Category Archives: Travel

Waiting for my man

I seem to have lost the ability to cross the road. Historically I was one of the great road crossers: adventurous, brave and with split-second timing I would run out in front of oncoming traffic, always just making the far curb. The horns might blow, motorists might hurl abuse from their windows, but I would be on my way. Now I am a sorry shadow of my former self – cursed with extreme timidity, unable to take that decisive first step.

I blame travel for this. Earlier in the year I visited the US, Canada and Australia in quick succession. I knew that in one of those places, motorists drive on the left, but I was never able to recall if it was Canada or Australia (it was obviously somewhere that still had the Queen knocking about in some capacity). This combined with the presence of trams in some of the cities I visited created some kind of heightened disorientation when crossing the road. I became entirely dependent on the green man – a figure I had previously always disdained. I spent a long time waiting for him. I waited for him in Toronto during a snowstorm. I waited for him in New York while the north wind blew grit in my face. I waited for him in Sydney where the sun burnt me through grey clouds, and I waited for him in Melbourne whilst I tried to avoid being hit by a tram.

On returning to England, I regained my former devil may care attitude and was once more striding purposefully into the carriageway, but then I went to Amsterdam, where as well as traffic coming the wrong way, as well as trams gliding silently around corners, there are of course thousands of cyclists just waiting for an opportunity to use their bell. I gave them plenty.

Since then I’ve been a broken pedestrian. One of those pathetic creatures who presses the button for the green man even when there isn’t a car on the horizon. I am dependent on him even in my own country and this pains me greatly because he is essentially a deeply unendearing character. He takes his time and when he finally does arrive it’s with a self-aggrandising fanfare of bleeps or clicks. I sense the smugness in his glow. He looks on me as a sinner returned to the fold. I despise his sickly green embrace.

This is a message from Futura

This could work in Birmingham, we have quite a lot of dirty underpasses. It could also work well in Barcelona which is similarly filthy….though, to be pedantic, Barcelona is more smelly than filthy. If you were a very clever conceptual artist, particularly the type that likes to do something incredibly technically difficult for a barely perceptible result, you could perhaps conceive of a way to etch clean air designs into the atmosphere of particularly smelly barrios. Stringy-haired Catalan youth would have to pass up and down the narrow streets, many times, sniffing constantly, before the true complexity of the design would become apparent.

If I was a socially aware, edgy, clandestine, reverse-graffiti-artist operating in Birmingham I would collect all the litter that is stuck in bushes around the bottom of blocks of flats. Then I would re-attach it to the bushes, but in such a way that it spelled out the phone-number of the council’s waste collection service. This would be a scathing attack on the council’s apparent neglect of run-down areas. But I suspect that litter isn’t very cool – it’s probably a bit suburban and small minded to worry about it – I’d probably get kicked out of the reverse-graffiti-artist gang tree hut (which is where I like to imagine they hang out – I really hope they do).