HOW DO YOU DO . . .  
British, English, ish, shhh!

Life throws up bitter black choices, life changing and heart breaking scenarios for nations. Syria for example, a nation struggling to escape the genocide and suffocation believing what hope is left after the utter cruelty and injustice that has befallen them. A group of unfortunate citizens that sadly aren’t alone. 

Britain, for example can at least take endless comfort in the growing group of fearsome existentialists discussing whether fish & chips or chicken tikka masala truly defines us as a populous and could they use it as a basis for their 8 part look on the British cultural zeitgeist?

Do we need to continue this endless analysis of our nations psyche? Our quirks’ and eccentricities itemised over and over again like we’re not acutely aware of them being actual, British, people. 

Why is defining yourself something we either seem to need to do, or a matter of acute stress that we haven’t.  Books, programmes, shows, reports and articles on: What is Britishness? What does Britishness mean to you? The end of Britishness? John Bishops Britain, Jamie Great Britain, Modern Britain, Don’t ever lose your Britishness, Being British. 

Don’t we now have enough?  Enough pouring over and dragging out trite generalisations and tired old types. Underdog, self deprecating humour, weather fixation, bad food, bad teeth, bad food that’s now good, faded musical prowess, world defining language, empiristic tendancies, it goes on and on into smaller incriments to the point where we’re unaware if we’re observing Britain, England, Camden, Camden high street, or just our shop keeper we’ve delved, hacked, and boxed so much he cries whenever we raise our eyebrows.

Our imposed economic union makes us seek some sort of belated half-hearted cultural union. Trying desperately to understand shifts that aren’t that complicated and if we’d bothered to engage more with the other three countries bound to us and maybe those few million minorities over the last century or so we would had have more of an idea by now, rather than acting like a load of wide eyed apes gaping through at people being people. 

Saying things like:

“Ahhmm, what interesting people.”

“Ohhh, I never knew they felt like that.”

“Um whoops, I didn’t know that was why.”

“That’s disgusting, look. Urghhhh!”

So don’t forget the minorities, yes of course, like you can forget to mention the glaring fact we’re not a monoculture and haven’t been for sometime.  No hold it up like we’re proud, look, curry and jerk chicken, chinese and kebab, we love this!  It’s like saying, we know what you make us, but we don’t know you, but you make it so well, you can be this, this, or a bad thing.

What these features show is our myopic perspective, how we like to praise, sing, show, tour and tout to everyone this multicultural wide diverse self important land but the simple fact that, y’know, we are the only one’s listening. It would also seem we aren’t even paying attention given are failure to pass our own citizen tests.

I hope other nations don’t have to suffer this endless psyche analysis, but I’m sure we’re not alone.  The Inuit’s probably debate the cultural impact of Pingu and wonder if igloos truly define them.  The Sweedes would undoubtedly reflect on whether anyone really knows them or really cares they’re around. And the Americans, well the Americans are on season 732 of ‘America: Great Bold and Proud Yeah!,’ an unedited series that documents everything any American has ever said as culturally important and abundantly significant to world life.  This is a nation so open about itself every part of it is on sale and ultimately replenishable like some ever fruiting maple tree or more accurately a Chinese plastic toy factory churning out commemorative 9/11 badges. 

Generally speaking, through travel, TV and shared experience. Culture is becoming increasingly homogenised, so instead of fighting it, go with it, become a world nation, blend and meld and become an identity that can work together in shared experience, otherwise we’ll defend and embitter, we’ll squabble and territorialise. If something is so important and great and good, it’ll shine through and if it doesn’t it probably wasn’t that great.

Unlike Syria at least we get the choice.

Speakin’ like a Lundinner

Extracted from guest blogger, Annie Harrison’s book, About the English, this is a useful list of word pronunciations as spoken mostly in Lundin, of the East Enders variety.  Spoken slowly and deliberately.

Abaat – approximately, or in the vicinity. 

Ant – I want.  Ant chips, ant money, ant work, ant to win X Factor.

Ayer-powt – the holiday starts and ends here if the flight isn’t overbooked and you haven’t forgotten your parse-powt.

Alma chizzit? - a request to establish the cost of an item.  ‘Alma chizzit for a taxi to the ayer-powt?’

Amant – a quantity of something.  ‘Kev bowt a large amant of gold on ‘is trip to Doo-boy.’ (Dubai)

Annuva – additional.

Arf panda - a large hamburger.

Art attack – freaked out, as in ‘Don't show this to Dave.  He'll ‘ave a art attack.’

Arskt – enquired.  ‘Oi arskt ya to put mushy peas wiv me chips, not on the bloody fings.’

Awss – a four-legged animal ridden by jockeys in races. 

Ass – a domestic building in which people live.

Ass band - forced to stay at home by the rain, when ill or unemployed.

Bannsa - a person employed to deny access or eject troublemakers at a club. ‘Mike’s gone got izself a job as a bannsa.’

Bave – to take a bath.


Boaf  - the two. ‘Oi Kevin, ooja fancy most, Tracy or Sharon?’ ‘Whoa!  Boaf of em!’ 

Brought – purchased.  ‘Mick’s brought a new ass.’

Burf-dye – a celebration on the date of one’s birth. ‘Appy burf-dye to yer.’

Cancel – the administrative body within a town looking after the interests of its residents. ‘Oh me gawd Daryl, wive ad annuvva letta from the cancel.’

Cantafit - fake, as in money, watches, perfume, DVDs, sports clothing.


Choona – tinned fish.


Cort a panda – small hamburger (not as big as a arf panda).

C’nav - a request: ‘C’nav some vin’gar on me ships?’

Danstez – not upstairs.

Door-a - daughter


Drekkun – what do you think?  As in ‘How many vodkas drekkun it’ll take before Darren pukes?’ 

Droive – operate or control a vehicle.  ‘If you’re droivin’ over to Kelly’s ass, c’nav a lift?’

Erz - belonging to her.

Eye-eels – high heels.

Eyebrow - cultured, intellectual, highbrow. 

Excape – get free from something.

Faazund – thousand.

Farva - a posh way to say Dad.

Fatcha – a reference to former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Faye-fool - firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty.  ‘Oi’d nevva cheat on yer darlin’.  Oi’d always be faye-fool, ‘cos I luv yer.’

Fank – thank.

Fing – thing.

Fink– thought process.

Fort – past tense of fink.

Froget – fail to remember.  ‘Don’t froget, ant a cort a panda not a arf panda.’

Frew – in one side and out the other, or, propelled through the air. ‘Who frew a cricket ball frew the winda?’

Garridje - a building where a car is kept or repaired.  ’Oi, Wayne, oi fink the motah needs to go in the garridje ‘cos it aint workin’ propa.’

Gawon - go on. ‘Gawon Kevin, eat ya granny's cabbage, it'll do yer good.’


Int - indirect suggestion.  ‘I gave Tony a sort of int that it was time for him to bave.’

Ja - do you, did you. ‘Ja like me new eye-eels, Tiffany?’

Jafta - is it really necessary? ‘Oi mate, jafta keep doin’ vat?’

Kaf - eating house open during the day.

Lad - noisy. ‘Jordan, turn that music dan.  It's too lad.’

Laafe – what you lead if you’re not dead.  ‘Nan’s very ill.  She’s got, doctors, nurses, laafe-suppowt and stuff in her ass.

Lafarjik – lacking energy. 

Leev it aht – to put something outside, or, stop it; don’t; no-way.  ‘Oi Britney!  Leev it aht, will ya?  I know yer muvva wants us to set a date, but stop goin’ on abaat it.’

Levva - material made from the skin of an animal.

Lotree - Costs £1 for a ticket to become a millionaire.

Maffs - the study of numbers.

Munf – there are 12 munfs in the calendar year.

Muvva – a posh way to say Mum.

Narra - lacking breadth, with little margin. ‘Mum wonnid to come rand but changed ‘er mind.  That was a narra excape.’ 

Nartameen - do you know what I mean?  ‘Be careful.  Tasha’s farva is roofless.  Nartameen?’


Neeva - not one, nor the other.  ‘Did you go back to Sharon’s ass or Tracy’s?’  ‘Neeva.’

Nevva – did not: ‘I nevva saw nuffink.’

New-cular pa – nuclear power.

Nuffink – zilch.

Oaf - a solemn declaration of truth or commitment.

Oi – either first person singular, ‘Oi fink new-cular pa is a bad fing.’ Or a warning, ‘Oi!  Leev it aht!  Vat’s me beer yer drinkin!’

Olladay - time taken away from home for rest and adventure.

Onnist - fair and just, without a lie. ‘I never did it, onnist.’

Ospi-dewl – where the sick are cared for.

Ov cawss – of course.

Pacific - specific.


Pa-fool - having much power or strength.


Paipa – tabloid news.


Pans an annsis - imperial weight system.  ‘Vis diet aint workin’.  I’ve put on 4 pans and 6 annsis since last munf.’ (Pounds and ounces).

Plammans - a traditional pub lunch of cheese, pickle and bread.

Prada – proud of.  ‘Ov caws I’m prada yer.’

Rand – circular, or a number of drinks purchased for a group in a pub.

Randeer - locally. ‘There ain't much suppowt for a new sports grand randeer.  Everyone’s felling lafarjik.’

Reband - period of recovery after rejection by a lover. ’Oi woz desp’rat.  Oi woz on the reband from Jason.’

Roofless - without compassion.

Sand – noise vibrations. ‘Oi don’t like the sand of vat.’

Saan-widje – a filling between two slices of bread.

Sarf – a direction of the compass, opposite to norf.

Saw-tid - fixed, resolved, arranged, done. ‘It’s all saw-tid.  Dinner at the kaf ta-morra, and ven we’ll droive to the ospi-dewl to see Nan.’

Seevin - very angry. ‘I woz seevin when I got the letta from the cancel.’ 

Shaat – loud voice.  ‘No need to shaat.  I’m standin’ right next to yer.’

Ships – deep fried potato sticks served with fish.

Ta-morra – the day following today.

Tan ass - a modern terraced house.

Teef – a set of hard, bonelike structures rooted in sockets in the jaws.

Tra-ziz - an outer garment for covering each leg from the waist to the ankles.

Toma-a – red vegetables used in ketchup.

Vat – that.

Ven - then

Viss – this.

Wanned up – manual winding of a timepiece, or tension in a person. ‘I'm all wanned up at the moment.’

Wawazat? – excuse me?  ‘Wawazat?  Who scored the winnin’ goal?’

Webbats – requesting the location of something.  ‘Oi, Stacey, webbats you put me lottree ticket?  I fink I’ve got a winner.’

Wevva – the state of the atmosphere, or, expressing doubt or choice between alternatives.  ‘On olladay, the wevva was so bad we were ass band.’  Or, ‘Del couldn’t decide wevva to ‘ave choona or ships in his saan-wije.’

Will  - wheel.  Terry grabbed the wheel and avoided death.

Winda – a glass-filled opening between the inside and outside of a house.  ‘Shut the winda.  Everyone can hear yer shaating.’

Wiv – accompanying. ‘D’you want ships wiv your cort a panda?’  

Wonnid – needed, requested.  ‘Oi wonnid to know if Baz was in, so oi tapped on the winda.’

Wor-a-fantin - A jet of water for drinking or a garden ornament.  ‘Someone nicked the gnomes by the wor-a-fantin in Dot’s gardin.’

Woyn – Alcoholic drink made from fermented grapes, bottled with a screw-top.  ‘Oi Paula, webbats you put the woyt woyn?  Oi wonnid to take it over to Muvva’s for her burf-dye ta-morra.’

Yoof – teenager.  ‘Terry’s Mum is very yoof-ful lookin’.’

Zajerate - to suggest something is better or bigger than is really is. ‘Craig, I must've told ya a fazzund times already, don't zajerate.’

Watch this:  video of band, Blur, singing Parklife in full London accent. 

Extracted from About the English by Annie Harrison.

More excerpts at blog.harrisonlavelle.com 

Something inbetween everything and nothing

In, out, in, out, beats our daily breath. 

Imbibing oxides, ailments and the unclassified fissions that seep from this city’s rotten core.  Bitter, curdled and thoughtless we commute down prolapsed expressways wrapped in metallic asphyxiation or choked by chugging boxes avoiding nihilistic knobheads; it's your choice.  While bile leaks from walls forming ever flowing pools of arbitrary stuff and relative nonsense obscuring any clarity of mind. Our only focus is on unending company posters and LCD screens that flash. Look, Shock, Farce, Crock. Destined to dose desire with death as we walk beside them trying not to notice the most obvious thing imaginable.

You have to look; they know you're designed like that.  Receptive pupils without a teacher, merely an authority, the nameless ‘man’. Poking prodding, squeezing and squashing till little, if anything remains intact.

Keep the quo; keep the peace, the lies, the dirt, rot and ignorance for your eventual grief. Our eyes may gape open, well with tears, brim, leak, and burn down the face in a river of searing fire. So act. Act! Act? The play is nearly over and we've barely performed.

But you're not the hipster, indie kid, raver, beat, gangster, suit or psychonaut.  Labels are for supermarkets; people aren't  'big value' or 'pesto chicken'.  Society desires us to be cheapened, reduced and sold out before a price of worth can even be conceived.

All our wants are in our minds. To some, a mental deficiency, a quirk, kook, a reason you are outside and they are not. So as men, women, rich, poor, brown, pink, happy and sad, all suck and swell our lungs with combined status as million to one champions of the sperm race.  Walking there, on that street, with those people who've been trying just as hard as you to avoid any contact. Do not feel guilt, do not have shame for your inaction. Do not let moments pass, do not be part of the failure. Just do.

How do you do ... wisdom teeth

Argh, owwh ere, mnmm, waaaaorr, ntss, orr, a, a, a, geee, iiioouu, fuufuu, this is often the greeting you give to your new gum piercing wisdom teeth.  Welcome to pain, wisdom pending.

So having evolved opposable thumbs, the ability to be annoyingly tall or dwarfishly small, or neither. Awfully perfect symmetry, A-symmetry, webbed hands and feet, tails and the creation and destruction of the freakshow industry. We've been left with four redundant teeth deciding to invade the delicate and harmonious balance of our mouths for the purpose of what?

War.

It's not like anyone was, by 22, having trouble doing the chewing. His meat just kept falling off the back of his teeth unchewed. He tried chew guards, getting someone to pre-chew his food for him, even installing a robotic chin strap but alas, he remained a chugalug.

Until, one day, as if a miracle like fluke was bestowed upon him, four large teeth came bursting through his gums almost identical to the ones he already had, no training he thought. And soon, (if soon was measured in years) he was able to use these miracle teeth.  And did he chew? He didn't stop. He chewed through wire, time, even his own mouth, waiting momentarily for scabbing, and then back on to chewtown.  So satisfied he went out into the street shouting. "Low behold my new completely  necessary extra teeth!" And the populous of the part of the street where he was lowing and beholding on, did wish and were granted them too. And forever they were known as wise Dom's teeth. 


Over time and the amalgamating craze of 1853 they became known as simply wisdom teeth.

Wisdom is a beautiful thing an enlightening and beguiling trait. It is gained through knowledge of experience and a digestion of those experiences as edifying and useful lessons, it is not teeth, it is not molar teeth, it is not measured in teeth or can be found in teeth. It is found above the teeth, in the brain. Quite why someone with a brain decided to call these teeth wisdom is beyond me if he or she had to go through the process of acquiring them. If they had, then maybe I could suggest more appropriate names: 

•  E-bar ech as like?! 

• Oh God noooo 

• ARGH GEZZ FUCKIN ARGHHH! 

• Get out of my mouth. 

• Bastard! 

•  Why oh the shit why?

People who don't have problems with wisdom teeth exist. These completely lovely people at inopportune times tell tales of when 'they' had their wisdom teeth and how 'painless' it was.


"I don't know why you're complaining, when I went to the dentist and he said he could just pull them out and I said yes and it was all over in a 'jiffee.' Here have a paracetamol."

"I need crack!"

So now you’ve finally got them. You're 45 and they’re here, whoopy do, but wait, you’re teeth have moved, that lovely smile you had looks like Stonehenge after a tornado. People do those looks of shock masked inside disgust whenever you even half smile. So for the remaining 27 years of your life you become a moody mute.

It's a hard life, whenever people ask, ‘what's wrong?’ You just look back attempting to express sadness at the sentence human tactlessness has served on your own genetic casualty.

I have a friend and he has a kinda neurosis about teeth, fears, nightmares, a general sense of unease about the elemental idea of teeth, and he's not alone.  I'm surprised there aren't people who fear their lungs, kidneys or brain and any other such organ could fail or be unreliant, or is even there? There could be great legions of the human race in perpetual paranoia.  Bathed in information and misinformation, diagrams and distress. Maybe.

Maybe I just haven't got the patience, a high pain threshold or a good dentist.

I don't mind dentists, people seem to recoil at the very idea of their existence. I think doctors or policemen should be feared more. They have the potential to accidently kill you or in the case of the police, kill you; dentists, well the worst a dentist could do is not fix something properly or cause you pain while performing said procedure. Why even entertain that just do like my granny and thousands of others did, healthy or rotten get them all pulled out at 25 and receive a brand new set of sparkling dentures. No more brushing, no more dentist, you're fully furnished.

HOW DO YOU DO... 
the utter joy that is Glee

Shower me

Happiness is in the name so how can I not throw my jaw open and sing loud and proud like the Gleek I am to my Karaoke DVD Wii version of Glee! I don't know.

Why is it I get sharp neurological migraines as my brain warns me that I'm in danger or distress and seemingly against human nature it proceeds to shut down various organs in order to avoid this strain of a virus called Glee. I don’t know.

How come a good year or so after it’s saturation of everything, it's still burning away in the back-splashes of life determined to deface anything pure or new, clinging on with bloodied nails and smeared American smiles.  I don’t know, but I’m going to find out or become one satisfied sadist.

What is this craze?

When I first heard about Glee, my angle was the unequivocal skeptic, especially whenever the media uses words as; craze, storm, furor or sensation and it didn't fail to confirm my good choice in spotting an incoming turd tide.  Much like those kids who didn’t piss around in geography then went on holiday to Indonesia a few years ago and just when the tide went out and out and a bit further out, warned people that something inextricably awful was about to happen, I’m saying they might not have been just referring to the Tsunami.

I have to also admit I do hate musical actors and actresses due to having to endure a daily bus-ride into college with a gaggle of teenage Dorothy’s simultaneously singing everything and nothing. But after all that I do like Mary Poppins, so, y’know?

When you hear people bemoan something you can guarantee other people will shoot back and say. 'Well don't watch it, don't listen to it, you don’t have to, nobody’s forcing you to, buddy.' That’s just the point, with our omnipresent media platforms. I hear Glee through people's playlists, the radio, I see Glee on neon billboards, shop fronts, chests, magazines, papers, leaflets, TV, even my own computer there is hardly a single source that isn’t engaging in its presence and if it was it’d be “in denial” or not “current” enough. This is, in itself, perpetuating my pain by promoting the subject of my pain leading to a longer lifespan by mere default.  I'm hate myself.

Pure counter culture

Yeah so in this next scene Will Burroughs is gonna be chewing some opiates when Jimmy Dean leans over and unzips his pants and proceeds to give Will oral sex, camera pans back and they’re in front of the whole class of Marxist teddy boys who burst into ‘Waiting for the great leap forward’ in Hebrew.

Counter culture has been hijacked, it’s by definition the alternative from the mainstream accepted culture. Glee is not, even when wrote about ironically Glee is not counter culture  unless that counter is in Tescos and that culture is cheap doughnuts that are making you die in pools of jam.

‘Revenge of the Nerds’ though a fabricated stereotype of a parody was more an accurate portrayal of the ignored classes.

Yeah but isn't that gym instructor amazing, she's such a brilliant actress, so dark and sharp. If a banana were in a sea of turds, it'd stand out. I'm not saying she's awful; she's obviously a great actress, so why surround yourself with emptiness?

The Soundtracks

Someone somewhere has put the Glee soundtrack on. How many of these fucking abominations are there circulating, millions, if I devote my whole life trying to track down and murder each and every copy I’d die before they’d die. I think I might buy some sort of ‘no more nails’ for my ears. 

Songs are wrote and designed to hit the parts of your brain associated with musical pleasure but unlike morphine and like heroine a lot of shit gets added until in glee’s sake, it's pretty much all shit. 

The way they drip classic overplayed songs in vats of sugary Americana till only a vapor trail of authenticity remains and then, then they take the fucker on tour. Glee tours’ are tired redundancies of a lobotomised pre teens wet-dream before they start.

I thought The Corrs were deplorable (which they are) but in comparison to Glee, they’re The Supremes doing ‘Baby love’, they make truly awful songs, so unimaginably worse they cause Michael Bay to blush.

I’m no muso, the first single I ever bought was called A la la la la la la la long, the first album I bought was Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles; in audio terms I would have deafened me. Yet despite this, despite swapping Elvis Costello for Bon Jovi and the fucking Eurhythmics, despite some shock flirting with the music of Eternal and Big Mountain, I got back on the begrudged music wagon, stopping only once more to buy the Bombfunk MCs album, it’s ok, it was like the time you forget what dirt tastes like then lick a shoe.

Glee is a profusely obease sweating poo farmer’s brogue.

The Gleeks

What a wondrous board meeting at Fox it was that day. “Hey Doug look, look, we can recycle the loser sign, for profit, high five.” Because they’re losers, wink-wink that’s the perception but we’ll employ good looking actors to play them, able bodied to play the disabled. They’re like black people with the N word, yes, this is a revolution of empowerment over 22 episodes with a Christmas special and everyone's a celebrity guest star.

Huh

It's not the fact every muscle in my body is aching for some remote, time travelling self-combustion, or there's a rule basically ugly people are never on TV unless they are ridiculed or made-over.

Thing is, I haven’t even watched a whole episode, this is merely coming from an abstracted perceptive perspective. Drawn from the poop shoots of adverts, tie-ins and toss offs to.  

In the 21^st century if  TV wants to sell an audience a product to a certain demographic that you fall into, it’ll make you abundantly clear of what it wants you to like.  Or in relation to Glee start in one market then smear it’s clamidya all over everyones penis’, even giving people penis’  so that can get a good old milky smear too.

Just dandy

For about another thirty five - forty years before I die (reckon I’ll get to see pensioner status.)  You and I’ll have to endure the repetitive outpouring of what mainstream culture depicts counter culture and the recursive elements it sacrifices for the sake of ratings and entertainment.  With the ever desirable penetration by both Britain and America of each other’s markets, this is going to get much uglier than Glee and messier than the Beastie Boys in London Zoo recording Live Lubetronics.

HOW DO YOU DO… tubes

The humble rumble, zippy & bungle.

Under them feet, if your feet are in London, and if you stand in a specific place. Under your feet, rumbling hot and fast are 1500 humans hurtling to wherever.  That’s if it's rush hour, if the trains are not held or out of service and it isn't the minute or two between one departing and its brother arriving, oh and you’re not at Blackfriers before 2012. Under is a whole system echoing and shortcutting the sloppy twisted tarmac.  You are sandwiched between sky planes and tube trains, under, above and attempting to flatten your feet are fast moving metal stuff with people in it, welcome to mass transport, though it looks a lot like messy transport with a bit of lippy.

Day __

“Doors closing, Beep, beep, beep, beep.  The next stop will be, Cockfosters.”

Where does Cockfosters come from, a place that foster’s Australian-penis birds?

Mind the doors, mind the gap, and mind your face.

“Shhhhuuuuump.”

Hey her hair!

“Ouch.”

"Grab that bar."  
"Oh sorry I didn’t notice your hand."

“Ow.”

“Sorry, bit unstable.”

“The next stop will be…”

“I know I know,”

“…Cockfosters.”

“Orr hillo, you Engwish?”

“Huh, oh yes.”

“I go cockafosta, this?”

“Yes, this goes to Cockfosters.”

“cockafosta?”

“Yes cockafosta.”

“Ok ok.”

“This train will not be stopping at Cockfosters, please, mind the gap.”

“Erm this stop is…”

“Oh dis Cockfosta, ok ok bye.”

Bloody Brilliant?

It's strange that the tube is an example of the best of what Britain does (seriously New York paid for us to teach them how to make their underground better). Yet most of it's closed on weekends, and some of the newest lines are the slowest most hypochondriac ever. Price increases are generally accepted, over-charging just a normal hazard combined with that the almost constant threat of strikes by some Crow and cuts to the staff so that in future you don’t have to tap out just hand everything over to the local freelance mugger equates to it basically dildoing itself into a dirty overused hole.

But it’s just too important to go bust or close. If it went, London would be unable to function. That is unless everyone dropped the oyster for the hi-vis jacket and decided to cycle. As a sometime cyclist I would not want that to happen.  There is not a day I would wish I could wake up to a city ringing with bikes merrily going about with flowers in their baskets and clean air in their lungs.  The fact that I’m not imagining Londoners on these bikes and that if I did, I would have to include, the site of city slicks on carbon fibre cock tubes cutting up and shouting down everyone while five seater taxi bikes turn into teenage thugs causing scenes akin to duck hunt.  Means that gladly it can’t and rightly it will never work, ever, ever.

Ever.

Bombs!

Having never witnessed a bomb in any way other than through a TV on a sofa with some guy talking all over what initially seemed like a very promising action movie, sometime in September, the date escapes me. Real life bombs on anything would scare me, bombs underground in a pitch black tunnel on a speeding train would probably make me poo my pantyhose if they weren’t already blown off which depending on where I sat could be academic, having no body in which to hold poo. 

I would hope something like what happened on 7 of the 7 never occurred again, but it blatantly could.  The fact that everyone has to get to work fast makes the unfortunate chance of being blown up a necessary risk, which people put to the back of their minds, that are instead predominated with Angry Birds Tits Edition, getting that nice next to the door corner space and overting your eyes from a disturbing welt on that woman’s face.

Tragedy is both ghastly and also something you’d rather think of in movies than on the next carriage but 500,000 to 1 says it won’t happen so, don’t worry, be angry.

Zeng, Zeng, ping, pang, bang, boom, tune.

But it's calm under the concrete mantel, well, other than the screeching metal from the curved tracks, and the EXTEMELY LOUD REPEATING ANNOUNCER, oh, the door beeps, the tinny trance tunes emanating from earplugs, other than that it’s rather peaceful, almost a release from the noise and intensity of walking down a London street.  Almost, that's if we weren't pushing and squeezing. Oh there’s a gap, can everyone move down, a giant needs to rest in this thimble of an air pocket that I was previously breathing into.  Packed in like cattle, sardines, matches, poking each other’s parts, pointy briefcases in soft thighs, flappy itchy newspapers tickling your neck, sweaty smelly stinks sucked into your nose, while you watch the weary world awake without the company of coffee or compassion just more and more and more workers each trying to forget this memory before it's understood.

I don't want to be looked at and I don't want to look but that is the unavoidable realism. There are no blackout curtains for them or I. Headphones merely blow sound into the drum that would rather hear the ruffle of a slightly over starched duvet as its gathered into a cloud to dream on.

Nuzzling noses deep into newspaper spines and magazines top 5s, playing kids games on phones that need their own insurance policies. Balancing facts against figures of meetings past for meetings to be, is the commute of commuter, the shared isolation. If you join us, if not already, you will assimilate, there is no way out, honestly, I've tried. Close your eyes on a tube and unless you’re sleepy drunk it makes everything worse. You can hear more intrusively than ever, the man scratching his crotch, that girl slurp. It’s magnified and terrifying. Some noises you hear you now need to look to tell if they're human, mineral or other.

Beautifully awful

But it isn't just for the commuters; it's for everyone, who can afford it.  The casual daytime flow of the tube gives a person quite a comfort, especially if you get on the one's with the bouncy seats.  There you can watch the world go by, if your world is blackness punctuated by adverts, which isn’t wholly inaccurate.  Witness the sights of bad weaves and dirty drunks, loud mothers with louder kids, poor and relatively rich share stale happy meal air while overweight builders create familiar new fragrances.  Get off and view the tiled variants of Bond Street and Holloway.   Imagine the previous generations using it, then see the previous generations still using it.  Look at the old stations like the Strand or the Northern Heights that were never opened and imagine the fear of your train wrong turning into there.  Think about if you got the last train, the tube closed then the last train stopped and you'd have to get out and walk maybe miles to the exit, with mice and rats and ghosts in your path.  That horror film about a serial killer stalking the stations, in the shadows, lurking just past the tunnel rim ready for ignorance to turn your flesh grim.

Tunnel it

No you tube for you tubers, sharing loneliness millimetres from contact, inches separate injury.  The circulating heat and hot arid commuters, perverse and sneer, gawp while averting as much of their body they can.  He smells, she's fat, they look like twats.  Workers despise tourists, tourists don't get workers.  Everyone's in the way of everyone else to everywhere and that's just that.