Riding Reclined: Cape Town Transport Tales

Cape Town Adventures

Last week, Cape Town reached the climax of preparations for the 109 km Cape Town Cycle Tour 2026. The weekend before saw Cape Town Pride, with us all congregating after the march at the Green Point Track. What a beautiful day it was.

However, I bring up cycling because something about our Uber rides around Cape Town reminds me of recumbent bicycles: those reclined, lumbar-supported seats that seem to make a statement rather than suggest healthy reasons.

The Recumbent Tendency

I haven't seen one around town, but this tendency has caught my attention. I sit behind drivers when travelling with Brian, and I have noticed that nearly all of them recline their seats as far back as legally permitted. It makes me think they want to be riding recumbent bicycles.

To my memory, only one driver kept their seat upright; we rode with him last night. You might assume the reason for reclining seats is to accommodate larger drivers, and some could do with weight management.

However, even the apparently fit and trim have adopted this relaxed habit, reclining comfortably at the expense of their passengers. I could ask the driver to adjust their seat, but I would rather have a comfortable driver enjoying their music and being happy with their settings than interfere and create an awkward situation. It is within my rights to request this, but I prefer not to.

MyCiTi Bus System

Beyond Uber, our main transportation option, we tried the MyCiTi mass transit bus system for the first time. We travelled from Woodbridge to the Waterfront. The bus took its own route, avoiding traffic, which was a marvel. It was safe and comfortable, and as I boarded, someone gave up their seat for me.

All it required was tapping in at the bus station and tapping out when we alighted. I suspect adventure might take us to other places as we explore the different bus routes around Cape Town. The MyCiTi system does not yet serve Pinelands, but Brian pointed out that bus stop signs indicate that the service is coming this way in the not-too-distant future.

Coastal Exploration and Train Journey

On Tuesday, which turned out to be the hottest day of our sojourn (bar yesterday, when residents were advised to stay indoors), we went out to Muizenberg. Starting from Sunrise Beach, we walked all the way down to Muizenberg Beach. After a meal, we continued past Rhodes Cottage Museum to St James.

Just seeing the traffic on the main road was dispiriting enough to rule out hailing a cab back home. The ticket office was closed as the train arrived. Without any clear knowledge of the network, we boarded a clean, though busy, train all the way to Observatory, as it was the only place we recognised on that route to Cape Town.

We kept track of our journey using Google Maps as the train indicators were not working. Nineteen stops it was, and it would have cost us ZAR 12. Unfortunately, there was no one to either check tickets with or purchase them from, so it became a free ride. [ZAR - South African Rand ($1 = ZAR 16.59) (£1 = ZAR 22.20)]

As we alighted at Observatory, I saw the penalty notice: ZAR 40 for not having a valid ticket. We had a good excuse. The St James ticket office was open longer hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but on other weekdays, it closed at 13:30. We boarded that train at 17:28.

Final Thoughts on Public Transport

Getting on both the bus and the train has been something we have considered during our previous stays, but reviews of the services suggest dangerous and safety concerns for non-residents.

In our experience, it was safe, comfortable, and affordable: something worth trying where the service exists, especially during the day. At night-time, though, I would have my misgivings.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Trains, bloodstains, and brains

A deathly train smash

You are always trying to figure out what persuades people to bring it all to an end. Our sorrowfully sympathetic inclination is then put upon by the public stage they have adopted to bring the screaming crescendo of existence to the deafening silence of an ignominious end on a busy intercity railway line.

You do wonder if this was deliberate, a murder perhaps, or an accident. Only some days before, the transport police published a YouTube video of a near miss at a railway crossing.

A pedestrian in a pique of nonsensical urgency had clambered over the lowered barrier gate, ignoring the flashing lights or the siren to cross and be on their way. Just as a speeding train missed sending him splattering into oblivion.

Easy living interrupted

Over an hour's wait of being detained on our train at Milton Keynes Central railway station, we were told that the remains and quite likely in many places had been removed and we might soon be proceeding to London having enjoyed the train company's generosity of a free bottle of still water.

You cannot be left in any doubt, that the incident of a human being impeding a fast-moving train is almost always irrecoverable. The definiteness of being a goner is as sure as the going is quite gone that we can agree the person is totally gone.

In the aftermath of it

We may never know the name of this victim of seemingly untenable circumstances that defy understanding. That we are caught in this temporary delay for the eternal departure of another should neither be seen as selfish nor selfless, for but the grace of God go we.

There may be regrets as there might be mourning. The emergency services attending another gruesome sight that might haunt or leave them inured, after witnessing similar tragic endings and cleanups.

As we pray for the repose of the soul of the too swiftly despatched, may journey mercies attend us to our destinations.

Life can be a fleeting thing, O that we may have the joy of living to be thankful regardless of what experiences we have had. I arrived safely over 2 hours behind schedule, I am grateful for life, security, safety, and hope.

The utter misery of UK train travel

Choo-choo to all places

I used to consider train travel great fun, the pleasure of watching the English countryside from Brighton to Manchester over a 6-hour journey, even Manchester to Edinburgh, London to Glasgow, or Manchester to Torquay gave you a view of this amazing land. Yet, there are even more spectacular views by train on the British Isles.

In July 1999, I embarked on a train journey named the Imperial Tour from London Liverpool Street to Budapest and back. I was to complete the journey in 2 months stopping over wherever I wanted for as long as I needed to, it was first class for £483 and I plied my route through Amsterdam, Hannover, Berlin, Dresden, Bratislava, Prague to Budapest, my return leg through Vienna, Salzburg, Zurich, Basel, Brussels, and London. I would say, the Bratislava – Budapest leg and the Vienna – Zurich leg gave me the most spectacular views.

Ten years later at Easter, I was meeting up with my best friend in Geneva and I took the train from Amsterdam, the view from the window through places that you would neither see from the air nor from the road just gives you a different appreciation of the beauty, the culture, the nature, and the architecture of different places. That I vicariously watch train journey programmes to far-flung places is one of fascination and curiosity.

A travesty and atrocity

Yet, train travel in the UK has been anything but pleasurable, if the service is not sclerotic and substandard, it is the exorbitant cost of travel that puts you totally off, except that there are no good alternatives. Living in Manchester, for years, I enjoyed the Virgin Trains West Coast Main Line franchise, it was generally affordable, and the service was dependable, they ran the service from 1997 to December 2019.

Now that the franchise has fallen into the hands of Avanti West Coast, it has been misery piled on misery, what was once affordable is now outrageously expensive that you’ll guffaw at some eye-watering prices to travel on trains gilded with incompetence and lethargy. If you forked out over £300 for a Manchester – London Euston train journey and I never paid that much for a peak time return journey with Virgin Trains in first-class, beware because the train manager can unilaterally declassify the train and you are a mug even if you can claim compensation.

No words can describe

On my return from London on Sunday, it was prescient to consider an earlier journey back, though, on arrival at London Euston, I should have been presented with a timetable of trains departing every 20 minutes, but there wasn’t one for an hour and the one after it was already cancelled.

I boarded the train and took one of the Premium Economy seats, thinking I would be charged the extortionate £25 upgrade, but something said, the train would probably be a coal wagon, heaped high and trundled up the train line at speeds that would make walking seem a sprint.

Well, I was right, apparently the two scheduled trains before the one I boarded and the one after it was cancelled leaving the train carrying potentially all the passengers for 4 trains going a route that took 3h41 as opposed to the typical route we enjoyed with Virgin Trains that lasted just 2h10. Everyone having paid handsomely for this travesty of impunity, for this is not the first time that Avanti West Coast has merged trains.

It gets worse

All the aisles had standing passengers that the train manager had to implore some to get off and wait for another train that no one could with any certainty say would run. I endured, with my mask on to the end, only to find passengers in Manchester rushing to get on, why? A train had been cancelled and this was running late.

How Avanti West Coast got this franchise, I cannot tell, but the experience has been anything but pleasant or remotely good, it has been so deplorable that the only salvation would be to return to horse-drawn carriages. At least you can feed the horse carrots and hear it neigh all the way. They say it would be over 2026 come then, or come Lord Jesus.

Training for London

Holly was a doggie

Boarding the train, the train manager announced with an all too familiar accent, quite probably Nigerian, especially with the way he said shop, with a b sound at the end. Meanwhile, I feared we would have to endure the frequent coughing of the man sat almost opposite me, especially in these pandemic times when everyone appears to have dispensed with their face masks.

Thankfully, he alighted at Stoke on Trent, just around the time he was becoming a nuisance, as not only had he forgotten a rather essential facemask, but he should also have brought his headphones too. My reserved seat was occupied when I made it on the carriage, I gestured to the lady as I looked for a place to put my luggage, little did I know that she was occupying two seats because of her dog.

The dog, and I know nothing about dogs was Pomsky, a crossbreed between a Pomeranian and a Siberian Husky, quite presentably nice looking and friendly, her name was Holly, and I am pleased she did not see me as prickly as ivy.

A rather senior moment

On arriving at London Euston Station, I did some shopping and made to check for the address of the hotel where I was staying. My shock at the realisation that I had been caught by the February-March paradox of non-leap-years, as my booking glared at me with the notice, ‘In 28 days’. I had booked for March and what to do?

I could not beat myself up in the things I had allowed apart from having booked a deal I could not cancel, I simply logged on my app ignoring the predictive screen that appears to present the next rather than the current month, in the assumption you do not make urgent bookings and scanned through the list of outrageously expensive to generally affordable deals to book another stay, for the two nights I was in London.

Holly is my host

The black cab driver was unusually helpful and consequently engaging, he came round to help me with my luggage, and we talked at length about how London had changed from about 30 years ago. Quite good banter it was places that had changed hands or been lost to history or his brushes with the challenges to his Knowledge of London, it is amazing how the obscure can be revealing.

On getting to my apartment hotel, the ladies at the reception were helpful and friendly, and at this hotel, they are known as hosts, I had even had my accommodations upgraded, what do I know? She helped me to the lift and gave me the room card, her name, Holly. Fancy that!

Bet Lehem in Tuican hom

From the ancient to the authentic

I was in Tuican hom in modern-day Twickenham, the place between two rivers, the Thames and the Crane, or so it was written of a place first recorded in 704 AD and that was a long time ago, just as I was with a friend I had known from way back when my innocence was losing its virtue.

From the many things we did and the memories we shared and then brunch at an authentic Italian restaurant, for many of the patrons, Italian did speak, we made for the station of carriages drawn not by horses and my last bit of hand tissues was left in the hands of a man who by trying to avoid the crowds, slipped and fell into the road, drawing blood from his nose bridge. We worried, but he was fine.

Loafing towards a seat

Passing through the ticket gates and down to the platform where my electric-powered carriage was to arrive in just under 10 minutes, I could almost gambol towards a vacant seat, but there was none as strewn across three seats were what I thought were bags of shopping, but the lady on seeing me made to remove the bags for me to take a seat.

Strangely, the bags were full of loaves of bread, different kinds and shapes, but before I landed a quip to feed my curiosity, she said she had all this bread leftover from tending a Celtic Bakers store at the Twickenham Farmers' Market, all variants of sourdough bread that she could not throw away and she offered us some, for free.

Breaking the bread of blessing

For a moment, we were in a moment of spiritual transfiguration to Bet Leḥem (“House of Bread”) in Hebrew, or Bethlehem as we now know it, the lady a priest with knowledge, wisdom, and revelation of breads like a sommelier, showing us the scriptures of bread afresh and winning us over to a new experience of bread so different and unique.

Even I was caught in the spirit of bread so divine, I was given a loaf and offered more, but there may be others just in need of this sustenance. Another party, a lady too got involved in the conversation between the three of us, she also took a loaf before she asked about a Jewish sweet loaf, and there was one on offer, too big for one to take and so we broke the bread and shared the blessing of life.

Her carriage arrived to take her swiftly off to Windsor where she might even find herself the welcome audience in the court of Elizabeth II, before our own carriage arrived, wherein I bid the priestess farewell not to be taken to taken to my Waterloo, but to emerge at the pleasure gardens of vokzal (Russian) or Vauxhall railway station, today. [BBC: Waterloo and Vauxhall]

We shared bread and broke bread.

Essential Snobbery 101: A class of crass

Class is a state of mind

“You have no respect for 1^st Class, that’s why you have your feet on the seats.” That was the part of the conversation that began a bit earlier when 6 or 7 girls took up seats in the carriage, completely unaware of other occupants.

The train conductor then asked if they had 1^st Class tickets, which they didn’t and as he tried to move them on, they remonstrated that they did not know they were in first-class seats, which was a blatant lie because when they got on the train, that was the first conversation between them before they decided to stay rather than find other seats matching their tickets.

Class treats you as you are

One of the girls made an unnecessarily rude comment, to which the train conductor retorted that she should get her eyes tested. Then came a torrent of abuse and invective along with the comment that he, the conductor, was not respectful of customers and that if he was unhappy with his job, he should resign. All for asking them to move to the seats for which they had tickets.

The train conductor could have asked them to get off the train or called the British Transport Police on them for their abuse, but he let them move to the next carriage. Unfortunately, that was not the end of the matter, for when he did go through the train checking tickets, the truculent and unruly girls continued their atrocious behaviour, which he ignored.

They all got off at the next station, and rather than walk away, they came up the platform to swear at and make rude gestures at the train conductor. I felt quite sorry for him, yet it was all in a day’s work.

Class is being attentive

If you do not want to be talked down to by officials, read the signs, and when you are unsure, ask questions. Behave yourself so that you do not attract sanction or opprobrium, and do not take the patience or docility of staff for stupidity; they have rights and powers that can frustrate your about-to-become-inconsequential existence.

I could only wonder what the girls were doing at home at that time of day. They probably had no homes they belonged to with any structure, discipline, or social comportment, and that is why they were flipping out even though they were totally in the wrong and could not accept they were wrong or being told that they were. If I view the future through my observation of those girls, I would have been filled with trepidation; there must be better ahead than that.

Lids on leads to Leeds

Training the eye and more

From 10 floors up, I watch the platforms of the main train station, 6 of the platforms are visible from my vantage point of observation, the ones not obscured by the canopy roofs. The local, regional and intercity trains ferrying people to and from all cardinal points and in-between, far and near.

Arriva Trains Northern, TransPennine Express, Cross Country, and LNER Azuma trains, roll in and out of the station gathering or losing speed as they come or go. Their differing lengths like worms or snakes are streamlined as if they could go at double their maximum speed, but compared to European trains, we might complete a sprint in the time they have done a marathon and collected their medals. As for cost, we live in rip-off Britain. Cargo trains rarely stop, slithering through at a pace you might outrun before you have no more energy to keep up.

We move, we disapprove

I could say, Leeds leads to anywhere your heart desires, to coasts and cities, to work or to your, for a holiday if you have chosen Monday to start it or just for a day out if you have that pleasure. The people wait watching the clock and the indicators against the expected times of arrival and departure, some standing still others in a form of loitering to prevent the semblance of interminable time.

They disembark and embark, if I opened my window, I might hear the public address Tannoy announcing destinations or arrivals to certain platforms or platform changes along with the inane general information on safety and security ending with the almost inspired; “See it, Say it, Sorted.”

Some apparatchik might have considered themselves worthy of a Pulitzer Prize for coining that phrase, it might have come up in committee, but you can say, one is quite unimpressed. Yet, that message has stuck not out of interest, but of utter irritation at pablum.

It has got my goat

Obviously, if I or anyone else saw something amiss or wrong, we will report it, do we really need to be told like people lacking in insight or initiative. Rather just give us information of who to call to report to, than padding out the message with a surfeit of patronising speech. We would all have a tendency to switch off from the lack of originality and repetition of silly and unhelpful messages.

Whatever focus group that was tried on must have been overly excited to be asked that their objectivity and focus was subsumed.

Leeds arrivals and departures at 15:10 (Click to enlarge.)

Unlocking the rails of travel

Travel in this day

The weekend past presented the first time I had travelled out of Manchester by train since December 2019, considering a friend had once said the places I visited the most in Manchester were the train station and the airport. I was always on my way out, though the year of lockdowns meant one was forced to explore and discover Manchester itself.

We donned our masks, socially distanced and we boarded the train and took up our outrageously priced reserved seats. The announcement throughout the journey to London suggested we were going to arrive late because of a fault on the line. We did arrive over an hour later and that meant we were entitled to a full refund for that leg of the journey.

In the look of things

Though as I have said before when I pay for a service, I would rather have the service than be compensated for the loss of it. The advent of Great British Railways in the grandiloquence of its name which is redolent of the symbolism that the government attaches itself to without effectiveness would leave much to be desired. We might even get it interesting if Michael Portillo who hosts an eponymous programme on the BBC was asked to head the new company.

The hotel I last visited sometime in 2018 had a welcoming concierge and reception, my room had been upgraded ere my arrival. The view from the 9^th floor was a spectacle of the ancient and the modern of the means of transportation with the River Thames to my right and the railway tracks to the left, whilst across me were luxurious apartments probably bought with foreign money that has upended the London property market.

The River Thames to the right.

The railway lines to the left.

To Leicester we went

My plan to meet friends and the first opportunity to hug someone was as therapeutic as it was rewarding. Out to Leicester on Saturday morning, we found that the Fortnum & Mason café at St. Pancras International Station was not open even though I had called their customer services line to determine if it was. A family bereavement meant we could not meet with who we were expected to see in Leicester.

In trying to occupy ourselves, we made for the Leicester Richard III Visitor Centre which was closed that we were left with visiting the Leicester Cathedral which had a Gaia exhibition on that we were supposed to have registered and paid for, but the ushers made allowances for us to contemplate in a chapel before we looked around the exhibition and the cathedral and returned to the station for our journey back to London.

On returning to London, we shopped for teas at Fortnum & Mason before I walked back to my hotel on the Albert Embankment, probably in the wrong shoes and it took the best part of 2 hours.

Lest we forget

For Sunday, I had planned to meet my best friend of 37 years. We met up at Vauxhall station and walked up the Albert Embankment and just before the National Festival Hall, it began to rain. The wall of the St. Thomas’ Hospital facing the River Thames was a poignant memorial for the COVID-19 victims, red hearts painted for as far as the eye could see with names and inscriptions. This is what we must never forget.

The National COVID Memorial Wall

The National COVID Memorial Wall

The National COVID Memorial Wall

We took a cab to Vapiano on the Bankside had a meal before walking up the promenade from Tate Modern to pick up my luggage from my hotel and then began my journey back home which was not as peaceful as it could be as a lady literally spent the whole time on the phone. I got home just before 11:00 PM and that was the weekend done. Another friend had visited my apartment and cleaned it up in my absence, gladness and bliss. Life is good.  

My Great British Railway Nightmare

Training my waking

On Friday morning, I got up to the sound of the alarm clock on my mobile phone, I had a train to catch as I had done thrice already this weekend. It was 5:00 AM.

I love trains, and whilst train travel can be both expensive and uncomfortable compared to similar train services on the western part of mainland Europe, there is still a fascination with journeys through the English countryside.

Vicariously, I have journeyed with Michael Portillo who as presenter of the BBC’s Great British Railway Journeys using Bradshaw's Guide, has given us a sense of the beauty, colour and history of Victorian United Kingdom, but there is a world of difference between leisurely travel at a time of your choosing and that which you are compelled to do as a commuter to work.

Where is my coach?

From Tuesday, I found myself making a daily journey from Liverpool Street Station to Norwich, a course of travel I grew accustomed to in the 1990s when I died in Ipswich for 2 years. I cannot after 20 years say I lived in Ipswich, it is such a strange place with even stranger people, but I digress.

Then, the railway franchise was run by an ancestor party of Greater Anglia Railways and they still do today. I booked advanced tickets for all my journeys meaning I had seat reservations whilst limited to boarding specific trains.

On my way out on Tuesday, with my ticket in hand, I sought the coach I had booked a seat on in vain. It transpired that the train had been shortened because the coach had developed a technical fault, so I was advised and consequently helped to an unreserved seat. Electric sockets to charge mobile phones or power laptops and tablets, even free wireless internet connectivity in all classes of travel if it works. How civilisation has conquered rail travel.

Where is the crew?

My return journey from Norwich was without event, I got back extremely exhausted. Before the sun rose, I was out again for my second day at work. My train scheduled for 6:25 AM appeared on the noticeboard for a departure from Platform 9 and I made my way to board the train.

Halfway along the platform, an illuminated sign for the platform indicated the train had been cancelled. Between leaving the main concourse and walking 200 yards down the platform they realised they did not have enough crew for a train journey of 110 minutes just 10 minutes before departure. Go figure!

Twenty years on Greater Anglia Railways was the lesser at impressing me with their service just as they failed to way back then. We boarded the next scheduled train that arrived in Norwich 20 minutes behind schedule with an excuse I cannot be bothered to remember. On my return, I boarded a later train and thankfully the train conductor did not notice my error, else I would have incurred a penalty fare, I not realising I had booked an earlier scheduled train.

When would we get home?

My travel on Thursday was without event with trains running on time, I would not term expected service praiseworthy but by the foregoing experience, it was noteworthy. Now, Friday, I left for work at 5:35 AM and I am still nowhere near home at 11:51 PM. We arrived 2 minutes ahead of schedule with the conductor announcing that unique achievement.

I boarded the 18:30 from Norwich and between Stowmarket and Ipswich the train ground to a halt, then the conductor announced on the Tannoy that there was a fire on the railway and that no trains could traverse either way. Another 15 minutes later we were told the train would only stop in Ipswich and then travel nonstop to Liverpool Street Station. Fat chance.

After another indeterminate time of silence, we learnt the fire brigade had discovered gas canisters at the site of the fire, it could well be that we had just, fortunately, avoided being victims of a terrorist attack. We live in precarious times.

The train eventually returned to Norwich where we plotted a different course back to London with a change of trains at Cambridge. I left home yesterday and I am yet to get back home. In 4 days of travel between London and Norwich, it has been a Great British Railway Nightmare that should never continue like this into next week. Just imagine. I rang the bell at just past 1:00 AM.

The case of the abusive co-passenger

A short and eventful journey

On the 18^th of December, last year, I was returning from a vanity trip to Paris to keep up my loyalty status with KLM/AirFrance. On arrival at Manchester Airport, I boarded the train for a 17-minute journey to Manchester Piccadilly Station. It was more eventful than I expected.

The coach I boarded was closest to the top of the platform and as the train was about to leave, it meant people were rushing onto the train through our coach. I could not put my bags away as other passengers were trying to get by. It meant, I had to lean over my seat, opposite me across the aisle, another passenger was leaning over his seat for the same reason.

It took a while for everyone to get through, but they all eventually did. It was at that point that my co-passenger on the other side accosted me and literally shouted in my face asking whether I would allow him to put his bags away. I ignored him because there was no reason to shout at me, but he continued being an irritant.

The abuse was a torrent

Then I answered him back, “If you want to address me, you do not shout at me.” He repeated what I said to ridicule me and then as he sat down he launched into a tirade of abuse. None of which I answered to until he got to say, “This is England,” and something along the lines that I needed to return to where I came from.

To which I responded, “I am English too.” Then another passenger adjured him to stop all that racist nonsense. Without pausing, he laid into the other passenger with torrents of unspeakable abuse. Meanwhile, someone else on the train had called the police and informed them of the ensuing altercation.

The train conductor came through, checked our tickets and then called me aside to ask about the fracas and whether I wanted to involve the police. The episode did not affect me that much, but I thought the man should not get away with such unwarranted and abusive behaviour, I acquiesced to having the police involved in the matter.

The goodly police acted well

When we arrived at Manchester Piccadilly Station, the police boarded the train, they invited me to state my case and got the offending passenger off the train, he was both shocked and surprised as they handcuffed him and took him away. I was taken to the police station where I was made comfortable, served tea and invited to give a statement.

Other passengers as we disembarked offered their names and addresses as witnesses to the episode, I felt buoyed by the support of all the other people who felt scandalised by the event. Going through the formalities, I was asked if I needed victim support, therapy and all sorts of help. I did not feel a victim even if I was shaken by the encounter and soon I was on my way home.

Charged and convicted

The man was kept in custody for the night and consequently charged with the offence of 'Racially / religiously aggravated harassment/alarm / distress by words/writing'. Apparently, as the case was being prepared, he committed another similar offence having not learnt the error of his ways.

The British Transport Police kept me informed of the developments through a liaison office, I was even invited to give a witness impact statement which I declined. Over months, a date was set for a court appeared and adjourned twice until it was completely resolved at the end of August.

The man pleaded guilty to the charges and he was fined £600 plus £100 legal costs, a chance encounter of unnecessarily boorish behaviour that he probably had gotten away with many times before had caught up with him and I am glad that I decided to allow the police to intervene, not so much for my sake, but to hopefully teach the man a lesson, that abusing strangers on a train may come with grave consequences and you never know which of those strangers could cause you avoidable grief.

That, I believe is the end of the matter, I will call the Witness & Case Officer later in the week to thank her for her help and support.

Dreamscape: To Japan on a bicycle

Seeing my guests off

We had a wonderful evening together, friends and strangers about to be friends, and then it was time to go home. They had come a long way and we set off to the station.

There were two bicycles, that is what they apparently rode on to visit as we made for the station. It was late, we had to be quick. On getting to the station, I was in charge of one of the bicycles and we had difficulty going through the gates or finding the right platform.

In the process, we lost sight of each other and I was left with one of the strangers, in the confusion, as we ran up and down the escalators, one of us walked the way down an escalator as it was rolling up, I could not do that with a bicycle. We finally found our platform, two trains leaving at the same time, for Japan.

A toilet wonder to behold

I got on the train and found a seat as the stranger did beside me, only to be disturbed by a hawker who through the whole journey was selling snake-oil remedies using the context of Japanese fables of old, nothing that I heard was worth parting with my hard-earned cash for.

Meanwhile, the technology on the train could not be ignored, I could push a button, very much like the stopping bell of a bus, to initiate a bowel evacuation by wireless means, fascinating it was, that no one could tell who was filling the toilet with waste, it could really have been anyone else.

Time and station stops late into the night, we got to last stop and alighted. Then it seemed our none of our other company made any of the trains, they were stuck somewhere incomprehensible as we spoke on the phone.

A cab to nowhere sensible

I thought I could ride the bicycle back home when I realised I had left it on the train, the train that already left the station taking the staff with it. The other trains were pulling out that I just could not summon the courage to tell my friend that I had lost her bicycle.

The matter of getting home from Japan became a pressing issue, I had to get a taxi, the first shop had unhelpful people who pretended to offered a service of indifference and mockery, they did not care. When I found the cab office, the faces all looked familiar but I was not sure, the drivers unperturbed in every state of lackadaisical abandon until the controller was pointed out to me.

He asked where I was going, my home was a place I had not been in 27 years, the cost I could not meet because I did not have enough money and as I was thinking of booking a hotel room for the night, I did not have to do any of that, I was saved the ordeal.

REM - Rapid Eye Madness

For between Edinburgh where I am, the London Underground where we boarded trains for Japan, probably a suburb called Japan-town very much like Chinatown, a cab office that seemed to have Nigerian drivers to wanting a ride to Isolo in Lagos, Nigeria, I was caught in the landscape of vivid dreams, where distances are shortened and problems can be quite insurmountable.

I had jolted out of my sleep as the background activity coming from my computer playing Channel 4 on BBC was broadcasting the Japan season ended. Phew!

Dreamscape: The dream-wake

Winnie!

In what looked like a generation ago, we had a dog, a bitch, a canine with an aggressive feline temperament, she was big and fierce, masterly in territorial presence, a terror to the unwary.

She came to us a matriarch from family friends who had moved into town but without the space in which to keep her.

We had an expansive compound, high walls and sturdy gates, we accepted her into the household with rules that indicated an apparent lack of discipline from her former home. She came with an appellation, the name Winnie.

The taming of Winnie

I became the ringmaster to inculcate the better habit of dog friendliness in here because she had become a demigod to serve with trembling and never to be approached when eating. An infringement of that unwritten rule risked giving a digit or a limb to Winnie for her dessert. That was unacceptable behaviour in our household.

At one time, she nicked the head of the household’s finger as he tried to remove a fish bone from her food bowl, that called for an intervention and it was immediate.

Soon, she delivered a litter of puppies, but Winnie had no maternal instinct, we could not help the distressed puppies and within a week the whole litter of five died.

However, as a guard dog, she was menacing, even if when I took her for a walk, the looks from some of the neighbourhood signified a meal. As she protected us, we had to protect her, she was a well-loved family pet.

The mystification of Winnie

It transpired that one Saturday morning as we all were having a lie-in, I was in REM sleep, the subject of my dreams was telling off workers across the road from us where a building was being constructed for disturbing our peace. Our compound had the building materials and each time they needed stuff, they would knock on the gates for us to not only let them in but out of fear of Winnie, they would not access the compound until one of us had Winnie on a leash.

Into my dreamy existence came the rattling of the gate with a bit of hollering to have Winnie curtailed. My aunt, woken from slumber at the same time got up just as I did, she was going to give the workers a stern talking to, but since I was already on the roll from within my dreamscape, I asked her to let me deal with the situation.

If my words did not strike terror in the workers, they were left in no doubt that any other slight disturbance from them again would have them fed to my dog. They were warned once and it never happened again.

The dream-wake

This kind of arousal from dreaminess into wakefulness with a continuation of the same theme of the dream is what I have called a ‘dream-wake’. I had one such dream-wake today when having had a night of insomnia, it was well into the morning before I got some much-needed sleep.

In my dream, I had rushed to the train station to catch a train with just a few minutes to spare. There was a queue of undecided customers in front of me buying tickets and asking questions as I fidgeted about getting a ticket and making it to the right platform. When I was finally attended to, the train was pulling into the station and I had to go up a footbridge to board the train, I never really go on the train because I was suddenly aroused and awake.

In my wakefulness, I looked at my watch and almost panicked; my train was in 25 minutes and I have not even packed my bag, in fact, there were so many things to do. Empty the washing machine, take out the rubbish, turn off the water mains, lighten my baggage because I was having a short week away and I could not afford to forget some essentials for my journey. Luckily, I had picked up my tickets from Friday night, so I only had to make it to the station, some 5 minutes away and get my stuff to the right platform.

Phew! I made it

There was no time to waste, I unloaded the washing machine, jettisoned one suit, packed my bag, forgetting to take out the rubbish or turn off the tap, I was out of the house with just 13 minutes to spare. Panting like I had just done a marathon unprepared, I got to the station, with all the heft I had, carried my baggage up the stairs rather than wait to use the lifts at the far end of the platform and only had to wait 2 minutes for the train.

Thankfully, I could choose one of two stations to board the train and the easier one did not require a labyrinthic journey to the platform. I had to board that train to make a connecting train just under an hour away. My ticket had restrictions that meant I had to be on the particularly booked trains or I risked a full fare penalty.

I made both trains, but the dream-wake experience must have been the subconscious saving me the accident of misfortune at great cost. Whilst I do not seek meanings to my sometimes vivid dreams, I do not ignore the simple lessons, insights, warnings or triggers the dreams offer in terms of preservation, information and caution. Without my dream-wake, I would have been left in dire straits.

Thought Picnic: Seated by duress

Occupation

A deliberation of space where the use of a fare becomes the exertion of latitude beyond entitlement meets the encroachment on the need of others.

When demand is made of access, a grudging and reluctant relinquishment of territory ensues. Within that might sit a resentment to the challenge to their expanse as an infringement on their privilege. For some, this is a sign of disrespect.

Consternation

There might be consequences, or is paranoia getting the better of one? However, it does not help that on the day one decides to visit a memorial and monument to man’s inhumanity to man; a concentration camp, someone walks by and hollers, Sieg Heil! The victory of angst over faith?

Yes, we heard him right and this was Berlin in 2016, the hour not even at the tenth. We live in times of turmoil, invisible but present, palpable and serious too.

My food haunts in Berlin and Paris

My habitude

The creature of habit that I am means I have a tendency to do visit the same places, watch the same series or similar genre, eat the same cuisine and repeat some things without tiring of the experience.

It is like I am comfortable, fulfilled and happy when I find something I like and cannot be persuaded to consider something else.

On my recent visit to Berlin, having stayed in hotels all around the city, I have more recently gravitated to staying right in the centre, Schöneberg, in fact, it would most likely be bordered by the Wittenbergplatz and Kurfürstenstraße metro stations.

Apart from the ease of getting around Berlin from this central location, most of the places I will frequent will normally be within walking distance.

Ebe Ano, again and again

On such place I cannot miss when in Berlin is Ebe Ano at Pohlstraße 52, a Nigerian soul food restaurant that I must say is second to none in all the Nigerian cuisine outfits I have visited in Western Europe.

What it does not have in variety is full catered for in service and passion with what is on offer. The proprietors are a multi-racial couple, the man being the chef majoring in the exquisite stews from the eastern part of Nigeria.

I do the deep dive with a starter of pepper soup or suya and follow that with one of the many vegetable stews that includes any of Bitterleaf, Oha, Ukazi, Utazi, Egusi, Ogbono, Ugba, Okro vegetables with pounded yam, semolina, garri, amala, ground rice or wheat puddings.

Hands and more

The stews are not heavily spiced or too hot for the Western palate, though you are provided a side ramekin of red hot chilli paste, if you want to up the ante.

We go the traditional way and eat with our fingers rather than with cumbersome cutlery, and you will probably see many non-Africans digging in with just as much pleasure beyond the unadventurous rice or jollof rice with plantains and moin-moin into the amazingly exotic.

My understanding is that they have a growing non-African patronage and it is always a pleasure to meet up with friends there. For the taste of something original, different, exquisite, ethnic, inexpensive and delicious, you cannot afford to walk past Ebe Ano without looking in and having a go. I always do.

CDG is an impossible airport

Then, if I do stopover in Paris and have time on my hands, navigating Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) is hellish at the best of times and whoever designed that airport should get invited for tea with Madame Guillotine at the Bastille.

The staff at CDG are well aware of the absolute inscrutability of this airport, my only advice to anyone transiting through CDG is to never be pressed for time navigating this place or you’ll miss your flight. Let me introduce the EasyCDG website which is not affiliated to CDG but is the labour of love of some who knows the CDG is anything but easy.

Getting into Paris

I finally found my way to the RER B trains to Paris with a long wait at the counter-intuitively impossible self-service ticket dispensing machines that up to 70% of the users operated with great difficulty before I boarded the 45-minute train journey to Châtelet – Les Halles in the very heart of Paris.

The station sits beneath a sprawling shopping centre that is being reconstructed, it does have the feel of a construction site with directions a bit messed up apart from the fact that escalators and lifts could be out of order.

Generally, I want to make it out of the Rambuteau exit towards the Georges Pompidou Centre that I have viewed for as long as I have visited Paris but never entered.

Just Café Beaubourg

My rendezvous is the Café Beaubourg [Not a flattering review, but hey!] which is to the left of the centre if you are stood with your back to the centre. This is where I meet with friends in Paris and where I take anyone I meet in Paris for brunch.

The brunch does not come cheap, but the view from a first floor window towards the centre and the square in front of it is one where you can watch the world go by without being disturbed by the charade outside.

It is also a place to reminisce for there I have been with friends some gone away and some long gone leaving me with just the memories and the realisation of how the passage of time brings people through your life like a river flows under a bridge. Sometimes an eddy is created that lasts long enough for one to behold with wonder leaving more than an impression.

Blog - Thought Picnic: A Brunch of Long Memories

These are things creatures of habit are born to suffer, the living and the memory and then a smile and a tear. The moment is replayed in the mind like a film and then we move on from that encounter with the past to be tried again at another opportune time.

South Africa: Johannesburg and the exclusive Gautrain society

Getting out

Until Friday, I got around Johannesburg courtesy of people attached to their cars and using taxis ordered by the hotel which had drivers I could not have suggested were scrupulous.

On Friday, we met at my hotel, had breakfast and then drove out to Sandton Gautrain Station, now, I thought the station was near the hotel, like round the corner, I was not close. First, I discovered an error on their website that showed the station was 100km away, the reality was 2.4km.

The Gautrain society

The Gautrain with the controversy that surrounds the investment that went into this project is one of those beacons of the great divisions that still define this society 21 years after the end of Apartheid rule. I am just an observer.

The trains are somewhat unaffordable for anyone below the middle-classes, the stations apart from the airport are in the most preferred real estate and affluent areas of the Gauteng region. The car parks have guards ready to challenge and harass. The comfortable are never discomfited by the uncomfortable.

The shuttles are like cages from the wild life of a deprived majority that people can so easily pass through corridors of chaos in the calm of cars, coaches and carriages so willingly oblivious of the squalor and deprivation that sometimes jump out like a jack box into our pathways.

A sore underbelly

To say the people of South Africa have been failed by the system and leaders who have blatantly and sometimes corruptly enriched themselves without consequence or sanction would be to subscribe to the criminality of a gross understatement. The burdens are heavy on the rich and the poor.

As a tourist, I am also schooled into the fear that sometimes grips the privileged as they attempt to be distant from the seriously and visibly underprivileged. This society is sick in its heart and the yawning chasm between the haves and the have-nots widens to immeasurable interstellar voids over which no man can traverse without coming to great harm.

Yet, it does not just affect the blacks, even the whites who tend to earn more from the entrenched history of entitlement and privilege have some of their own in poverty and penury – it is evident that the system is not working and hence the different levels of unrest from industrial to civil that makes the news quite regularly.

There is still a state of being apart socially, economically, mentally and much else in this Rainbow nation in everything but that dreaded word.

Yet, again

I travelled comfortably on the Gautrain all the way to Pretoria and returned from the Hatfield terminus, I could not help but notice the very stylish benches on the train platforms that were literally impractical to sit on, I saw more people sit on the floor than on those caricatures of design malfunction.

From the station, I conveniently used the UberBlack the luxury Uber taxi service which appears to be cheaper than the shuttle service provided by my hotel. By far, besides the fact that the hotel drivers never seem to have change that you end up parting with a lot more than if you paid and offered a tip – it is both underhand and deliberately dishonest.

Johannesburg however, is a big place, the Johannesburg Red City Tour bus was an open top bus that went around some historic sites, strangely, they do not venture open-top buses into Soweto, you are comfortably ensconced in a hermetically seal van, presumably for your safety.

Thought Picnic: Of feet on seats, a challenge to my objectivity

An annoyance

The bugbear of feet on seats, today had me questioning my impartiality and objectivity as the man sat opposite me chose to put his feet on the seat next to mine.

I have in times past asked people to put their feet down because I consider it rude and disrespectful to have your feet on public transport seats next to another passenger.

This is beside the fact that it is against the rules and just bad manners. I have before today tolerated this particular passenger's bad habit knowing he will have to make way for other passengers at the next station.

Prompted to act

However, today, I was presented with an opportunity I did well not to miss. When he saw the ticket conductor walking down the aisle to check our tickets, he took his feet off the seat, signifying he knew it was wrong to soil the seats with footwear and also preventing the situation of being told off by an authority figure.

The moment the conductor left us, his feet were back on the seat. At which point, I motioned to him and asked why he took his feet off the seat when the conductor came by and then put them back on as the conductor left us.

Not too shocked

Then I upbraided him for behaving badly before I returned to reading my newspaper, not too pleased with myself for waiting to act with civic responsibility.

We then got off at the same station and then I realised we worked at the same place. I was appalled, but not surprised. Alas! Gentlemanliness and the test of such a virtue is not a prerequisite for working at a bank.

Essential Snobbery 101: Anticipated Consideration

A window on our world

This morning, as I got on the train to work, I was offered a view on society that had brought expectations and personality into focus.

Expectations of others and the personality of people, both of myself and the other person involved in the incident. It got me thinking about how things are changing and why some things have come to stay.

Feet off

The schoolboy who could be no more than 12 years old was sitting on a 3-seater, his bag and classical musical instrument case occupying the whole space, and then he had his shod feet on the seat in front of him.

Nothing particularly annoys me as much as people who put their feet on seats, especially where there are clear signs that feet should not be put on seats. Besides, even if they do take their feet off the seats, it is not like they make an effort to clean off the dirt they might have put on those seats.

So, I motioned with my cane and intensified that with a scowl for him to take his feet off the seat. I brushed it off and took my seat. Hardly a minute after that, he decided it was too much for him, so he moved to another seat in the train carriage.

As he settled in that seat, I said to him, putting his feet on the seat was anti-social behaviour, and it was important that he knew that, even if he did not like the fact that it was being pointed out to him.

Anticipated consideration

Yet, in that little encounter was a whole set of narratives. A public school-educated boy who had exercised a sense of entitlement in a public space without what I might call ‘anticipated consideration’ and, when challenged, expressed rebellious dissent by moving away.

Anticipated consideration is when, as in this case, you know that you do not put your feet on seats others might want to use, and you do not occupy more seats than you have paid to occupy, especially when the train or vehicle is still at a major boarding port, like a terminal train station. It is having consideration for others long before it is demanded of you to consider and adjust.

Rebellious dissent, however, is the case where, rather than acknowledge that you are wrong with contriteness and apology, you take evasive action to avoid proximity with the challenger of your behaviour.

The fear of challenge

I dare say, we now live in a society where, sadly, many young people will not brook any scolding or correction, and those who dare challenge bad behaviour run the risk of coming to harm by such people lashing out in aggravated resentment. We have a delicate balance to manage between wanting right and yet being fearful of demanding things be done right.

The question is, if as a society we, for the fear of retribution, maintain silence rather than challenge anti-social behaviour, what kind of society will we have?

The other nuanced narrative is in assumptions and appearances, as this young man was a day student at a public school in Hale, there are general expectations of behaviour and conduct. Whilst entitlement is drilled into their psyche, comportment has a particular importance because it moderates behaviour in polite society and defines the quality of integrity, which is what you do when nobody is watching.

Maybe I was a bit harsh

Much as I would like to explore this further, it is best left for now, because it will reflect on not just the school, but on the parenting too. Suffice it to say that having a classical instrument case does not necessarily suggest one has class or has been schooled in the decorum that pertains to performing for sophisticated audiences.

On my part, I thought about my attitude to anticipated consideration and my acceptance of the inconvenience of rebuke when I have been wrong, and I might have been a tad sterner with the schoolboy because he could easily have been one of my youngest sons.

When I was his age, I would never have done what he did, and surely, as another black man, yes, we shared the same racial profile, we are a lot better behaved than this, especially if we have the benefit of a privileged education.