Locks, Keys and Oily Puddles.

I read a book the other day -it's a great book- and within said book there was a chapter on keys. The book, which was good, suddenly got great. I was lying on my bed reading about plugs and staples (yes, really) and then suddenly the 'Key Chapter'.  -Just to help make things slightly clearer, this book is non fiction (no, it's not the B&Q catalogue), but it somehow manages to contain all the brilliance and excitement of novel -about keys no less. 


So, the Key Chapter (the pun, I realise now, is actually a very good one). Keys: Curious, magical and always to be born in pairs. I don't mean you always have two keys, more elegant than that... without the lock there is no key. Without the key a lock becomes redundant. A lone key, minus lock, somehow still looks full of promise... a solitary lock, however, looks heavy and still, like it will sleep for a hundred years until it hears the distinctive 'chilink' of the key that once used to fit.  This chapter, so beautifully written, got me to thinking: What things do I like and why? Do I particularly like freshly cleaned glass jars along a window sill because of the glass, or the jar? -Or even, I hear you shout, the window sill -don't be ridiculous. If I like the bristles all splayed outwards on a used toothbrush, does that mean the next person does? I'm not sure, but I've tried to come up with a list of some of the things I like, and the reasonings why. Maybe, as you read this, you will realise we have the exact same likes, everyone who reads this, and we'll discover and worldwide phenomenon love for cold floor tiles. Maybe not. 

• Glass jars, freshly cleaned, along a window sill (bet you didn't see that one coming). 
• The backs of old picture frames. They've nearly always got something written on the back of them, which is usually interesting or at least in funny handwriting. Start checking.
• Small clumps of moss that have ended up, somehow, on grey concrete. Bright green on dull grey-very pretty. And they generally look like giant caterpillars. 
• Running my hands along privet hedges. I don't suppose the owners of the hedges are keen for passers by to do this but it feels nice, crunchy leaves and spikey branches.
• Oily puddles. Obvious. Magical.
• The miniature version of anything. I believe in fairies.
• The noise that happens when you have a full jar of water and you turn it upside down over the sink. Puh. 
• An old envelope with the scribbles of people I know on it. This feels somehow wrong to read, so I like it.
• Finding tiny bugs on plants. I imagine the leaves are like a fairground ride for them, all big and drooping. 
• Mixed sweets in a huge jar. Hmmm... maybe I just like jars.
• Having butterflies land on my nose. This has never happened.

Maybe it's the magic?

The oil rainbow that dances within a once murky puddle suggests more wonderment in the world. As you look down, the puddle inches from your converse trainers, the colours waltz. If you push your head slightly forward you can see your face, warped by ripples, covered in pinks and blues, the sky above you a merge of green and yellow. The street around you is normal. Do you have the urge to jump in? Dip one trainer into the puddle only to realise its depth is unlimited. Ankle follows foot, the other toe still on concrete... rainbow colours sweeping up your leg. Plunging further in, now both hips submerged, greens and vibrant pinks shooting up your torso and streaking onto your face. As your head is finally pulled under, your hands, the last thing to go, now purple and orange in glorious swathes across your fingers, wave goodbye to the dull street and delicately, just perfectly, disappear from view. The puddle, coming to a stand still once more, is calm. Another passer by walks along the street from which you have vanished, and ignores it completely. Rainbows gone, it is just another dank area of water, no magic, no possibility.   

Curious...

Beginnings and the things that follow.

This is the beginning of a blog. You will read it through, and then will come the end. 

Everything, as the tibetans say, is made of a beginning and an ending. Nothing that ever starts will continue to be forever. Even a black hole will cease, although by it’s own definition it is one continual end. Life, not to sound like a bore, is made up of these starts and finishes. It need not be a race, we are not in the one hundred meter sprint. We aren’t even in a 3000m cross country run… but after the start pistol has sounded there is only one definite that will follow. You may fall over a rock, you may slip on a slug, you may think you hear someone call your name and, whilst turning, smash your face into a tree. You may do all of these things, or none. But at some point the race will be over, whatever else happens. 

Now, this all sounds increasingly morbid. To clarify, this blog is not about death, not in its immediate sense. It’s not about The Art of Living and Dying, although that is a very interesting and recommended read. It’s about things when they begin and end, and what happens when they do. 

When you finish your ice cream the obvious consequence is to reach into the freezer and fill you bowl again to stop the ‘finish’ from happening. This can only be done for so long. You either come to the end of the tub, or realise the 2nd and 3rd trips to the corner shop were unnecessary, indulgent and greedy. You could just stop. Your ice cream would come to an end. There would be no more… but almost instantly something else would begin. It may be a thirst. Your teeth might ache. You may feel full. From the end becomes a beginning.  These beginnings can be huge and of massive significance, equally they can be so infinitesimally tiny they go almost unnoticed, but that inception, that moment of creation is there. They are the ones to watch out for. 

You’ve written a letter (on paper, your internet is broken and you’ve remember you, at some point in your schooling, were taught how to use a pen), you sign off, place your pen to one side and fold the paper. You get your envelope and place your missive within it. Lick, stick. You get a stamp, cursing the ridiculous new stamp system the Post Office has put in place; IS this a large letter or not? What actually specifies a ‘large letter’? Idiots, you think. You uncertainly make the call, it’s not large, it’s medium… and the fools haven’t got a medium letter stamp (or a small for that matter), so a regular one will have to do. Stamp affixed you walk, letter in hand, to the post box at the end of your road. It boarded up. You still have a letter and no means of posting it. The next post box is 10 minutes away… it’s a nice day, you decide to walk for the fresh air. It’s glorious outside and you have a letter to post, what’s ten minutes? The walk takes you through a series of little streets and back roads. You see a cat, it sees you. You both stop. What you want for it to do is either talk or display the skills of a super ninja cat. It does neither, just looks at you, blinks and pads off. You keep walking and the post box is within your sight. It’s not boarded up. It open like a smiley red mouth wanting to eat your letter. You post. ‘Thuth’ it sounds as it falls on the pile of letters already on their journey. You turn and walk home.

On that journey were hundreds, if not thousands, of beginnings and endings. You probably noticed three, maybe four. What would have happened if you choose to take a different road? Began on a different path… Would you end up at a different post box? Would you have ‘ended’ your search for a post box all together? What if you’d stopped at just finishing your letter… and the ‘start’ of actually posting it had never happened? So many moments of conception and conclusion that were never realised.  

I guess when it comes down to it, sometimes, there’s choice. It’s that choice that makes things interesting. What do I choose to start and what do I choose to finish? Will I follow the cat? Will I then enter the Matrix?

Everything that starts will finish. Everything. It’s the moments along the way to watch out for. Unless it’s ice cream, and then I’d say just enjoy the lot, although maybe that's just as true for life. 

Transport

I, for the most part, like London Transport.


I can imagine an instant recoil as you read those words. Like and London Transport without the 'I fucking don't' in the middle.


I don't travel on tubes, and maybe this is part of the reason. You won't see me on a tube for Love nor Money, or for 'ease of journey'... and don't understand why you lot do it either. Tiny carriages packed full of sweaty, angry commuters, all breathing into one another's faces... and then the tube -the size of a Hornby model train- stutters to a halt in a tunnel. Oh Yes Please. I'd love that. I would love to be stuck 25ft underground with no means of escape with a group of nauseating humans all despising each other for stealing precious, albeit boiling, oxygen. Sweat leaking from every place I didn't think possible as the 40 degrees heat rises rapidly... Only to be told ABSOLTULEY NOTHING by the 'driver' at the front of the tube, who is probably just a Debenhams shop mannequin. I'm getting sweaty palmed just typing about it (which is ironic as that is making it harder to type).


I have no idea whether tube journeys give TFL a good or a bad name... although I'll presume it's bad as I don't hear much good about them. Does it depend on which colour line you travel on I wonder? Or it is an all round bad service. Could there be anything done to improve it? Now, as a non tube-traveller, I surely shouldn't be allowed to answer that question, but this is my blog so I'm ruddy well going to.


What could be done to improve the tube (besides removing it all together) ?

• i) Having the tube carriages, and everything within them, painted the same colour as the line it's on. For instance the District Line would be Grass Green on the outside. The internal would be Apple Green and the seats- Minty Green

• ia) Further to point i) all tube lines would now have food services running in them but the food served would be the same colour as the line : Central line -Strawberries, Circle line - mash, Picadilly -Bluberries, Northern -Marmite or licorice, Bakerloo -chocolate, Jubilee -tin foil... It's a great idea.

• ii) Having morris dancers in each carriage to cheer people up when the tube gets stuck. It wouldn't become annoying.

• iii) The picadilly line, which is the deepest, wouldn't have any tubes running through it at all. Only tunnels full of water. You would get to work on a giant flume.

• iv) At night times the carriages would have mirror balls.

• v) The circle line would have all its stops removed. And would go around much faster. A bit like Alton Towers.

You see the possibilities are endless.


Bus journeys, to me, are far more pleasant. The jolly bus driver at the front who waves 'hullo' as you hop on board, the old man in the flat cap sitting beside you who tells you about his beautiful wife at home who he's taking some flowers to, the wandering scenery of lush trees and acres of foliage... Ok so that's all crap. The bus drivers a grumpy sod who wishes you were on the tube instead of making his day hell, the man in the flap cap stinks and keeps staring at you and there's kids at the back of the bus listening to Kphat, or whatever the hell he's called, at full volume . But it's not the tube. I can see trees, and sky, and every now and then I can see someone on the street smiling. And I think that's nice.


So I guess that's why I like London Transport. You can't really go wrong with a bus. If it breaks down -jump on another, if it's hot and humid -open the window. For all the reasons I hate the tube, I love the bus. And I think you should too. Unless you're agoraphobic.