There and back again ...
February 5, the first Sunday in February. Off I trundled, dragging my case behind me, my small rucksack with the sea horse charm on my back, and my laptop case slung over my shoulder ... To attend a Windows server 2000 course in the East End of London.
The gods of engineering works were against me.There were no trains from Oxford to Paddington, so I boarded the crammed, vomit-scented bus for Didcot. Thankfully there were no delays on the roads, so I only had to avoid breathing through my nose for half-an-hour. And the train to London arrived on time. Next stop Aldgate East.
I should have been able to get the Hammersmith Line on the Underground straight there from Paddington. I had chosen the hotel I was staying in for price (single use of double-room £52.00 per night, dirt cheap, OUP were happy) and for ease of travel to both Old Street (for the InterQuad training centre) and Paddington. I'd nearly mangled myself last August lugging my bags up and down the stairs when changing lines on the older, escalator-bereft parts of London Underground, and this time planned to avoid a repeat performance.
However ... The Hammersmith Line was totally out-of-service, the Circle Line was unusable on the Eastern and Western stretches, the western stretch of the District Line was also a no-no.
I went to the ticket office and asked whether it was possible to get to Aldgate East on the Underground that day, trying not to contemplate the grief and hassle I would have taking various buses across London from West to East with all my clobber. "Just about" was the reply. "Bakerloo Line to Embankment, District Line from Embankment to Aldgate East. It's a long ways around about. But it works ...Which is more than can be said for the bleeding rest ...". And with that he pulled down his hatch and disappeared before I could say "Thank you".
Without further delay, I disappeared down into the bowels of London and fell off the tube at Aldgate East after an hour and something of jostling and bumping. It was dark when I emerged at street level. I had absolutely no idea whereabouts on Whitechapel High Street I was in relation to Osborn Street and the City Hotel. And I got totally lost when I turned the corner ...
By some fortunate co-incidence I more or less bumped into a couple having an argument on the street corner, who pronounced at the sight of my buggage "You must be looking for the City Hotel too. We're staying there ... We're lost, but we've got a map ...", which now I think of it was slightly odd ... Since they weren't actually reading a map at the time.
Anyway, after walking to and fro reading street signs for several minutes, the woman persuaded the bloke it might be a good idea to dig out the map. And we found that we were stood at the top of Brick Lane ... And could see the hotel at the other end of the street. Hooray! A few mintes more and I'd be able to check in, unpack and get something to eat. I'd survived on caffeine and nicotine all day.
Alas! It was not that straightforward. There was confusion as to whether OUP had paid for the room, so I ended up paying £260.00 to avoid an embarassing scene in the foyer. When I got to my room there was no power, so I had to get the fuses replaced. When I finally got light I was confronted by what was not so much a room as an appartment.
It was very large, but also very odd. There were two arches leading from the bedroom to the living area. The living area was decorated in large pale green stippled tiles on three walls. The back wall was a mural painting of doric columns (one in ruins) in the foreground, through which you viewed an expanse of water and some mauve hills in the distance ... The ceiling had been painted pale blue with white whispy clouds to ressemble the sky. The effect of these decorations was to create an eerie green glow when the overhead spotlights were switched on ... And there was no way of adjusting the light. There was a kitchen area with kettle and microwave, and a window.The only real window ... The window in the bedroom had been blacked out ... Weird ... I started thinking Bates Motel and had a quick look in the ensuite shower just to reassure myself ...
The hotel wireless network was down, and the phone had been de-activated, so I had to get that set up before I could make calls or go setup the laptop to go online. And with a transfer rate of 24 kps ... This was a slow business. And ... The hotel restaurant doesn't open on Sunday. So, I ended up with a packet of crisps from the supermarket round the corner and a large bottle of black vodka and lime mixer to take the edge off reality. I was too tired to be bothered to cook or find a restaurant. So I checked email, ate crisps and drank vodka, then slipped into bed between fresh cotton sheets that felt soft against my skin. And slept ... And dreamt ... Strange dreams ... About being a totally different person. A French mistress, petite, beautiful and perfectly formed with delicate features ... Dream on:P
Monday morning and the start of a new game. The ticket office at the south end of Aldgate East tube station doesn't open before 8.00am, so that morning I couldn't use my pass to get a ticket and had to use the machines. I discovered coming home that evening, that if I spoke nicely to the chap at the barrier, he would let me walk up the platform to the other end to buy a ticket. This was good, as it saved me trekking up White Chapel High Street to the other entrance.
The journey up to Old Street was the usual London crush-hour experience. Pressed far too hard against too many anonymous people. I quite like Old Street tube station though. There are shops and cafe's, a fruit stall, and loos ... So it feels halfways civilised. And there are very useful lists of the streets above ground by the exits.
As I was early I bought cappuccino and a croisant above ground at Prest a mangerand wandered around the Bunhill Fields cemetry, final resting place of liberals and free-thinkers. Unfortunately, viewing is by appointment so you can't walk around among the graves to see who's resting there. Still, it is open green space, and more pleasant than the InterQuad training centre, even under a cold flint-grey February sky.
The Windows 2000 Server course was very intensive and by Tuesday we were down to starting at 9.00am with a half-hour for lunch. And needless to say I got the workstation on a go-slow with the dodgey DVD drive. It simply would not read the course software unless you occasionally fed it the NT4 OS cdrom. After chomping it's way through that for a few minutes it would ask for the right cdrom and play nicely for a while. By Thursday the drive was declared stuffed and Thomas (who was from Edinburgh) very kindly shared his DVd drive over the classroom network. Guess he'd got fed up with me muttering everytime mine went tits-up.
The course was good. But there was so much to take in I felt like I'd been slapped about the head with a whale by the end of each day. And I'm blowed if I can remember half of it off the top of my head. Though I do remember I did something stupid and managed to partition the disk so I couldn't boot my PC. Doh! Something I always managed to avoid in UNIX. Ah well! Stupid but it's a learning process ... So whatever.
The tutor, Bob, was a bloke I'd describe as typical West Acton, which is where my Dad hails from. He was chatty, and slightly chauvinistic. Breaks would be announced with a comment like "Ok ... Break for ten minutes ... No, better make that fifteen to allow for the lady to powder her nose ...". We talked about motorbikes (his wife rides one). According to Bob, a high number of bike couriers in London these days are women - a phenomena that he describes as "Fun ... Because women look good in black leather, and it he'd prefer to see a pretty woman when the helmet comes off than a stubbly-faced bloke". And he loved Marianne Faithfull in Girl on a Motor Bike a film which I can remember enjoying very much too. By the end of the week he'd persuaded me to get myself a 125cc bike, get my test, then upgrade to something black and sexy. I've always loved motor bikes ...
He also told me a love story about his Great Aunt Kate, who is ancient (100 and something) drinks a bottle of whisky a day and smokes like a chimney. A strong woman still very much with it.
When World War II broke out, Kate was in love with a lad who went off to be a gunner in the RAF. He was never seen or heard of again - missing presumed dead. After the war, Kate met an Irishman. A charmer, a ready smile and a joke, black wavy hair and twinkling blue eyes. They married and she moved to the East End to live him above the family pub. But from their wedding day, Kate was a virtual prisoner. She was not allowed out without her husband, whom she discovered to her cost was a heavy drinker, and was not allowed visitors. If she disobeyed, she was locked in the spare room and beaten. One day she just walked ... Went back to Acton and changed her name to her mother's maiden name, and became a free woman again. Years later, she had to make a phone call to the local council about some maintenance work. When she gave her name to the man on the end of the line, there was a long pause, and then "Would your maiden name have been Katherine xxxxx ?". Kate asked who wanted to know, and it turned out it was the lad she had loved before the war. He had recognised her voice because it was unusually husky as the result of a childhood illness. It turned out he had been searching for her after the war but couldn't find a trace of her and in the end assumed she must have died, moved to another town, or emigrated. They married and had twenty happy years together until he died.
I like that story ... It's good to know there are happy endings
As for the rest of my time. I wandered around Brick Lane and White Chapel High Street when the temperature was not sub-zero. By the end of the week I was recognised by the people in the local supermarket when I went in for cigarettes, crisps, and vodka-mixer drinks. Brick Lane is tense and I could n't figure out why. There was no obvious outward sign of aggression. But it took most of the week before I felt comfortable walking there at night. It might have been that there are many dark narrow alleyways that look like they have n't changed since Victorian times and the White Chapel murders. It could have been that I was suprised by then number of restauranters who tried to drag me into restaurants. Brick Lane is lined with Asian restaurants and food shops of every kind; the air is filled with the aroma of different spices - and dub reggae. Or, it could have been paranoia ... I felt I was being followed on several occasions.
When I wasn't wandering the streets or online, I read, watched movies, indulged my imagination and enjoyed being totally anonymous. No one knew who I was. And I had the feeling that, within reason, I could be whoever I wanted be and do whatever I wanted to do. And that room was weird enough that you could imagine anything happening ... Finding a stranger in a dark mac carrying a revolver in the room when you got home who ties you up at gun point and holds you prisoner, finding the hotel was a brothel ...
In some ways it was tempting not to go back to Oxford and see what adventures living in this strange room would bring ... But reality always intervenes, like I have obligations ... And besides, there are people and places I would've missed too much ... If I'd indulged that fantasy.