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Lunchtime Jailbreak2

THE RULES OF LUNCHTIME JAILBREAK (generally made up on the spot): You have 1 hour to get as far away from work as possible (and back), using London's execrable Tube system. You have to use more than one line and you have to leave the station you get to and buy something.

2pm on a warm, sunny afternoon. I sprint to High Street Kensington station. My target: Neasden. Why Neasden, I hear you ask. well, I've never been there before, the word "Neasden" has a faintly humourous air to it and it's far enough away to lend an element of excitement to the challenge. It's also home to Dave Spart, Private Eye's Citizen Smith-esque, ranting socialist. And last but not least, my mum worked as a midwife there in the early 1950s. In fact, she told me that during the pea souper of 1952, she had to be led by the hand by a policeman to go out on calls.

How proud she would be of my lunchtime adventure.

So, to HSK tube. After much agonising, my route is: Circle Line to Baker Street, Jubilee Line to Neasden. Not too bad a wait for a Circle Line train. But I turns out I have made a schoolboy error.

I have forgotten about the Edgware Road Totally Fucking Pointless Wait Act (1979). This law states that any time you get a train towards Edgware Road, the Driver must sit outside the station for a period not shorter than 2 minutes. Any attempt to inform passengers of the reason for said wait may result in a fine. So I'm standing there, tantalisingly close to Edgware Road, pacing up and down, looking at my watch. We're off again. We get to Edgware Road.

I've forgotten about the other Edgware Road scenario. Whatever train you are on, you will have to change platforms because another one will be going towards your destination before the one you are on moves. I once changed platforms here SIX times, all the while trying to explain to a young, timid Japanese couple that I did know what I was doing and that they should follow me if they want to get to Victoria.

They didn't, and probably didn't.

Eventually, I arrive at Baker Street. I've lost about 8 minutes. So I sprint to the Jubilee Line. Whilst barrelling down the escalator I toy with the idea of pretending I am being chased by the police/a mercenary/MI6 by looking back over my shoulders anxiously, but discard this notion. I am 32 in a few days time and shouldn't really be contemplating such nonsense.

I get to the Jubilee line, with its funny sounding trains with their blue and yellow interiors. Bad news - the next train is only going as far as Willesden Green. I note that the woman's voice used for the automated announcement thingy for the Jubilee Line is MUCH louder and MUCH posher than on the other lines. The thing is, she emphasises "WILLESDEN GREEN!" as if it is the finest, lushest, most pleasant piece of the earth imagineable... "I'm gonna git myself a ticket and go to WILLESDEN GREEN pappy! I've heard a man can git his own piece o' land and really make sum'n of hiself there". Neasden, yes (I may be building it up in my head here), but Willesden Green? Do me a Quaver.

I have choices. I could wait 4 minutes for the following train, which goes all the way to Stanmore (oh joy!), or get the next one, change at Finchley Road on to the Metropolitan line, get off at Wembley and take the southbound Jubilee Line back to Neasden. I decide on this option. Time is running out...I have around 12 minutes to get to the big N.

Finchley Road. An agonising decision. I know I probably can't make it to Neasden in time. On the opposite platform is a Met train. I could run across the platform and try the "Met to Wembley then Jubilee back to Neasden" option. I jump off the train. Then I jump back on. Then I jump off, but the Met train's doors are closing. And so are the doors on the Jubilee train. I jump back on the train JUST IN TIME. The other people in the carriage stare at me. Obviously, as soon as I return their looks, they all look at the floor/Metro/into the future.

I decide that Neasden is an impossible dream today and elect to get off at West Hampstead after 29 minutes as it's probably the furthest I can get to. It's not a bad effort (4.5 miles according to the AA), but Neasden (5.1 miles) it ain't.

I spend approximately 5 minutes in West Hampstead. I will always love it because I will always treasure the memory of witnessing a builder carrying big bags of plaster into a house whilst wearing what is possibly the worst toupee I have ever seen. It makes him look like Patrick Troughton:
.

I return to the Tube platform to begin the return journey. Nothing of note happens and I don't pretend I am being chased at Baker Street. It occurs to me as I am strolling back to work, that I could just pretend I made it to Neasden and write up a tale of daring adventure that would make Ranulph Fiennes look like Barry from Wife Swap. Who would ever know?

But I decide that in order to maintain the integrity of the weblog, I should tell the truth. It's an emotional moment.

Just at that point, a gang of armed men with stockings over their heads run out of the Halifax building society, punching a charity collector square in the coupon on the way. I manage to rugby tackle one of them, pulling the little bit of hair at the nape of his neck really hard as he falls, in order to gain complete control of him. The rest of the gang seem to kind of dematerialise into another dimension. These things happen in Kensington occasionally. I make a citizen's arrest on the thief I have on the ground and receive a £10 book token from the bank for my troubles - ample reward as I merely see myself as a citizen doing his job.

I dust myself down and return to work. Funny old day.

Footnote: A Google Images search for "Neasden" yields the following result:

Intermission

"I am a powerful or streaky curry sauce". This is an anagram. Remember it.

Sometimes in life, something comes along that you just have to share with others. Prepare to be dazzled/dismayed by this fantastic website i've found. In a nutshell, you have to establish the different types of Scottish sweet listed by unravelling some anagrams. "Hen Leg Brush"? Good grief. Click here to be amazed

NOTE TO ANAGRAM WEBSITE PERSON: Anagrams are meant to form actual words. "TNT IMMENSE GLOM" does not count.

Alternative TV 2

For reasons too life-sappingly dull to go into, I recently had to study a weekly TV guide. Some of the programmes buried away in the schedules astonished me. Having never seen any of them, I have tried to guess what they involve. You can check how appalling my guesses are by checking the links to the real programmes. If you can be fucked.

AS TOLD BY GINGER: The history of the world as seen through the eyes of ginger people. This week, the ginger one from Girls Aloud reinterprets the events that led to the 1534 First Act of Supremacy, which made Henry VIII rather than the Pope head of the English church. REAL PROGRAMME HERE

EYE OF THE DEVIL: Fascinating insight into the everyday life of Satan. This week, the Prince of Darkness has to replace his contact lenses with a stronger prescription. Interactive Q&A session afterwards and 24-hr live streamed footage from Hades for Astra satellite viewers only. REAL PROGRAMME HERE

DOGS WITH JOBS: New series. Unwanted and probably lazy dogs from Battersea Dogs Home are trained to do human jobs in the hope that we can eventually swap roles and spend all day mooching around, eating, seeking attention, looking for sex and wiggling our eyebrows for no reason. First off, Mr Jingles, a terrier, has just one week to learn how to fly a jumbo jet! REAL PROGRAMME HERE

VICTORIA PRINCIPAL'S SKINCARE RANGE: Beauty programme presented by the 68% plastic former Dallas star from inside the range in her Fort Lauderdale kitchen. UNRELATED LINK HERE

THE ALPHABET MURDERS (b&w, 1779): Shocking-for-its-time film that re-enacts the “Letter Ripper” panic of 1779. An East End slum neighbourhood is gripped with fear after a string of consonants are brutally slaughtered and disposed of, never to be seen again. The sequel Where the Fackin ‘ell Are Ya? (colour, 1783) focuses on the disappearance of the letter “H”, which to this day is still absent in some cockney homes. REAL PROGRAMME HERE

YU – GI –OH: Kidnappers send in mirth-inducing home video footage of victims trying to ask for basic things such as food, water, mercy etc while their mouths are sealed with insulating tape. Presented by the most needy of the auditionees from Pop Academy Search for a TV Presenter For a Day: Behind the Scenes (Reloaded) 8. Repeated one hour later on channel E4+1, two hours later on E4+2. REAL PROGRAMME HERE

Avant-Garde lunchtime 1

Another lunchtime, another jaunt. I go down to the V&A to have a wander.

After 15 minutes of non-specific mooching around, I come across the contemporary sculpture room. It is very dark, and straight ahead of me is an installation. I'll try to describe it as best I can.

Imagine a very dark room with a huge, four-cornered pillar in the middle of it. Around the base of the pillar, on the floor, is a large oval area which has been painted black. It is ringed by a cable of thin yellow electric light.

A looped film is being projected on to the black space from above. It morphs/jump cuts/segues from one image into another, incorporating organic textures, film stills, manga cartoons, photos, what look like oil/liquid projections and so on. While this is happening, speakers around the room and on the pillars emit strange, undulating ambient music, interspersed with the odd burst of feedback. If this were 1973 and I was a rock critic, I'd probably describe the sounds as "shimmering shards of sepulchral majesty" (and I would be talking shite). As it is, it's all very interesting and soothing. Kind of what I hope happens after you die.

Anyway, i'm listening to the shimmering shards, taking in the pictures and generally phasing out, when a high-pitched, nasal and slightly officious voice flows into the mix.

"MISS Watkins, could you please report to the front desk, where your mum is waiting for you".

At first I think this is part of the installation. It's the sort of thing an artist with a sense of humour might drop in. But after three repetitions, it is clear that it is simply a security guard looking for Miss Watkins.

I try to get back to the "moment" but the spell has been broken. It also reminds me of being in sixth year at school and playing in the end of term concert with my embarrasingly naff band. I can't reveal the name, it's too embarrassing. Maybe another time.

We were in the middle of playing "Born to be Wild" and the kids were loving it. I was in mid-solo when Miss Gray came over the tannoy (so to speak) and announced that the year 4 pupils had to leave the concert hall NOW, and go to games. This was unfortunate as the entire fourth year was down the front, pretend-headbanging as I produced lick after glorious lick from my "axe" (thankfully not the electric pink monstrosity that my mum bought me).

Anyway, I keep trying to get back to the state of avant garde bliss, but it's no use. Then I look up and notice there is a wee old lady standing across the oval from me, mesmerised by the music and visuals.

She looks terrified. Like she thinks she's died, in fact. Then she looks at me, and starts laughing! Who needs avant-garde when you have that!

In A Japanese Garden

Lunchtime on Wednesday. I walk to the Japanese garden in Holland Park to clear my head. A couple sit down at the bench next to me. They're both in their early 20s. The boy has an effeminate, soft face with a threadbare beard along the jawline. The girl looks like an English language student and in fact speaks English with an indertiminate southern Mediterranean accent.

I'm idly trying to kick the gathering pigeons away - in Zen fashion, obviously - when the boy starts telling the girl a story about how mankind was created. He says that millions of years ago, the only animals to be found were one bear and one tiger. They both desperately wanted to be human beings, but "the divine being" forbode it. They pleaded, so he set them some feats (he gave in a bit too easily in my opinion).

He said they could become human if they drank a gallon of vinegar a day, ate a ton of fat a day and performed other unlikely and unpleasant acts.

The bear managed to drink the vinegar etc, and as a reward, he was turned into the world's first human being, replete with long, black hair. He was called "Dan Hu", or something similar.

Now, by this point, I was thinking "that's an interesting story". Unfortunately, I was finding it hard to follow the details, because while the boy was speaking, a JCB started digging up a nearby path, turning the setting into perhaps the least peaceful Japanese garden anywhere on Earth at that moment.

When the digging stopped, I just caught the girl saying "How do you know its true?", to which the boy replied "I just know it's true. That is how mankind was created," all the while looking at her with an expression of pity.

He actually believed the story.

I peered more closely at him. He had that faraway but intense look that deluded people seem to share. It's as if they practice "the look" because they believe it makes them look like they have seen so much of the big picture and spent so much time questing for the answers to our metaphysical existence that everyday life is a peripheral event for them.

In fact, he just looked like he wanted to get laid.

The digging resumed. I left. The pigeons moved towards the boy's feet.

Alternative TV 1

For reasons too life-sappingly dull to go into, I had to study a weekly TV guide the other day. Some of the programmes buried away in the schedules astonished me. Having never seen any of them, I have tried to guess what they involve. You can check how appalling my guesses are by checking the links to the real programmes. If you can be fucked.

WATCH MY CHOPS: Reality TV show in which celebrity chef sticks a couple of chops (lamb or pork, it's not important) on grill, runs into street, grabs nearest member of public, asks if they'll accept "WMC" challenge, installs first taker in front of grill, buggers off. Alternatively, something to do with karate. Or cheeks. REAL PROGRAMME HERE

SHOCKING BEHAVIOUR CAUGHT ON TAPE 2: Viewers' home video footage of mirth-making electrocutions. Presented by whoever comes fourth on Fame Academy. REAL PROGRAMME HERE, APPARENTLY IN SOME KIND OF SLOVAKIAN STYLEE

AUCTION MAN: Former SAS hero Andy McNabb hosts a sale of 17th Century miniature teapots, live from an encampment somewhere in Quatar. (Contains some violence, sexual swearwords, undersized teapots) REAL AUCTION MAN - "FAMILY MAN AND BARGAIN HUNTER" - HAS OWN WEBSITE!

KILLER'S QUID ATTACK: Actually just a typo - meant to be "Killer Squid Attack". PICTURE OF SQUID

COSH BOY (B&W, 1949): Cautionary tale. Child actor putting on cockney accent wields cosh, goes off rails, dies under runaway tram. Cosh boy actor Bunny McQorkindale went on to lead a life of dissolute bohemia before resurrecting career in "An evening with Bunny McQorkindale" (LWT 1987), before dying a mildly ironic cosh-based death in 1988. REAL PROGRAMME HERE

HER DESPERATE CHOICE (TVM, 1991): Mid-West suburban mom discovers husband is a paedophile when she takes her child for terminal cancer treatment. She goes on to contract a terminal disease herself and suffers prejudice at the hands of ignorant townsfolk who ultimately understand her struggle and forgive her, while burning her husband alive. Everyone learns something. (Contains cardigans, surfeit of fake emoting). REAL PROGRAMME HERE

Thesleevenotes.co.uk

So there's this excellent website called thesleevenotes (as featured in Observer Music Monthly) where writers, um, write about rekkids that hold some significance for them. You can read my contribution here.

I strongly suggest you check out the other contributions as they are uniformly smashing.