'SHIT MAGAZINE NO ONE ELSE WANTS. It's crap but I need the money'.
As far as pitches go, this one isn't bad, beating 'I bet you a pound you don't want a Big Issue' and a lone South African burbling into my dead- eyed stare in the apparently genuine hope of animating my frozen face with plans for a weekend's paintballing. In Essex. In Winter.
London can be a hard enough place to live, and any ten minute walk can turn into a thirty minute slog which, if you're not on top form, stripping your pockets of all that shines, most likely making you the newest sponsor of some doe eyed child, somewhere a very long way from Kentish Town.
KEEP YOUR GUARD UP OR THESE IMPERTINENT SWINE WILL STEAL YOUR TIME AND YOUR MONEY, using sneak tactics like asking how your day was. London is no place for pleasantries on the street, certainly not with the foolhardy aim of skimming my lucre, and I will not hesitate to bat you to one side with a copy of the Metro if you impose your chatty interrogation on an already diabolical commute.
But spare a thought for those stuck out there, folder in hand, charged with the near impossible task of not only stopping, but engaging a stampede of office escapees. I tried it, for a while, and it's a killer. Face set in a rictus of openness and approachability, occasionally diving into a sea of briefcases and pinstripes only to be chewed up, spat out and left as bloody chum for the next twitching shoal. If masochism is your thing, I wholeheartedly recommend braving the streets of London with nothing more than a winning smile, a rockstar haircut and a belief in your cause. I now take pity on them and offer not my money, (of which I have none), but my time, (which I have in abundance). Thinking about it, it's probably like offering a drowning man a gold brick, but it soothes my conscience for the day, and places me as one of the good guys...
London may not be the sole purveyor of such cold shoulders, and time wasters, but I think it hits peaks no other city can. The place breeds insularity, a seemingly united front of indifference. No other nation, no other city, on earth could maintain the stoic suffering of tube travel and say or do nothing to lighten the mood for fear of being seen as a dangerous radical and corrupter of minds; so steam in to work, bar, home with head down and shoulders up and god forbid anyone fool enough to prick your bubble.
Yet we should savour those moments, emerging with a stammer into the light you haven't noticed all week, at once shocked at the very thought of some one stealing your time and amazed that before you know it, you're picking up the bottle, buying the magazine and saving the world for the price of a pint. That, right there may be the most connection you may have all day. It comes like a slap, and the connection is genuine. They are pleased to be talking to you, and you may enjoy sparring with them, at least until the phone rings, the bus screams past and you realise you are after all a Londoner, and have important things to be doing.
First published 10 December 2006
As far as pitches go, this one isn't bad, beating 'I bet you a pound you don't want a Big Issue' and a lone South African burbling into my dead- eyed stare in the apparently genuine hope of animating my frozen face with plans for a weekend's paintballing. In Essex. In Winter.
London can be a hard enough place to live, and any ten minute walk can turn into a thirty minute slog which, if you're not on top form, stripping your pockets of all that shines, most likely making you the newest sponsor of some doe eyed child, somewhere a very long way from Kentish Town.
KEEP YOUR GUARD UP OR THESE IMPERTINENT SWINE WILL STEAL YOUR TIME AND YOUR MONEY, using sneak tactics like asking how your day was. London is no place for pleasantries on the street, certainly not with the foolhardy aim of skimming my lucre, and I will not hesitate to bat you to one side with a copy of the Metro if you impose your chatty interrogation on an already diabolical commute.
But spare a thought for those stuck out there, folder in hand, charged with the near impossible task of not only stopping, but engaging a stampede of office escapees. I tried it, for a while, and it's a killer. Face set in a rictus of openness and approachability, occasionally diving into a sea of briefcases and pinstripes only to be chewed up, spat out and left as bloody chum for the next twitching shoal. If masochism is your thing, I wholeheartedly recommend braving the streets of London with nothing more than a winning smile, a rockstar haircut and a belief in your cause. I now take pity on them and offer not my money, (of which I have none), but my time, (which I have in abundance). Thinking about it, it's probably like offering a drowning man a gold brick, but it soothes my conscience for the day, and places me as one of the good guys...
London may not be the sole purveyor of such cold shoulders, and time wasters, but I think it hits peaks no other city can. The place breeds insularity, a seemingly united front of indifference. No other nation, no other city, on earth could maintain the stoic suffering of tube travel and say or do nothing to lighten the mood for fear of being seen as a dangerous radical and corrupter of minds; so steam in to work, bar, home with head down and shoulders up and god forbid anyone fool enough to prick your bubble.
Yet we should savour those moments, emerging with a stammer into the light you haven't noticed all week, at once shocked at the very thought of some one stealing your time and amazed that before you know it, you're picking up the bottle, buying the magazine and saving the world for the price of a pint. That, right there may be the most connection you may have all day. It comes like a slap, and the connection is genuine. They are pleased to be talking to you, and you may enjoy sparring with them, at least until the phone rings, the bus screams past and you realise you are after all a Londoner, and have important things to be doing.
First published 10 December 2006
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