reading on public transport

i'm reading the book thief...

i'm really enjoying it...

so, 3 tiny moments on public transport with the book thief:

last thursday, coming back from work i missed my stop on the picadilly line, had to go one back, too deep in the book,

then this thursday i was concious of that happening last week, i looked up at one point and saw we were at my stop so i jumped off, went up the escalator, through the barrier, only to find that i wasn't at my stop, but the stop before...

again, so deep in the book i couldn't tell that manor house is not turnpike lane...

and i didn't realise until i'd gone through the barrier, paid my money, so i wondered a bit through finsbury park, the nice end, took a long bit of video of a swan and signets on the new river.. (how long would it take me to connect my phone to the computer, move the video over, upload it to youtube?)... then got a 29 back home...



and the night before i'd been rehearsing with TC, preparing for our clapham grand gig on august 1st... we lost track of time and finished with not much time to spare before the tubes stopped... K (drummer) offered to give me a lift to the station, and it was one of those strange situations where, if i'd have walked to the station (keyboard on my back) i would have got the tube home, but because he drove me...

he didn't take me to kennington (the nearest station) he just started driving and we discussed that he was going past earls court, on the picadilly line, so we decided he'd drop me there...

then we got stuck in a traffic jam for 30 minutes...

so in the end he dropped me @ trafalgar square and i got the 29 home...

on the 29 i got out the book, and also my headphones, i've taken to listening to ornette coleman to block out conversation while reading, somehow his style of playing the saxophone - so similar in places to laughing and talking - is just right as a backdrop to fiction...

"this is a 29... to enfield" said an electronic woman at every stop and there was a small group of young men who, for most of the journey, would answer the lady with an "ennn - field" falling in pitch, en masse, again, mixed in with ornette, it seemed just right,

just before turnpike lane a man had got on who was singing at the people on the bus, he started with frank sinatra... i stood up and started strapping on the keyboard and i asked him for another frank tune, whereupon he asked me for a frank tune and i gave him a verse of "you've brought a new kind of love too me", a tune he didn't know... but which i was glad to be reminded of, as i'm going to sing it @ the 90th birthday party i'm playing @ tomorrow,

and as i've got to get up and practise before the singer picks me up @ 1 i'd better be off to bed...

x