3 July 2007
My London terminal is Paddington. Just about every daylight hour of every working day there are two trains from Bristol Parkway to the old iron marvel, one of Isembard Kingdom Brunel’s wonders. There are trains from Bristol Temple Meads, the older station near the centre of the city but I don’t think they are as often and some of those go to other London stations, I think.
This has given birth to several thoughts; one is how strange it is that we know so little about things outside the narrow channels in which we live the bulk of our lives. On the tube you see countless hardened Londoners who have some internal GPS and just know when they’ve reached their station; at their destination they just meander off, zombie-like, without reference to the line map above the doors or the station name in tiles on the rounded walls of the tunnel, oblivious to everyone and everything, usually tethered to some i-pod-like device secreted about their person, the only visible evidence of which is the white wire and white earpieces that aliens must think are a part of us. Oh yes, there is one other piece of visible evidence: a sort of blanked off look. The i-pod’ers are one of the most asleep generations we’ve had. It used to be that you had to drink or take drugs to get that alienated from your environment, you actually had to work at it a bit. Now you just press a button on that little white plastic box with all that engineering magic inside.
At my terminal, though – which is where I was before I did what I so often do and digress – what interests me is the way that we all stand and stare slightly upwards at the display boards, willing our train to move over to the left, ever closer to the witching hour when they will depart. Sometimes your train actually slides over to the far left display, panel by panel, and it reaches the end and there is still no platform number next to the name of the final destination so you don’t know where to go to board it. You just stand there and stare, powerless, a mere passenger, pawn of the railways, watching as the actual time passes the time of departure and your train, whichever one of the dozen or so that is currently drawn up into the station, nose first, just sits there (if, that is, it has even managed to arrive from wherever it came).
At least during the evening rush there is a bit of sport; we are also preparing for the made dash down the platform when our train has been identified (and this is the other thought that I mentioned had come to me about two paragraphs up). Until they announce the platform number, you just mill around, covertly appraising the competition, handicapping those who are lugging the heaviest bags, are old or infirm. High heels are deceiving, I’ve seen a woman in a tight skirt and three or four-inch heels scoot down the platform, as fast as a young banker on the make sporting testosteronal Nikes. Of course, this is really only true of the sans culottes, the lumpen proletariat who ride standard class; first class is still not over-sold most of the time and the railway companies conspire to keep it so by raising prices as fast as a Venezuelan brothel keeper (whose pricing policies, I add for the benefit of my wife who might one day read this, I’ve only read about).
So what happens is that your train moves across the electronic displays, closer and closer to that magic place over there on the far left where there is nothing between it and that moment of scheduling magic when your mode of transportation is finally given a platform number. That’s when the mad scramble begins, you walk/jog down the platform and wedge yourself on board and seize the first empty seat you can.
As the late comers make their way down the centre of the car you can feel quietly superior, sitting in your slightly plush, too-narrow seat, knees against the chair in front or, if you’re lucky enough to get a table, against those of the person facing you (frequently someone with peculiar personal hygiene).
It’s all great fun, really so if you only do it once in a while and are still sufficiently conscious of your surroundings to notice them. Or, you can buy an i-pod.
04 July 2007
1 July 2007, Fear of bumper cars ...
1 July 2007
These latest threats to my freedom from fear have had less impact than previous ones. Last night we had to pick up my niece from Heathrow. I can’t recall worrying about leaving the car in the multi-storey. Later, in the early hours, as we got nearer home, we passed a crowded nightclub, cars parked up and down the street on both sides for a block each way and the sidewalks/pavements teeming with young partiers. It all looked like great fun. For a second my mind built a scenario about a bomb in a car destroying that atmosphere and many of those lives. Our daughter had gone out to one of these outdoor all-night concerts where insane young people stand around in the mud and rain and listen to the latest electro-techno-indie-scooter-wooter music. And, yes, I had thought the unthinkable about that venue as well.
The decision has to be that you go on, that you adhere to the patterns of life before the first attacks, as closely as you can. Of course those patterns are subtly changed beyond recognition by the simple fact of being forced to consider the action, a concert, an evening at a night-club, a business trip, as at risk from terrorism, even if we reason it through and rightly determine to carry on seemingly as before, knowing the calculable risk is infinitesimal.
I guess we will eventually weave the pattern of these threats into our lives; they will become as commonplace as the risk of an automobile accident on a wet, rain-slicked highway. You know that the possibility is there, you register the risk in your mind but, by and large, you ignore it and go about your business. Life appears to be increasingly cluttered with these little fears.
These latest threats to my freedom from fear have had less impact than previous ones. Last night we had to pick up my niece from Heathrow. I can’t recall worrying about leaving the car in the multi-storey. Later, in the early hours, as we got nearer home, we passed a crowded nightclub, cars parked up and down the street on both sides for a block each way and the sidewalks/pavements teeming with young partiers. It all looked like great fun. For a second my mind built a scenario about a bomb in a car destroying that atmosphere and many of those lives. Our daughter had gone out to one of these outdoor all-night concerts where insane young people stand around in the mud and rain and listen to the latest electro-techno-indie-scooter-wooter music. And, yes, I had thought the unthinkable about that venue as well.
The decision has to be that you go on, that you adhere to the patterns of life before the first attacks, as closely as you can. Of course those patterns are subtly changed beyond recognition by the simple fact of being forced to consider the action, a concert, an evening at a night-club, a business trip, as at risk from terrorism, even if we reason it through and rightly determine to carry on seemingly as before, knowing the calculable risk is infinitesimal.
I guess we will eventually weave the pattern of these threats into our lives; they will become as commonplace as the risk of an automobile accident on a wet, rain-slicked highway. You know that the possibility is there, you register the risk in your mind but, by and large, you ignore it and go about your business. Life appears to be increasingly cluttered with these little fears.
01 July 2007
Scotland Forever!
30 June 2007
It’s just after midnight so the date on the top is not quite right – July is here but so far I can’t tell much difference with June. The rain is just continuing.
Earlier on Saturday, about mid-afternoon, these two yay-hoos, would-be terrorists, drove a Jeep into the front door of Glasgow Airport. Apparently they managed to get their vehicle alight and then just rammed it part way into the concourse. Thankfully they didn’t manage to hurt anyone, other than themselves, so drama becomes farce.
One of the two in the vehicle apparently jumped out and then doused himself with gasoline. The human torch then tried to box a number of policemen and other bystanders. According to one observer he was ‘disoriented’ – which is as it should be when you’ve managed to burn most of your clothes off and have singed your skin, ‘ouch’ pretty much covers it as far as I’m concerned.
Our terrorist boy was a big fellow according to this observer who, by my lights, has cojones the size of grapefruits. In the midst of the melee – terrorist swinging wildly at all and sundry – this fellow just walks up to the perp and knocks him down, modestly claiming later that he couldn’t have done it if the baddie hadn’t been so ‘disoriented’. I’m thinking that this is one of those very tough Scots who basically conquered the territories that made up the British Empire.
I once had one of those tough Scots save my butt from a passle of very large Norwegians.
His name was Bill Christie. He must have been about 45 or 50 but, frankly, he looked like he’d been ridden hard and put up wet. His hair was straggly, long, dirty looking and graying. He can’t have been more than about 5 and a half feet tall and he weighed about 145 soaking wet. Tough, though, didn’t do the guy justice. He had a face that had a thousand stories written on it – mostly hardscrabble tales about drink, fight, loneliness and courage. Christie was a North Sea roustabout who’d managed to raise himself into some sort of oilfield sales role. For me, however, he was a hero.
We were in Stavanger for some oilfield show or the other. I’d driven across the country from Oslo, arriving about 3 in the morning and been put into a room next to Bill’s – he was awake when I arrived and asleep the next morning when I went to the conference. Throughout the three days of the conference that was his pattern, asleep pretty much as long as the sun shone and awake for the rest of it. I think the long winters up there suited him down to the ground.
The second night Bill and I and a bunch of new acquaintances were drinking in the pub/disco of the Hotel Atlantic down in the centre of Stavanger. There was a pretty girl seated at a nearby table with a modern day Viking – bearded, red-faced and drunk. For no reason that I could discern, all of sudden the Viking just punched the girl, the force of his blow propelling her off the chair. She just curled up there on the floor, a pile of seemingly disassociated limbs.
Well, I was facing that table, Bill had his back to them. I must have been drinking a lot more than usual because as soon as the Viking had struck the woman, I was up and on top of him, having thrown myself at him and knocked him back over his chair. I was sort of sitting on his chest, yelling – ‘you can’t hit a woman, that’s just wrong, no matter what she said’.
Now where I got this sense of knight errantry is a mystery and I wont go into it here. What was clear almost as soon as I got the Viking onto his back was that he wasn’t going to stay there and there was nothing I could do, short of shooting the guy, to keep him down. He just put up an arm and swept me over, like batting away a fly.
I got up pretty quick and then watched the Norwegian do the same. He got up, and up, and up. This was one very big Viking. He was taller than he was broader only because he was very tall. I began to wonder if I wasn’t looking at one of the Minnesota Vikings.
Things did not look promising. The Viking was going to kill me, that much was about all that was clear. But, I hadn’t thought about my secret weapon: Bill Christie.
The little Highlander just stepped into the circle that had formed around the Viking and me, the two of us focal points at the north and south hemispheres. He stared at the Viking, the room was quiet.
I can’t do the accent but Bill looked at that monster – and he must have been about 6 foot 6 inches and weighed 280 (say 20 stones) – and Bill says, ‘So, are we gonna have a fight then?’ And he smiled this crooked little smile that every person in the room read right for what it said was this: ‘A fight would just about suit me, and if you don’t kill me, I’ll kill you because no other type of fight is worthwhile.’
There are few men in the world with a stomach for killing with their bare hands. Bill was one of them but the Viking wasn’t. He stared for a while at the little Scot and then you could see his spine begin to get a bit mushy. Beating up women was fine and throwing Americans around the room was okay but getting into a tussle with a Scot who you’d have to kill before he’d give up was just not on.
The Norwegian swallowed …big. That was it. He growled something and then just headed out the door, leaving behind the girl and his honour.
Me? I got back to the hotel about 2 or 3 AM. I rummaged around my luggage and pulled out a bottle of Glenfiddich that I’d brought to give to a Norwegian friend. I made my way down the darkened hall and knocked on Bill’s door. He was back and half-way conscious, I gave him the bottle and awkwardly thanked him for saving my life. Bill took it all, except the whiskey, with ill grace. I knew my Norwegian friend would think that I’d acted wisely in giving Bill his bottle of whiskey.
The next morning I had to get down to the conference pretty early, around 9. As I made my muzzy way down the corridor, I looked in at Bill – his door was ajar. My hero was lying there, all 50-something of his years very obvious (because in the morning light it was clear he was older than I’d thought), clutched in his right hand was a bottle of Glenfiddich, about half-empty. I pried the bottle out of his hand and screwed the cap on, leaving it on the nightstand.
Bill Christie was a man. The fellow who tackled the over-sized, dazed terrorist this afternoon at Glasgow was another.
Scotland forever!
It’s just after midnight so the date on the top is not quite right – July is here but so far I can’t tell much difference with June. The rain is just continuing.
Earlier on Saturday, about mid-afternoon, these two yay-hoos, would-be terrorists, drove a Jeep into the front door of Glasgow Airport. Apparently they managed to get their vehicle alight and then just rammed it part way into the concourse. Thankfully they didn’t manage to hurt anyone, other than themselves, so drama becomes farce.
One of the two in the vehicle apparently jumped out and then doused himself with gasoline. The human torch then tried to box a number of policemen and other bystanders. According to one observer he was ‘disoriented’ – which is as it should be when you’ve managed to burn most of your clothes off and have singed your skin, ‘ouch’ pretty much covers it as far as I’m concerned.
Our terrorist boy was a big fellow according to this observer who, by my lights, has cojones the size of grapefruits. In the midst of the melee – terrorist swinging wildly at all and sundry – this fellow just walks up to the perp and knocks him down, modestly claiming later that he couldn’t have done it if the baddie hadn’t been so ‘disoriented’. I’m thinking that this is one of those very tough Scots who basically conquered the territories that made up the British Empire.
I once had one of those tough Scots save my butt from a passle of very large Norwegians.
His name was Bill Christie. He must have been about 45 or 50 but, frankly, he looked like he’d been ridden hard and put up wet. His hair was straggly, long, dirty looking and graying. He can’t have been more than about 5 and a half feet tall and he weighed about 145 soaking wet. Tough, though, didn’t do the guy justice. He had a face that had a thousand stories written on it – mostly hardscrabble tales about drink, fight, loneliness and courage. Christie was a North Sea roustabout who’d managed to raise himself into some sort of oilfield sales role. For me, however, he was a hero.
We were in Stavanger for some oilfield show or the other. I’d driven across the country from Oslo, arriving about 3 in the morning and been put into a room next to Bill’s – he was awake when I arrived and asleep the next morning when I went to the conference. Throughout the three days of the conference that was his pattern, asleep pretty much as long as the sun shone and awake for the rest of it. I think the long winters up there suited him down to the ground.
The second night Bill and I and a bunch of new acquaintances were drinking in the pub/disco of the Hotel Atlantic down in the centre of Stavanger. There was a pretty girl seated at a nearby table with a modern day Viking – bearded, red-faced and drunk. For no reason that I could discern, all of sudden the Viking just punched the girl, the force of his blow propelling her off the chair. She just curled up there on the floor, a pile of seemingly disassociated limbs.
Well, I was facing that table, Bill had his back to them. I must have been drinking a lot more than usual because as soon as the Viking had struck the woman, I was up and on top of him, having thrown myself at him and knocked him back over his chair. I was sort of sitting on his chest, yelling – ‘you can’t hit a woman, that’s just wrong, no matter what she said’.
Now where I got this sense of knight errantry is a mystery and I wont go into it here. What was clear almost as soon as I got the Viking onto his back was that he wasn’t going to stay there and there was nothing I could do, short of shooting the guy, to keep him down. He just put up an arm and swept me over, like batting away a fly.
I got up pretty quick and then watched the Norwegian do the same. He got up, and up, and up. This was one very big Viking. He was taller than he was broader only because he was very tall. I began to wonder if I wasn’t looking at one of the Minnesota Vikings.
Things did not look promising. The Viking was going to kill me, that much was about all that was clear. But, I hadn’t thought about my secret weapon: Bill Christie.
The little Highlander just stepped into the circle that had formed around the Viking and me, the two of us focal points at the north and south hemispheres. He stared at the Viking, the room was quiet.
I can’t do the accent but Bill looked at that monster – and he must have been about 6 foot 6 inches and weighed 280 (say 20 stones) – and Bill says, ‘So, are we gonna have a fight then?’ And he smiled this crooked little smile that every person in the room read right for what it said was this: ‘A fight would just about suit me, and if you don’t kill me, I’ll kill you because no other type of fight is worthwhile.’
There are few men in the world with a stomach for killing with their bare hands. Bill was one of them but the Viking wasn’t. He stared for a while at the little Scot and then you could see his spine begin to get a bit mushy. Beating up women was fine and throwing Americans around the room was okay but getting into a tussle with a Scot who you’d have to kill before he’d give up was just not on.
The Norwegian swallowed …big. That was it. He growled something and then just headed out the door, leaving behind the girl and his honour.
Me? I got back to the hotel about 2 or 3 AM. I rummaged around my luggage and pulled out a bottle of Glenfiddich that I’d brought to give to a Norwegian friend. I made my way down the darkened hall and knocked on Bill’s door. He was back and half-way conscious, I gave him the bottle and awkwardly thanked him for saving my life. Bill took it all, except the whiskey, with ill grace. I knew my Norwegian friend would think that I’d acted wisely in giving Bill his bottle of whiskey.
The next morning I had to get down to the conference pretty early, around 9. As I made my muzzy way down the corridor, I looked in at Bill – his door was ajar. My hero was lying there, all 50-something of his years very obvious (because in the morning light it was clear he was older than I’d thought), clutched in his right hand was a bottle of Glenfiddich, about half-empty. I pried the bottle out of his hand and screwed the cap on, leaving it on the nightstand.
Bill Christie was a man. The fellow who tackled the over-sized, dazed terrorist this afternoon at Glasgow was another.
Scotland forever!
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