A-mo-zing

I became a Mo-man on the 1st November.

The premise of Movember (the month formerly known as November) is simple; the execution, dangerouly open to interpretation and the results until last night, miserly (I am of course speaking personally - I am certain there are far better Mo Men out there than I).

So, the premise. Shave at the start of Movember and grow a moustache in aid of men's charities, in particular prostate cancer charities.

And the results... until last night my wispy toffee-apple tickler had barely attracted the attention of my flatmates. In fact, it hadn't at all. After 10 days there was some semblance of a shadow of a Mo developing that I then carefully sculpted into what I like to call a 'lip-winger', reaching all the way down to my chin line. Except it didn't reach all the way and had bits missing in between.

So I scrapped that plan and had another go with the razor, redesigning my lip-winger into a cute, fledgling 'che' (after the famous Cuban revolutionary and celebrated Mo man). Last night I met a friend and two of his friends, one of whom commented without any prompt,

"Is that for Movember or what?"

My Mo, finally given the recognition it deserves, after 12 days of semi-existence.

Now I'm a proud Mo-man.

Year of the Ex-

We had a bridge we called ours back then, when I briefly went out with Mareike the German while living in Amsterdam for a year. It was one of those bridges that collapses fifty times a day to allow canal boats through.

Last night we walked to a Sam Smith's pub an American friend Sebastian knew and I didn't. I've got a lot to learn about the city of my birth. Sebastian led me and Mareike and a stranger wolf-whistled. Her hair is dyed bright blond, shorn on one side and chin length on the other and I guess she's always attracted attention. She bumped into people and we three talked as we drank bad beer Sebastian had swiped from work - a posh bar-restaurant by St. Paul's. Later Mareike said she's sleeping with an Irishman or a Frenchman. Nothing seems to have changed.

I'm ploughing back through a past I thought I'd left a distance behind. One friend once said he returned to England from Japan and the most overwhelming feeling he had was relief. But sometimes I find myself wanting to tug at my hair and scream out in frustration at having landed right back where I worked hard to move on from.

London recently

I stepped up onto surface from the underground on the other day and looked around Oxford Circus and the first thing that came to my mind was, 'Is that it?' I remembered the buildings being so much taller. It had such a provincial feel to it. Maybe I just got used to all those skyscrapers in Shibuya and Shinjuku. That said, even in Yamagata they built up, and they had all the perspective of the mountains from the basin to fight with there.

I'm on Queenstown Road, near Battersea Park, after a relatively brief period as itinerant floor space occupant in Stoke Newington (North) and Vauxhall (South). I can see the overland train rattle past from the 2F kitchen window. 10 years ago I stayed on this road a few doors down, in my sister's place. I walked to Harrods and back every day for a month for a summer job. One day it rained hard on the way back so I waited out the wet under a railway bridge. Now I ride the train over that bridge to work.

Streets here have precious few convenience stores, or electric stores, or jidohanbaiki vending machines. Rows of residential even right in the centre of town. I met an old friend in the pub on last Saturday and we took a walk later on across the bridge sandwiched in between the Eye and the houses of Parliament. I don't know the names of the bridges yet.

As we walked along, my friend said to me, 'People spend a lot of money to come here. And here we are'.

Today

I saw a dog running towards Hampstead Heath with his own lead in his mouth.

View from the yard

A hard day's work

'Last year, one trip back home from Japan I found myself hurtling towards the centre of London on the Piccadilly Line.'

I'd love to say that without smirking. Instead,

'Last year, one trip back home from Japan I found myself on the Piccadilly Line, lurching towards the centre of London one pitiful, long-forgotten tube stop at a time.'

That's a little more truthful.

Way out near Heathrow airport, the Piccadilly Line gets grim. Last year when I came back, it was a drizzly, overcast day and I remember being squashed on the train with luggage and weary commuters, watching the rain dribble in diagonals across the windows.

This year I came back for good, for now. I fell into a job virtually instantly and it looks like they might want to keep me on beyond the initial trial period.

However. In a cruel twist of fate, a 'welcome back to england and fuck you!', a miserable deal, the job is way out west on the Piccadilly Line and I have become one of those weary commuters.

'Northfields?'

'Yeah Northfields.'

'OK, North-Fields?'

'That's it. Northfields'

(Almost a whisper:) 'Huh. Northfields.'

Every morning I now find myself backtracking nearly as far as the airport, and every evening I repeat that desolate journey into the centre of London that I swore I'd never again attempt. I wish that once (it would only take once), I could forget Northfields and just judder and grind on, one tube stop at a time beyond Northfields, save myself the commuter sigh, that plosive burst, the steady, lip-flubbering exhalation, save myself that and a day at a desk in front of a computer screen and the walk to the bathroom the most exercise I'd get all day, save all that for my memories of somewhere and someplace I almost ended up for good and shudder on as far as Heathrow, and get on a plane, and hop, skip, shoot out of Blighty again.

Not sure that'll be happening any time soon though.

Oi!

Smallawei you bastard, whoever you are, will you please kindly please stop spamming my old posts with freeking Chinese blurb!