The Magic Novel

I left straight from work, catching the train into town for a night out with the long lost Sergei. After navigating the sweltering heat of the Skywalk I just managed to catch the next train (Interesting digression: I often think, while walking between terminals on the dreaded Skywalk that it would be the worst place to get caught if a bomb went off on one of the terminals. The tubes would concentrate the explosion, frying everyone who was on those pathetic conveyor belts very rapidly. This is how my mind works).
On the train I didn't know where to sit. It was that time, when all the seats facing each other are fully occupied and the only place you can sit is facing the wrong way, and very cramped. I also had to avoid stinking spilt beer from some students who were having some kind of Train Spotter's Party. Eventually I took my place and opened my book (a book about greed on Wall Street in the Eighties. I like it because it makes me feel like a voyeuristic pervert). As I was reading the American voices in the novel became more real that I was comfortable with. I sweated with this for a few minutes until I looked up and saw two men chatting loudly. They were both wearing houndstooth sports-jackets and sitting with their legs wide apart, as if to accommodate herculean testicles. My magic book had beamed two characters directly onto the train. I stopped reading and listened to the conversation.
"David is so flavour of the month right now," said Sports-Jacket #1
"Yeah," Sports-Jacket #2 agreed. "He was at HP, then he went to Business Edge, now he's here. He really knows what he's doing."
"But having someone like that takes the focus off us, man."
"Yeah, what do we have to do to get noticed now?"
The two men were locked into a complaint which I found fascinating. They began talking about how David probably spent his evenings watching pay-per-view porn on the hotel television. What I enjoyed about this rant was, even though these men were in a different business to me, they were a different nationality, and they had a different sense of aesthetics (the sports-jackets were paired with slip-on loafers and chinos), their basic complaints were in a very familiar language. I too have complained with colleagues that the management are unfair, I too have commiserated with a comrade over the conditions of work, and the certain people being "flavour of the month". I wanted to let them know I was on their side, that they should fight this David fucker. After all it is us working stiffs that have to deal with all the rubbish. But then they went and ruined it all by talking about Powerpoint and how their presentation was going to be the best thing for the company, that their ideas were going to make more money and they were going to get pay-rises. Suddenly they were back to being characters in the novel, materialistic and driven to expand a company that probably views them as expendable empty suits.
We eventually reached Piccadilly and I met Sergei, who had a story of his own. He had seen a young man trying to breakdance on a cardboard map. His limp moves were being watched by people squatting and nodding. Maybe my magic book had made it the Eighties too...

Influx

"What would you do with that?" the delivery man asked as he nodded his raisin-head over towards an approaching woman. Stockton had a glint in his eye, and began grinning.
"I'd damage it," he said, irony galloping out of his mouth like a herd of wild horses.
"Yeah," the delivery man said, acknowledging Stockton's filth. "These guys are alright."
Suddenly we were in fellowship with this lust-crazed loon. Stockton had begun lifting the boxes from the lorry, still grinning wildly.
"Hey, I'd do seven years," the delivery man said suddenly. "I'd do seven years at Her Majesty's bed and breakfast." At this I couldn't control myself and burst out laughing. The woman had now reached our location.
"What are you guys talking about," she asked in a thick Eastern European accent.
"Just how beautiful you are," the delivery man sleazed. Stockton began laughing now. But the girl began flirting with the violent man as he began talking about his "waggon".
Good God, I'm not cut out for this behaviour. I was torn between hilarity and a deep sickness. There was a violence in the air that made me uncomfortable. I was back in the Seventies, when Benny Hill was considered funny, and not in the slightest bit sinister. Stockton's mirth, however, was contagious - the whole scene had the feeling of a subversive victory.
I dread the next delivery...

The Tiny Gangster and the Pornography Mountain

Thirst drove me to the Dickensian horror that is WH Smith. This shop is an oddity, it is not a bookshop, though it sells books, it's not a newsagent, though it sells newspapers, and it's most certainly not a pleasant place to be, yet their always seems to be a queue at the till points. I grasped a bottle of water quickly and headed to the line of people, not wanting to spend any more time than I had to loitering by the racks of overpriced crisps and biographies of plastic people. I was lucky; there was only one person in front of me.
This particular man looked as if he belonged in a very cliche British Gangster movie. He was short, the kind of short that indicates psychopathic tendencies. This was coupled with a long black trench coat (well, it was long on him, but in reality it was a tiny doll's coat) and a silk scarf tucked into the lapels. His grey hair was swept back hard, revealing a lined and tanned forehead that, like a coastal horizon, captivated the view with its long, curving magnificence.
I though he may be quick, but I was mistaken. He lifted, with great effort, a large stack of magazines onto the counter. It took me a while to realise that they were all pornography, the cover images obscured by white plastic. The kid behind the till maintained a stony face as he began to put the filth through the scanner. Eventually, after the stack had been processed, the screen on the till read £63.80. I'm not sure how many magazines that is, I lost count, but the price indicated some kind of erotic desperation. After the till operator read out this price Tiny Gangster tossed a copy of Loaded magazine onto the pile - a light pornography sorbet to follow his full slap-up pornography steak dinner. It was a harrowing sight, but one strangely fitting to represent the decay that surrounds the airport.

I have noticed that porn and travel seem to go together as if their flavours mingle as perfectly as garlic and lamb, or cheese and tomato. Motorway service stations are full of magazines and "erotic literature", and I can only speculate why. I would be too busy concentrating on the driving to indulge in Adult Entertainment. My God, do these people occupy aeroplane toilets and satisfy the entrance policy of the Solo mile High Club? Or worse, do they pre-empt their journey by attending the stalls in the filthy airport toilets? I never want to know answers to these questions. It all reminds me of when I saw a fat man in a shop at the airport, his arousal showing through his jogging suit trousers...