Road to Riches

It's a Bus Lane, apparently...

I'm not one for New Year resolutions. I can't keep them, just can't. I explain this by way of commiseration by telling myself that to resolve to do, or not to do, something from the first of January is only a matter of convenience. The first day of a New Year seems like a logical place to start, to adopt a new regime, or whatever. Give up drinking, stop smoking, walk more (to the pub), eat less, don't worry, be happy, nuke America (that one only applies to a certain gent in North Korea).

Except that it's not a logical date on which to start anything. When the sun drags itself up over the damp or frozen rooftops on the first day of the year, you stand no more chance of sticking to a new self-made promise than if you'd chosen the fifteenth of March, or the end of July. The depth of resolve lies not in the date but in the willpower. Or in my case, won't-power.

So I'm not given to embarking on personal crusades just because it's New Year, but that said, Lambeth Council (henceforth referred to as The Bastards) have chosen to help me with one particular resolution: staying out of bus lanes.

The Bastards sent me an infringement notice recently, which included a photograph of (allegedly) my

car in a bus lane. This is by far the most expensive photo I have ever had taken, costing a whopping £130. Or, if I pay within 14 days of the date of the notice, a discounted but still unwanted £65. And this arrived just in time for Christmas. Thank you Bastards.

Steer clear of here

The pure among you will, of course, be nodding, tutting and saying, 'Well, serves you right; you shouldn't have been in the bus lane to begin with.' I know your type; you'd be the ones knitting in front of the guillotine baskets, tittering as the heads rolled in. Well you can take your holier-than-thou smarminess and shove it up your schadenfreude.

I've always fancied representing myself in court, and having studied the said infringement notice and photograph, I am indeed tempted to address M'Lud and my learned friends, in fact the jury and whole public gallery, in a Rumpolian performance worthy of an Oscar nomination. Because, dear reader, there is reasonable doubt.

I bring to your attention, Exhibit A, the photograph. This measures 5cms by 4cms (for those flummoxed by EU measurements, which we shall soon be ditching anyway, that’s a mere two inches by one-and-a-half-inches), and was taken at night. It is alleged that my car is the vehicle in the photograph, which is (arguably) in a bus lane on Clapham Park Road. Your Honour, may I take a moment to present the court with some details as to the image? Thank you.

In the photograph, the vehicle itself measures just half a centimetre across, while the number plate of the vehicle measures a mere three millimetres across and cannot be discerned even with a magnifying glass. In fact, neither can the make nor colour of the vehicle, other than to say it is of reddish or brown hue (it's actually rust). But with the effect of street lighting, who can be sure? I call my first expert, ‘Witness A’ from the Kodak Colour Laboratories, who will testify that indeed the type, source and colour of street lighting can deliver a totally false indication of an object’s real colour.

Guilty of a 34J. The photo measures 5cms x 4cms

What’s that? The prosecuting counsel has argued that there is a photograph of the number plate itself? Indeed there is, on The Bastards’ website, but not on my alleged infringement notice. Your Honour, may I draw attention to the fact that the close-up image of the vehicle number plate online does not in fact show any reference points, and could easily have been taken out of context at some other time and in some other location? It could in fact have been taken in the car park outside my flat, which is off the road entirely and completely legal.

And so I return to the tiny – almost thumbnail – image of the vehicle I was issued with, which in no way establishes guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and which, I believe, exonerates me from blame.

What is beyond any doubt whatsoever Your Honour is that The Bastards (Objection!) – forgive me your Honour, ‘Lambeth Council’ – raked in over £6 million in fines from this one 70-metre bus lane, and that was only up till September 2015. The figure today must be far greater. In fact, the Automobile Association has accused The Bastards (Objection! Over-ruled! Thank you M’Lud…)’ has accused The Bastards of “bus lane entrapment.” Given the spurious evidence presented by The Buggering Bastardy-Bastard sons-of-whores, I put it to you Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury that this case should be thrown out of court!

¬

Well that's just fine then!

Or I could just pay the fine, which of course I did. But only because having moved to London I had forgotten to change the address on my driver’s licence, and so, annoyingly, the infringement notice was originally sent to our old Liverpool address and took just under two weeks to be forwarded – the exact time allowable to pay only half the penalty, and leaving no time for me to prepare my otherwise watertight case.

So, although I don’t do New Year resolutions, I will resolve to avoid all bus lanes all of the time at any time of day or night even if it means running over cats or dogs in the road, because they’re likely to be cheaper than a Lambeth Council bus lane fine, especially since the cost of the so-called infringement is now to rise to £160. The Bastards.

Happy New Year.

Dead Man Talking

Riding the London Underground is a risky business. We’re reminded of this every time we travel on

the tube, inevitably at the stations when the train pulls to a stop: ‘Mind the Gap’, says a disembodied recorded voice. Or sometimes, just in case we don’t know where the gap is, ‘Mind the gap between the train and the platform’.

I’ve looked at this gap, studied it closely, and I can tell you that at most stations you’d have to be stick-thin to ever stand a chance of falling into it. (That’s English for you: stand a chance of falling…) Mind you, small children are obviously at greater risk, so the caution has merit.

Bipeds apart, the gap is invariably big and gaping enough to accommodate mobile phones, umbrellas, wallets and purses. And Oyster cards. So just in case you didn’t hear the announcement, or are hearing-impaired, platforms also have the warning painted on the edge at regular intervals. At Baker Street, the worst for gap incidents on an annual basis (which brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘gap year’), blue warning lights have been installed as an extra precaution.

The verbal warning was first introduced in London in 1969. In January of that year I boarded a train to Southampton in order to catch the SS Canberra, and sail off to a new life in New Zealand. No warnings about gaps were given, though I made it on and off the train without problem. No caution was given either that it would be a gap of over forty years before I fully returned to the UK, during which time ‘Mind the Gap’ had become synonymous with rail travel, particularly in London.

In fact a whole souvenir industry has evolved around the phrase, with tee shirts, mugs and even underwear spreading the message globally. When I am finally laid to rest I plan to have it stencilled at the graveside so that as my casket is lowered within nobody comes a cropper and joins me. ‘Mind the gap between the graveside and the casket’ my recorded voice will announce to the mourners. Or mourner; who am I kidding?

(As an aside, someone should record an announcement for President Trump’s mobile, so that just before he sends out yet another inflammatory Tweet it says, ‘Mind the gap between the brain and the [social media] platform’)

As a former voice on radio and television I listen to the gap announcements with professional interest. They vary according to whether they’re in-train or on-platform, the latter often being done live by unseen TfL staff. Theirs is always a bit rushed and often a bit too close to the microphone, but I guess making them is in their job descriptions.

One of the recorded train announcements sounds very like actor and columnist David Mitchell, though I doubt it is him. When the gap warnings were first recorded it was indeed by a professional voice, but the actor’s agency sought royalties from London Underground at the time, who refused, so the original announcement was actually recorded by the audio engineer instead. Hah. You can stick your ten percent you greedy agency you.

There’s also a particular female voice that sounds a bit like Joanna Lumley, and I wait in vain for a ‘darling’ to be added to the end of the announcement. I think it would be great if Transport for London engaged some famous voices for the cautionary gap announcements (and yes, paid royalties). Maybe not full-time, but now at Christmas for example, what fun it would be to listen to Sir Ian McKellen gravely shouting in his best Gandalf voice: ‘None shall pass, without minding the Gap!’

Or French and Saunders could do it…

Dawn: ‘Is this a station coming up?’

Jen: ‘Looks like it. Shall we tell ’em?’

Dawn: ‘What, about the…’

Jen: ‘Yes, you know, mindin’ the gap’.

Dawn: ‘You do it. I’m West Country, your voice is posher…’

Jen: ‘Really? You think so? No…’

Sir David Attenborough might breathily contribute too: ‘The gap… which has been around since trains were invented… remains as tricky, and ubiquitous, as when it first appeared. Ready to consume its prey at a moment’s notice, it should be treated with extreme caution…’

Okay, maybe not. An announcement needs to be brief and to the point. Miranda would likely pull it off - ‘Mind the gap, cheeky!’ - but best of all would have to be a Dalek. That would be brilliant.

I learned recently that one particular gap broadcast is in fact a voice from ‘the other side’. At Embankment the doom-laden tones of the ‘Mind the Gap’ message on the Northern line station are those of theatrically-trained Mr Oswald Laurence, who died in 2007. His voice had been heard at many a station on the Northern line before then, but it was slowly phased out, until Embankment was the last place it was used.

After his death, his widow Margaret would still enjoy listening to his voice, but one day in late 2012 she was devastated to find he had been replaced. No longer could she enjoy her late husband’s announcements. But when TfL learned that she was missing her Oswald’s voice they did a wonderful thing – they reinstated him.

I went to Embankment specifically to hear Mr Laurence. It’s a stentorian performance, worthy of Shakespeare. He enunciates perfectly, and adds a dramatic pause between the word ‘Mind’ and ‘the’, just to get our attention. I suspect he wore tights and held a skull in his hand when he recorded it. Alas poor Oswald.

That’s not to say the contemporary performances are dull – they’re actually a lot warmer, and usually include the word ‘please’ at the start. (Which is better than putting ‘Or else!’ at the end)

But I like the announcements, all of them, and it was great to get on a train at the weekend and hear the Cockney driver say over the speakers, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard this Polar Express to the North pole via Lapland. Stand clear of the closing doors please, stand clear of the doors!’ And off we went. The whole carriage was smiling, the gap between strangers on a train safely reduced.

The TFU Interview - with Three Not-very Wise Men

When they walked in they seemed somewhat bewildered. Magi can be like that apparently, a bit ‘out

of it’ and other-worldly, but within a minute they were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch. I had joked to them about ‘pulling up a pew’, but they didn’t get it, and said religion hadn’t got that far yet. ‘But it will’, they all agreed, nodding.

That’s astrologers for you.

It was an insightful comment from a group that’s been shot to stardom (pun intended) ever since stumbling on the birth of a baby in a barn. I told them I wouldn’t keep them long and that I just had a few questions to ask.

‘Axe away man’, the tallest of them said, fiddling with a bandage round his left thumb. 

‘Yeah, axe anyfink’, the shorter of the three added. ‘Except personal stuff’, he said, waving a be-jewelled finger at me. 

His two colleagues nodded in agreement. ‘Yeah, we don’t do nuffink personal’, one of them said. ‘It’s nuffink personal – geddit?’ 

They all laughed and elbowed each other. 

I sighed and turned to my notes. This could be a long interview. But anyway, here’s the transcript, exclusive to TFU, as it happened …

❇

TFU: What do I call you? You can’t all be called Magi surely?

Tall Magi: Nah, that would be ridiculous wunnit? Yeah, nah, well… like I’m Nigel yeah? He’s (points to middle Magi) Benjamin, and then there’s Titch.

TFU: And is Titch short for anything?

(There is an awkward silence for a few seconds)

Benjamin: (Suddenly breaking the ice) Oh I geddit! “Short” for anyfink, yeah. Good one! (Titch blushes)

TFU: (Regaining composure) So, tell me how you chose the name Dub3K…

Titch: ’Seazy innit? We Three Kings – ‘Dubbyew Three Kay’, or – as we prefer it –‘Dub3K’.

TFU: Tell me about your encounter with the infant child…

Nigel: Oh well, that was sunnink else wannit? (They all nod in agreement.) That was, ’ow can I put it? It was definitely against all health’n’safety for a start. I mean, a newborn in a barn for Chrissake? An’ don’t give me all that crap about there bein’ no room in the inn, ’cos we all checked in no trouble. Three suites, ’ot and cold runnin’ wossname, everyfink. We reckon the innkeeper should be on Hotel Inspector, innit lads? (They all nod again)

TFU: You must have been surprised to learn of the immaculate conception?

Benjamin: Not as surprised as Joseph – or ‘Jos-F’ as ’e’s now known in the media; that’s the thing about bein’ a celebrity innit? You gotta ’ave a nickname – J-Lo, T-Swizzle, Riri, etcetera – so ’e’s now Jos-F and she’s ‘Mair-E’.

Nigel: Yeah, ’sright. And it ain’t the Immaculate Conception. Those of us in the industry call it the ‘iMac’. 

Titch: Let’s just say that Jos-F was lookin’ a bit nervous, specially as ’e’s a ginger and the wee one turned out to have black hair. (Snorts from all.) Inconceivable!

TFU: The child?

Titch: Yeah, the Holy One, y’know, wossname, the Messier.

TFU: Oh you mean the Messiah?

Nigel: Is that ’ow you say it? We thought it was Messier. We’d never seen a baby quite so messy. The last star we followed the kid was brilliant: polite, clean, smellin’ of talcum powder – the parents even declined our frankincense and myrrh – took the gold though, stingy bastards – but this little boy, ’e was deffo the messier of the two. I dunno where you got that word messiah from…

TFU: The rumour is that God had a hand in all this…

Nigel: Bit more than ’is ’and I reckon, eh lads?! (chortles and sniggers all round, they all touch fists)

TFU: But you must have been aware this was something really special? I mean, wasn’t there an air of awe, of majesty, an atmosphere of intense peace?

Benjamin: Dunno about peace mate. It was noisy and tense, ’specially after we started making the crib.

TFU: You made the crib?

Nigel: in a manner of speaking. See, as we were followin’ yonder star, on day two it stopped over this huge barn. Enormous it was. (Nods from all.)

TFU: Oh, so there was a second barn?

Nigel: Yeah, called IKEA. So we go in, grab a free tape measure and pencil, and sort of hypnotically weave our way through a maze of furniture and fittings, following the projected arrows on the floor…

Titch: …and we end up in the nursery furniture department. I says to the blokes, what we doin’ ’ere? And then suddenly this crib, what was on display, started rockin’, on its own like. It were spooky.

Benjamin: Yeah, but that was the clue, see. A message from ‘Upstairs’ we reckon. So we note down the code number, nip down the travelator  – picking up a couple of fluffy toys along the way – and then there we are in Aisle 11/Row B where a flat-pack crib awaited us.

TFU: So how did this affect the atmosphere in the holy barn?

Benjamin: (Snorts) Mate, ’ave you ever tried to assemble IKEA flat-pack furniture? First of all the diagram showed we were supposed to lay everyfink out on a piece of carpet! In a barn! What farmer has a rug of woven cotton on the floor of his cowshed?

Titch: Yeah. Like, we’d brought gifts and things, but none of us thought to bring a rug. Which is a bugger ’cos we’d just come from the Orient an’ all.

Nigel: So, that was the first thing. Then we argued over the assembly diagram…

Benjamin: And I dropped some of the dowels in the straw…

Nigel: Meanwhile, Jos-F and Mair-E are getting all angsty, so I says to the others, don’t worry, I’ll go and get an ’ammer and some nails from the innkeeper. Which I did.

TFU: How was the holy child at this point?

Titch:  Amused, is the word I’d use. He was taking great interest in what was going on with us putting the crib together.

TFU: What time was this?

Nigel: Oh early, about seven a.m.  – ‘Morning Assembly’ we called it. (More laughs and snorts.)

TFU: And did the hammer and nails work?

Benjamin: Oh yeah! In fact, it worked in a way we hadn’t anticipated.

TFU: What? That the holy infant was finally able to rest peacefully and in comfort?

Nigel: Nah, nuffink like that. Just as I was about to hammer the last nail in, Mair-E says to Jos-F, ‘What shall we call him?’ I looked up at the wrong moment, the hammer missed the nail and hit my thumb.

TFU: Did you swear?

Nigel: Where do you think the baby got his name from?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dub3K’s new album is out now

If this made you smile, please like and share :-)

 SEASON'S GREETINGS FROM THE TIGHTLY-FURLED UMBRELLA! 

Brixton Market Under Threat

I am the harbinger of doom, seemingly - the opposite of Midas. Everything I touch turns belly-up. And now I feel fully responsible for the impending demise of Brixton Market, SW9.

It all started when Liz and I moved back to the UK from New Zealand about four years ago. We did so for a number of reasons: the proximity to Europe and the rest of the continent, the magnetic pull of budget airlines and their destinations, the extensive history and culture, to be close to those friends and family still here or nearby, and the gorgeous weather. (One of those might not be true.)

No sooner had we arrived than the nation decided it wanted to leave the EU, thanks to ‘that’referendum – or referendumb as I call it. The Great British Back Off. And what did that do to the pound? Yes, it plummeted in freefall and its chute hasn’t yet opened. Brace for impact.

Within three months of buying an apartment in my hometown of Liverpool, one of my close friends decided to move to the USA. I didn’t realise I had quite such an adverse effect on people. Meanwhile, the local council decided that the lovely little bus service that ran near our place should be closed down. Thanks, Liverpool City.

In September we moved to London, to SW9, halfway between Stockwell and Brixton tube stations. We instantly fell in love with the vibrancy of Brixton in particular, especially its market, but obviously word has got round that Mike and Liz are in the ’hood and so, just like Britain has decided to sell up and move out of the EU, Brixton market is now to be sold. To Sports Direct, allegedly.

You can see the obvious connection; Sports Direct has analysed the area and realised that within the market confines people are buying trainers, sweatshirts (admittedly with the visage of Bob Marley on them), fruit and vegetables, seafood, lattes (possibly even seafood lattes), kaftans, prayer mats, curtains, handbags, sunglasses and New Zealand wine. Vietnamese, Mexican and Caribbean food spread their olfactory invitations all around. The market fit for Sports Direct is soooo obvious.

No it’s not. They may well sell trainers and sweatshirts, but the store has all the cultural diversity and personality of a sad warehouse peopled by ghosts or robots, and a reputation damaged by accusations of alleged slave labour in the overseas manufacturing of some of its goods. The fear is that SD won’t be remotely interested in retaining a vibrant local experience, but it may well have plans to open a sports megastore.

 

Still, it’s all guesswork at this point because the company seems to be refusing to comment. Sports Indirect more like it.

I went ‘down the market’ this afternoon just to soak up some atmosphere (you also soak up the occasional waft of a certain type of herbal cigarette – bet SD won’t be supplying that) and to just enjoy the colour of the place. And before you deluge me with accusations of racism, let me tell you that the market is indisputably colourful, in every sense of the word. 

It also makes me feel good about the world. I see (please don’t say trees of green or red roses too – Ed.) lots of happy people and brisk business. Importantly, I see individual stalls of fishmongers, butchers and grocers with their food displayed, scales tipping, prices queried, laughter and jesting. As

I passed one stall the stall-keeper rushed out with a kitchen roll because the woman beside me was sniffing and had no handkerchief. It was cold, winter has arrived. ‘Here, you beautiful lady, take this’, he offered, pulling off a few sheets of blue paper towel. She politely declined, but he insisted. ‘No, really, you beautiful…’

She relented and gratefully accepted, and he went back to his stall beaming. At least he didn’t see me and say, ‘Hey – you de mon what’s causing de market to close down?’ 

I wandered the stalls along Electric Avenue, trying to remember the lyrics to Eddy Grant’s song, humming the tune in my head as I passed the leather stalls, grocers, more butchers, beauty and cosmetic shops. It was bustling, hectic, happy. I’m tempted to say it was a riot of colour. (What? Too soon?) It would be a crying shame to see it bulldozed by a corporate giant. There’s been a market here for 140 years.

When I got home I looked up the lyrics to Grant’s song. One of the lines is, ‘Who is to blame in one country?’ Well, me, apparently, the Anti-Midas.

So if you have a part of your town you’d like to see demolished, or an annoying civic service you want cut back, maybe even an entire currency devalued, please get in touch. Just rock down to Electric Avenue, I’ll meet you there, while we can.