Kin Nora, it was cold in London over the weekend. Saturday was one of those concrete-nipple-inducing clear winter days, of which we're so justly proud here in northern Europe. Trouble is it also co-incided with a day-long yomp around Camden and the west end in search of the last few Xmas pressies.
It was actually very lovely to be in town on Saturday. The weather, lights and crowds of shoppers all aided the festive feeling. It pervaded everything - even my lunch in the pret on Frith Street in Soho was a jolly affair, as I watched the hoards scurrying about with their groaning Hamleys bags.
Sadly, I did eventually agree to succumb to exposure, thanks to the bitter conditions, and rather let myself down by getting a touch tearful and maudlin. I also had a full-sized replica of a Viking sword on me at the time (long story), which I had to carry home on the train. This of course acted like a magnet for mentalists and the congenitally drunk as I waited for my train. If your timing is off to even a modest degree, Liverpool Street Station can periodically resemble a mediaeval asylum.
It's not as much fun as it sounds either because the threat of crapulent violence is ever-present. LP station serves Essex and east London, for the most part, and so is extravagantly overfurnished with leering tattooed cockneys. Add a couple of stiff Yuletide what-have-yous and a tweedy, thin bespectacled man carrying a broad sword (yours truly) and you have yourself a social powder keg.
I did manage to get home unmolested as it happens, but it was the most unrestful 15 minutes I've experienced since queueing for a urinal in the gents of Millwall's firm's pub just outside The New Den. That episode required an acting masterclass from myself. You need to look non-threatening and hard at the same time, and all you've got to play with is your stance and your facial expression. Get it wrong, and you'll resemble the hunchback of Notre Dame trying to suck the skin off a pickled lemon.
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