Sybil Ruscoe probably expected better

Thursday night, and I was on my way home from seeing Richard Herring (who, although I have nothing whatesoever to judge it against and as such my opinion is pretty much worthless, was good). At Mile End I could hear the driver speaking over my headphones and the late-night hubbub of the carriage; I turned off my iPod, slightly dreading what he might be saying, as what with one thing and another an even later night caused by taking an alternative route home was not what I needed.

"... large gentleman in a blue shirt who is slightly the worse for wear, please could you wake him up before the next station as Stratford is his stop. Train is ready to depart, mind the doors."

By this point everyone was looking for a large gentleman in a blue shirt, but as there wasn't one in my immediate vicinity I went back to, well, whatever it was I was listening to. (From my Recently Played list I reckon it may have been I'm A Slut by Bis, which is fun but isn't strictly relevant to the story.)

At Stratford there was another reminder, with the plaintive plea that if someone didn't wake him the poor guy was going to end up stranded at Hainault. As I was stood near the door and everyone who was going to embark or disembark had done so, I looked out to see if a large blue-clad gentleman was stumbling off the train. There was no sign of him. Had he already got off? Had he put his coat or a nice warm jumper on in deference to the chilly February evening, confusing any potential wakers? The doors closed and I ducked my head back in.

Arriving home not all that much later (courtesy of an excellent old-skool bus driver who waited patiently until the crowd of people leaving the station had cleared before moving off - it was a good night for public transport) I was struck by the need to be as quiet as possible. Before I haven't really bothered about such things, as I've regarded the downstairs neighbours as 'those people who are apparently incapable of speaking at what anyone else might regard as a normal volume and seem to argue all of the time'. But since the, er, incident (which I must write about at some point, if I can bear to go over it again) we've become, if not friends, then at least allies, and they were thoroughly decent about something they could have easily kicked up a stink about, and so waking them up by, say, irresponsibly listening to Paco! by Ladytron by way of tribute to Wendy Richard would have been extremely inconsiderate. So I didn't.

An inexplicable urge to listen to Six By Seven

Snow day: when else would having to trample around for 55 minutes trying to find a station where there were trains be tremendous fun? (It would have been longer if a kind gentleman I encountered on the way to the first station hadn't told me that there were no trains, which is the sort of thing people do on snow days.) When else would people on the train look out of the window and smile? When else would you feel genuinely pleased that you made it in to work?

(Well, unless you're whichever organisation releases a made-up figure about how much it's costing, obviously. Of course, none of the Federation of Small Businesses have ever, say, borrowed money that they could never hope to repay in order to prop up a failing business, helping to perpetuate a global financial crisis or anything, so they're in a prime position to lecture the rest of us. And I'm sure the Federation of Small Businesses are capable of generating a huge amount of excitement and happiness among the wider populace and aren't just a bunch of grasping arseholes who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.)

But after a morning mostly spent refreshing the TFL website, it seemed like a plan to grab some work and head home lest the entire tube network grind to a halt. The trip home went relatively smoothly, and as the train approached Newbury Park all that was left to do was to put my scarf on (I'd taken it off when I'd boarded the train, as at that stage it was quite crowded and I didn't want to overheat), make sure that I picked up the bag containing two vast piles of paper for me to perform my editorial magic on, and brace myself for a long walk home. This done, I took great care to avoid standing on a slightly slippery-looking patch of compacted snow as I stepped on to the platform.

As the train pulled away I realised that something was wrong, that there was an unfamiliar lack of weight around me despite the heavy work-bag. And then I realised that this was because the satchel that I usually wear over my shoulder wasn't there: I'd taken it off to put the scarf on and then, so determined was I not to forget the work-bag, I'd absent-mindedly failed to sling it back over my shoulder. I raced up the stairs inadvisably quickly and dashed to the information window, where, fortunately, someone was on hand to listen to my tale and contact the station supervisor at the next stop along the line to see if he could look for my bag as the train came in.

It transpired that the train had been and gone but than a bag had been handed in. I rattled through some items that were inside: lunchbox, wallet and iPod if they were still there, notepad, keys. (It was the keys I was worried about most: there wasn't a lot in the wallet, I could do with an excuse to buy a new iPod, but not being able to get in today didn't bear contemplating.) All checked out. I took the next train down to the next stop and met the station supervisor: he brought the bag out and a quick scan through revealed that all of the contents appeared to be intact. I asked if it had been handed in and he confirmed that this was what had happened: "people are a lot more honest than you might think" he said. It was a lovely thought. I dismissed the temptation to think that it would only happen on a snow day.

So I was slightly delayed on my way home, but then I managed to see the roof of Barkingside station:



and sat in this magnificently-windowed waiting room for a bit:


and then managed to get a bus that wasn't supposed to be running to save me the walk home, so even that had an unexpected upside. Snow day: beautiful in ways I hadn't quite expected.

Listen, the snow is falling

I was going to go and see Frost/Nixon tonight. (I'm well behind with films that I actually want to go and see, unusual because there's very rarely that many films that I want to go and see.) However, a trip to the cinema website to check how much it costs to see a film at the Romford Vue these days revealed that the showing was subtitled, and so I decided against it. I'm all for subtitled films, but subtitled films when you can understand what's being said seems wrong somehow, and besides I may have deprived someone with impaired hearing the pleasure of seeing this political pot-boiler.

Had I gone, I would have entered the cinema with the sun going down on what had been, give or take the odd blizzard, a beautiful winter's day, sunny and clear and crisp. Afterwards, I would have returned home to this.


Which would have been great, if a little on the parky side. Moral: always go to the cinema when you're planning to do so.

Extensive musings on events in the month of January

Thank christ that's over.