loft offices in Soho. Arrive at reception, give the big smile to the trophy blonde behind the desk and spend some time chatting in order to gain an espresso, lounge around in the Eames/Corbusier/Jacobsen furniture until the edit is done, belt off to Visnews in NW? which was a clearing house for world news, packaging it all up for satellites and rebroadcasting.
One bleak, snowy afternoon I was way out in Sussex slooshing around in snow drifts looking for the country address of some creative director who had to have a package. Freezing, tired, hungry and somewhat short of good cheer, I rode down a long drive a to a fabulous modernist house glowing warmly in the gathering gloom.
Ringing the the bell, the attractive and welcoming lady of the house took the package and I thrust the clipboard toward her with a request for a scribble of any sort. She noticed my alluring antipodean accent and - unheard of for locals well versed in the class system - asked if I'd like to come in and warm up. Hang all that wet stuff up here and come through to the lounge. The heat hit me like a soft wall, the genuine warmth and good manners were like a dream after a year or more moving between squats and grubby, exorbitant London flats.
Introductions to the family, an armchair and a drink. Questions about New Zealand, travelling, family, music... I quickly fell under some kind of fantastic spell. Naturally I stayed for dinner, although all I remember now is the warm crusty bread and the rich vegetable soup. Too late to ride back, of course I was happy to accept an offer to stay the night, and set off early next morning in one of those crisp, foggy, petrol-scented dawns that only outer London can provide.
Whoever you were, you touched me deeply. My thanks. I owe you, you lovely people.
One of the best regular runs was from the Royal Albert Hall with costumes for the National Opera of perhaps Royal Ballet, to somewhere in North London to the home of two ageing seamstresses. This was great fun, their semi-detached home had the whole ground floor open from one end to the other, massive drifts of costumes along both side walls and a small path weaving in between that led to their working area - sewing machines, lamps, buttons, thread and all the accoutrements of the serious stitcher. This looked out through french doors over a wintry garden, with a little sun slanting in, weak but welcome.
These old dears were such a hoot! It was very hard to draw oneself away, even when the production was waiting for the return of the adjusted garment. Many, many cups of tea, digestive biscuits, talk, tales and teasing. They loved company, especially an impressionable young man from the colonies. One of my lasting memories is being bullied into a fat ladies suit, complete with enormous, pendulous, birdseed-filled breasts. It was hard to carry the weight while laughing so hard at myself in the mirror!
I'd happily do it all again
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