Spending time on tube trains

Lately, have had to ride more tubes than usual. Mainly to one place, The Embassy of Japan in the United Kingdom (to give them their full title) to renew my passport. They're very nice in there, the doorman greets you in Japanese, even though he is not, as far as I can perceive, Japanese himself and he makes this gracious effort as I walk through the security gate to say “ohayo-gozaimasu” and “sumimasen” super professionally. Today, I had forgotten that my rucksack placed through the bag scanner contained a Moomin swiss army knife, which he really considerately removed and sealed in a plastic bag, then gave me a tag for it. Idiot bringing a weapon into an embassy.

The embassy is at Green Park station and I get there by jumping on to the Jubilee Line from the Overground. I ping back and forth over this route a few times in the space of a week, getting to and from the embassy. The first train I get on is the Overground and at the station I see two loose perfectly good tomatoes on the way in, and hairy legs carrying a bike up the station stairs. The change over to the Jubilee line is rammed but I follow a pair of pink sling-back kitten heels with red patent leather points, and I follow them click clacking all the way down the escalator steps. ‘Excuse me, where did you get those shoes?’ ‘These are really old, Top Shop.’ ‘Oh. I really love them.’ ‘Thank you.’

I went to see The Farewell at a cinema in Angel and on the way home I took the Northern Line back down southwards. You really notice the colour palette of Londoners on a Northern Line carriage, because it cuts across the N/S divide. You get all sorts - people meshing in the middle of their journeys into central, or on their way home, or out clubbing in Clapham. Green of moss, slabs of concrete at dawn, freshly cut hay. Dark but not sleek, light but not vibrant. Coats on jackets and bags slung across shoulders, like postmen.

A sleepy man next to the mossy quilted jacket drinking a red bull, stored his half-drunk can in his bag. He nods off... as it drips out steadily... through the corner of his pleather bag on to the seat leaving a brown stain, maybe it was a coke, I don’t know.