The Circus Man

Late Saturday afternoon over on the Southbank near the Royal Festival Hall we, the crowd, gather round to watch a circus man in striped trousers as he attempts to get his whole body through a tennis racket. He knows how to play the audience. If we don't clap loud enough he makes us do it again and we dutifully clap louder. He gets us to clap in time to his animated footsteps and we try and keep in time as he runs on the spot. He's a great entertainer is the circus man.

Unfortunately the chav behind me doesn't agree. He keeps shouting, "get a job" and thinks his comments entertaining. He also refers to the tennis racket as a cricket racket. It's funny because I thought the circus man was working and doing his job well. And I wonder what kind of job the chav fool does, a man so intelligent he thinks cricket is played with a racket. His shouting "get a job" brings it back to me why it's good not to get a 'proper' job. It shows a lack of imagination. Mind you having a job means I can put some money in the circus man's hat after he gets his dislocated shoulder through the racket and wriggles his way into getting the racket right down to his feet. 

It reminds me that it's better to be a part of something than standing on the sidelines snearing. It's 2009, cynicism is on its way out my friends.

Where does everyone go for Easter Monday?

I went to view a flat earlier. Not a proper viewing, I just drove past to check out the area. I saw this flat, where you stump up 70% of the costs and then when you sell it 30% of the profits go to the company who built the flats. I had it all worked out, I'd be totally broke but I'd be able to swan around my own modern and tiny flat.

I think this crazy line of thinking has something to do with me turning 39 on Saturday. I had a great birthday, but 39 is a scary amount of years to have watched run over the hill like wild dogs. I decided I needed to buy a piece of England's green and pleasant land.

Anyway I drove round to check out my new neighbourhood. However the streets were full of scary kids staring into my car and there wasn't a tree in sight so I turned around and drove home, my mind totally changed about buying that flat the moment I conned a mortgage out of the bank.

Funny, because on Monday I walked lost around Muswell Hill and there was hardly a person in sight. I thought everyone in the whole area had gone away for Easter Monday. When I took the tube home in the evening I had a whole carriage to myself from Highgate to Camden. 

Hair

Down the hill in Chalk Farm I'm waiting for Valerie to cut my hair and feeling sorry for the Chinese hairdresser. Everyone is requesting Valerie cuts their hair. The woman with a child who is just a big ball of hair huffs when she is told Valerie isn't available. She begrudgingly agrees the Chinese hairdresser is to cut her hairy child's hair. The Chinese woman maintains a dignified air of bonhomie. As she sets about cutting enough hair to reveal the face of  the huffy woman's child, another customer comes in and requests Valerie. I sit in my chair feeling guilty that Valerie is going to cut my hair.

I always choose the moment I'm sitting in the hairdresser's chair, her with scissors at the ready, to decide my hair looks great as it is and plan my escape still wearing the hairdresser's cape if necessary. I always ask for not very much hair to be taken off at all but ask for it to be more choppy. Whether this means anything to Valerie or not I don't know, it's just a term I picked up in a Liverpool hairdressers.

She tends to wet my hair down so it looks as terrible as it can and then puts it into a side parting when I always have it forward and I worry she's going to ruin it. But then a few minutes of chopping later she's drying my hair and it looks blonder than ever and a thousand times better than it did before I entered the shop. Hairdressers always style your hair so it looks tremendous. A haircut never looks better than in the Hairdresser's mirror. 

I walk up the hill a happy man, happy with his hair. I could never get a good quiff though. Not like Ringo with his Rory Storm and the Hurricanes look. I keep walking up the hill, keeping Ringo's quiff from mind, refusing to check my hair in the reflection from car windows, concentrating instead on the blond image left in the hairdresser's mirror.

Liverpool 1, Fulham 0

Usually outside the post office on Finchley road a lone woman stands and says in a soft voice to passers by, "Good news, Jesus loves you". Today there are four of them to tell me this. I kind of like this but I walk by quickly. I like christians much more than atheists. Christians get up on sunday and socialise with one another, singing songs of praise. What social events have atheists ever laid on for us? Because of christians we get a nice break at easter. Where's our free plane ride over to the Galapagos islands to see the big tortoises, Mr Dawkins?

This weekend I'm in London. I've had a good few weeks either going away or meeting up with friends, but this weekend I'm doing little and the weekend is threatening to ground to a halt. A few weeks ago I went to Liverpool, where I met up with all of the people above. (Can you guess which one is a DJ?) I lived in Liverpool for years and I think of it as my second home. I had a kind of love/hate relationship with Liverpool, I've had some of the best times of my life in Liverpool, but also some of the worst. 

The train to Liverpool is never ready to board until about two minutes before it's due to leave. And then everyone swarms onto the train. Once on the train I hear the homely sound of scouse voices talking enthusiastically. The train from Euston is now superfast and I've barely time to drink my two cans of lager before I arrive in one of England's best cities. It used to take between five and seven hours to get back from Liverpool, but now they've stopped with that nonsense and you can return to London in two and a half hours. It's funny now I don't live there, I love the place almost unreservedly. Back in London I spend my weekend listening to the Liverpool games and the Coral.

London

I've been living in London just over a year now and would like to know why postmen's trolleys are dotted around the city, usually looking abandoned, at the top of hills. Is this the point where they quit their jobs? Who should answer me? The London Mayor, yes he'll do. And while you're there Boris, why are cars in this city becoming smaller and boxier and resembling more and more Enid Blyton's vision of toytown? There they are plugged in on rich people's drives.

I admit my car sits largely neglected near my flat, but I'm loath to get rid of it; we've had some good times, my car and me. Besides it used to belong to my Grandad and it's nice to see it outside of a morning. I take it for a drive once a week so it doesn't feel too neglected.

London is going by bus or tube to an unexplored part of the city, to meet a friend at a pub, or a street or a station, and spending forever trying to find them. Then there's the getting back across the city, getting on a late night tube alone, sitting in a carriage with other people sitting alone, making the weary journey home. 

I miss the randomness of smaller places. It's so rare you bump into someone you know.

Walking up a hill and stumbling upon a familiar object; another postman's red trolley. Are the letters still inside, Boris? One day I'll stop for a breather and find myself an interesting letter to read. Then I'll write them a letter back and ask them to meet me.

Paris

A few weeks ago I went to Paris. With only two french phrases to hand, 'La Sange est dans l'arbre' and 'bonjour mon petite bureau de change' I managed to make it from Gare du Nord to Montmatre, buying both a pain au chocolate and tickets for the Metro. The Metro only went part way, I was heading for Abbessess, remembering that stop from Amelie, but someone had thrown themselves on the line and the train only went part way. Recalling that Montmatre was up a hill, I left the Metro and made my way uphill, until I saw the Sacre-Coeur shimmering in the afternoon sun. I got myself food -I ran away from the first food place because I didn't want the people in the queue to hear my awful french- and sat on the steps of the Sacre-Coeur looking over at Paris. The Eiffel tower was hidden from view. Then I managed to make my way to Montparnasse to meet my friend Richard, where from then on, I let him do all the talking to order food, drinks and train tickets.

This is a picture of Richard in the Louvre approaching the Venus de Milo, a place whose courtyard we walked around for twenty minutes looking for the entrance, before finally realising, after watching people coming from the ground like ants, you entered via the glass pyramid. I'm sure I will forget this again next time. Rumours that before Richard walked up this corridor, the Venus de Milo had both arms are unfounded.

Attacked by punctuation marks

Part of my job - proofing for the FSA website has been taking its toll. I have to obssess over punctuation and missing words and capital letters, while ambulances race past on their way to save lives. Last week I spotted the word 'within' missing from a sentence. A wonderful moment for industry.

On my way home I stopped at the greengrocer's to buy tomatoes. When I left the shop and looked in the brown bag there wasn't a tomato in sight; it was full of semi-colons. At home I try to read a book and all the words jumble up and dare me to make sense of them. I look in the mirror to brush my hair to find my hair is sitting on top of a giant comma.

At night I dream I am proofing but I can't read any of the words. The dream changes, it becomes lighter and calmer. I'm in the church, this is more like it, I'm getting married. I turn to kiss the bride, lift the veil, only to realise I've married a full stop.

And no, I'm not going to proof this blog.