Office Days

Transitioning from student lifestyle to office slavery has been one of the defining changes brought about by my move to town. One thing I didn’t realise about work beforehand was that you have to be there ALL DAY. As finalists, we moaned about the hours spent in the library, but at any time, we could swan off and take a break, mooch around the shops, nap under the duvet or listen to some music. In fact, we could even listen to music in the library if we remembered to bring our earphones. Not being able to leave the office at will was, at first, strangely disconcerting. What if I got bored? Or if it was sunny outside? Or I needed to go to the shops? By 4.30pm, my legs would be twitching and I would be itching to bust out of the open-plan wasteland.

But working in the kind of firm where the partners frown at you if you laugh out loud, or if you stop to speak to someone about something other than work, or if you actually take a lunch hour instead of slurping down lukewarm soup over an unfinished document and answering your phone with a mouth full of avocado salad, it soon became apparent that leaving on time was also something that displeased the greater powers. So although I initially could scarcely make it through to 5.30, before long I was being reminded I could be merrily beavering away at my desk till at least seven.

At a communications meeting, a partner shared some observations concerning associate demeanour: “I walk through the office at 8am and no-one is there.” That’s because our contracts say we start at 9am. “And when I’m there at night, everyone has gone home.” And that’s because we finish at 5.30pm. Only we don’t: we ignore the contract and make out like we were being so busy and industrious that we didn’t even notice the time, whereas surely everyone is counting down the hours, minutes and moments since lunch. During periods of trying to improve my image, I would stay and see what I was missing. Not a lot really. I just lost a great part of my evening, but felt smug about every single person I outstayed. Soon enough, I was back on my marks for the striking of half past five and into the first bend on the route home before you could say ‘show hours’.

Other cardinal sins which drew the disapproval of the partners included, as I have mentioned, talking to colleagues, or at least indulging in conversation that was not strictly corporate. One way of deterring this seemed to be the dividers that separated most desks. Despite being open plan, most worker ants were separated from those around them by deep blue dividing walls that were just tall enough that you could only see the top tufts of hair of your neighbours. So in order to pursue an audible chat, you are forced to perform the ‘meerkat’ manoeuvre: standing up and surveying for predators, or, in other words, meddling partners. Should the coast be clear, you could then lean over and talk away. Or you could, as I eventually learned to, be as brazen as you like, and blether with the brethren till blue in the face, aware the partners were noting your crime, but also unbothered.

As it turned out, the dividers on one occasion turned out to be to my advantage. Whilst trying to make the most of things and salvage my reputation on my desk, or maybe because everyone else was busy, I was lunching alone at my computer. Fair enough, I was reading papers online, but at least I was projecting the corporate image so cherished by the big cheeses. On reaching my yoghurt course, I was relieved to have removed the lid without spraying myself in strawberry-flavoured calcium-rich low-fat gloop. Spoon in one hand and pot in the other, I was filling my face when my resting elbow slipped off the desk, shaking my forearm violently and causing me to launch yoghurt in a number of directions. I’m not sure how it looked because one of the first escaping parts struck me in my eye. The rest went in my hair and over my absent colleague’s work on her desk. Sat there, torn between panicking that yoghurt and contact lens were mingling together and endangering my sight and worrying that someone would see me with a face full of Muller light, I was rendered inert for several moments. Luckily, the office had mainly emptied for sandwich runs, but my saving grace was committing my calamity behind my lofty dividers. I was able to have a quick wipe with an important document before slinking out to the lavatories to remove the rest. I was spared embarrassment, but would still rather the dividers had been absent, seeing as I soon after emailed numerous friends to share the rather ridiculous story that I had managed to spill yoghurt in my eye.

P.A.R.T.Y.

Moving to London as a young person brings with it many comments from those remaining in the home village about the nights out I must enjoy. I remember older work colleagues reminiscing about themselves as recent arrivals and how they would be out all nights of the week till 2am, following each madcap mash-up with a day of steaming alcohol stench in the office. “I don’t really go out that much,” I tell these people, much to their surprise. Part of the problem is not knowing where to go: being raised on a staple diet of cheesy clubs in Guildford or Oxford, the choice is a bit overwhelming. Most of the problem is not really being able to afford it. Everyone knows London is expensive and I’ve no interest in complaining about it. Maybe if I actually did some work in the office instead of writing this I would be on a higher wage and raking in the disposable income that would enable me to bop till I drop.

But occasionally the TV has to be switched off and abandoned and my presence is required out and about: friends’ birthdays. Email or message arrives with an invitation to ‘My Birthday Drinks’ and a date is scribbled in the diary.

I have varying levels of success with birthday parties. A close work friend was throwing an animal magic party for her daughter’s seventh and I was very excited to be among the invited attendees. The weather conspired against us, with flooding washing away most of the first petting zoo’s animals and a replacement company being used at the last minute, and with the rain continuing so that thirty screeching kids had to have their interactions with nature in one crowded living room. On arrival, I realised I had forgotten how loud and energetic children could be. I want to say I haven’t been near a child in ages, which makes me sound like a certain type of offender on the road to recovery. What I mean is that in my young person’s lifestyle, I don’t have any dealings with anyone under the age of twenty.

Nevertheless, before long, I was leading the pack and getting involved, drawing on experience as a teacher in Germany and a Cubs helper in Surrey to keep some semblance of order. The nice farm lady put me in charge of holding the albino hedgehog which the children were invited to come and stroke. This was difficult as, kneeling down as I was, it kept trying to bury itself into my crotch. I held it in outstretched arms, only to realise it had begun to relieve itself over most of my hand. The children recoiled in screams as warm browny hedgehog poo tumbled onto my forearm and jeans. Internally I was panicking and wanted to fling the hedgehog off of me but instead I had to remain calm as its gritty faeces slid into the folds of my clothes. The nice farm lady calmed things down by explaining to the children that all animals do in fact poo, even snakes; and I was given a wet wipe.

I seem to fare better with celebrations for those around my own age. Other parties and birthday drinks have seen me traipse all over London. Vauxhall’s popular Roller Disco proved eventful. From waiting for friends at the Tube station in retro short shorts and long socks with hair poking out of a sweatband, to the birthday girl’s inability to balance on her skates leaving her flailing her arms wildly until striking me smack in the face at the same time as I lurch to catch her as she tumbles over, it proved to be a memorable evening. The disco is a huge amount of fun and the diverse crowd adds to the amusement. The combination of booze and wheels-on-feet means you can’t drink too much because you’re skating and you can’t skate too much because you’re drinking. Nevertheless, I didn’t want my fun to end, and in the early morning, as my friends opted for bedtime, I informed all that I would stay by myself. Which I did. For an hour, during which time I completed hundreds of moronic circuits of the rink before finally queuing up alone for shoes and looking like a keen-bean weekly solo skater.

The common or garden birthday drinks can be carried out with varying degrees of success. My own in Hoxton Square probably weren’t aided by the generosity of the host’s friends in getting one in for the birthday boy. Another close friend selected a bar in Covent Garden for hers. The music was so loud nobody could hear what anyone was saying. I rarely listen anyway so this was no problem. The fact that I was returned from a trip to see friends in Oxford and therefore suffering from indulgence in a cheaper nightclub than any of those to be found in London, culminating in some choice chundering in a train toilet as we pulled into Reading station, meant that I was not touching a drop on the night itself. A flatmate was also keeping it teetotal, having given up alcohol for Lent. However, he made the mistake of asking the rather flash barmen for one of their virgin cocktails. For those not aware, these are found in most cocktail menus, often for bargain prices, somewhere near the back. By ‘virgin’ they mean boring and no-one is expected to buy them. It took my flatmate a good deal of explaining as to why he wanted an alcohol-free cocktail and, funnily enough, the barmen were pretty much disgusted. So whilst they mixed the drink with the usual performance and flair, one of them brought in a new move which he must have held in reserve only for those after such a drink. He stood up, a leg on the bar and a leg on the surface behind. He positioned the cocktail shaker somewhere around his crotch and proceeded to make a thrusting motion with his hips and a stroking movement with his hand, effectively simulating masturbation as he poured out the drink into its glass. Offended and bemused in equal measure, my friend retreated with his drink.

But normally it’s not the staff who are debauched and behave poorly, it’s the people I’m out with. A friend from my home village began her night with drinks at Porterhouse in Covent Garden before we were dragged through a great deal of Soho, haemorrhaging partygoers from our group hither and thither until the decision was made to grab a taxi to Turnmills. The hardcore few that made it there danced away, the boys taking it in turns to bring in rounds of alcopops to the small area where we were twitching away to the banging beats and awkward pauses of such trendy music. Apparently enjoying myself so much, I refused to head to the bar for my round, instead handing over my card to a friend to fetch it in for me. The joys of chip and pin meant I had only to give him a four digit code to enable him to access my overdraft, but I don’t think holding up the corresponding number of fingers in order to convey this was a wise move: four fingers, three fingers etc. Luckily, I did not become the victim of PIN-surfing. I emptied my account myself.

Totally Firm

What one might imagine to be one of the perks of working for a relatively large and self-important firm is the company conference. The firm sees this as a chance to perk up morale and tell everyone ‘well done’ while at the same time reiterating more emphatically that important message of ‘work harder’. Employees see this as a chance to get wankered and enjoy another jolly on expenses.

Nevertheless, the blooming into being of the credit cringe saw the firm go some way to cut some corners on expenditure. Support staff were left at home in Blighty while the rest of us jetted off to a four-star hotel in Monaco. But perhaps jetting off is the wrong word, given that further pennies were pinched by shipping the firm out on a low-fares airline. “I don’t see why we should have to submit ourselves to EasyBucket,” one plummy partner declared within clear earshot of the airline’s usual clientele, attracting glares from beneath shaven skulls and baseball caps. It was amusing for us office drones to see immaculately coiffeured partners, more used to a welcome-on-board glass of champagne sipped at their fully reclinable seat, elbow-jostling on with the rest of us great unpaid, squeezing past beer bellies and trying to catch the eye of Eastern European air hostesses to order drinks for their row as if in some pricey wine bar. At least they were faring better than the staff of the Hong Kong office, who were apparently saving the company thousands by being stored in overhead luggage compartments for an eight-hour flight on an economy airline that has since gone bust. “It’s fine – they’re Chinese,” one partner was overheard to say, “they love being squashed together.”

I have nothing against the cheaper airlines - it's my only hope of going anywhere, and of getting the true pre-abattoir feeling our bovine brethren experience.

Our few days there were filled with tedious seminars and cringeworthy presentations, with obligatory chuckling at company in-jokes peppering most sessions. During one group session, a partner even called me a ‘cheap asset’ with reference to my graduate-tastic wage. And indeed, we were urged to work harder, grow faster, arrive earlier, leave later, phone more often, ignore spouses, sacrifice weekends, forget dinner, skip lunch and stop wandering around the office with a bowl of muesli for all of fifteen minutes in the mornings. I had long ago decided I didn’t really share this ethic and so looked on, serenely planning my escape. I already stuck out due to my personal dress policy. The firm had agreed on business casual and of course, some of these people had never been near a pair of jeans and, more than likely, had never passed more than the time of day with any character who actually owned a pair of trainers. One associate’s outfit for the plane, some chinos and a plain shirt, was met with another partner asking if he was planning on doing some gardening. Defiant in my white high-tops and slim jeans, I did myself no favours professionally or interpersonally, but screw them, I was on holiday. And I had been planning my resignation since my first day.

The nights were given over to the excesses of inflated salaries and competitive networking. From the moment we arrived on the first evening, female associates draped themselves and their cleavage over the bar and partners’ laps, eager male researchers shook hands with anyone they could get near and minor consultants tried to outdo one another by being the last old soak to crawl up the stairs to bed at 5.30am. Given the average price of a drink in Monaco, and the prospect of having to talk to these people without being remunerated for doing so, I was quite often tucked up in my king-size bed watching French music television by a very reasonable hour. Brought up on the comprehensive school trip, I was staggered to find out we didn’t have to share rooms…

“You look jolly rough – up late?” one batty old partner asked me during a morning meeting.

“Thank you very much,” I said, before spitefully informing that I had received a full eight hours.

I was starting to feel like I was simply trapped in the office for a few days, rather than by the seaside in the Mediterranean. We did manage to sneak off for a dip in the freezing March sea, during which a fellow associate told me how she had seen a frisky old partner at the bar poking a female consultant in the nipples repeatedly until his EA had scolded him suitably.

The climax of the whole operation was a gala dinner somewhere exclusive. I found myself on the table for the ‘leftover’ staff and begun to suspect the firm was as keen on me as I on them. Wine was poured, the toilets were nicer than my family home and we were treated to premiers of the corporate videos we had spent the previous day making, turning the hotel into numerous filmsets, much to the protestations of its staff. Unable to afford the bar, I did a few rounds finishing off unattended drinks, berated in slurred sentences the partner who had called me a ‘cheap asset’ and then followed the leering and jeering crowd out for our exclusive night at Jimmyz, Monaco’s most expensive nightclub. On the way, I also watched a septuagenarian image consultant employed by the firm tumble roly-poly down a flight of stairs, landing like an upturned woodlouse with legs flailing for a surface, after slipping off a heel. She was fine and was later seen strutting her stuff among the wealthy men and Russian prostitutes on the dancefloor at Jimmyz, all lips and shouting.

Fuelled on rip-off booze, the firm shimmied and staggered to some cheesey Europop, the managing partner stalking the crowds in a gold lamé jacket and too drunk to focus, cameras flashing, bottles emptying and seasoned Monegasques staring on in disbelief. Once again outpriced by the bar and reluctant to schmooze drinks off better paid partners I normally avoided, I headed back to the sanctity of French music videos.

A brown-nosing associate on her way in spotted my overly prompt escape. “What are you leaving in search of?” she called.

“Better company,” I spat, rather pathetically, and dashed off.

Dry Clean Dating

Sometimes things happen to you that you had previously thought absent from real life, and these, of course, at the most inopportune moments. One winter evening after work and following a good old sweat in the gym, I emerged from the shower in the flat, dripping and towel-clad, to catch the dying ringtone of my mobile. Once in my slippery wet grip, I was able to spot that this wasn’t a number I recognised and, out of intrigue, phoned straight back. A young lady answered and sounded bewildered.

“Did you just ring this phone?” I asked, cutting straight to the point.

After some hesitation, the girl mustered confirmation. “Is now a good time?” was her next question.

“Depends what for,” I said, in little or no mood for telesales at this point in time.

“I’m sorry,” she went on, “I don’t even know your first name.” I then very cruelly left an awkward pause which she filled with, “I feel so bad – I’ve stolen your number from your receipt.” Alarm bells started to ring and my emergency guard began to go up. This was all a little too invasive for my taste - what was going on? “You know the dry cleaner’s?” she asked, I confirmed. “You know the girl in the dry cleaner’s? Well this is her.”

I had been in the previous week with a number of items: suit trousers on whose crotch I had spilled tuna oil and also my formal suit which needed vomit removing from the sleeves after the work Christmas party. The establishment was only across the road and therefore my cleaner of choice, by dint of proximity alone. Run by a delightful Jewish matriarch, a flatmate and I had been in there for a while, making friends with the staff and eschewing questions about what the stains were on my formal suit. “Don’t worry,” the matriarch had said, “I know how you young boys like to party at Christmas”. When I had stopped by one evening to collect the trousers, now free of the fishy stain over the fly (the formal suit was, understandably, to take longer), the girl, who had also been there the previous time, had served me as I shelled out my cash. As I was departing she had suddenly said, “Nice jumper.”

Taken aback by this abrupt comment, I had responded, “Oh thanks – I work in a cold office,” before heading off, giving her outburst no further thought.

And now she was phoning me from the number I had written on my receipt in case there had been problems cleansing my formal suit of the company bartab regurgitated. “Oh yes, I know who you are,” I said to her.

“Well I was just wondering, er, if you would maybe, um, like to go for a coffee some time.”

I weighed up the situation in an instant. She was a sweet girl, brave enough to ring me out of the blue, but she had thieved my number unprofessionally and I felt very vulnerable standing there in a towel and a smile. “I’m sorry, I have a girlfriend,” I found myself saying, before finishing things off with a conciliatory “take care” and hanging up.

Confused, I strolled into the sitting room to share the experience with the flatmates. They all laughed and told me I was horrible, apart from the one who had come to the dry cleaner’s with me in the first place, who asked, “Why didn’t she want to steal my number and phone me for a date?”

Blsz Prk!

As the city fills each autumn with former students embarking on various grad schemes, seasonal progression gradually brings one particularly significant event to rear its ugly head: The Office Christmas Party. Too much has been written on the inherent clichés and catastrophes, but not being one to heed these warnings, nor shy of a thing to say for myself, I shall wade in with my version of my event.

My firm had black-tie dinner and dancing at Kensington Roof Gardens booked for mid-December and I was terribly excited. Colleagues laughed at me tracking down a real bow-tie for the event, finally graduating from the old strap-on that had served me well through college, and assumed I was taking ages getting ready on the day itself when I was late into the office that morning, even despite my valid reason of a delayed Victoria Line service. In fact, that was the largest hassle: having to work a full day beforehand. The coaches were due to collect us from the offices in St James’s at five, but when was a reasonable time to sneak off to the gents and get changed, or should I just have thrown caution to the wind and stripped down while performing a quick-change behind the dividers?

We all arrived at the event in our constituent pieces and what follows should serve as a cautionary tale to anyone unable to withstand the charms of an unlimited free bar. Ninety per cent of Britain’s televised output is currently telling us to stop binge-drinking and emergency services the land over plea with young professionals to exercise caution at their office shindig in the run up to Christmas. I myself had been determined to avoid the pitfalls. “I must behave myself,” I had repeatedly told my colleagues, aware the letting-one’s-hair-down that had gone on in my college days might raise more than a few eyebrows.

“No, get wasted,” had replied the majority of partners at the firm. Indeed there had been encouragement from all fronts that I would impress if I achieved a party animal reputation.

I remember the welcome drinks. I remember resolving only to have two glasses of champagne before the sit-down dinner, and then having three. I remember the sit-down dinner, and despite the banning of spouses and significant others, still not knowing the people I was sitting with because, as a linguist, I had been assigned seating among characters from our European offices. I remember thinking that I would finish this one glass of wine and then I would know I had had one glass of wine and then I would know whether to tackle another and that way I would pace myself well and remain charming throughout the evening. But I also remember the staff being so attentive that the glass was refilled within minutes of my every sip, swallow and gulp, until it seemed as if I were racing them to finally empty the glass before it got topped up again, just so I could be sure that I had had one glass. By the time chocolate constructions were wilting in our plates by way of dessert, I was finally confronted with the accusatory void of my wine glass’s empty status. In my mind, I had finally quaffed my first glass. In reality, more than a bottle and a half must have been poured in there over the course of the meal.

We moved through to another room for speeches while the room was relaid. I remember some clapping and hope that I am not blocking out any heckling on my part. I later asked a colleague where she had been for the speeches, only for her to respond that I had been standing next to her the entire time.

Therefore, at this point, things were taking a turn for the blurriest. Next, there was dancing, and I remember being so amused by two very proper partners shaking their junk, lumps and humps all over the dancefloor, that I may have joined in with disproportionate enthusiasm, occasionally remembering the free bar and heading up for another whisky and coke, and then spilling that while trying to dance with it.

In my recollections, there is no music, just faces bobbing around in contorted joy. At one point we may even have formed a circle but I’ve no idea why. I have an image of me talking with the IT staff and telling them I don’t do anything all day other than email my friends and did they read my emails and were they funny and what happens if I write a swear-word.

Witnesses have testified that I was “very funny”, which is no help at all in working out what I actually did or said; one EA admitted to taking drinks off me for my own safety which I of course thanked her for, and a fellow associate recalls leaving in a taxi and seeing me staggering along in the street with the support of a wall.

My lack of restraint was jeopardising my first job, and now it was to prove equally hazardous to my personal safety. During my college days, realising that bacchanalian overindulgence was best remedied with a hasty retreat home, a party, club or festivity could be snuck out of easily, and tiny Oxford town strolled across in a matter of minutes to the sanctity of mattress and duvet. More often than not, it was a simple case of crossing a quad to evade self-embarrassment and seek recovery. But once in London, these instincts persist, despite the unsuitability. As the party wound down, I decided it best to get myself home. Kensington to Belsize Park after midnight? Alone? No problem.

On the street outside I found a bus stop and a bus. I recall getting on and luxuriating over tapping my Oyster. I had no idea where the bus was going but at least I was on my way. After several stops I hopped off and I was no closer. Next, I staggered along the edge of the street, a thumb held out and waiting for a life. I think a minicab came along and off we set. Waves of nausea began to set in before I’d even left the postal district but, thinking myself a genius, I wound down the window, turned my head and vomited out of the window. Only it turned out I hadn’t been very successful and had mostly covered the inside of the window and a lot of the door in hot drunk sick. The driver was irate and, in a thick African accent, started lamenting the state of his car. “Don’t worry; it’s fine,” I remember saying by way of reassurance.

He throws me out after pulling over and I dash off chuckling while he whips out tiny pocket tissues to mop up my mess. The thumb is back out and I’m soon in a new cab. “Belsize Park,” I slur, only without any vowels, and off we set. We’re soon there and the driver quotes me thirty pounds, while asking if I’m sure I’m ok. “I need a receipt,” I say, still frugal enough in my debauchery to know I can claim back expenses if I have documentation. I fetch money from the cashpoint opposite my flat while the driver handwrites my receipt.

“That’s only a tenner,” he says when I return. Right, sorry, I go and fetch some more. “That’s another tenner,” he points out, “I need one more still.” Back I go, somehow successful for a third time even with drunken finger mashing on the number pad. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asks as we separate.

“I’m fiiiine.”

I gain entry to my building without hitch, but the front door to the flat proves a more skilled opponent, possibly because I am shoving the wrong key in the wrong lock. Whisky-strength sees me snap the key apart and whisky-brain damage has my mind tell my hand that I can still push the key through somehow. I end up gauging open my thumb on the shard of Chubb still protruding from the keyhole. With chance of rescue fading fast, I begin to hammer on the door. In the darkness, a flatmate’s dismayed expression appears. I tumble onto him in a hug and tell him I love him. He points me towards my room and goes back to sleep.

The next morning there is a knock at my door: the same flatmate, “Rob, it’s 8.30.” I need to be at work in half an hour. I remain inert among the pillows for the rest of the morning, listening to my mobile vibrating and failing to address it. There is blood everywhere from my thumb. Around twelve I surface, sip some water and then am violently sick. For the rest of the afternoon, I wretch and wretch and wretch if I go anywhere near the slightest consumable. I don’t even phone work. A colleague is worried I’m dead and has asked the whole office if they’ve seen me, helpfully alerting all to my truancy. I struggle and struggle and am filled with remorse. I am sick so much that in the end I just sit on the toilet and lean over the bath. This is where my flatmates find me after their days at work. They also bring worse news: today is Friday and it is our flatwarming party. I have invited all and sundry to make a mess of the place, but the last thing I want to do is entertain, drink or move too far from a suitable receptacle.

I survive the party sipping on cola while my friends deride my terrible form. I dread work on Monday and face repeated humiliation for the state I was in and my no-show the next day. I hear how I missed being taken to exclusive members’ clubs, how one partner kicked a tray of drinks out of someone’s hand while demonstrating how high she could get her leg and how two associates danced for hours in a bar where there was no music.

But what is the benefit of just another drunken story of stupidity and sick? For one thing, my odyssey home is another example of ridiculous episodes in my life and therefore belongs among my other tales. It’s not my intention or responsibility to deter others from binge-drinking to oblivion once in a while – people can do what they want. But it is here to remind me that I am a small clueless fish in a great big pond, that I am very lucky not to have encountered more serious mischief on my struggle home and that only idiots fail to withstand the dangers of the office party.

Priorities

Moving to London, a city of apparently boundless possibility, one of the first things I wanted to sort out in our flatshare was a decent-sized TV, much to the chagrin of my more highly cultured flatmates. Knowing I would be on a budget, I wanted a decent source of free entertainment and company, well, free apart from the license fee. For the first couple of weeks we made do with the old portable telly from my room at home, perched on a stool and looking a little isolated and miniature in its corner of the living room. We had the four channels and could gather round to view our favourite shows, although it began to dawn on us that maybe the screen was too small for our needs.

“Who just got chucked off X Factor?” someone asked, only for the rest of us to respond that we weren’t sure either.

“I think it was a man,” one of us eventually piped up. So the screen was too small and we had no idea who or what we were watching.

“We need a bigger telly,” someone stated.

So the next weekend, a quick trawl on Gumtree revealed an impressive incher going begging at a bargain price just down the road. Phone calls were made and we agreed to come and pick it up that night. It’s not that far away, but we realise it’s too far to carry and I can just see us arguing about who gets the heavy end of the flatscreen, inevitably dropping the whole thing while crossing the road and watching a bus run over it. Stroked by genius, I suggest we get a shopping trolley from the supermarket opposite. We put our pound coin into Budgens’ biggest and begin trundling down the hill, drawing a few confused stares from passers-by. One particular elderly lady with bright white hair is ostensibly eyeballing us as we pass.

We reach the flats in the depths of Belsize Village where the TV finds its current home. The rattles of the trolley and its wheels over the shoddy surfaces of the pathways draw plenty of attention and I’m worried my flatmate and I look like a pair of youths up to no good. As we enter the forecourt of the house, the same white-haired lady appears, having taken the bus one stop along and caught up with us.

“Vat are you boys doing?” she asks in a rich European accent. She is that glamorous that I immediately assume she is displaced royalty from the Hapsburg Empire.

“Buying a TV,” I respond.

“Oh, I thought it was some kind of bet.” She turns out to live in the same building and lets us in. Another very friendly woman agrees to our price for her set and before long we are planning our way home. The TV is not going to fit in the trolley but can only balance on top which, given the rattling and shaking of our contraption, probably means we will have destroyed the appliance before reaching home safely.

We decide we shall have to absorb the price of a taxi and seeing as no minicab services will answer our calls, my flatmate is out in the street trying to flag down a Hackney. “None of them will stop” he wails. I watch him and notice his wild gesticulations are being focused on occupied cabs.

“If the light’s not on, they’ve already got someone in,” I explain.

“Oh right,” he says. He’s been in London a year longer than my five minutes and has not grasped this basic principle.

Half an hour later, we are back nestled in the living room watching big screen X Factor in time for the results. We had found a lovely taxi driver, got our pound back on returning the trolley to its herd, and the elderly European lady had wished us well on our way, hopefully pleasantly surprised to find two polite and well-spoken young men engaging in trolley banditry on a Saturday night, rather than them hooligans you read about in the paper.

Blush With Fame

One of the best things about leaving behind the home counties for London Town is the chance to add value to my tiny life through the occasional spotting of celebrity faces here and there on the golden-paved streets. Fair enough, I may have shared a home town with Michael Caine (though I’m sure he, like most residents, avoided the hideous high street), I may have shared a fleeting glance with Emma Watson on the streets of Oxford while studying there and I may be an acquaintance of Dear Deirdre’s daughter, but the increase in encounter frequency that has accompanied my arrival in NW3 is nothing short of encouraging. And I’m not fussy. Any list of prominence and credibility is enough for me, from Hollywood A-lister to reality TV runner up.

I’m not rummaging through these people’s bins and waiting for them to come out of the dentist’s, I’m just keeping an eye peeled, having a squizz and then moving on. Bob Geldof outside The Ritz? Great, but I keep walking. Gaby Roslin in a well-known Japanese chain restaurant? Obviously looks after herself, but I’m struggling with soup. And so on. It’s a bit like endless bingo, only instead of a prize for a full house you’re rewarded for each spot with a bit of telly glamour nearly breaking into your personal bubble.

But then occasionally you don’t just spot Gail Porter in Hampstead, but a celebrity’s trajectory crosses and intertwines with your life’s own garden path.

Back in March, a very good friend came to visit: my German ex-flatmate from the year I had spent living in Freiburg as part of my degree. Sarah had been instrumental in my successful assimilation into Black Forest living and now it was my turn to show her London. Naturally, she had been many times before and was hard to entertain: “Why do your pubs shut so early?” she asked and “I don’t want to go on the London Eye” threw a spanner in my plans for the weekend. “Your kitchen floor is so dirty I don’t want to take my shoes off,” was another choice comment.

Nevertheless, a load of us went out one evening: a flatmate, some friends from the home village, some friends from Oxford and some friends of friends of all and sundry. We were quite a crowd and we were going to hit the East End and show my visitor a good time. I’m no longer sure how things began, but soon it was gone midnight and we were traipsing the streets for a club. Two hours later, we are still outside, stone cold and sobered, wandering down streets and apparently chasing an elusive house party in Hoxton. Sarah is not impressed, my nipples are like bullets and we’re running out of bemused Middle Easterners to ask for directions. Just as I’m on the verge of grabbing us a taxi, another friend pleads for me to stay as it’s just round the next corner. And luckily enough it is.

We pile into a tiny flat, doubling the numbers at what looked like a small gathering in its dying stages. I apologise to the host on the way in for not knowing him. We settle into sofas and I think right, time to tank back up and show Sarah how to keep a party going young professional-in-London-style. The best part of a bottle of wine later and I’m chatting to some of the other guests. “And what do you do?” I ask two lads sitting nearby after some initial chat.

“We’re actors.”

“Wow,” I exclaim. I’ve had my fair share of am dram board-treading and I am impressed by anyone daring enough to make a career out of being the centre of attention. “Real actors?” I ask.

“Well, I’m a PA as well,” one admits.

I don’t care. “What have you been in?” I demand. They both list off a stream of prestigious roles. “But have you been in The Bill?” I ask, recalling that all British actors appear in Sunhill sooner or later. One of them has and I’m very excited; “My parents love that show.” I’m sure he’s thrilled.

So I’m drunk and embarrassing but I’m having a lovely time. And Sarah seems content to be smoking out of the window. A home friend comes bounding in with news: she has just spotted a very famous actor in the hallway. I don’t believe her at all until I need the toilet myself and find myself squeezing past said individual en route to the lavatory. Under a dark cap and in a casual jacket is a Best Actor Oscar-winning, seminal role-playing, respected, Hollywood A-lister. I have decided not to reveal who due to later behaviour but I think most educated guesses should come pretty close.

I return to my friends with confirmation. I’m in a tiny flat, merry as you like, and a very famous face has just strolled into the room. This is big news. Though strictly speaking, it’s not the first brush with celebrity of the evening. One of our crowd and a friend of a friend from Oxford appeared on a successful BBC3 reality show where young chaps competed in tribal games around the world. He comes over with some wine in a bowl, something picked up on his travels no doubt, and offers me some, which I willingly accept. It’s lemony and actually jolly nice.

“Why are you drinking wine out of a bowl?” an American accent drawls at me. Right, ok, the big famous actor is now speaking to me. How is one meant to behave? I proffer the bowl and ask “Do you want some?”

“Sure,” he says and promptly wanders off with it. That was strange yet exhilarating, a brush with fame. I text my sister to gloat. But then he reappears. I’m sitting on the edge of the sofa arm and he has positioned himself right in front of me. My friends seem to evaporate out of the way. “I’m sorry,” he begins, “I took your wine without introducing myself. I’m *****,” he says and offers me his hand.

We shake and I manage to say, “I’m Rob.” So it’s not unlike meeting anyone really. Apart from I want to explode in a drunken mess and gush in with his surname and a list of films of his I enjoyed and say “Of course I know who you are, you’re…” But I hold it together with all my might. “So, who do you know here?” I ask. He looks older in close-up real-life than in the films and I start to wonder what someone in his forties wants with a party of twenty-three year-olds at three in the morning.

He explains he works in a theatre with ‘some of the guys’. I volunteer that I don’t know why I’m there or what my connection is. Then his little tiny dog he has brought with him runs up and we talk about her and I’m sure I’m behaving and remaining lucid but I’m starting to regret the lemony wine and then he’s off talking to someone else. Never mind, HE introduced himself to ME, and I’m no-one.

“He liked you!” one of my friends points out. Then I realise his attention is focused on our friend from the BBC3 show, who is good-looking. Then I notice him smoking out the window and Sarah trying to engage him in conversation but he’s looking straight through her at other lads. It dawns on me that I was being chatted up by an actor who I think is ‘out’ in the industry but not in the press.

We eventually leave as all are tired and drunk, even though I’m protesting in hopes of gaining my first Hollywood friend. We talk about him loudly in the taxi and the driver must think we’re fawning idiots, which we know we are. The next day I ring a friend who stayed longer. She reveals the actor is known as ‘the boy eater’ and describes how he only spoke to our handsome friend off the telly for the rest of the evening, much to the annoyance of his long-term girlfriend. I swear I could have got his number and probably would have gone as far as dinner, just for the interesting stories alone, but Sarah wants entertaining and I say goodbye.

But I dine out on that story for months to come and make sure it spreads round the office that A-list actors fancy me. Well, one. Maybe. Oh well, my parents are vaguely impressed. I didn’t just spot a Z-lister crossing the street, but this actor was interested in me enough to introduce himself to ME and yes, I am shallow enough to find this cheering. Ridiculous.

Becoming A Commuter, Part III

So the tube is now short of one more gentleman who allows others to sit before himself (although only out of self-interest) and the roads have gained one very careful cyclist. Each morning I pull on my shorts and t-shirt, (no skin-tight lycra as I am taking an amateur approach), fasten the helmet and drag my old bike down two flights of stairs. The commute in is all downhill through Primrose Hill, Regents Park and Mayfair, the sun shines, the breeze cools, I stop at traffic lights, enjoy the scenery, anticipate hazards, whiz down hills and pause at crossings, I signal and position correctly, I watch other cyclists break rules, I gulp as taxis almost clip my handlebars, I wince as vans turn left in front of me, as pedestrians step out in front of me, as the lights change just as I’m getting there, as motorists ignore my intentions to change lanes, as electric cars pull out without looking, as… So hang on, this is proving to be just as stressful as the Tube. Multiply the impatience by ten for the uphill journey home and instead of risking accidentally jostling a Tube passenger in haste, I’m tempting fate at the back of a bus and prophesying my own broken legs in head-on collisions. I do cycle safely, but there is no accounting for what others get up to; whether they have seen you, whether they are anticipating your moves or whether they are on the phone to Barry back at the office saying they can’t find the address but some Johnny-pedaller is getting on their wick. But the journey itself is the easy part.

Remembering to take all the right work clothes to the office is where real care and attention must be paid. I am supposed to wear business formal, with a tie for all external meetings, but I just keep to shirt and smart trousers and don’t really go to meetings. My office is filled with Jermyn Street’s finest tailored shirts; my back is clothed by Oxford Street’s cheapest polyester numbers. Nevertheless, it is still my ‘uniform’ and my cycle wear is my ‘vest and pants’. So if you are going to wear vest and pants to work, it’s best not to forget the uniform. This I did on only my second day of cycling. Pulling a wrinkly shirt from my rucksack while standing there clad only in boxers in the disabled toilet, it dawns on me all of a sudden that the trousers I meant to extract from the wardrobe are still hanging serenely among off-the-rack suits, conspicuously absent from my bag at work. I am inert and stunned for a few minutes while all sinks in.

I am luckily forty-five minutes early so I do have time to play with. I cannot wear my shorts with my shirt, even if I hide under my desk, because I never stay at my desk for long. There are always teas to be made, snacks to fetch and mobile phone games to play in the cubicles. I cannot cycle back because the homerun is sufficiently uphill to guarantee sweat on sweat and then I will be all the later for showering. I cannot afford to buy new trousers as there is not enough cash in my account and I cannot borrow from colleagues who keep a wardrobe at work because they are predominantly giant in stature. And mostly hate me. I put back on my vest and pants and traipse back to the tube to blow £4 at the beginning of my money-saving scheme on a heated and pointless commute without even a book to read.

An hour later, and fifteen to twenty minutes after my contracted start time, I am at my desk, fully dressed in regulation dronewear and hoping I have escaped the partners’ keen eyes. “Problems with the train this morning?” innocently asks a colleague and deskfellow, evidently not spotting the bicycle helmet I am carrying.

“Not exactly,” I sigh.

Becoming A Commuter, Part II

Having mentioned that I don’t like being groped by people, I should probably point out that this isn’t an occurrence I deal with all that often. On the Tube, I’m sure the odd menopausal lady may have brushed my buttock more than was necessary but that doesn’t really bother me. Ever since a friend’s drunken birthday party at a raucous Greek restaurant in Hersham where a hen party of older ladies left my sixteen-year-old bottom bruised after some over-enthusiastic pinching, it would take a great deal for me to associate the words ‘sexual’ and ‘assault’ with any covert crowded Tube shenanigans. Nevertheless, one particular incident alerted me to the fact that it was probably time to head above ground for my daily commute.

My ratrun took me through Camden Town station, where I would watch skinny-jeaned teens and excessively pierced skinheads head off to live their alternative lives from my vantage point within the carriage. After several weeks, I had worked out the best place to stand in order to be nearest the exit to the lifts on arrival at Belsize Park and thereby reduce my journey time further. So everyday around six, I could be found near the doors at the back of the second carriage from the front. On a particularly busy day earlier this year, the train pulls into a slightly emptier than usual Camden Town station, juddering to a halt as the doors lurch open. Everyone breathes in and steps aside to allow one more passenger to board, and from behind my earphones and novel, I notice the space assigned is more than one might usually inspect. Looking up I see a common or garden tramp, the smell of booze emanating from his brownish clothes setting multiple noses wrinkling throughout the area. They may have banned drinking beyond the barriers, but that doesn’t stop tanked-up vagrants descending the escalators and inflicting their rotting livers on your average battery-farmed commuter.

Everyone returns their attention to free paper or eye-contact evasion when I begin to notice a youngish girl next to me I sort of leaning into my space. Then I realise the tramp is reading over her shoulder but in such a way as to be quite aggressively pressing onto her. She must be getting the full frontal of his booze-breath and nobody seems to be doing anything. I wonder if this counts as assault and without looking up, I step to my left, opening some space between me and the divider, and allow her to retreat into my wake with her free paper. At this point, I cannot hear anything but the music in my headphones and my eyes are firmly on my page. The tramp is right in front of me but this is London and I live here and have done for several months now and tramps don’t scare me and I’m an adult and I’ll give him what for if he tries anything anyway.

Then I feel a hand stroke my face, coming down from above, through my hair and down one side over my cheek to my chin. In one movement, I have pulled out my earphones and grabbed this old boy by the wrist with a pretty firm grip, surprising even myself.

“Don’t touch me,” I say firmly, only then relinquishing his arm and becoming aware that people are looking. He chuckles.

“That’s what I like to see,” he begins to slur, “a man of learning, actually reading a book.” I decline to point out that I am in fact reading a bestseller aimed at children and looking at him, decide that he is harmless and smile in response. “But you shouldn’t be having these,” he mumbles on, pointing at my earphones.

“I can do what I like,” I point out patiently, enjoying the exchange of opinions.

“You gotta be aware of your surroundings,” he says before making a hand into a gun shape and holding it to the centre of my forehead. “I could have a gun to your head and you wouldn’t even realise,” he says, and I twig that the hand is illustration of this. I’m not sure if this is my real life or some scene from an obscure art house film. I consider the situation.

“Do you have a gun?” I ask.

“Well, no,” he says, bringing his hand down.

“Well then,” I say, noticing we are pulling into Belsize Park, yelping ‘bye’ and slipping out the doors the moment they gape open. I am a bit shaken up but also proud I came back with decent answers and possibly even entertained fellow passengers with my tramp chat.

Headphones back in, I’m at the front of the lift, waiting for it to fill up and for the doors to close us in. By the tenth time I hear “Please do not obstruct the doors” over my music I finally deign to turn around, and through the crowd of heads, I see old trampy standing exactly where the doors are trying to close, externalizing the fact that he’s “not gonna be crammed in there like sardines!” Everyone looks peeved and I’m on the verge of shouting over to him, as if we were old friends, and telling him to behave. Luckily a more seasoned commuter spells out the tramp’s options in no uncertain terms and he eventually gets in the lift and out of the way of the doors. By this point, my pride in my performance has turned into panic that he is now following me home after my conversation with him, and living above the shops next to the tube station, I speculate that it wouldn’t be hard to track down my address and to wait for me and then to do whatever it is tramps do to the people they hunt down at night…

I’m out of there like a whippet after a speeding sausage and I don’t look back till the flat door is closed behind me. Thousands of people get on the tube every day. But of all the doors on the train, of all the trains going through the station at that time, this character chanced to encounter me and I him.

Becoming A Commuter, Part I

With the onset (at last) of some nicer weather, I have finally taken the plunge and opted to trade in my monthly Oyster card for an oversized cycle helmut and two wheels. My eight months as a tube commuter has taught me a lot about myself: mostly that I don’t like being groped by strangers. But half an hour each morning trundling from Belsize Park to Green Park via a quick change at Euston, and half an hour at a slightly hastier pace on the way home most evenings did have some advantages. It was a good chance to listen to some music, to get involved with a book and to stare at the various unusual people with whom a carriage may be shared for any number of stops (they usually get out at Camden Town).

But I do not like who I become on the Tube. It’s as if the muted beep and little flash of green light that accompanies an accepted touch-in of the Oyster instructs the user to leave chivalry at the barrier and suddenly allows all license to behave like a pillock. Not that I ever got too carried away – on the way to work I would mostly dawdle, obviously doing my best not to be that slow walker on the platform who delays those in more pressing a dash to their desk, and this would mean allowing others to board the train before me, to go ahead at the escalator and to squeeze their generous portions into whichever fleshy gap they thought might accommodate them. But the way home became a different story. This was my time now, and I mastered beating a passage to my front door like some deadly art form. I would cut people up, dash through gaps like a rat out a drain pipe, kick people’s bulkier shopping bags out the way and stare evils at anyone threatening my reign of terror. And I was not the only one. Worse offenders than me would board trains before allowing passengers to get off, would bark at map-ogling tourists, refuse to move down the carriage and tut at volume whenever they saw a mother with a pushchair. I justified my behaviour in that I only dealt out punishment or harshness to those lacking sufficient common sense to commute without causing let or hindrance to others. So I would still let an old boy board before me, even if I had got their first, I would take up as little space as possible, nestling my book somewhere inconspicuous rather than spreading a full broadsheet across half the floorspace and I would happily always step out at busier stops to help speed up disembarking commuters. But woe betide anyone who provoked my lack of patience by standing somewhere stupid or stepping off the train and standing there craning a neck for exit signs while suits and ties pile off onto them or who failed to respond to my polite ‘excuse me’ when I needed to exit and therefore got shoved out of my path.

This is all very naughty, unpleasant and unnecessary and I wanted to stop but I couldn’t. Nothing altered my journey time by more than a few minutes but I couldn’t escape the feeling that every delay to my arrival was unforgivable, even if all I did once in my flat was sit around in my underpants and watch music television. I feel I gained some redemption through my attitude towards sitting down on the tube, though this was not motivated by any estimable altruism, but rather some curious attempt at self-protection from a curse I imagined had befallen me.

During my very earliest commuting weeks, when I had been in the office less than a month and I was still looking at station names as the tube train rolled through Oxford Circus and Warren Street, I was thrilled to spy for the first time a seat in which I might legitimately sit, having resigned myself to standing during all preceding journeys. No granny or expectant mother was there to challenge my claim and I sunk into the over-warm soft furnishings of the Victoria Line with a smuggish grin drawing itself on my face. At Euston I hopped up and off, jollied along by a pleasant journey. As I walked along the platform, I felt for my Oyster as habit dictates, groping my own buttock for the hard card that resides in my back pocket. There was nothing there. Time slowed down as I turned on my heel and slipped back between the closing doors. Peering at the floor near my former seat and ignoring the inquisitive glances of other commuters querying why this idiot had clambered back aboard so soon after slinking off, my heart leapt to spot my little blue Oyster nestling among shoes on trainers on the grooves of the floor. I reached down, muttering ‘excuse me’, elated to have the blighter and its value back in my hand.

How on earth it had managed to slip out remained a mystery, but as I got off at Kings Cross only to go back in the other direction, having been forced to go one stop too far, I came to the only logical conclusion I could think of: sitting down must bring me bad luck. I vowed from then on never to sit down on the commute ever again, happy to hang and hold onto various protrusions of bar and handle in order to guarantee my Oyster’s safe passage. In the process, I had also lost my security entrance card for work and I now like to imagine a little white rectangle of plastic travelling up and down the Victoria Line with my full name stamped across, as everlasting evidence of my idiocy.

Why now?

Not that I would ever assume that people have nothing better to do than to read about the banalities of my day-to-day existence, I have decided it is finally time to write down some of the nonsense that fills my weeks. So I've set the timer for twenty minutes while my dinner is in the oven (admittedly, very banal) and now I only have two minutes left. Oh well, the feed-your-family-for-a-fiver tuna fishcakes can burn while I have a little vent here.

After eight months in an office, I know that we desk fodder would rather do anything than get on with what we are being paid to get on with: the furtively tapped out emails, the minimised windows of online newspapers, the instant messenger services. The number of times I have written out a full and frank description of a particular episode of my life and clicked 'send' multiple times to fellow fulfilled staff members has exceeded the sensible. So it's all going to end up here. Not that I'm suddenly going to become more productive workwise. In fact, I resigned on Thursday...

There is a wealth of cringe, wince and reddening of face, a fair helping of chuckles and some personal therapy for me. And that's just what's happened so far...