When I first met Erica in January of 2007 It was on the very thing that you are reading this blog post on; The Internet. We met on a Beatles forum called Strawberry Fields. I showed her mine while she showed me hers. I'm talking about pictures of ourselves. I pursued her across the internet and left a voice message impersonating Paul McCartney on her Myspace wall.
All her friends on there wondered who I was and asked her who I was. She didn't know and she's not a girl who misses much as I was later to find out. I eventually owned up to it and we started chatting on instant message. Then we got our microphones so we could voice chat since our hands were dreadfully tired. We talked for several months about everything and everyone and one day she decided she wanted to come over to Britain and booked herself a plane ticket for that December. She didn't quite fly in from Miami Beach BOAC though. It was Houston's George Bush Intercontinental and Continental Airlines. She was arriving in London in the early hours and since i was 4 hours away from London and had no car and it was breaking my heart (and I didn't even have a driver!).
I travelled on a First Great Western train at 8pm to London
Paddington arriving at 11:35pm. From there I hurried with my suitcase
down to the tube station where I jumped on the circle line train headed
for Victoria station. I got to Victoria just for about midnight and sat
on the concourse observing the dregs of human life around me. People
hurrying and staggering home after nights out up the west end, foreigners
looking confused as to where they were, who they were and what they were
doing there, the vendors were shutting up shop and hoping that they'd
go home to find a suitcase filled with pictures of our beloved Queen
Elizabeth with the words "Bank Of England" and "FIFTY" on them on their
bed. Then as they all sloped away it was nice and quiet until....
"ALRIGHT! EVERYBODY! GET OUT!"
They were closing the concourse, we all (for there were a fair
few of us travellers) had to stand for 3 hours out in the cold with a
guy in a tuxedo who was very inebriated and kept yelling; "Been out wankin' innit?!" and singing songs that annoyed everybody, the two
Police officers had got fed up of talking to the prostitutes and headed
off, leaving us to the mercy of this guy who'd "Been out wanking, innit!?" and was singing bits of musicals; 'Somewhere' from West Side Story got sung which then faded into 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' by Rolf Harris. A big "WTF?" appeared in the air at that point but I heard later that he'd had very good reviews on the
Jubilee line. Not wanting to tie his Kangaroo down I pulled out my phone.
"Hey can i make a call?" a foreign accent asked me.
I turned around and gave him my carefully worded response:
"No, I'm afraid i have no credit on this phone"
Now, I cannot reveal his name, mostly because I do not know it. All I know
is he was a bloke who'd just flown into Luton airport (where no one can hear you scream) from Barcelona, Spain, having
spent some time in the Spanish Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, particularly Ibiza where he said, and I quote:
"The English girls are all crazy for sex!".
Yeah.....he was a regular James Bond this one. The Greek, or whatever he was, was looking to catch a train at 5:15am to some place insane in Surrey.
Now, you may say that all places in Surrey are insane, and you may be
right, but I noticed that he had five different passports;
Britain, Greece, Turkey, India and Spain. I immediately assumed he was
working for Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) and he sought me out because
he thought I was his contact in London working for MI5 and that I was
assigned to get him out of Central London and into hiding in Surrey.
In
truth, this WAS my assignment but I had Erica from America coming over
and I decided to quit MI5 and pull out of the mission right then on the
spot just so I could meet her. (How's that for commitment?! Sod Queen & Country!) I told the
bloke this and he confessed he couldn't be bothered with this secret
agent lark either and that he looked forward to living a life of orgies and all the Turkish delight he could eat in the suburban insanity of Surrey.
We
both wished each other well and he went off in the general direction of
two girls who were obviously looking for a slow train to Oxted with an ex-Greek secret agent. I imagine he's still on the platform at Victoria station waiting for that train.
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| The outside of Victoria Station is where I spent a lovely 3 hours freezing my arse off to West Side Story and Rolf Harris songs. |
I was alone again, (naturally) and I sat on cold metal as the waves of human
existence started lapping into Victoria station again and, like the first waves
that hit the beach are the ones that contain crap, so are these palpable
human waves. Two tracksuit bottomed philanthropists sat down next to
me on the benches facing each other. There was a period of flatulence
out of the one on my side and the other smiled and said in a Cumberland
accent: "Did you do it? You dirty bugger!" and laughed. The other bloke nodded and they both stood up
and made their way rather hurriedly to the exit. One of them walking rather oddly.
To put it rather plainly; Two tramps sat down and one of them shit himself.
The
tiredness that was running over me and the hilarity of the above
situation soon merged and I was laughing myself silly or sillier, if you
prefer. The whole situation was utterly absurd and barely anyone was around and those that were looked at me with a
kind understanding and sympathy. I texted my father the events of the last five minutes as I knew he'd get a laugh out of it too.
As the rush hour
began at 7am, I moved closer to Burger King which was to be the
rendezvous with Erica.
That was chosen because it was right next to the Gatwick
Express terminus and also because they do a decent chicken royale meal.
But food wasn't on my mind. I was nervous because Erica was about to walk into my crazy life of chicken royale meals, Greek ex-secret agents and incontinent tramps. Most women think
they can handle the excitement of it but it ends up being too much. Was
it going to be too much for her?
Erica arrived at around
10:30am. It was awkward and busy as there was many people rushing around and if I hadn't turned round at that moment, I may never have seen her. I'd spent the best part of 10 hours in and around Victoria Train Station with various characters who were obviously extras from the National Lampoon films. We
hugged, descended on the escalator and as we kissed in the Tube station, I got a taste of what was to come.....Big Red Cinnamon Gum! Yuck!
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| The inside of Victoria Station. Just behind the flowers is where Erica and I met in person for the first time. |
Stay Tuned for
American Girl Meets British Boy Part 2: Gadding About London!
