Ghost Train

The Central Line is buggered-has been for two weeks. But it's great to hear all the whingeing that goes on-a national hobby in these parts: I dunno know...pathetic..it's ridiculous,..this is a third-world country. It's one of the few times the farangi will talk to strangers. The only other people on the tube system who do that are drunks or Amrikis..especially the ones who wear those grey or blue t-shirts with 'Harvard' written on them! Just exactly how many people go to that university! Reminds me of a line from Chatwin when he met a Bedouin: Tell me Mr. Chatwin, have you been to India? Yes. "And just how big is this village, India?"

Waiting for the train and a grey and silver ghost-like one slinks in, as if there wasn't a driver. One of those low-ceiling ones. But there are no people in it and some of the carriages have 'Northern Line' written on the side whilst others have 'Central Line'. This is some sort of weird hybrid that has slipped the lines. It's hard to see what's in some of the carriages because the windows are tinted but in others the seats have been ripped open and there are bottles of chemicals stacked up in neat piles. This skeleton of a train seems to be on its last legs. It's always amazing when something like this turns up out of the blue..a bit like the Thames whale last year.

Eventually a train does pull in. I find 15 pence on the floor, look around, and pick it up. The day before I had given exactly 15 p to a beggar. I wish I had given a pound. What goes around comes around...

Tea outside the wb:
The Persian tells me how noisy Iranian audiences are at cinemas. He has no idea! Back in the land of the pure I recall how two friends sat through the whole of a film discussing the price of tomatoes and other vegetables. I had to turn round to them and tell them this wasn't a f'ecking sabzi mundi. 'Mundi': market...is that word connected with 'the world'? And then there were the two people who couldn't make head or tails of the Urdu-dubbed version of Time Cop since it was next to impossible to understand how someone could die three times. And watching Twister I told him how the crowd would howl with derision at the evil guys and clap thunderously when they were 'taken up' by the twister (one said: Allah mian has taken them up).

Dalrymple in Xanadu has a great story about how an audience of tribals in Kazakhstan are watching a James Bond film when the scene with the tarantula come sup . They hold their breath. And then when Bond kills it they take off their shoes and stamp the ground, killing another hundred imaginary ones. And then the cries go up : Allah Akbar!

It's hard to explain to the Persian the tradition of call-response at the cinemas. Someone at one end of the cinema might make a witty comment (during the film) and another person will shout something back as a response or a further question to which the first person then replies in turn. And then there are the people selling fake chocolates: Kit Kart. One of these people , a young man with a very well oiled black beard makes a sudden appearance. He's there to watch the 'dance scene' of Reema and is nowhere to be found after that scene. For once there is pin-drop silence in the hall. Even the people in the 'sofa seats' are quiet (I kid thee not, in one there is actually a red velvet sofa stuck to the wall).