Had to change trains twice to get home and I was reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, great, familiar, female, underrated. On the second train I glanced up when somebody laughed and saw a short, beautiful African man gazing longingly at me. It was so startling. I hurried back to Cranford, the village where the old […]
Every week I cross town on the train and we pass a tower block of identical grey-frame units which have grey balconies. One balcony, at eye level with the train, has a bright pink inflatable flamingo hanging like a lurid fern, I guess somebody went to Florida or Havana and brought it back with them […]
A lot of noise round the house today as the Hausmeister – Deutschland brims with masters – has called a gang of workmen in to saw back the thorny bushes round the huddle of bins. Our bin system is complex because everything gets recycled – everything but, puzzlingly, aluminium and steel. The thorny bushes make […]
I saw a girl on the Underground travelling with the man she’s in love with and the girl he likes. They were Italian. Crisp faces. Hers, naturally, a little long and sad; the other girl’s, naturally, coquettish and confident. He had a lovely outlook, solid stance, good beard, and kind expression; compared to them he […]
The moth which landed in the glossy black curls of a woman sitting on the Metro so lightly and delicately without her noticing, and which spread its dun linen wings like opera skirts to reveal the sheer, white gauze underneath. The two boys who jumped on and played joyously, their guitars facing belly to belly. […]
A girl with a most glorious voice started singing as the train took off, she was hidden by a mess of passengers who cleared, instinctively, to give her some room. Playing a tiny ukelele and letting the song free like a bird: her fond little scratchings on the instrument suited the sweet, round spiciness of […]
Riding on the train underground I feel like a caterpillar carving through the belly of the city. The hungry metallic smell of the train’s breath is become familiar as I jog down the steps to Underworld. Sitting and writing and sitting and writing. I glanced up and caught the eye of an elder gentleman standing […]
Such a pretty day. When I came out of the Underground station the sky had filled with these tiny white, flat-bottomed clouds, as though they were puffs of steam that had popped up from the chimney of some hidden machinery. It was a pleasure to reach the outdoors. Jumping onto the train I caught the […]
This afternoon riding the Underground (the above-ground Underground, speeding through the trees) I saw a bearded man put up his hand to the steel pole at the end of his bench seat. In doing so he embraced his girlfriend, sitting beside him rather hunched. He said to her, in accented English, “it’s good to be […]
Voted! Gosh it feels wonderful. For those few minutes with ballot paper in hand, we are utterly sovereign, entirely free. It turned out something of an odyssey to get there: which feels also appropriate and fitting. So many people have died for our right. I got sidetracked, absorbed in some other work I was doing, […]
On the above-ground train we are travelling through the treetops. Everybody’s head is framed in green. My companion takes a photo, covertly: the flash makes everyone look up. Now I realize that the acetate smell I had noticed is from an open pot of scarlet polish which the groomed boyfriend to my right holds open, […]
