Post 8: London Bridge

London Bridge Station.  An intersection of silks and workers, tourists and vagabonds. A flower-seller, who dares to colour his roses Rainbow.

Of course, there is another delay on the Southern Line.   ‘Driver shortage’,  ‘Staff sick’, ‘Signal failure’. Anything else? Does it matter knowing, anyway?  I guess, the messages are an attempt to hold chaos at bay, but chaos pre-exists the reasons anyway. 

London Bridge. Old buttressing the new; the Shard's view,  Starbucks, Sainsbury’s, and a newsagent not claiming to provide anything more universal or contemporary than papers chocolate and crisps. Bless the crisps, they (too often) keep the wolf at bay--during the delays. 

“A self-serve teller is available if you don’t want to queue," calls out a Sainsbury's attendant. Another, young attendant looks hopefully at me. “Would you like to use it?” she says. I explain that I still can’t get a handle on the small change; I know the bag of crisps is something less than pound. “Let me help you," she, says, so we share the delight of my self-service purchase being truly and fully-serviced. She grabs the crisps and swipes them to the machine, grasps the change jangling in my hand and counts out 95 p. It is a delight and I am out of there in less than a minute. One minute less waiting for that train.

1pence, 2 pence, 5 p--copper coins are obsolete in my homeland. The colony moves on and the motherland keeps a hold of its mettle. And the imprint is so small, on each of these coins. Do I have to admit to being older, greyer, and more blind? I do try to read the coin but that bloody great Shard bounces twilight into laser-lights and blinds you, yes. Ageing urges you to make up wilder stories. Ahem.

So here is my tribute to that young attendant. and to all the others who are very glad to count one’ s money on one’s behalf. Serving at the self-service. Liberating. 

c. Z Soboslay 2015.