Just For Lookin' Thru

It’s been 25 degrees in London and I step onto the Penzance train, relieved to be in the cool. I’m in an inside airline seat and a man in his forties sits on the outside seat. I say hello and get on with the serious business of eating my train picnic. His train picnic is a bottle of white wine and a newspaper. I wake from my post-prandial nap to find him chuckling over a news story. He enlightens me. He’s disposed to chat. Uh huh. Only five hours to go. How is this one going to play out? Not always wise to get friendly so early on a long journey, when one of us is trapped in the inside seat. He’s looking forward to a few days in Cornwall, he says. He loves Cornwall. Me: It’s okay - if it wasn’t cloudy all the time. At least you can see the sun in London. He doesn’t know me, and can’t decipher that this means I am feeling grumpy and not very friendly right now and, more importantly, I am protecting my psychological and physical space. If I liked the look of him, I would have been playfu...

I don’t think I managed to sell anything at work today but I did manage to get lipstick on my skirt. It’s easy when you know how. I think I’ll just call into this shop I’m passing and see if there is anything pretty that I simply have to buy, as it’s on my way home and all. What am I thinking? I hate shopping. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes. Maybe I’m having one of those moments, when your mind has gone blank after a long day, and is not functioning on any level whatsoever. I wander aimlessly round the store. I even pick up things I would never wear. Somehow, I manage to get a grip and propel myself to the automatic doors. See, it’s all so effortless you don’t even have to push anything; you can just drift around in a browsing haze of inattention, and drift right back out again, like shopping plankton. It’s a huge relief to be back in the car park and I am congratulating myself on my self control when I see a small boy running ahead of me. He isn’t running like little boys usually do...

Sitting outside in the evening sun with ice chinking in my gin and tonic, our chatter is interrupted by the mildly irritating, feeble piping of a child’s recorder. Five or so minutes later a little boy, aged about seven, is planted by the entrance door to the theatre, and carries on blowing down the damned thing. A woman folds a towel and places it by his feet. The boy’s little sister is placed alongside her brother; she’s about five. The woman walks up and down the piazza with a mobile phone clamped to her ear, talking incessantly. Sometimes she comes and sits with a man but they do not go near the two children. The children are pale; they look miserable, and keep going over to the man and woman, but are brought back to the theatre door. It is not obvious the first time he does it, but the man makes a flamboyant gesture of bending forward, dropping coins onto the folded towel, giving a thumbs up sign to the little boy, smiling broadly and then walking away. He seemed to be a man in th...

On the return train there is no dining car layout, instead we have plastic boxes with pre-packed sachets of washed and cut fresh apple, all the way from France, biscuits in wrappers, a bread roll with a smear of filling, and as many drinks as we like. Same company, different style of catering. Why? There is a buffet car though, for the gourmets among us. The carriage is full of workers, beavering away on their laptops or shouting their importance into mobile phones. I wish they’d shut up. I don’t care who they are or what they said to so-and-so in the meeting. I pity the poor fools that think this qualifies as a life. A very attractive, and smartly dressed Scotswoman was very loud on her phone on the way up here, on her way to Glasgow after a day of such meetings. I was sitting about ten seats away but, such was her annoyance, her conversation was inescapable. Not really a conversation, but a diatribe, directed at her son, aged 19, who had a friend that had annoyed her very much by ‘li...

Michael Buerk chats about Carnage and the Media and says he feels strongly that the public must see real images of the results of violence. He also says that he firmly believes that fictional violence anaesthetizes people against the reality. It seems to me there is an anomaly here. If fictional violence makes us immune to real violence, then surely repeated exposure to real violence via news reporting will have the same effect. I have a particular question I want to ask him but there are many hands going up in the auditorium and I don’t get the opportunity until later. I approach him and ask him if he would mind answering a question I have. I can feel an extraordinary energy from him; the power of his mind. He exudes mental acuity, and it fascinates me how we can sense that. It’s like being next to an engine. Anyway, I feel very strongly about this particular issue and ask him what he thinks about newspapers printing front page photographs of corpses with their body fluids staining th...

The softly spoken, quietly friendly German visitor has hurt his back. He has hobbled into the town and bought some Tiger balm because he feels that heat will help. I suspect he may have a disc prolapse but he is sure it is not so serious. The third time I see him I ask how he is. We’re all a long way from home and a bit of friendly concern can go a long way. Hell, I’d appreciate it. I am seated at the kitchen table, writing up my notes from the morning. He asks me if I would rub some of the balm into his back. Of course. He is standing before me; my eyes are about level with his stomach. He unbuckles his belt, unzips his jeans, and drops his trousers. They fall to his knees in a moment. I blink and am up, out of my seat, and round behind him in a flash, darting into a safe position with the pot of balm, anxious not to see more than I have already seen. I am more comfortable with the back of his underwear and, as I compose myself before action, he reaches round and pulls down his underp...

Youth Hostels are great; a huge advance from the boarding houses of a century ago, but working on the same, simple idea. Cheap accommodation for a variety of travellers, all bunked up together – only today the beds are clean and not lice-ridden. I come into the bunk room and see the window has been opened although it is bitter winter weather outside. I see another bed has been taken. I close the window and chat to my room-mate who is from Germany, over for a National Trust working holiday. Her friends think she’s mad to pay to come to the UK; to work, and eat bad food in bad weather, but she smiles and says she loves everything about England, and that they don’t understand. I bump into another woman in the kitchen. I look twice to make sure, but it is a woman. Her hair is close cropped; she’s thick set, wearing a round necked black tee-shirt and black straight leg trousers. Her voice is deep, her manner brusque and bluff. I realize that this is the window-opener. I feel wary because sh...

The Literature Festival is a jolly affair. Hordes of animated, chattering people are everywhere and there is a warm, friendly atmosphere. Strangers talk to each other as if they were old friends, all brought together by the love of writing, reading and the opportunity to hear about and discuss a wide range of topics: History, Philosophy, Travel, Humour, News and loads besides. My task this week is to chat to as many writers as I can and try to get an understanding of how they feel about attending festivals such as these, and why Literature Festivals have grown in popularity over recent years, such that they are now the main marketing method for publishers (so I am told). Each author I approach is delighted to be there, and see it as an opportunity to meet their readers, to socialize with other writers, and to enjoy the scenery of the Lake District. It’s a stimulating mini-break for writers and an escape from slaving alone over a desk in an isolated garret. I have lugged two enormous ha...

I’m on the train to Cumbria for the Literature Festival on the shores of Derwentwater. Strangely, a first class single is cheaper than a return ticket but I’m not complaining, and am looking forward to the promised free tea and coffee all the way there – five hours. I step into the compartment but, seeing that is laid up like a dining car, I retreat, and look in the next compartment. No, I was right the first time; I am to travel for five hours with a table in front of me, laid with a French style heavy paper mat, cutlery wrapped in a blue serviette, a wine glass and a white china dish containing a white china cup on a doily. I try to make some room for my papers, and manage to write a bit amongst the crockery and cutlery. I am soon joined by two Chinese men who smile and bob their heads at me and, by gesticulating, indicate that they want to know if the seats are taken – they’re not – and if they may sit down. They sit and chatter with great animation and good nature, and I smile and ...