Oh dear, I’m in a pub again, and at lunchtime too. However, the Tite & Locke bar is newly opened, on platform 3 of Lancaster station, a place I pass through reasonably often, and usually with Clare, who is not averse herself to the occasional beer. I think I will be coming back here: it certainly made a good first impression (unpaid advertisement).
There was no prospect at all of my leaving the house today. Thoughts — and the discussions with the Zoomland colleagues depicted, vaguely, at the top of the laptop screen — were of planning for next year, not finishing off this one. This is a photowhack: the one and only photograph I took today.
“Some job this is. Waiting around in line for the ice rink to open so we can be pushed around by irritating little brats.”
“Oh, cheer up, Bob. It’s a living.”
“Is it? Shouldn’t we be in Antarctica or something?”
I, and most of the other people on this shot, have just disembarked a train that was due into Victoria at 09:01. As you can see from the time in the heading, it failed to make this commitment. Sadly we are in another one of those periodic troughs in the performance of the local rail network where such outcomes have become normalised. Demands for more Working From Home are as much to do with this as anything else; certainly round here, and certainly for me. And whomever put up the ‘No Entry’ sign can also sod off.
It’s gone from ‘cold and crisp’ to ‘chilly and damp’ so there’s still a need to get the fire going. Indeed this task is not just the responsibility, but the active duty, of those who drink in the Railway during the early shift.
There are plenty of reasons today to withdraw from active engagement with the world, and offer up a shit photo that highlights a slightly pleasing aspect of the day (29 million is a pretty good score on this machine). And, so, I do.
You’ve gotta like this movie. Not all the jokes work any more, by any means, but Young Frankenstein must be the finest parody-homage of any genre, ever. And at a completely decadent time of day, too, thanks to the Hebden Bridge Picture House’s Thursday morning “Elevenses” deal.
“But… I had nothing to do with all those emails! I told them I don’t know anything….!”
“Shaddup. When they come for us, you’re going first.”
In the brilliant 1980s TV series Edge of Darkness (which I really must watch again some time), there is a scene in which the hero evades his pursuers by deliberately running into the Barbican Centre. It’s an in-joke, but it works: forty years on this is still a rather difficult building complex to find one’s way around. Even as I took this shot there were two young American tourist types stood to my right, debating just which of the concrete ramps and overpasses and underpasses they needed to try next. But what the hell — I still like the place, both to visit and to photograph, and it does give good statuary.
I have put in plenty of hours already this week and there are still two long and busy days to come. So no, I don’t really care that I was in the White Swan before 4pm today. And, I’m sure, nor does the other guy.
Being 42 