Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog

I often wonder if I have some magnetic force field operating around me that causes strange things to happen. I admit that I keep a rather low profile locally, since I don’t want hoards of fans queued up at my front door with copies of “In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed” for me to sign. (I prefer they do this in a bookshop, where I won’t be obliged to make them cups of tea.) But low profile or not, I only need to walk a couple of minutes from home before something odd transpires.

For instance, the other week I was heading to the post office when I happened on a busker and her dog. The busker, an Irish woman who seemed to think that I was also Irish (apparently I have an Irish accent), was playing guitar and singing, and the dog, who was wearing a bonnet straight out of a Jane Austen novel, was her devoted sidekick.

I guess I’m a soft touch when it comes to animals, so I put a few coins in the busker’s guitar case, slightly ashamed at the paltry offerings of the locals. Anyway, I got chatting with the woman, who was about to pack up for the day, and somehow from all this I ended up taking on the job of dog minder while she headed off to find a public loo. There I was, sitting on a bench with this dog in a Jane Austen bonnet parking her furry bum on my foot while all and sundry filed past. A few people offered me a friendly smile (I don’t think they were serial killers), including this guy I’d met earlier, who returned to pester me to join some new gym in town when I’d earlier told him that I was happy with the one I already go to – especially since his gym would have cost me double what I now pay.

When the busker returned, I was at last free to do my post office run, afterward heading off to the bank, where, along the way, I ran into an elderly lady I thought I knew from a writers group I’d given a talk to. (By “ran into” I mean on foot, I wasn’t driving.) Turns out it wasn’t her at all, but that didn’t matter, because she invited me to go Scottish dancing in Upminster (which is nowhere near Scotland, by the way). When I explained that I didn’t have a car and, although it sounded like good fun, it would be rather difficult for me to get to, she tried to entice me with tales of men in kilts, suggesting that perhaps I could find out what they wore beneath them. Well, I’d never been so shocked in my life! Okay, maybe I have. I think she just wanted to take me along as some sort of foil, and I probably would have gone, if she’d offered to pay for the taxi.

No sooner had I recovered from this adventure when yet another landed on my doorstep, for just the other day I was running some errands when, in the process of barreling toward the greengrocer’s, I was waylaid by a sweet little old lady with one of those push trolleys. She gave me a big smile and asked if I might offer her my arm so that she could get to a nearby bench to sit down. I saw a couple of old codgers seated there and, although I suspected her intent might be to chat them up rather than rest her elderly bones, I allowed her to borrow my left arm. (She didn’t much care for my right.) There we were, moving along at a snail’s pace and discussing that all-time favourite of English topics, the weather, when suddenly out of the blue she asks me why I think Jesus died.

Well, all I know is that I wanted to buy some of those lovely Spanish peaches before the season was over, therefore I was unable to shed any light on the subject of her query. Undaunted, she continued in what appeared to be a very concerted move to convert me to Christ, or at least drag me into a church. Okay, everyone’s entitled to their own gig and I respect that, but this was getting a bit much, particularly when we got to the bench and she made no effort to let me go – or to sit on the bench she claimed she needed to sit on. By the time she began fiddling in her sleeve for some of those Jesus pamphlets, I’d caught on to what she was about and made my departure before lightning struck me dead.

When I arrived at the greengrocer’s, I got chatting with the cashier and mentioned what had just happened, only to learn that a few days earlier she too had met with the very same elderly lady who had asked for her arm to help her get from point A to point B, only to be given the exact same pitch word for word. The cashier went on to say that a friend of hers had also met with this elderly lady, and so on and so on. Seems she was working the entire street! What bothered the cashier the most (she told me she was raised a full-on Christian, btw), was the degree of sneakiness and dishonesty involved, which she felt gave Christians a bad name. In fact, she didn’t believe the old woman was infirm enough to require assistance at all, and had merely been using this as a ploy. Indeed, we fully expected to see our doddering granny go jogging past the shop at any moment! We both concluded that we would very likely think twice before lending our arms to anyone. As for me personally, I never felt so cheap and used in my life!

The following day I returned to the High Street for a bit of grocery shopping and no, I didn’t see the elderly lady, but I did encounter a group of Native American Indians in full regalia performing tribal song and dance. Having by now learned my lesson, I didn’t stop to chat.

I bet you’re thinking that it’s only my local High Street where all these curious adventures take place, but it seems that no matter where I go, this magnetic force field of mine follows – even in the middle of Central London (or, in this case, beneath it). One night I was on a standing-room only underground train when I and several of my fellow passengers noticed a moth sitting on the handrail (at least it had somewhere to sit). The man near me was discussing with his mates what a moth riding the tube might eat, and I remarked that it was quite likely curry, since the moth was yellow. He agreed as to the logic of my argument, at which point several more people joined in the conversation. We then started taking guesses as to which stop Mr. Moth would get out at. I said Liverpool Street (turns out I was right). After so much speculation on the life of the Central Line moth, we were sorry to see it go, and when it came time for our little group to disband, we did so with tears in our eyes. (Okay, so maybe we didn’t, but we did part fondly.)

You’re probably saying that all this random weirdness must be some eccentric English thing, not a Star Trek-ian force field that has attached itself to me. Well, I’ve got news for you: it isn’t. Just wait till I tell you what happened when I ran into a bunch of Klingons in France!

Mitzi Szereto at Teddy Tedaloo's London Photo Shoot

What’s a girl to do when her own bear upstages her?

A bear who hogs the limelight – it’s a problem I’ve had a number of times. Bad enough he blew me out of the water on Mitzi TV, not to mention pretty much knocked me off the page in the Sunday Telegraph a few years back. And it’s getting worse. Who do you think received an invitation last week to do a photo shoot in London? No, not me, but – you guessed it! Teddy. Like, what’s up with that?

I tell you, it never ends. He even steals my friends on Facebook.

Of course I had to agree to this caper, since I knew I’d never hear the end of it. So I packed a few changes of outfits for him (at his insistence) and what does he do? – sticks to his favourite red jumper and jeans. Here I’d been schlepping this stuff all over the place, only to end up not even needing it! Okay, I didn’t want to make a fuss; I admit the colour contrast between the red of his jumper and the black of my little vest top worked out quite well from an artistic perspective. Hey, I’ll give credit where credit is due – Teddy certainly has an eye for what works from a design perspective.

Which brings me to the London Underground. (How’s that for a nifty segueway?) I realise I haven’t had a good rant about the public transportation system in Blighty for awhile, and I didn’t wish to neglect this fertile subject. There’s nothing like a summery Saturday afternoon in Londoninium: the sun’s shining, there’s a nice breeze, people are happy (or at least their usual dour expressions are brightened by the sun, giving the appearance of “happy”). You figure hey, it was a productive day, we had some great photos shot, and we can get home early enough to chill out and fix a salad for dinner; there’s even time to stop off in Brick Lane for some Bengali sweets, since it’s practically around the corner from Whitechapel Road. What can possibly go wrong?

Dare you ask?

Thinking I’d save myself the hassle of passing through Liverpool Street station with its teeming mass of manic commuters who take delight in mowing you down at warp speed, I opted for the District line to Mile End, where I’d change to the Central Line to Stratford. I’d done it on the way in – easy peasy! It made perfect sense to do the same thing on the way out. Well, there’s no fool like a fool who travels on the London Underground. An ominous feeling began to take hold of me as our train sat for nearly ten minutes at Whitechapel station, with swearing and shouting Chelsea supporters (I presume they won) in the next car. Finally an announcement came on saying that we were waiting in order to “even out the gaps between services.” (At least there weren’t any leaves on the line or – considering it was the Underground – dead rats.)

At long last we lurched back into service. I rose from my seat in readiness to propel myself and my important passenger out the door at Mile End. Alas, that ominous feeling returned in full force when we sped past what appeared to be a station platform packed with commuters, our train barrelling deeper and deeper into the darkness beneath East London. The electronic signboard inside our car claimed the next station was Mile End. Well, if that were the case, Mile End should have been renamed Ten Mile End. And then we arrived.

In Bow.

Did I want to go to Bow? No, I didn’t want to go to Bow. Did Teddy want to go to Bow? Not that I was aware of. Fine, whatever. I figured the driver was probably some descendant of Jack the Ripper and was tormenting us by skipping stops. Being resourceful, I climbed the stairs and made my way round to the other side so I could catch another train heading back in the direction from whence I came. Made sense, right? Well, it did until I finally managed to decipher a garbled announcement informing us that Mile End station was closed due to a “passenger incident.” Now this could be anything: a suicide, an attempted suicide, some nutter pushing someone in front of a tube train…

Well, if someone wasn’t dead, I sure as hell felt inclined to help them on their way.

An official (loose usage of the term) from London Underground told me I could walk to the Docklands Light Railway. “Two minutes!” he claimed. If so, it was the longest two minutes I’ve ever experienced – and I’m a fast walker, especially when I have the safety of my bear to consider. Bow isn’t exactly … errr… Holland Park. It’s amazing how many friends you can make in London when you’ve been done over by public transport. I found a kind young gentleman who escorted me to the DLR, and he too, was wondering why two minutes seemed to be lasting a lifetime. As we waited on the platform, we marvelled at the fact that the DLR method of timekeeping jibes with any form of timekeeping known to man (or woman). The electronic signboard claimed seven minutes to the next train, but by everyone’s watch, it was more like fifteen. Funny, that.

To pass the time of day, my new friend entertained me with a tale of how he’d been late for work because a pregnant woman decided to suddenly give birth on the underground train he was riding in. His boss wasn’t having it, however. It was only when an article finally appeared in a newspaper featuring a beaming London Underground worker holding a baby that he got back into his boss’s good graces. Soon others chimed in with their tales of woe…

… until the DLR train arrived to ruin our fun.

Ted and I got home safely, albeit hungrily. It was 9:30 pm before I sat down to eat my salad. (I’d been reckoning on no later than 8 pm.) To be honest, I was so exhausted I barely managed it. Oh, well, who needs all those faddish diets with weird berries when you have the London Underground? The problem is, I’m not even on a diet!

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Spring is on our doorstep, flowers are bursting into bloom, the sun is shining (at least some of the time); those heavy winter coats can finally be put away. A long holiday weekend is on the horizon – the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, which starts on Good Friday and runs through Bank Holiday Monday. Plenty to do, lots of places to go. A perfect time for some Erotic Travel Tales, if you’ve a mind to book a trip out of town.

Well, just try to bloody get anywhere!

The sadistic stooges who run the public transportation system here in Great Britain (and, more specifically, its overcrowded capital London) prefer to hold many of us hostage in our homes rather than allow us to actually go anywhere and maybe, just maybe, derive a few minutes of enjoyment from this bleak joke we call “Life”. Oh, they may not wear balaclavas, but they’re as mean and unscrupulous as any band of hostage-takers you’re ever likely to encounter. Who needs the IRA or Al Kaida when we have these railway charmers in our midst? Foolish little me for making plans for Good Friday for what sounded like a fun night out in Brick Lane consisting of several live bands plus some rather interesting-sounding beer. Easter Sunday held the promise of a cracking good Sunday roast lunch at a city pub with a bunch of American expats, no doubt followed by still more pubs and invariably a discussion of British immigration policies and teeth.

And I was really looking forward to it too.

Well baby, it ain’t gonna happen. Why? Because this weekend is going to be chock full of engineering work on the rail lines, including those of the London Underground. Weekends are usually fraught with this sort of thing at various locations throughout Greater London and beyond, but when it comes to bank holiday weekends, they really get out the big guns. Now it isn’t completely impossible to get where I need to go, but when the routing takes on all the proportions of a clandestine attack on a major world leader, it’s time to call it a day. Both events I’d planned to attend take place in the city, near London Liverpool Street station – generally an easy commute by train, 35 minutes or so. Not this weekend, however. The trains from where I live will not be running past a certain point, meaning I cannot get to either Liverpool Street station or Stratford East London (where I could catch the tube). If I were to even attempt such a journey, I’d end up on some convoluted acid-trip of a route which would take more than two hours one way for what should only be a half hour. And let’s not even talk about whether I’d be able to make it home at night.

Fine, I’m resourceful; I figured I’d be creative and find another way that, although inconvenient, would not be quite as inconvenient as what the National Rail website was proposing I do: I’d get off the train at Romford and change to the Romford to Upminster line, then catch the District line tube from there into the city and directly to Aldgate East – perfect and right where I needed to be! Not the most convenient or ideal routing, but do-able. Well, the District line at Upminster also isn’t running, thereby cutting off yet another large sector of the population from the city. I wasn’t beaten yet though. The C2C train goes from Upminster into the city – so I could still get that train from Romford to Upminster, then catch the C2C and get off at West Ham, where I’d catch the District line to Aldgate East. Hey, not so fast, madam! The Romford to Upminster line isn’t running at all, and what should normally be a short hop on this particular line would now take nearly two hours via, of all places, Southend (no wonder the National Rail website had an ad for the local Holiday Inn posted right above the train routes). And this time frame doesn’t even factor in the other legs of the journey.

Looks like I’m not going anywhere. This reminds me of those deadly virus movies where they isolate whole segments of the population so they don’t spread the disease and infect others. Seems like a hell of a lot of people from the Eastern edge of the capital out past the M25 will be stuck at home this Easter weekend – or not going anywhere near London anyway.

I find it interesting that many third-world countries manage to maintain, upgrade, and expand their rail systems without causing serious disruption to its residents, so why can’t Great Britain? As for our European neighbours, I can’t imagine the French, Spaniards, Greeks or Russians putting up with this crap. There would be rioting in the streets, politicians would be hung from the branches of trees and publicly neutered with a dull knife. Over here in Blighty they only seem to get the fighting spirit when their football team has lost – or, for that matter, won. Sure people may moan a bit, but then they go have a cup of tea, and the rail fares continue to spiral upwards for what has become an increasingly eroded level of service.

But don’t worry, be happy! The Olympics are coming to London, and those of us who live east of the city will be made to suffer even more than we already do just so the tourists who come here to spend their money can enjoy a state-of-the-art British public transportation system (now if that isn’t an oxymoron I don’t know what is) – with nice places to wait out of the cold and wind (been to the train platforms at Stratford lately? Perfect for catching pneumonia!), and nice shiny trains that aren’t reeking with the stench of greasy chips, or littered with the gnawed-over remnants of fast food, empty beer bottles and ripped-open condom packets (I don’t even want to think about where the contents of said packets have ended up).

I don’t know about you, but I wish to make a complaint! http://www.youtube.com

Okay, let’s get this straight: I’m a car person. I started driving when I was just a wee lass of 15. I’ve always gone everywhere in a car. Having spent a bit of time in California, particularly in the hardcore car culture of Los Angeles, I can definitely say that I often feel as if I’ve had my legs cut off living a car-less life in Britain. It’s not that I’m “green” – rather I’m simply too skint to own a car. (Subliminal message: buy more books buy more books!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Which relegates me to the glorious dregs of public transportation, where you can experience a lifetime’s worth of experience just trying to get home from an evening out. Mind you, not all experiences are worth having. I mean, living in a cave with Osama bin Laden isn’t an experience I’d wish to partake of. I wouldn’t care to shack up in a cave (or anywhere else for that matter) with Robbie Williams either. Or George Clooney. Or Nicholas Cage. As for Andrew Garfield (oy, such a nice Jewish boy!) … now you’re talking! And let’s throw in Jamie Draven while we’re at it. If Osama still insists on lurking around, we can always get him to make the kebabs. But that meat had better be Halal!

Right, so where was I? Oh, yeah, trying to get home. I can write a book about this, believe me – and who knows, maybe one day I will. Perhaps another in my Erotic Travel Tales anthology series. Erotic Travel Tales on British Public Transport – now there’s a catchy title. Or how about Erotic Tube Tales? Err… no, better scrap that one! Speaking of which, I always need the tube (London Underground to you non-Brits) and the train to get home. Note that I’m not factoring in the bus in this discussion, since I tend to avoid them now that I’m living in the Greater London area. I’ve had my fill of psychotic drivers who slam on the brakes in a standing-room only bus, then sit back and enjoy the mayhem. These early-release programmes from prison just don’t work, in my humble opinion.

The other week while waiting on a train platform, I observed a young couple arguing heatedly over the controversial subject of mayonnaise. And yes, I mean that creamy white stuff you slather onto bread when you make a sandwich. I edged discreetly away from the pair, concerned there might be bloodshed. I mean, a discussion of mayonnaise would surely have propelled even a peaceful chap such as Mahatma Gandhi into the ranks of ASBO status. Things soon calmed down, however, when the fellow nearly broke into tears, proclaiming to his woman in a sledgehammer urban London accent that he wanted to be the best he could be for her (a rather syphilitic-looking specimen), and that he was concerned for her health (bit late for that, mate!). I almost wept I was so moved. Well, no, actually I didn’t.

The night would later reach a climactic crescendo as I walked home from the railway station and happened upon a quartet of lads with pint glasses in hand, whereupon two of them (the lads, not the pint glasses) proceeded to urinate the lager they’d been consuming all evening against some unsuspecting trees. (I’ve heard of taking the piss, but this is ridiculous!) They didn’t seem bothered about me, although that’s probably got more to do with the fact that I don’t look like I belong, since I don’t go around with my arse (and the bit wot goes in front) sticking out from under my skirt or my boobs falling out of my top or – the ultimate giveaway – staggering about shriekingly drunk on heels so high they’d give a normal woman (or trannie) nosebleed. Nope, I’m definitely not one of these fair English maidens who end the evening unconscious in a gutter with an all-new strain of STD incubating in their loins.

Now I suppose I could regale you with some tales of true horror, but that wouldn’t be fair. After all, it’s not all gloom and doom in the big bad world of British public transport. Why, I’ve even had my fair share of romance on these journeys, and that doesn’t include eavesdropping on couples indulging in sweet-talk about Hellmann’s or being felt up in a crowded tube train – which luckily has never happened to me and likely never will, since I AM the woman who edited Getting Even: Revenge Stories remember? Anyway, one time there was this rather curious fellow across from me on the train making quick work of two large tins of lager who kept insisting I listen to the music playing on his iPod, as I was sure to “love it”. I told him I only love Staind. He seemed to believe my love would extend to the song he was playing (and perhaps to him). It didn’t. He was crushed. Bad enough I’d broken his heart, but when he got off the train at the same stop as me, well… let’s just say that I walked pretty darned fast up that hilly road home!

Then there was that proposal of marriage from a rather cute bloke who, in an empty train, decided to come sit near me (thank god for CCTV), only to spend the next few minutes gazing at me all starry-eyed. He finally blurted out something about my being a very attractive woman (so who am I to argue?) and pleading with me again and again to please please let him kiss me. He later called out to me to please please wait as I hurried along the station platform to the exit – and consequently, away from his matrimonially minded clutches. Last I heard he was heading off to Southend (or Sarfend as it’s known round ‘ere).

I admit London is probably the place to see and experience it all (whether you want to or not), but that’s not to say other cities in Britain are lacking in travel weirdness. The strangest (well, it’s a toss-up since it’s ALL pretty effing strange) was in a Leicester taxicab, where the driver held me hostage outside my flat as he begged me to let him take me out to dinner. He insisted he could make me happy; apparently he knew what I needed in my life and he could offer this to me – and I should give him a chance to prove himself. I gotta admit, that would’ve been one hell of an offer if he hadn’t been so keen for us to move to India – though I reckon it would’ve been a lot more exciting than Leicester. He wrote his mobile number on the back of the taxi company’s card, then grabbed my hand, not letting go until I promised to call him. Funny that he didn’t waive the fare though. Now THAT would have made me happy.

Gosh. I do hope he’s not still waiting for my call…