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A lovely afternoon, ostensibly working at the Greenwich Festival, but not only did I get to perform a fun 25 minutes of material whilst mildly tipsy to 1000 or so people, I also hung out backstage with some really cool comedians like Adam Buxton, Sara Pascoe, John Robbins, Nick Helm, Roisin Conaty and Nish Kumar, but also my wife and daughter. I got a bit pissed on free beer (it doesn't take much to do that any more) and Phoebe charmed everyone with her stupid, smiling face and I wished that every gig I did could be in the afternoon, in a bit tent in the sunshine. It certainly didn't feel like a job and I was really glad we'd made the last minute decision to make this a family day out. And being a slightly tipsy dad with a baby on a sunny day is fine, as long as nothing goes wrong. I had fun dancing with Phoebe attached to me in her sling, like she was some kind of go-pro camera. Some days out or weekends away have been stressful or hard work, but today was just wall to wall fun. So the message is, always get drunk when you're with your baby and make sure you have the kind of job where going to work after having a couple of beers is perfectly acceptable.
On the DLR line on the way home there was a member of staff in our carriage. I wasn't entirely sure what he was doing there, but he had a little gaberdine and a set of keys that fit into the slots on the wall so he looked like he was official. My wife later expressed some scepticism, thinking his uniform didn't look right and wondering what his role was - and I suppose it is possible that he wasn't employed by the DLR at all but for some reason got off on pretending he was. I mean there are worse jobs to pretend to have. I thought the fact that he had keys that fitted into the slots on the wall proved that he was a genuine employee, though thinking about it, modern keys of the same make will fit into any keyhole of that brand, but only the correct keys will turn. The keys were the detail that made me think this man had a right to be there, but now I realise this possible trick it makes him even more sinister (even though pretty much all of this is in my head) . Having looking it up there is an official job of “train captain†on these driverless trains and it would be pretty crazy if he wasn't an official one of those, but it is, at the very least, an interesting idea for a story. People pretend to be doctors or escapees from the the World Trade Centre, so why not more mundane jobs.
If you were very lonely you might pretend to work on a train, just to have some social interaction. And he was certainly attempting that, but in an inappropriate (if well-meaning) way, at least from my slightly squiffy perspective. There was a mother and teenage daughter sitting opposite us who were of Asian extraction. For some reason the “train-captain†walked past them and seemingly apropos of nothing (unless I missed something) greeted them and asked “Do you speak Mandarin?†The mother seemed confused and it was unclear if that was because she didn't speak English, didn't speak Mandarin or hadn't expected a stranger to ask her what languages she could speak based on nothing but her ethnicity. I think the man was merely trying to show off that he could speak Mandarin and maybe he'd been given some cue that I had missed, but he was getting no response. He possibly asked the same question in Mandarin (I don't know, I don't speak Mandarin), but got no answer so kept on asking the question for what felt like too long. The mother finally said in English that she spoke a bit of Mandarin, but looked confused as to why she was being asked and embarrassed to have this conversation with a stranger (albeit one who had the appearance of being in a position of authority and thus couldn't be told to fuck off - again a good tactic if you are a false train-guard just using a uniform and a set of keys to allow you to have passive-aggressive conversations with strangers). But if he was an actual employee then the way he was behaving, even if it came from a genuine attempt to engage with his customers, was actually on the borderline of acceptability. A few more words were spoken between them, though there was a palpable atmosphere of awkwardness and the “guard†fist-bumped with the teenage girl who then pulled a face of utter disdain and embarrassment and the man carried on with his day and doing his “jobâ€. The man sitting next to the couple let out an involuntary snort and we caught each other's eye and I said “That was uncomfortableâ€. This wasn't just my mild drunkenness. I'd just witnessed something wrong.
I felt bad for the mother and daughter, because even if that was a well-meaning attempt by him to show off his ability to speak Mandarin and his respect for a culture, it was a huge and incorrect (it seemed) assumption, to think that two Asian passengers would speak that language or want to speak to him about it.
Phoebe was asleep in the sling, holding on to her mum. Although Catie did her best not to catch the strange man's eye, she accidentally did and he came over her to say something. Which he had to repeat as he was mumbling, but turned out to be “It's amazing how they can cling on whilst they're asleep, isn't it?"
Again ostensibly friendly, but an uninvited and rather personal interjection to make to someone who doesn't want to talk to you. I am sure he was just trying to be nice and appear friendly, but he wasn't good at it and he left three of his passengers feeling a bit uncomfortable today. If he was actually employed by the trainline and not just an interloper who got some kind of excitement from saying the slightly wrong thing in public, whilst pretending to do a job he wasn't qualified for. Will he ever be caught?
