tubular hell

apparently, people who work on the Tube call the woman who does the announcements Sonia.
because she gets on ya nerves. geddit 's on ya' nerves.
pu huh (that was the noise my twin sister used to make when she laughed at a joke she didn't understand and has now become family parlance for funny. also for not funny, weirdly)
anyway, Sonya is this week's object of disaffection. you see, i get the Northern Line to work of a morning. it used to be called the misery line because it was so bad compared to all the others, but now that all the others are equally dreadful it has been robbed of than moniker.
so, each morning i get the Northern Line. 'The next train terminates at Morden via Bank' announces Sonya merrily, unaware of her dreadful grasp of English (there is no such place as Morden via Bank) before announcing 'The next train terminates at Paddington via Charing Cross'.
which is plain wrong not just on the grammatical construction but also because the Northern line goes nowhere near Paddington.
Poor old Sonya has got her Kennington mixed up with her Paddington.
I wonder if she has a little teddy bear at home that loves Marmalade and comes from Peru that she calls Kennington.
hey ho

book 'em Danno

viewers of a certain age (actually we're all 'viewers' now. according to the multimedia experts, 'readers' is v v v 20th century. that's not entirely true. my mate Damian Barr is still a reader. in fact he is set to become the world's first Reader in Residence at the Andaz hotel. 'book' him and he will come and read to you in your room! how amazing is that? i wonder if he will pat my bum too, like my nan used to. you can also reserve him for a literary lunch or supper or call him for book advice, which he calls bibliotherapy. he's even holding a 'book-in' at the gaff. find out all about it at guestservices.londonliv@andaz.com or call 020 7618 5061).
anyway, viewers of a certain age might remember Johnny Ball, father of wild child Zoe and erstwhile presenter of Think of a Number. i saw Johnny Ball on the Tube the other day. DOING A SUDOKO! which you just couldn't make up.
so, if you remember Johnny and Think of a Number you may remember a piece of wisdom he once imparted. it went: 'a man with a watch knows the time. a man with two is never sure.'
i was reminded of this yesterday as i made my way from deepest WC2 to bright and oh-so-gay W1. every clock had different variations on a theme. in fact most of them were right, give or take a month or two.
my watch read 6.20pm.
the clock on st martin's in the field read 3.20.
the clock on the swiss centre was stuck at 4.12.
i arrived at my date mystified. was i early? on time? a week and a half late…

oh no!

i interviewed a chef earlier. 'OK, can I ask how old you are?' '37'
'And are you a Thomas or a Tom?' 'Erm, I'm a Nicholas!'
how i laughed.
not quite as much, though as when my friend Tim sent me an email yesterday. he had sent a disc of high-res images of some glitzy jewellery to a repro house to be retouched. 'I've been to our repro house,' he says. 'It makes Prison Break look like a Women's Institute meeting.'
The reason Tim told me this was because he hadn't actually sent a disc of jewellery images to the repro house but a disc of images from his civil partnership, which we celebrated with his lovely partner Alan a few weeks ago.
One of the pictures involved the happy couple crouching down, poking their arxes out as if waiting for a very 'oh vicar' wedding present to be administered – it was actually a preparatory shot for an airborne 'jump' photo. another showed Tim's stubby fingers gently easing a ring onto Alan's middle finger.
i felt a wave of 'oh no' butterflies on his behalf.
and talking of embarrassing, my trainer once took some topless photos of me for a before and after story for his testimonials, which involved me flexing my muscles a la body builder contest.
i put these photos in with a dvd that he had lent me and left it at reception at the gym. and guess what! someone stole the dvd! someone who goes to the same gym as me and who must pxss themself every time they see me!

i'll call you....

i've had a recent cinema binge.
lots of afternoon screenings - i love going to the cinema when it's light outside, it always feels like a guilty pleasure (AKA something only losers do, according to the other half), and i love coming out and it's still light.
My sister asked me what i thought of one of the films i'd seen recently. 'Boring,' I told her.
'You always say that,' she replied. 'Or fantastic. Those are the only words you eve use to describe a film you've seen.'
which is true, though i have been known to say 'it got brilliant reviews'. this is usually my justification for putting something dire on our Lovefilm list. (that's the same sister who kept me awake all night the other night as she kept turning the hall light on and off and crashing around because there was apparently a mouse under her wardrobe!)
anyway, i've started turning my phone off during screenings, i never used to (but, before you get all uppity I HAD IT ON VIBRATE) as it's started to annoy me when it buzzes during a film and i spend the next 10 minutes wondering if that call was the one life-changing call i really should have taken or not. (the buzzing doesn't annoy me as much as people with big hair sitting in front of me even when the cinema is empty, or people chatting as if they were sitting in their living room, though).
and it is about that phone that i wish to blog today (which almost turns that intro into an homage to AA Gill, though i won't refer to my Nokia as the blonde).
it's stopped working properly. actually, it's one of my old phones, which i have had to revert to using given that my new, lovely, super slim Nokia does weird things like go straight to voicemail rather than ring before waiting 1/2 hour to tell me i've got a voicemail EVEN THOUGH I HAVE BEEN HOLDING IT MY HAND WAITING FOR THAT BLOODY PHONE CALL. and tell me that 'the number you have called has not been recognised' even though it is my number one speed dial and i call it at least twice a day! the new Nokia is currently being reprogrammed.
the old phone, meanwhile, does ring when it should (if only we could say the same of our lovers, eh?) but it's buttons have got a big 'sticky' meaning that i merrily key in a text message only to greeted by a blank screen. i feel like i'm writing in telephonic invisible ink, which would actually be great!
it also means that while i try and set myself a reminder (i live my life by mobile 'to do' lists: get up; breath; go to cinema and sit behind person with big hair to avoid irritation later) i actually end up looking for the week view of sometime round about 1912. i didn't know they even had mobiles back then!

i've got a new pet hate.
people who send untitled emails. especially people you don't know.
and people sending emails marked urgent which aren't in any way shape or form!

open your windows

i've just done my first bit of yoga for months. my god, it's a jungle in there! i'd forgotten what a mental chatterbox i am: 'do this, don't forget that, why did you do that, ouch that's stiff, ouch, that's really stiff, how much longer, where's my phone…'
it's scary how quickly emotional cobwebs gather. when i used to go to classes regularly it felt like i was giving myself a gentle mental dusting - judging from the last 20 minutes spent on my mat it seems my whole mental mansion needs a makeover and a bloody good clean.
which is pretty much what my bricks and mortar abode got this weekend - paintwork was washed down, balls of fluff were removed, oh and i nearly chopped a finger off retrieving a picture from behind the radiator.
the house looks so much better and brighter today.
now, if i can get my spiritual house looking the same way.

go go before you wake me up

just come back from trying to buy the sunday papers. trying, as in not succeeding.
i really must be turning into a grandad because i think it's weird that not one newsagent or supermarket is open at 7.45am.
the only people i encountered when i was out was the road sweeper - it struck me as harsh that he had to be out sweeping the streets on a sunday but then i figure that serial litterers don't really think to themselves 'oh i won't drop that fag packet here today, it is sunday, after all', and a group of three lads who patently had not yet been to bed.
this trio reminded me of the now long gone days when i too would still be up when day arrived. i had a sudden flash of that feeling i used to get upon leaving a night club only to find that it was already daytime outside and that people were already going about their lives. it was a cross between 'oh no!' and 'ye-hah! pardeeeeeeee'.
needless to say, i don't miss those mornings in the slightest.