Aldeburgh and Sutton Hoo

Just spent half the bank holiday weekend in Suffolk. Despite Sizewell looming large over the flat landscape of East Anglia... what a beautiful part of the country. Ok ok, so first we went birdwatching, I grudgingly admit, I sort of like it now.

Once the lone pursuit of anorak wearing, bespectabled nerds, I give it an urban flair.... but I don't have any binoculars. I just sidle up to some studious old lady and say, "Yo ho! Lemme look thru da lens of yo telescopic device beeatch" and they recoil open mouthed and let me check out the Golden Plover sifting through the silt. I am P Diddy to them.... they look at me wide eyed, slightly frightened.

Anyway, on to Alderburgh. Lovely seaside town. Where fishing boats sell their wares direct onto the harbourside. It feeds my imagination, my psyche. I'd love to live by the sea, to know Ron the fisherman, who will reccomend the monkfish or the skate today sir.... but I know this ideal is something my mind has conjured up. I'm not Peter O'Toole on his 3 month summer sojourn to the West Coast of Ireland, resting between movies, roughing it with the lovable locals. Half drunk on dining and drinking. I'm just some squat greek boy from North London with delusions of grandeur.... maybe someday though.

I'm a skittish person, I can rarely just relax, physically or mentally. So while deb was sitting on the beach musing and enjoying the morning warmth as the sun rose gloriously into the sky, I was busy launching pebbles, sometimes rocks the size of my head into the north sea until my left arm was sore from repetitive chucking. That was relaxation to me. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I was very careful to avoid the old lady having a swim. So I was socially conscious too.

Then onto Sutton Hoo... an ancient Anglo Saxon place of Kingly burial. Where Readwald was buried, along with his beautiful treasures. We did snigger at the name King Ethelbert... but it was educational, and I now am a member of the National Trust. Surely my first step towards becoming a country gent :)

Tube Journeys

Tube journeys always interest me. I like to observe. To see how people react when confined and squashed up against each other. Rather like the time my cousin in Cyprus put twenty neighbourhood cats in a rabbit hutch until it turned into a seething mass of thrashing fur and wailing cries of feline despair, humans are not designed to infiltrate each others sweaty auras in such close proximity.

If I have a seat on the tube, I'm fine. I can relax and watch everyone avoid each others eye contact. Those subtle non-verbal communications on the tube fascinate me. For some people it is all they can do to stop themselves flying into a ball of rage until they reach their stop.

If I don't have a seat, then I try to detach myself from reality, ignore the festering armpit from the lanky streak of piss standing in front of me, whilst also trying to ignore the hot conker in the pants of the fat man wedged up behind me. Tube journeys are not necessarily pleasant, but they are functional and always interesting. Especially if a gibbering madman gets on as well.

The other day I was on the tube, and I sat next to this bloke who had his legs akimbo, like some sort of Blind Date contestant, thrusting his horse like genitals in the general direction of female society. This to me is a challenge. His leg is at least 2 centimetres in my chair perimeter exclusion zone. So I wedge my leg up against his, much as this disgusts me, hoping he, rather than me gives up the physical contact challenge because of his realisation that my revulsion is blocked out by my sense of injustice that he is invading my personal space. And yes. I won! He moved his leg. I did a mental dance of victory. I knew he was angry. Motherf***er! Ha!

A small victory, but an important one.

Now what if an eldery person gets on? I would normally offer my seat. But what they were of borderline pensionable age? I'm all for chivalry and good manners, but I don't want to insult a 55 year old for instance by offering her a seat when she thinks she is a young Helen Mirren. Same goes for pregnant women. What if they are just fat? What do you do then? Humiliate yourself and the woman in question? I second guess myself all the time, procastinating over the right thing to do, 8 zillion computations per second and not making a decision. Whilst thinking like this, other functions collapse, my brain cannot take the strain, so like the starship enterprise, I have to divert life support power to thinking. I haven't stopped breathing in this state yet, but I do turn into a dribbling expressionless freak with a collapsed face, and then nobody wants to sit next to me or have my seat anyway. Such a cruel irony.