It’s 7:15, and the train will be leaving the station in a few minutes.
I had real trouble getting out of bed today… 45 minutes ago I was staring at the alarm clock from under the covers, watching the minutes tick by until I absolutely had to get up. Then of course I walked into the book case at the top of the stairs while trying to avoid the cat (waking W up), and when I looked in the mirror in the bathroom decided I definitely needed a shave. Cutting things this fine meant I had a shave instead of a coffee. I am therefore now sat on the train in a somewhat comatose manner.
As I probably said earlier in the week - we went to a funeral on Tuesday for a good friend who died unexpectedly. Anybody who knows me knows I am not religious at all, so have a bit of an issue attending church for anything - in many ways I go along to honor the respect of those that do have faith. I seem to find myself following Pascal’s wager - that if I don’t say “I don’t believe”, and it turns out there is any truth to the whole god/heaven/hell thing, I haven’t hurt my chances of getting past St. Peter too badly. Pascal put it rather more colorfully - if you deny the existence of God, and it turns out he/she/it does exist, you’re going to hell. If you don’t deny the existence of good, you’ve not done any harm, and you don’t go to hell.
So - the funeral… probably the nicest I have ever been to (if a funeral can ever be nice). Various people from times throughout the guys life stood up to speak - to relate stories and memories. Although Ian, the guy who died, had a brain tumor and had almost certainly endured horrific side effects of the treatment he went through, he never showed it - and that was related by one of the speakers at the funeral. He described Ian in the context of those who ran the London Marathon last weekend - and quoted the numbers who didn’t finish, or were hospitalised. “Ian finished the race well. Ian finished the race well…”
Following the service we went to Bisham Abbey for the wake, where we were all spread across the lawns of the old Abbey buildings. Many of our friends and colleagues were there, the sun shone, and we swapped our own stories and memories of Ian. I met people I haven’t seen for some time - ex colleagues, friends of friends, It was a wonderful afternoon, and re-inforced the importance of taking time out now and again to just spend time with friends.
(the rest of this message is being written at 6pm while travelling home)
I stopped writing this morning after a man sat down opposite me on the train, and kicked me as he sat down. Over the course of the next half an hour he kicked me 5 times while fidgeting, and when the train arrived at Paddington, he kicked me twice as hard while getting up from his seat. He also nearly tipped his coffee over me. While walking through the station I was walked into by three different people - one of which barged in front of me at the turnstiles without a second glance. While walking through the crowds in the station I took notice of the people around me walking towards the same exit as myself… where I carefully picked my through the crowd, awarding people their own personal space, and making way for others, the rest of the crowd (and we’re talking about the vast majority here) blundered through everybody like a herd of elephants. In the time it took me to walk ten yards, most people were bludgeoning their way through 20 yards. This is what London is like.
The law of the pavements, throughfares and walkways in London seems to be “I’m coming through, I’m much more important than you, just get out of my f*cking way”. It isn’t just London though - it’s anywhere there are crowds seemingly. Whatever happened to manners, respect, making way for others, and perhaps patience?