Arrived at Stansted airport at 10.50pm last night: huge queue for passport control, long wait for bags - well this is the budget airport, so you can't really complain. Outside was a fair attempt at a setting for a Sherlock Holmes movie - a thick yellow fog that quickly deposited a greasy film over your face.
Just caught the 11.59 Stansted "Express", which should have just connected me to the Victoria Tube (Underground) line before it does its the usual half-after-midnight shutdown (when IS Ken Livingstone going to do something about this?), had it not sat for 15 minutes or so in the middle of nowhere. (No idea why - the driver did make an announcement, but it was unintelligible).
So, to the joys of the N73 night bus, to be caught from the middle of a dodgy industrial estate at Tottenham Hale. But yes, it was a joy.
First, there was the Korean Elvis impersonator, with, if not in a biblical sense - although not for want of his trying - the American "from LA", dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. (Not a look I'd recommend, overall if you're over 40 and have a really bad blonde dye job.)
Then, there was the sailor from Plymouth who sat beside me and tried to chat, but whose muscle control was so far gone that at each stop he slowly slid from view along the mixture of chewing gum and general grime on the seat, ending up crouched on his haunches, swaying gently, but politely trying very hard not to brush against me.
Then there was the sober soldier-boy (had to be with that haircut), grimly hanging on to his temper after copping an elbow to the head from a drunk who really didn't look like he should be able to stand, and the bloke who'd fancied his chances for the evening, until his "date" had caught a nightbus 40 minutes in the wrong direction, so now they were heading, he hoped, on the route to her bedroom. Whether she intended the mistake I don't know - a 50/50. But certainly his ardour was cooling by the minute.
The woman behind me who'd said in an ominous tone "I feel sick" didn't throw up, so it was a successful return to the old home town. And I was reminded why I love living here - all of life is at your side, if not in your lap.
Article comments
1 - Victor Lana
Natalie,
I am a New Yorker who LOVES London. I spent a good deal of time there in the 80s, and was last there in 1994. I miss it a great deal. I love the smells of London (including the deisel fumes), the dampness of the air in summer and the cold wet of the winter.
I love NYC, but London holds a special place for me. I liked lingering in Leiscester, moving up along the side streets and going to clubs on Greek Street and the like. Spent many nights in The Wag (is it still there?). One memorable night there included Oingo Boingo and a girl I loved. Ah, the 80s.
So, enjoy old London town, Natalie, for all it has to offer. Cheers!
2 - Natalie Bennett
Hi Victor,
Thanks - it is a great city. If you haven't been here since '94 you should come back - it has come a long way in the past decade. They're even finally doing up the Tube, the buses and the river!
Natalie