How many eyes does a lion have? A strange question I know, but seriously even with there being two lions, it really shouldn’t have taken nearly an hour to dot the eyes of the lion.
We had arrived near Trafalgar Square at just before midday. We couldn’t say we were in Trafalgar Square as they weren’t letting anyone else in at that point. No matter how many people were coming out, the marshals couldn’t deal with the simple one out, one in principle that nightclub doormen had been using for decades; and so thousands of people were stacked up on Charing Cross Road straining to see what was going on via the big screens either side of the stage. Straining to hear them as well, as the PA system was less use than a chocolate fireguard.
Chinese New Year was being given the full treatment in London, with lots of cordoned off, pedestrianized streets for the day. Lots of stalls, barriers, various stages and events over a reasonable sized area of Central London. Yet they couldn’t get the sound system right.
There were a lot of the usual London suspects there, you know the ones, those that would turn up for the opening of an envelope if they thought someone would give them a microphone for a few seconds.
The dotting of the eyes was supposed to take place at 12. By the time all the talking heads had finally deflated the dotting actually started at twelve minutes to one. All the time it was going on I had the thought going through my head about the fact I’d obviously missed the crossing of the teas ceremony. I found out that came later as there was a mix of Earl Grey and English Breakfast on the table as we stopped for cakes before heading home.
Wandering over to Chinatown through Leicester Square was like trying to wade through treacle. Most of the small side streets were barricaded off by little Hitlers in Day-Glo blousons shouting no entry at anyone who had the temerity to try and walk along an un-crowded street. They were forcing everyone into the same tightly packed thoroughfares.
With lots of people, there was lots of pushing and shoving, loads of people coming the other way too. It wasn’t a case of the little Hitlers stopping people from entering to make foot traffic one way; it appeared they only wanted to keep the un-crowded side streets for themselves.
Bastards!
Various stalls and performers were dotted around all over the place, and wherever they had set up, the squeeze to get past was worse than ever. Too many people pushing you, trying to get through to a non-existent space in front. Too much impatience. If I had received a pound for each time some halfwit had trodden on me, or some prat with a pushchair had rammed my ankles, then I could be sat here writing this as a retired man.
We were looking for somewhere to get food, and wanted to try for Chinese, considering the occasion, but we would still have been queuing now for it. There were queues around the block for the takeaway buffets, and the restaurants were all bulging at the seams. We found a little American bar style diner in Soho and got various snacks to share. The food was lush, as were the cocktails, but the cocktails cost a damn sight more.
Once refreshed we fought through the crowds again and made it back to Trafalgar Square where we were actually allowed back in. Typically there were street food stalls within the barricades, and without long queues, but we walked past and found some space in a line with the stage.
The presenters had the kind of chemistry that made you hope they weren’t providing the powder for the firework display later on. The acts weren’t a great deal better. The Chinese dancing was interesting, but I couldn’t understand why they were using a backing track of what appeared to be a medley of cowboy theme tunes. I was expecting the Deadwood Stage to come crashing onto the actual stage at any second.
As for the magician, well he certainly wasn’t a dynamo, in any sense of the word. The only way he’d have got a cheer if was if he’d made himself or the presenters disappear. Instead he just made us disappear, out of Trafalgar Square and for cake before getting the train home.
The first part of the journey was fine, a couple of stops to London Bridge from Charing Cross, but then on the Southern train, we had an on board supervisor who appeared to be playing a game of one station, one shot. There were a lot of stations.
The longer the journey went on, the less sense his announcements made. After the first stop at Norwood Junction, he started on a long winded, rambling announcement that went on so long the train had pulled into East Croydon before he had finished and he had to open the doors.
At Purley it was just gobbledygook. At Mersham he cut himself off about a dozen words in. At Redhill it was a slurring, rambling mess, and at Earlswood, the bing bong was followed by thirty seconds of fumbling and heavy breathing noises. Out of Salford he stopped halfway through what appeared to be the word Horley, or we assumed he said Horley, though to be fair he could have said anything and we’d just assumed he meant Horley because we knew where we were going.
Which was more than could be said for him, having come from London, when we got to Gatwick, amongst the various messages for taking care of your luggage when “in the platform, or on anywhere else”, he was advising people to change there for stations to London Bridge and Blackfriars. At Three Bridges he advised us to change for Brighton, Bedford, or any other stations in Sussex.
He was also now advising us to listen to the on board announcements which may occur from time to time. From time to time? Are you joking? They were nonstop. He’d only just finished saying that when he bing bonged again and told us we were approaching Three Bridges.
Mind The Gap he wittered at one station, which left us laughing, thinking the biggest gap was between the poor bloke’s ears. In fact we were laughing so much that some bloke wearing headphones had tutted, looked at us in disgust and got up to find another seat further down the carriage to get away from the laughter.
His last announcement before we got off at Crawley was to say to listen to on board announcements as the electronic customer screen was faulty, and so were the automatic train announcements. To be fair, we hadn’t heard any automatic train announcements; they couldn’t get a word in edgeways. The main fault appeared to be with the very human announcements as the stops went past and the shots kicked in.
Hic.