London Calling

As a short introduction to the next few blogs, my apologies for the delay of a month in getting these up, for despite internet being available in coffee shops I was far too busy running around 'enculturing' myself. And my aunt doesn't have internet access. So we start four weeks ago....

Saturday 8^th – Sunday 16^th September:

The night before commencing my epic journey down South I still hadn’t finished packing. Only the basics had managed to find themselves sprawled into my cavernous rucksack capable of fitting one and a half dead bodies, possibly two if they were small. Wedged amongst the underpants and mini-sized hairbrush (which I’ve still yet to use, actually) crept in the Questions and Doubts, Niggles that weighed more heavily than the flimsy lightweight nightdress at the bottom: Would I be able to cope with the manic pace of London life? Would I get lost on the Tube? Am I capable of doing this publishing internship to a standard that won’t get me thrown out onto the street with only Mortification and Failure for company? After all, I’m only a small-town country-bumpkin girl.

But there was no room for all that, so I swiftly dumped the Questions on my bedroom floor the next morning as I filled the remaining space with jeans and T-shirts and shoes with holes in the toe.

Coming down on the train, I noticed that many of our society have reached the depressing stage of not being able to match numbers and letters on a ticket to those on a static object. Our brains have evidently got so used to machines telling us what to do that when the little screens on Virgin went into meltdown and refused to show who had which seats reserved, widespread carriage panic erupted, causing passengers to viciously declare seat-war on fellow travellers and put themselves wherever they could. The only problem with this, of course, is that those who could still match up symbols from ticket to seat were vehemently defending their right to their territory. Damn you, machines.

Apart from that, the journey was straightforward, and chaos was left behind in a bid to find Euston Square Underground station. It was easy as pie and as I made my way to Ruislip in the north-west area of London on the Metropolitan line I passed through Baker Street. A current of excited electricity vibrated down my spine – I realised, suddenly, that I was really in London. Land of Sherlock Holmes and misted Victorian fogs; home to Paddington after sojourning from darkest Peru; and all those streets and stations on a Monopoly board loomed into real life instead of merely being names on a piece of reinforced cardboard with a  hat, a dog, and a shoe. Although I couldn’t help but think there really should be a giant silver top hat and shoe somewhere.

My first impressions of London life, after a week of my internship, are that pedestrians seem desperately blasé about taking their life in their hands: they ignore the warning of the little red man and dash across the road, heedless of taxis, buses and Boris-bikes, with phone glued to ear, juggling pram / suitcase / other hefty item with cigarette and/or laptop case. Perhaps they know the secret tricks of traffic lights but I stay firmly rooted to the pavement until the little green man gives me permission to cross, no matter how much of a hurry I’m in.

It just so happened that on Thursday 13^th September I was indeed in rather a hurry. One of the commissioning editors asked me to go out and hunt down six copies of a particular book, wherever they may be lurking. They were, in fact, lurking all over the city but no more than one copy per Waterstone’s. Pain in the arsenal. So there I was, going overground, underground, all over the city trying to track down these copies needed for that afternoon. It was a beautiful day for it and had I been able to slow down to appreciate St Paul’s Cathedral and Piccadilly Circus, and had I not been cornered by Unicef workers outside Liverpool Street Station, I would have thoroughly enjoyed myself. However, the mission very much had a time limit and the hours were trickling away. Flurried and flustered, I begged several people to help me in the right directions, from sales assistants to community officers, one of whom actually escorted me to a Waterstone’s. Lovely man.

After three hours of border-line coronary failure and sweating like Russell Brand in a nunnery, I returned the conquering heroine. Throughout all this dashing around, I never once crossed a road without a little green man.

 

Another thing that has struck me while meandering from Trafalgar Square to Westminster and back to Covent Garden is the cosmopolitan vibe. Languages and accents of all sorts ride their chariots from tongue-tip to ear: Spanish, French, eastern European, fluttering around like butterflies. Streets, cafes, shops, Tube stations ringing with unfamiliar sounds transport one all over the world in one tiny corner of the globe. The Olympics and Paralympics may be over but still present, enveloping the city, is the rosy glow of optimistic pride and a celebration of humanity.