Letters from London #6 (Part 3)

Continuing on with yesterday's silliness on London "sports" - this section is probably my personal favourite from all the Letters from London that I wrote.  And whenever I go back to visit and I take the Tube, I realize that this is still as accurate now as when I wrote it - anytime you're in London, I guarantee you'll end up playing at least one of these...

Written somewhere around March/April 2001

3. Underground Games:

Body Climb - this is played when your train pulls into the station and all you can see when the doors open is hundreds of people crammed in like unhappy sardines in overcoats.  Getting onto this train seems impossible, right?  And you call yourself a Londoner?  Shame on you!  Didn't you see those two inches of space on the floor?  All you have to do is wedge your toe into that space, and then fling yourself at the crowd over and over again like a demented lemming until you finally get a hand onto a support of some kind.  Hey, now you're really in business!  You've got one foot and one hand in, never mind the fact that your arse is still hanging out in front of the other twenty people on the platform who are kicking themselves for missing the opportunity that you so cleverly spotted.  Now this is where training is very important; at this point, you might still fail in your mission.  Don’t worry, just make sure your foot and your hand are firmly planted, then grind your way in with your pelvis like you're Elvis on Viagra.  Eventually your arse will make it past the doors, and once that's in, your head and your remaining appendages will follow, I promise.

The Imaginary Shag - the object of the game is to select an object of desire among your fellow passengers, one that you fancy enough to fantasize about. And if they get off the train before you do, you have to choose a new person.  Oh, what's that?  Easy game?  Oh, but I beg to differ.  It would be an easy game in a lot of places, but London ain't one of them, kids.  Why's that, you ask?  Because some of the other games you can play on the Underground are:

Who hasn't been to the dentist since 1974?

Who's a bleary-eyed drunk at 11 a.m?

Who smokes so much they smell like the Marlboro factory?

Who's completely unacquainted with the niceties of personal hygiene? 

And there are many, many more, but you get the idea.  I play this one all the time, and consider myself to be a very advanced player, but some days it's just an impossible challenge.

Self-Control - oh, this one is fun.  You can only play this when the trains are really, really crowded (which, in London, is every rush hour, so you can play this a lot).  What you have to do is wait for some uncontrollable impulse; for example, your left eyebrow is itchy.  Oh yeah, it's itchy.  Itchyitchyitchy.  You have to scratch it, there's nothing in the world that would make you happier than to scratch it, if you had a million dollars you'd give it away if it meant you could scratch your damn eyebrow.  But you can't scratch it.  No, no, no.  That's the whole point of the game.  When you're stuffed into a train like this, the mechanics of moving any part of your body become very complicated. Your right arm is pinned firmly to your side by a fat man in a pinstriped suit.  His face is red and his breath is like that of a piranha.  You wonder if his wife lets him kiss her with that breath.  You know he has a wife, because his left hand is desperately clinging to the pole next to your head, and his wedding ring is directly in front of your left eyeball.  Your left arm is in the air, desperately clinging to the pole above your head.  There is an ugly man directly in front of you, desperately clinging to the same pole as you, but he's much taller, and therefore his elbow is jammed firmly into your right nostril.  You are only peripherally aware of these things, however, because the need to scratch your left eyebrow is becoming unbearable.  Any minute now you will either scream, or offer to sleep with the ugly man in front of you if he will just use his free hand to scratch your eyebrow.  You are opening your mouth to do one or the other, you're not sure which one yet, when you suddenly realize that the train is rocketing into a station and is about to stop, which means that you only have to hold out for another couple of seconds before you can stop desperately clinging to the pole and scratch your eyebrow at will.  And that, boys and girls, is how you play Self-Control.

Letters from London #4

Well, it's been a long week and I'm tired, so here we go again with the Letters from London...

January 2001:

1.     Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the Underground

Not a creature was stirring

Except for the old drunk next to me.

We were both waiting for the same train and while there were probably visions of sugarplums (among other things) dancing through his head, he was clear on one point:  "Ten years wasted on her, ten years of my life wasted on that woman."  Well, mama always said not to talk to strangers, but hey, I'm a sucker for an unlucky-in-love story, it was Christmas Eve and he was a sad old man, so I nodded and muttered sympathetically once in a while as he rambled on about it.  Anyway, when we got on the train, he insisted on giving me one of his beers and then, before he got off at the next stop, stood up and proclaimed to the entire car what a wonderful human being I am.  I was, to put it mildly, mortified (I mean, I agree and everything, but jeez, you don't have to make a scene about it).  At the next stop, another guy got on, saw the can of beer that I had put on the seat next to me, asked if it was mine, and when I shook my head, he popped open and guzzled it there and then.  So I hope this little story serves to remind you all of the true meaning of Christmas:  free beer provided by complete strangers. 

2. English Language: After writing about "Puppetry of the Penis", a small grammatical point occurred to me.  Since the plural of octopus is octopi, and the plural of Elvis (as everybody knows) is Elvi, why is it that the plural of penis is not peni?  Can anyone answer this for me? 

3. Why You Should Listen To Kenny Rogers – I was thinking about having a juicy, messy, horrible romance that would fill me with angst, spite, and creative energy, but I just can't be bothered right now.  To paraphrase Kenny Rogers (who can actually be counted on for good advice in most of life's dilemmas -- he's kind of like a country 'n' western Yoda), I'm a-folding and a-running.  Thanks, Kenny!

Letters from London #2

Well, I was going to get back to posting about Paris today, but I'm still in a bit of a nostalgic mood for London and my early expat days.  (More importantly, I'm feeling very lazy tonight and this is already written, so this is what you're getting...)

November 2000:

1.       Hostel Highlights:

• Imagine, if you will, a pig.  No, not some cute little oinker like the one in "Babe", I'm talking about an enormous, full-grown sow.  Now imagine this pig walks upright, has long, witchy black hair, is wearing a dress made of fishnet and boots with 4" platform heels.  Got that?  Good.  Okay, now imagine that this pig invades your dorm at 3:00 in the morning, turns on the light, stomps around, yells about her bag having been stolen, and proceeds to rummage drunkenly through your belongings.  Boy, living in a hostel is awesome.  I’m so glad I moved to London without knowing anyone, without a job and without a place to live – what a clever, clever decision.  

• Imagine, if you will, the worst snoring you've ever heard and then multiply it by about a thousand.  This guy (who is as big as your average grizzly bear) checked into our dorm last night and I have never in my life heard anything like his snoring.  How can you describe the indescribable?  The closest I can get is to suggest that you imagine the offspring of a wild boar and a vacuum cleaner trying to have sex with an unwilling donkey, while it's playing an out-of-tune saxophone under a blanket of mucus.  

• Imagine, if you will, four pasty, pimply Scottish boys who get up for work at 5:30am (an event which involves all four of their mobile phone alarms going off and their buddy coming to bang loudly on our dorm door) and mill about like a herd of dazed, loud-mouthed Highland cows as they get ready.  I'm now into my third day without sleep and things are about to get ugly, if not downright homicidal.  Every night, we explain to them that this is not their private dorm, and that the other four people who sleep there have paid good money for a bed and that there are a few simple rules of hostel courtesy that should be followed.  Every night, they look shamefaced, mutter "Och, aye, ye're right, sorry" and go to bed, only to repeat their actions in the morning.  So I'm not sure if they're all a) suffering from a rare form of overnight amnesia, b) as thick as pig manure, or c) sadists who would make Vlad the Impaler weep with pride.

2.        A stunning Australian guy I met at the hostel last month came back to town and stayed here just exactly long enough to stomp all over my heart, so that's great news. I was worried that I wouldn't manage to have a doomed romance in London, so I'm really glad that I've been able to check that one off my list.  In fact, I'm going to go out and look for a long black cloak with a hood so that I can mope around the city in the rain like Meryl Streep in "The French Lieutenant's Woman". (I know, "The Australian Mechanical Engineer's Woman" doesn't have quite the same poetic ring to it, but that just can't be helped.)

3.        Londoners are still fascinating me with their behaviour.  They'll line up in an orderly fashion for a mile and a half for just about anything, with the sole exception of the Underground.  As soon as they see a train coming in, they turn into a rabid, snarling, pushing, shoving pack of wolves.  The other day, I was elbowed aside by a little old lady who was a) about 80, b) no bigger than my leg, and c) a nun, of all things!  I swear I'm not making this stuff up.

4.        Despite succumbing to the all-grease, all-fat English diet (which isn't nearly as much fun as I thought it might be), I've lost an astonishing amount of weight so far by the simple expedient of only eating about once a day.  When you live in a hostel that has no kitchen facilities whatsoever, you figure out how to survive on this.  I'm sure the next time I see a vegetable, I'll run away screaming in terror because I won't know what it is.

5.        Fashion: I went to my first really pretentious London bar on the weekend, and I so do not have the right clothes for this town.  Even on the best slutty-clothing day of my life, I would look like an 1850s schoolmarm here.  When I have recovered from my sleep deprivation and my ferocious cold, and when I again resemble something that might once have been human, we'll have to see what can be done about that.

6.        In the "and you thought there were no miracles in modern times" category, here's one that will amaze you:  I, Miss K, am now the proud owner of a brand new, bright, shiny bank account!!!!  It took me a whole month and the next-to-last bank I tried basically accused me of being a money-laundering drug lord because I didn't have three years of British addresses to prove who I was.  Well, of course - money-laundering drug lords often work as temps in their spare time.  Who needs diamonds, yachts, and champagne when you could be typing, filing, and making coffee for people who a) don’t appreciate it and b) think you’re a moron?  Good times!

Letters from London #1

Okay, here goes - while I'm still in this nostalgic mood for London, I'm going to share some of my Letters from London with you from time to time.  Blogs didn't really exist when I first moved there in 2000 and I had a lot of friends who wanted to hear about my new life, so these were the mass e-mails I sent around (and I hate mass e-mails, so I tried to make sure mine were fun and colourful).  I haven't read these in years so it's funny for me to look back - ahhh,  I was such a baby expat then...

October 2000: 

1. I had one of the single worst experiences of my life yesterday while trying to open a bank account in London: "No, Miss K, despite the fact that you have every form of identification in existence, a letter from your Canadian bank saying that your accounts are in good order and crammed full of money, and a plane ticket showing that you just arrived yesterday from Canada, we won’t open an account for you if you don't have three month’s worth of utility bills showing your address on it.”  I tried four banks and got the same attitude at all of them.  Hmph.  Great Britain, once a magnificent, globe-spanning empire, now reduced to one tiny island floating in a sea of red tape.

2. I've figured out the reason why you don’t often see a truly obese Londoner, in spite of the all-grease diet.  It's because even if you're the laziest person who ever lived and you take the Underground absolutely everywhere, you still end up walking miles and miles and miles and then more miles of corridors to get anywhere, and don't even get me started on the number of stairs and escalators.

3. I experienced my first London rush hour on the Underground a couple of days ago (an experience also known as "Miss K Goes To Sardinesville") and I've almost recovered from the trauma.  Just don't stand too close to me...

4. Staying at a traveller’s hostel and sleeping in a room with seven other people from different countries can be a rewarding and entertaining cultural experience.  It can also make you wonder if murdering someone in their sleep because you can't take another second of their body odour (which could strip the paint off a Buick, I ain't lying) has any kind of justifiable defence in a court of law.

5. More guys have tried to pick me up here in a week than in Toronto all year.  Hell, throw in last year too.  It's quite something.  It seems that I'm pretty hot stuff, in the parlance of the 18 year old lifeguard/surfer from California who tried to seduce me (without success, in case any dirty-minded folk amongst you were wondering about my moral fibre) the other night.  He was 6'6" and so gorgeous he looked like he should be carved out of marble and placed on a pedestal somewhere in Florence, but alas, I have not become that much of a degenerate.  Yet.

6. The following is going to make you wonder if I've lost what's left of my mind, but I swear it's true.  There is a show at a theatre not far from Trafalgar Square called (wait for it.....are you ready?....I don't think you are.....you'd better sit down.....are you sitting down?.....I don't believe you.....just sit the hell down......okay, fine, when you fall over, you'll only have yourself to blame) "Puppetry of the Penis".  The line above the title is "Two men.  Two dicks.  No pants." The line below the title is "The ancient Australian art of genital origami".  Now pick yourself up off the floor and don't look at me like that, I told you to sit down.  Anyway, not one word of this is a lie, and it leads me to three inescapable conclusions:  a) I will be visiting this theatre with my camera in order to capture this sign for posterity. b) I will be visiting this theatre in order to see the damn show, I don't care what it costs, are you kidding?  Aren't you dying of curiosity? and c) I will most certainly be visiting Australia in the none-too-distant future.  Any country that involves genitalia in their ancient arts is well worth a visit…

7. Men - if you operate in the business world, I have bad news for you - the double-breasted suit with big, bold pinstripes is all the rage here.  Al Capone would be so proud; London looks like Chicago during Prohibition (well, aside from the insane amount of drinking here, of course). Ladies - the colour of the moment is gold. If you go out at night and you don't resemble a chandelier at the Ritz, forget about it. 

8. Hostel Highlights:

  a) Smelly Guy #1 departed our room (alive, I swear), only to be replaced with Smelly Guy #2, an American who had to be in his late fifties but still thought he could get away with being a punk.  You know, I'm not one to judge people.  I'm famed for my fair-mindedness and reluctance to leap to conclusions about my fellow human beings (shush now, it’s true!), but I just have to say this: men who are old enough to be my father really shouldn't be walking around wearing more chains than the ghost of Jacob Marley, and if you've already lost most of your hair, you shouldn't be shaving what's left into weird shapes and dying it purple.  I'm just saying...

  b) The latest comment-worthy denizens of my den are two American girls from, like, the sovereign state of, like, California, who make the cast of Baywatch seem like the Nobel Prize selection panel.  Sigh.  The charm of meeting new people is starting to lose its shiny gleam.