People Everywhere.

It’s funny. Even though London’s a city of however many millions you keep seeing the same people here and there again and again.

A group of students from my course have been continuing to workshop each other even though, officially, that part of the course is over. It’s a support network. However, at the end of one we were sitting downstairs in the Royal Festival Hall, by the windows next to the walkway between the embankment and Waterloo, chatting about this and that and watching people wander past. One of them thinks she’s seen a friend of hers, but no, they’re mistaken. Then the conversation turns to one of our tutors. All complimentary, but no sooner have we finished discussing her then she walks past the window, waves and comes and joins us. The next time we’re in the same place, except on the other side with the less pleasant view of the road in the National Theatre’s carpark, and one of the other students appears waiting for the lift.

Perhaps the Royal Festival Hall attracts writers. Sub-consciously we drift towards its bright, airy confines.

I was thinking of this, though, because of what happened today.

Walking down to college I cut through the back streets as usual. It’s a short cut for pedestrians or cyclists, but not for motorists as there’s several barriers across the road preventing it becoming a rat-run. As I approached one of these I noticed the line of parked cars on the opposite site running tight up to the barrier. I had been thinking of crossing the road, but it’d have to wait for a couple of hundred metres because there wasn’t even room for me between the bumpers.

As I got closer a motorbike pulled alongside me. The driver waited for me, then mounted the pavement and followed me through the gap.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a car driver, but that sort of thing really annoys me. He’s not on a push bike. It’s a diesel engine throbbing between his legs. In this case a gold painted crap looking one, but he should still be on the road, not the pavement.

So, of course, I walked carefully up the centre of the pavement, stopping him from passing by on either side. I wandered along, taking my time, almost tempted to stop and smell some flowers in someone’s window box. Behind me the engine chugged away impatiently. I was aware of the tyre getting closer and closer to the back of my heel.

When a gap eventually appeared he dropped into the road turned and scowled at me. He furrowed his white eye-brows and his equally white goatee waggled at the end of his chin.

On the way home six hours later I started to cross a junction and suddenly realised that the bike whizzing up the main road was unexpectedly turning in without indicating. I jumped back onto the kerb and the same waggling white goatee whizzed past.

I wonder how many times we pass exactly the same people and simply don’t realise it. Perhaps we should try to wind more people up, then we might notice them more often.