Story Snippet: Strangers on a Train

After a fabulous Friday evening at the monthly Charles Peake Ulysses Seminar at Senate House, University of London followed by a great-as-ever dinner at Palms of Goa, we walked up through pre-Christmas Bloomsbury to Euston where we boarded a packed train to Milton Keynes via Berkhamsted. We found two seats opposite two men – a trendy looking man in his 30s with Punjabi roots and a slightly older grey-haired man in a pink shirt and dark blue waistcoat.

When asked if they were a couple the grey-haired one said “No, is it the pink shirt?” The other one had set up a comic book art gallery in Northampton (home of the great Alan Moore). He had Malcolm X-type glasses and styled floppy hair, with plenty of opinions and a loud personality that was bothering the mother on the opposite side of the gangway with two sleeping kids. He was on his way home from a night on the town (in Islington) with his girlfriend (who had work in the morning in London so was sadly left behind).

Pink Shirt was quieter. When we eventually got space for him to get a word in he revealed he was a magician, on the way home to a village in Bedfordshire from a gig in Central London. He revealed that magicians, according to new research (from Aberystwyth University’s psychology department), are the happiest of people. He was so happy he had just the shirt and waistcoat on on a freezing night when others were wrapped in thick coats and scarves.

Just before we got off the train he pulled out his phone and showed us a video he had just been sent from his gig and not yet seen. It showed him cutting open a fresh lime to reveal a folded fifty pound note signed by a member of the audience who was whooping in marvel with her friends at this small miracle. I love limes and citrus fruit at the best of times (more for colour than anything else) but when combined with magic – there’s no greater delight!

This post is being written in an edit suite in D’Arblay Street, Soho while putting the finishing touches to our ‘Man in da Corner‘ documentary about Dizzee Rascal and the birth of Grime music. There’s an interface in the form of Dynamo, a magician who is also a huge admirer of Dizzee.

Meanwhile, a couple of doors down from the post house (at Banh Mi Keu Soho) you can get the best Saigon lime drink in the city…