Viva Brighton Issue #57 November 2017

COLUMN
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Lizzie Enfield
Notes from North Village
The men with walkie-talkies are talking about a
“VIP arriving on the Circle Line.” I assume this
is code. London Underground doesn’t fuss over
celebrities. They travel like the rest of us, or take a
limo. What’s up? I wonder, feeling slightly anxious
that this is the equivalent of ‘spilled orange juice
in aisle 5’ on the Tannoy at Waitrose. This, I’m
reliably informed, is a shoplifter alert. Nothing to
do with orange juice at all.
So, in this time of heightened security and general
jitteriness, I start to feel generally jittery about
jumping on the Circle Line. But I do anyway. I’m
British. We don’t panic. We carry on calmly.
I did once bump into a quite importantish person
on the tube. Got on at Victoria. Crowded carriage
and found myself strap-hanging next to someone
who I thought I’d met at a party the previous
weekend.
“You’re Richard aren’t you?”
“Yes.” He didn’t look as if he remembered me.
“I met you at Nikki’s party.”
“Oh yes.” A look that suggested he was trying to
look as if he remembered now.
We chatted about various things. Then Richard
asked how I knew Nikki.
“Our kids are at school together,” I said.
Hadn’t we had this conversation at the party?
“But her kids have left home. One’s living in
America. The other’s at uni.”
And then it dawned on me. This wasn’t the
Richard I’d met at a party at the weekend. It
was another Richard who appears in a weekday
soap opera and also happens to live in the North
Village. I’d never actually met him at all. I’d just
seen him on the telly.
I found myself saying this out loud, to the now
curious glances from other passengers, and my
own embarrassment.
Still, it was a good way of introducing myself to
Richard. I now bump into him all the time. We
often chat and he only sometimes refers to me as
the ‘stalker woman from the underground’.
So I’m wondering, as I scan my Circle Line
carriage whether there are any interesting actors
on board who I might accost and force to be
friendly.
There are not. So, I resume being slightly
concerned about the meaning of the VIP code.
When I get off, I text my daughter, who is no
longer at school (that stalking incident was a long
time ago). Her boyfriend works for Transport
for London. He will know the meaning of the
enigmatic use of ‘VIP’ and whether I should walk
for the rest of the day or keep an eye out for
Oyster card-carrying celebrities.
‘It’s not a code, Mum,’ her smartarse reply pings
in my pocket. ‘It’s an acronym.’
Yes, but, not if the acronym is a code for
something else. I explain about the orange juice
in the aisle. It’s a long text. Not one you should
really be sending while walking along a crowded
Oxford Street.
I bump into someone who growls “Can’t you see?”
Phone pings again. ‘It means visually impaired
person.’
Illustration by Joda (@jonydaga)
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