Invisible Stranger


Invisible Stranger

Collecting Crises on Old Compton Street and Beyond

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Little Tinker

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Monday, September 29, 2003
Video Killed
It was only a few nights ago, sitting in my local, listening to some live jazz, that I realised I haven't seen a video jukebox for years in any of the bars or pubs I frequent. Does anybody remember them, or is it just me?

For 50p you could buy yourselves some prime Sachertorte pretension from Ultravox; stand out on la Croisette for Cannes campness with Elton; or just drool over Miss Tyler's schoolboyz in "Total Eclipse of the Heart", a video with more homosexual sub-text then the entire Pet Shop Boys' back-catalogue. And, of course, there was always Duran Duran, who took the art of the pop video to a new designer-clad height. Back in the eighties, my greatest ambition was to conduct my life exactly as a Duran Duran video. ("Union of the Snake", to be precise, none of that heterosexual air-brushed "Rio" nonsense for this Stranger.)

I appeared in a couple of pop videos once; it was a quick and easy way to earn a cash-in-hand fifty quid. For one Joan Armatrading promo, I was required to sit in the front row of a Brixton cinema, glammed up to the eyeballs with Number Seven and lip gloss, and to pout magnificently. This was the early eighties. I was a soft-sold, new-waved, rent-boy-aspirational, former New Romantic. You think I needed persuading? My dears, I clawed and bitched my way to the front of the queue for that gig.

Even conventional juke-boxes seem to be on the way out, replaced by the current CD soundtrack of choice of whichever musical no-brainer is working behind the bar tonight. In metropolitan gay bars, this usually means some nose-bleed, shirt-lifting, poppered-out techno, which is all very well and good when you're in the middle of a mashed and muscle-Maryed dancefloor, but gets a little intrusive when you're trying to hold a conversation with someone about the current lending rate (conversations - remember those, my children?). In straight bars, it tends to be some boomingly boring adult-orientated rock (for which read Sting, or Phil Collins), so ponderous in its supposed perfection that you find yourself yearning for Melanie and her "Brand New Key".

So do you remember video jukeboxes? And, if so, which was the one you always put on as soon as you entered the bar?


Saturday, September 27, 2003
Dum-dee-dum, dum-dee-dum, dum-dee-dum-dee-dum
One of my earliest memories is of terrorising the other kids in my Dalek playsuit. It comprised a big plastic dome which fitted over my shoulders by means of a couple of heavy black-leather straps; silver cardboard slats; and a red, wonderfully-clammy and deliciously-smelling PVC skirt, which even today would swish me effortlessly past the door-whore at any fetish-queen's perv-fest. All this was, of course, before I got to ride a real one (Dalek, not fetish-queen), but, even at six years of age, I was hooked. And there, Your Honour, rests the case for the defence.

And now Doctor Who is time-warping back to a telly near you. I'll only believe it when I'm watching my own VHS of the first episode, although this time the news does come all nicely tied up with pink ribbons and an official BBC press announcement, suspiciously timed for the show's fortieth anniversary celebrations and merchandise blitz in November.

Because I reckon it won't work, even though Who merchandising continues to make mountains of money for the Beeb, usually taken from the likes of me who have fond memories of the programme of our youth and early adulthood. The actual show was pulled in the 80s for loads of reasons. Big bad Michael Grade hated it, for one. Some stories were gob-smackingly awful (an equal number were breath-takingly excellent). BBC schedulers messed around with its transmission days, moving it from Saturdays to a twice-weekly slot, in an attempt to gauge whether an ongoing serial (EastEnders, then in development) could fit into that time-slot.

And in the new-dawning age of VCRs, remote-controls, and a telly in every room, it had lost its core family audience. Why bother sitting with mum, dad and the dog in front of must-see tea-time telly, when you can tape the show later to laugh at with your mates, or get yourself worked up over Leela in the privacy of your own bedroom? No longer a regular, shared experience, people were actually starting to forget to watch.

Panicking, the TV show became ever more attention-seeking and pantomime-like (Bonnie Langford: one of the greatest musical theatre talents we've got, but a lousy TV actress), or so self-referential it vanished up its own space-time continuum. It ended up repulsing and delighting in equal measure only the fans, and never Joe Public who hadn't the foggiest what the show was about anymore.

Not much has changed today, and I fear we may be in for a disappointment, a Crossroads In Space, if you like. Perhaps our fond memories should remain just that. The only hopeful news is that it's being produced and scripted by the ground-breaking Russell T Queer As Folk Davies, and, if there's any justice in the world, will also star bookies' favourite Alan Davies in the lead role. If anyone can make it work the Davies boys will, and I really want them to win.

For no other reason, than that there are people out there, under the age of seventeen, who have never ever seen a Dalek.

And that is a really scary thought.


Thursday, September 25, 2003
Sing-along-a-stranger
So the Family von Blogg children were sitting on a mountain, avoiding the attentions of the very lonely goatherd who lived high on the neighbouring hill.

"Sigh," sighed Terracotta Sausage, "I am so depressed."

"I agree," agreed SlutEngineAGoGo, who was just as depressed. "If only Master Stranger were here."

"But we all know that he has returned to the monastery," Paradise Passage pouted petulantly. "Old Father Bloggit thought it best for all concerned."

"I know," said Ephemeral Gyrations. "But if Master Stranger were here now, then he would surely know how to cheer us up, wouldn't he, Sausage, dear? What was that very silly thing he did last time to put a smile on all our faces?"

"I remember with fondness," remembered Sausage with fondness, "he used to sing all about his favourite things!"

SlutEngineAGoGo clapped her hands in delight. "I remember too!" she remembered also. "I say, might it not be a jolly good idea to sing Master Stranger's song now? Perhaps that might make each one of us a little more merry!"

"Rather!" agreed Paradise Passage. But before any of the Family von Blogg children could start to sing, they heard a familiar voice singing a familiar song; and the familiar voice singing a familiar song was coming from a nearby hillside (but thankfully not the high one on which the lonely goatherd was living).

"Oh, Sausage!" cheered Ephemeral Gyrations, as she spotted the happy figure gallumphing over the hills to greet them. "Could it be? Could it really be he?"

"Oh yes, Ephie, yes, I think it is!" And, even though he was a boy, there were tears in Sausage's eyes, as the singer's voice grew louder and ever nearer. "It is Master Stranger, coming back to us, singing about all his favourite things:


Show tunes and muscles, blond Germans with tit-rings,
Bicep-straps, Clarins, and songs that I can't sing,
Mysterious potions that make me go zing,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Barbie dolls, Baywatch, and Carry On Matron,
Daleks and drag-queens with inch-thick foundation,
Bitching and boasting, going out on the wing,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Old-style polari and Compton Street sinners,
Nights at the National, each seat just a tenner,
Dancing the fool with some boy half my age,
They're all a part of my favourite days.

Sexy straight Latins, designer black stubble,
(Just one more Stella and then I'm in trouble)
Giving advice when I don't know a thing,
These are a few of my favourite things.

When the post's done, archives gone west, Blogger's down for days,
I simply remember my favourite things, and then I don't feel so dazed.

Geezer and Diva, Dave, Darren and Karen,
Guinness in Camden, high-jinks in a coven,
Disturbingly naked in Port o' Leith bars,
These are a few of my blog's guiding stars

Posting a comment, then wishing I hadn't,
Checking each blogroll to see if I'm on it,
Telling the boss what I'm doing is work,
And internet access a professional perk.

Cool clicks, and top tips, vicarious living,
Straplines, site meters, and wishlists for giving,
Top sites I rate where the content is king,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Baring my soul to this whole blogging nation,
Flame wars and group memes (and screw enetation),
Whoring my way to a top Google rank,
(Make me your link and you'll get one as thanks).

When the blog's done, comments won't come, links don't work at all,
I simply remember my favourite things and then I feel ten feet tall.



Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Burn, Baby, Burn
It certainly wasn't my idea, but some bright spark at work has just appointed me a Fire Warden. This is not a career move of my own choosing. It's come about because of a requirement for each of the seven floors in our building to have a permanent staff-member acting as warden. And, unfortunately, I'm the only sucker on our floor who falls into that category.

I can't even take care of myself after two Stellas, let alone be held responsible for the lives and safety of twenty-odd agency co-workers. And the fact my so-called hi-tech, "paperless" work-place is, of necessity, packed to the ceiling with the pulped, unread remains of several rainforests, our two extinguishers are designed only for electrical fires, and the office is conveniently located down the corridor from the staff kitchen and canteen, is inspiring in neither myself nor my colleagues any measure of confidence.

In the event of an emergency, I'm to "ensure a safe and orderly evacuation of the premises", which, I think, means doing my best Corporal Jones and excitedly urging everyone not to panic. Or mincing like Mister Humphries, shooing Tuesday night's trade off into the lifts (whoops, sorry, can't use the lifts, take the stairs) at closing time. To ensure maximum effectiveness, I also need to wear an identifying tabard, made of garishly fluorescent yellow plastic which I know will simply clash horrendously with the Nigel Hall shirts I wear for work.

Once everyone - apart from me - is safely out of the inferno that used to be my office, I'm to check out the loos for any straggling coke-heads, before battling through the toxic fumes and flames, and outside to the "Incident Controller" to confirm that every one of my staff is accounted for, and then to complete a report in triplicate.

However, if the blaze is "sufficiently small", then, according to the rule-book, I'm "allowed", and indeed more than welcome, if not positively encouraged, to tackle it myself.

Well, thank-you-ever-so-much, but dream on, my dears. I didn't want to be press-ganged into this sort of life-or-death responsibility in the first place. The slightest whiff of smoke, the faintest spark in the overhead lighting, and you won't see me for dust, OK?

However, give me some added danger money in the pay cheque each month, a slick MA1 fire-fighting jacket in which to pose, and, oh, toss in a couple of firemen for good measure, and then we'll talk. Otherwise, my dear, dear colleagues, you are all so much burnt toast.


Sunday, September 21, 2003
Pieces of Trash
I am a single man, living alone in a central London shoe-box, the decor of which can best be described as minimalist.

I seldom entertain or cook at home, partly because the act of boiling an egg gives me an anxiety attack, but mainly because Soho does it better, and the waiters are prettier.

On the rare occasions when I do "invite somebody back", I usually resist the temptation to dismember them, and chuck their body parts out in the morning.

So why is it that, every single week, I still seem to get through at the very least four over-stuffed black bin-liners? What do I put in them?


Friday, September 19, 2003
Whoops! R.I.P.
I've just arrived home after a couple of Stellas shared with a long-standing mate. Although we see each other probably no more than once a year, he's someone I'm extremely fond of. Real friendship isn't about quantity of time spent together: it's all about quality.

During our conversation, he remarked that a bunch of passing acquaintances from way back hadn't seen, or even heard of, me in yonks. This had then given rise to an ever-growing rumour in certain circles that I was, in fact, dead.

It's an odd thing, being dead. At first, you're touched by their concern, until you realise your supposed demise is but one more thing for them to bitch about next time they're on Old Compton Street. Ooh, but what did you expect? I mean, puh-leeeeazzze, the way she carried on sometimes. Did you hear about the time when she… ?

And then you consider turning up in disguise, and artfully turning the conversation around to yourself, and seeing whether they speak ill, or well, of the dead. Yeah, gutted, course I am. Nice bloke, and all that. Bought me a drink once. Probably trying to get off with me. Dream on! Now, f**k him. Got any pills? Who? Oh, some rancid middle-aged queen, that's all.

Or, of course, you could take the Perrin path, and start your life afresh, seeking out new vistas and experiences. And now, ladeez und gentlemen, I give you the triple-Oscar winning, multi-Grammy achieving, and the toast of the Tonys, the Mysterious Stranger who has set Broadway and Hollywood alight! Tonight and Forever, People of the Universe, I give you - the Boy From Nowhere!

Humph. Hard luck, my dears, I'm still alive and kicking. And there's one thing I want to know from all those people who thought I was dead: If they cared about me so much, then where were the f**king flowers?


Wednesday, September 17, 2003
"Baby, I'll Never Let You Go"
Precisely one full quarter-century and two days ago, at exactly 21h48, I arrived in Berlin, at the main Bahnhof Zoo station, not knowing what to expect, but certain it would all be played out to a David Bowie soundtrack.

It was the first time I'd ever been outside the UK, let alone to Sin City Central. The Strangers had never done Abroad before, largely through a lack of funds, but also because a rainswept, knobbly-kneed week at Butlins in Pwhelli was reckoned to be miles better than a fortnight in some fancy, lah-di-bloody-dah place called the Costa del Sol, where posh people went to eat foreign muck.

My awe of all things continental meant I spent much of the five-hour journey from Cologne contemplating the fly that had become trapped in my compartment at Helmstedt on the East-West German border. "That's a fly," I remember saying over and over to myself, "that's a real, genuine, honest-to-goodness German fly." To this day, I'm still not sure whether my very first German fly (of the winged variety, anyway) was a nasty Commie, or One of Us, but I remember him with great fondness. He was the first friend I made in Germany.

Sharing the carriage with me and Herr Fliege was a bunch of fellow foreign-language students, like me Berlin-bound to spend a year skiving teaching English. Far more worldly-wise and experienced at this whole travel thing than me, they'd all arranged to be met at the station by a representative from their respective schools, before being whisked off into the Berlin night.

No one was waiting for Stranger, apart from an army of heroin addicts, underage rent-boys, dirty old men and drug-dealers all hanging around the seedy, piss-stinking main railway concourse. Armed with just a contact phone number and address on a crumpled piece of paper, I was left to make my own way to the accommodation fixed up for me. This is commonly known as being thrown in at the deep end. Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome, indeed.

Two years of University German had equipped me for detailed dissection, in my best Hochdeutsch, of Brechtian politico-theatrical theory, and symbolism in the work of Gunter Grass. Unfortunately they'd forgotten to teach me how to ask for the location of the nearest payphone. To this day, I'm still grateful to the anonymous, trannie tart-with-a-heart, clad in real fox-fur and killer stilettos, who took pity on the babbling Brit and directed him to the nearest cab-driver who wasn't on the make.

And the rest is my history: I arrived an innocent and returned with a cheeky grin on my face, and a funny way of walking. So the past few days have been this queen's very own Silver Jubilee tour, an unashamedly self-indulgent Nostalgia-Fest. Strolling down the magnificent Unter den Linden, taking in the scent of the lime trees. Stopping off at Kranzler's for Kaffee and Kuchen, or a champagne breakfast at the café where I used to hang out. Checking out my old flat, where I threw my first party, which was gatecrashed by two perfectly pleasant Stasi agents and the smacked-up prostitute they were taking turns at shagging. Walking up to the Wall which isn't there anymore. I even managed to catch up with a couple of people I'd met all those years ago. And the nights in the gay triangle around the Nollendorfplatz were even more fun, but you wouldn't want to hear about them.

And to those I admonished a few days ago for thinking grubby thoughts, I'll come clean with you. Yes, I was celebrating that anniversary as well. . .


Monday, September 15, 2003
From Prussia With Love
Despite the fact they've had more than a little to do with a couple of World Wars, are the nation that style and good taste forgot, and actually think heavy metal is a good thing, I'm rather fond of Prussians.

Beneath that legendary gun-metal hardness, and a holier-than-thou attitude which borders on arrogance, they're big softies at heart, and great people to party with.

What really annoys me, however, is their ever-rigid following of rules, their insistence that everything should be just so. You notice it especially when you're filling out official forms. Omit to sign and date each copy in triplicate and the right ink, neglect to answer question 8a, sub-section 2.4.5, or, Heaven forbid, submit your form without the appropriate Stempel, or rubber stamp, and blood runs in the street, the Bundestag meets in emergency session, and Poland gets worried again.

This adherence to rules even applies to road safety. Somewhere there's a rule book which states that your good little Prussian may only cross the road when the green man is showing. At all other times he must wait until given the all-clear to proceed. This is why, even when the street is clearly free of traffic, and every car betweeen here and the Urals has been immobilised and put off the road because of the oil crisis, you will spot troops of upright citizens obediently standing on the road-edge, waiting for the green man to tell them to cross.

You kill yourself laughing at this absurdity at first, until you realise that, after half a day, you're doing it yourself, having fallen completely into the Prussian mind-set, and trying hard not to think what a prat you're being.

Now, there's discipline for you.


Saturday, September 13, 2003
You'll Find Me In A Berlin Bar Somewhere Brooding
Much of last night was spent in a notoriously "heavy" Berlin bar swapping moisturising tips with an allegedly butch leather queen.

Clinique is still tops, but Clarins is running it a close second.

It's always the "straight-acting" ones, you know...


Friday, September 12, 2003
(Trying To) Get On Board An Eastbound 737
Ever mindful of the pennies, you decide to take a no-frills pre-dawn flight from an airport to which no trains run until after your flight is scheduled to depart.

Undaunted, you take a London black cab, running at night-rates, to the coach station where you pay a tenner to get to the airport three hours before your departure time.

Faced with the post-apocalyptic 4 a.m. waiting room hell that goes by the name of Stansted airport, you search for ways to while away the time.

Despite the fact that you ate only six hours ago, you order a cherry Danish and an over-priced BLT, followd by a sickly frappomochalankylatte.

Having failed to initiate anything halfway resembling a meaningful conversation with the Ibiza-bound Scally in the fluorescent sleeping bag, you elect to buy a book from the only WH Smith open at this evil time of day. The only books they have on sale are ones by That Woman and you are simply not that desperate.

Despairing of finding something useful to do you decide to check your e-mails and post this blog. But the airport server is even slower than your dial-up connection at home, and you don't have the patience.

Failing all else, you decide to get drunk. But when the bars open at 5 a.m. you re trampled by a mob of kilt-wearing, sporran-wielding Caledonians, eager to sink down as many quaddie-voddies as possible before their flight back to Glasgow.

Next time, my dears, I'm flying first-class from Heathrow and checking into the VIP lounge. It might be a little pricey, but it's far more civilised.


Thursday, September 11, 2003
Silver Jubilee Tour
I'm flying off to Berlin again, this time celebrating a twenty-fifth anniversary (and not the sort you grubby-minded lot are probably thinking of). More when I get back on Tuesday, if not before.

If you like, I shall bring back each and every one of you a Currywurst with extra ketchup, of course. (It’s a Berlin thing, my dears. You'll get used to it in time.)


Tuesday, September 09, 2003
A Touch Of Evil
I've always had a problem with Leni Riefenstahl, the German film-director whose death at the age of 101 has been announced today.

On the one hand, I have nothing but respect for any Prussian battle-axe with a death's-head face and fright wig, who, until a few months ago was still scuba-diving, and falling out of helicopters, before picking herself up and carrying on. In her day, she was, apparently, a great beauty, and an OK-ish actress (you do not want to watch The White Hell of Piz Pulu; trust me on this one); she was an expert mountaineer, and an acclaimed photographer of the Nuba tribes of the Sudan, whom - so she claimed - she loved.

And, of course, as the director of Olympia, one of my favourite all-time films, and her iconic record of the 1936 Berlin Olympics - the "Hitler-Olympics", as they became known - she established herself as one of the greatest documentary directors of the twentieth century. Its pioneering slow-motion idealism of the capabilities of the human physique (OK, for which read body-fascism), dripping with more than a little homo-eroticism, had an incalculable influence on future film-makers. Try and rent out a video of it if you can: it’s worth it.

And then there's Triumph of the Will, her meticulously-choreographed documentary of the Nazis' Nuremberg rallies of 1934. You'll have rarely seen anything but clips of it on TV - it took me ages to track down a DVD - and the only time you'll see it in Germany is at private screenings.

While I despise all the Nazis stood - and still stand - for, it’s clear, to me at least, that Triumph of the Will is a great film. An evil film, certainly, dangerous in the wrong hands, definitely not a "good" film; but in its well-crafted and manipulatively-choreographed celebration of one of the most iniquitous regimes in history, it’s propaganda without parallel.

Dare to drop your guard for just one moment, try and forget for just one tiny, unforgiving second those cattle-trucks packed with Jews and Communists and gays and anyone else who didn't fit in, and Riefenstahl's power and command of the camera is so mesmerising she'll sweep you right up into her chilling fairytale world of torchlight processions and a goose-stepping and jack-booted, blue-eyed and blond-haired Master Race. It'll almost get you believing. And that's what makes this film so frightening; and that's what, unfortunately made her so great. So you claim you weren't a Nazi, Leni Liebchen? Pull the other one, darling.

And that's why I have a major problem with her. Should I regard her as a great film-maker to be acclaimed, or as a piece of Nazi trash to be despised? Who do I judge? The person or the producer? The substance or the style?

I'm off to Berlin this weekend. It will be interesting to see how her death is received over there.


Monday, September 08, 2003
Careless Talk
Latest term in my Search Engine Queries: The Invisible Dirty Old Man.

All right. Which one of you lot has been talking to people you shouldn't have been talking to, and especially not at that time of night?

The truth hurts, you know. . . I aim to avoid it as much as is humanly possible.


Sunday, September 07, 2003
Noises Off
When I do any work at home which needs a hard-copy version, I usually bung it onto a floppy and run it off on one of the office laser printers the following day. The result is much more professional-looking, and certainly quicker, than your average home printer, especially when you’re printing out multi-page documents.

However, finally embracing the whole skiving-at-home working-from-home ethic, I've just gone and bought a bog-standard ink-jet for home use. Well, I bought it six months ago, but it was only yesterday, taking advantage of Blogger being down, that I finally got around to unpacking and installing it.

Yes, yes, yes, I know. First the blinds. Now this. Get used to it, my dears: practicalities take time chez Stranger.

In my ideal fairytale world, of course, I would have at my beck and call an army of well-toned and scantily-clad young chippies, plumbers, electricians, "houseboys" (ahem) and IT professionals ready to attend to my every waking whim. I would also be living in an apartment nicked straight from the pages of wallpaper* magazine, and be downing Negronis at the Negresco, before Fitzgeralding down the coast to my billion-dollar yacht anchored off the Croisette in Cannes.

This, unfortunately, is the real world, as I am reminded each morning when the prison vans rumble past my window en route to Pentonville, the crack-whores assess my interest in their worn-out wares, and the only things worth considering in the fridge are two slices of last night's Super Supreme, and the semi-skimmed which went off about the time Big Brother did.

Anyway, back to my printer. It does its job well enough; in fact, it does it a little too well. It is so fabulously efficient that it actually speaks to me. No, it really does, and I haven't taken any pharmaceuticals for ever so long. It boldly tells me when it needs crisp A4 shoved up its feeder. It announces when it's about to toss out a document (yes, thank you very much, I do know: that's why I pressed the "print" button). It holds my hand when things go wrong ("You are experiencing a - Paper Jam"). And, when it reports that "Your printing is - Complete", I'm such a well brought-up Stranger I automatically say, "Thank you."

It's just a machine, for God's sake, a jumble of chips and colour cartridges. Only it isn't. His - sorry, its - tones are just so mellifluously laid-back and understanding that he could only be Californian. It's the kind of irritatingly smug and self-satisfied voice which Manhattan 80s journalist Fran Lebowitz once so memorably described as being "audibly tan".

He comes across as a fiftysomething sex-therapist, all polo necks and medallions, more Kinsey than Cruise, who assures you that, hey, yes, that's OK, you do have some colour-resolution issues here but don't worry, because together we can beat them. (Man.) He's not fooling me. He's clearly having his own high-definition problems with Mrs Ice-Witch whose frosty voice automatically cuts in over my own ansaphone message whenever there's a power outage. And then there's the problem of those burbling pill-popping little brats who always snigger loudly at me every time I shut down Windows. And don't even get me started on what I think that retired army colonel really gets up to in his Accurist-sponsored spare time.

I don't need all this disembodied facelessness, my dears. I need silence on Sundays. I'm a former Trade Baby and one-time scene-queen: there are enough People in the Pipes, and far too many Voices in my Head already, without my needing anymore, thank you very much.

And no, pressing the "mute" button doesn't work either.


Friday, September 05, 2003
Train of Conversation
Preston, Lancashire - 13.20: "Sorry. Excuse me. But, you know, well, I think that's my seat. Oh, never mind. Nobody's fault, is it? Now, don't be silly, love, I don't mind sitting here."

Wigan - 13.34: "Hey, no, I insist. That suitcase looks heavy. Please, let me carry it for you… No, ma'am, American actually."

Warrington - 13.44: "You’re meeting your son? He does, does he? And they have two grandchildren as well? You must be so proud of them. Oh, and what a lovely photograph… No, he never married."

Crewe - 14.07: "Gerra look at them on t'platform. Bunch of grown men. Think they'd have summat better to do. Train-spotters, I ask yer! Sad, or what? Still, what they do's their own business. Harmless enough, s'pose."

Tamworth - 14.49: "Look, do you mind? Has anyone told you that thing is annoying everyone else? No? Well, they must all be deaf then. Now, don't you use that sort of language with me, young man. Why not? Well… well.. well, God, do you realise just how pathetic you are? Come along, Caroline, I'm not staying in this carriage one moment longer. No manners anymore. Disgraceful."

Rugby - 15.14: "That is my seat. This is my reservation. Right, you going to move now, or do I call the guard?"

Watford Junction - 16.30: "Delayed twenty minutes due to 'temperature problems' on the line. Huh! State of the railways! No, I will not shut up and you simply do not know what you're talking about you wouldn't get this in Germany I'll tell you that for nothing and it was much better in my day and if you ask me Blair should renationalise the whole lot..."

London Euston - 16.54: "Will you turn off that f**king mobile? … Wanker. Yes, you heard right first time."

390 bus, York Way - 17.03: "Look, mate, we're full. Read my lips, woncha? This-bus-ain't-going-nowhere till you geroff. Yeah? Like, you and whose bleedin' army? Piss off yourself then. (Irish git.)"

So. Who says there's no North-South Divide?

Oh to be in London, now September's there.


Thursday, September 04, 2003
I'm Back In Town
Remember me? Thank you all for all those good wishes in the comments box: evidence of the community spirit this blogging nonsense is supposed to generate. Or maybe you just want a thank-you drink the next time you run into me. Whichever way, the Stellas are all on me. Genuine thanks again: it meant, and means, a lot.

What happened was my mother took a tumble at home Up North (far too many gin-and-tonics, I say; shut up, she says), and was admitted to A&E on Friday evening for a weekend operation. Things became complicated when it emerged the leg she'd buggered up was the same one she'd broken seven years ago (and which she'd then kept quiet about, to me at least, until a week after the op).

The thing which shook me up so much initially was that long-dreaded, out-of-the-blue call on the mobile ("Hello, Stranger, this is the hospital calling about your mother. . ."); their NHS-rulebook insistence I couldn't speak to her straight away (I soon bullied them out of that one); and my concern for the excruciating pain a woman, who had never deserved it, must have been going through.

But, above all, it was the horribly inevitable Intimation of Mortality. My dad died when I was young and I never really knew him. So, even though I've lived away from the parental home as an only child for almost thirty years, and rarely go up there, my mother's been the one constant in my life. If - and let's face it, when - she does go, it will mean that, whatever else is going on in my emotional life, I will finally be Alone. A Grown-Up Stranger at long last, living with regrets of never having said how he really felt, or given her the chance to see him truly happy. Selfish maybe, but there you go.

Anyway, the happy upshot of all this is that, while she won't be doing the can-can for a while, she has a nice shiny new hip to show off, provided by a nice (and very shiny) doctor (oh, those Northern boyz…); they're going to try and get her up and walking tomorrow; and this particular Stranger's been sent down to London with a flea in his ear for worrying too much. She's going to be all right, is my mum. And so will I.