London Calling

I never look forward to my infrequent visits to London, but being
part of the bank's audit team means that on occasion I have to dig out
that stupid suit and tie and make the long journey south on Richard
Branson's milch cow; being a would-be writer means that on occasion I
have to dig out nouns and adjectival phrases with which to describe
this great multi-faceted jewel in the nation's crown. The trouble is,
all the expressions I normally use about our capital city are huddled
together on one page of the dictionary between those bookends of
contemporary British culture, "shish kebab" and "Shiva". So be
creative, Neil! All my fellow passengers in the reserved seats were
tapping away on laptops as though their lives (or their bonuses)
depended on it; I headed for the quiet carriage, away from the blare of
mobile phones, and sought literary inspiration through the
window.

I was booked to attend a workshop on fraud, but I had already decided
how the bank could save itself huge quantities of money; simply close
down every branch within the M25, relocate those expensive service
centres and head office functions away from London and the M4 corridor
to a part of the country which would be grateful for them - Barnsley,
or Redruth, or Motherwell, say - and let the other "big four" banks
take on all the dodgy geezers in their miserable manors! The flaw in
the argument is, of course, that the bank's senior management, the
rapacious bonus-baggers, all live in exclusive villages in the Home
Counties and whilst the bank is supposed to be the bees' knees for
shareholders, customers and staff - in that order, of course - these
people have their own self-interest at the top of the list. So we have
to shell out football-star sums for office space, offer London
allowances on top of salaries - though never enough to attract quality
staff into London branches - and pay an absolute fortune in expenses
whenever provincial staff have to be dragged to the capital. Which the
northern auditors have to do quite a lot, as the auditors who are
supposed to cover the south are always working flat out on London-based
frauds.

Train passengers can gauge their proximity to Euston by the volume of
graffiti: an occasional scrawl in Milton Keynes dwindling away as we
glide through the well-scrubbed pastures of Tring and Hemel Hempstead,
back again at Watford and building in intensity through Willesden until
by Camden not only every drab wall-end and derelict warehouse but every
single surface - signals, lineside boxes, bits of broken fence - are
covered in tags to a height of around eight feet. The tragedy is that
amongst the ugly, angry outpourings are painstaking pieces of talented
artwork in bas-relief lettering reminiscent of a preserved tramcar;
waste, waste, wanton waste click the wheels on the points approaching
Euston.

There are, of course, some good things about London. Routemaster buses,
for example. And the Underground; yes, I know it's smelly and decrepit
and under-maintained, but it does actually get you lots of places. If
you arrive at any main-line London station and want to get to anywhere
else, there's a clear multi-coloured map every few feet; I've never got
lost yet, and the trains are frequent if crowded. This time my
destination was Moorgate, and I found the correct platform at Euston
without any trouble. Now into London mode: Find a seat. Don't look at
anybody. Especially girls. Read the adverts, the maps, pieces of paper
in your pocket, anything. Avoid eye contact. A party of office workers
boarded at Kings Cross and stood, laughing together and talking loudly;
like, hey, we're together, we can communicate! A woman of Eastern
European appearance came down the carriage, begging and holding a baby;
most people looked through her as though she was made of glass; one or
two shook their heads but a black girl gave her a coin. Beggars in
India or Morocco will take any small coin gratefully and give you a
blessing; give sparingly in Britain and you invite a curse or worse;
better join the unseeing, ungiving throng, especially if you're an
out-of-towner.

Tonight, though, I wasn't going to be alone in the big city; Emma was
also staying over for the workshop. Emma's not your typical auditor;
she's a very sweet socialist Brummie goth chick, but she stalks
poor-performing bank branches in the West Midlands like the angel of
death (anybody out there recognise her yet?). Actually the branch audit
team, once an all-male preserve, now contains a substantial number of
female staff who aren't fazed by the huge amount of travelling and
stay-aways involved, and Emma's probably the best company of what is
actually a very nice bunch. We spent an entertaining evening in a South
Indian restaurant, performing the alchemy of turning the dross of other
people's bank charges into Goan meatballs, Karnatakan curries, Keralan
rice breads and bottles of golden Cobra whilst we chatted about
politics, religion, love, sex, marriage and the Velvet Underground. I
thought you'd like to know that when your bank statement comes through;
why not go overdrawn again, it will just about pay for our
coffees!

I'm always conscious of my claustrophobia in London; first the crush of
the Underground, then you breathe a sigh of relief at seeing the
daylight only to emerge into more crowds and steel-and-glass buildings
towering way above, competing towers of Babel forever reaching upwards
and beseeching Mammon to bless them. One improvement from previous
visits, however, was the sheer volume of traffic which wasn't on the
road. That's right, the traffic was strangely and pleasantly
reminiscent of India; taxis, buses and delivery vehicles aplenty, but a
relative absence of private cars. Well done, Red Ken, make 'em pay
still more and get the rest of them on to the bus and the Tube!

I can't share too much about the fraud meeting for obvious reasons, but
it gave me food for thought; for instance, how often have you handed
your plastic card to a waiter and it disappears for a few minutes until
a slip appears for you to sign? Do you know what he was doing with it
in the meantime? In one restaurant in Manchester this involved taking
it not only out of my hand but out of the building and walking down the
street to a sister establishment to swipe the card &;#8230; actually
I knew and trusted these guys, but I could have easily ended up paying
for a stay in the presidential suite at the Hong Kong Hilton!

Back to Moorgate, wading through the hordes of cowed City men in
obligatory suits and feisty City women wearing what the hell they like
- sex discrimination laws only seem to work one way! Actually most
girls who work in Central London do tend to dress quite nicely,
sometimes too nicely. Take the girl sat on the bench in Moorgate tube
station; very attractive, shining hair and well-applied make-up, the
only thing she needed was a trusty uncle figure like me to take her to
one side and gently explain that wearing above-the-knee skirts with
stockings is perfectly acceptable but DON'T CROSS YOUR LEGS WHEN YOU
SIT DOWN! So did I take it upon myself to advise her to Mind The Gap?
On the contrary, I determined not to notice and walked away, right to
the end of the platform hoping for a less-than-crowded carriage to
appear, for this was London after all, and I just wanted to get out and
home in one piece!