After a boozy Friday night with work colleagues I managed to get to Victoria after a brief snooze at Oxford Circus. Seeing that all the trains to Crystal Palace had left, I hatched a cunning plan to get on one as far as Balham then get a cab, only things sort of happened.
There was this old guy on the train, say mid 50s and he’s telling jokes and stuff. We all think he’s the dad of some of the young couples sat with him, but they point out that he’s not. Then he starts singing, well crooning actually, you know that way that only people of that generation can… It sort of reminds me of my grandparents, who never had a record player or a piano but were always singing to little ditty’s and show tunes all the while, the generation that had to make it’s own entertainment.
He sings some old swany river type songs that no one knows and it gets a laugh, he then does ‘Jerusalem’, back in vogue after Englands ashes win, but only a few of the lads know all the words. I then suggested New York New York, which we got about half way through before either forgetting or repeating ourselves. The old guy then does My Way… he starts of really slowly and by himself, then builds and builds it, until at the end he’s up on his feet and has the whole carraige singing the final line.
Movie: The Last (wrong) train home.
By this time I’d missed Balham, and it was only when a lot of people got off that I thought to look at where I was… Norbury? Norbury? Where’s that… oh bugger….
Next day mrs e and I spent the day on the sofa like Mr & Mrs Jabba the Hutt, nursing ‘his and hers’ hangovers. Ploughed through four episodes of the West Wing and a Crisp sandwich each…. ghetto.
ahhh… I miss drunken nights like this in London. *sigh*