There’s intermittent Wi-Fi access once again here in the café. The mobiles connect easily enough, but the laptop is hit and miss lately. There is supposed to be a wifi issue in SW8 issue, none of which is of interest to you, so I’ll just push on with this post.
It’s just gone 1100hrs. I took a long walk to my aunt and uncle’s, walking through the park for the first time in weeks and through Brixton and into my spiritual muck-ridden Stockwell home. I’m not a big one for greenery and as I run through my local hellishly hilly park three nights a week, the less I see of it the better. In recent months, I’ve taken to using the longer route and walking around the park to get to anywhere. I feel better for it, I should add.
St Andrews, the guano ridden Methodist church on the Stockwell end of Landor Road, is Stockwell’s oldest building, built in the 1760s, and also one of its ugliest. I’m all for preserving history but ever since I was 3 or 4, I’ve always thought this building ugly. This morning, every one of its entrances and windows were being boarded up. We’ll see what happens to it. I hope it’s not more luxury apartments but that corner of Stockwell Green is overdue something decent.
The door to my aunt and uncle’s building is still not working so having called my uncle when I was ten minutes away, my uncle was already down there waiting to let me in, IN HIS SLIPPERS. This was a massive hygiene fail on his part. Slippers should only be worn indoors, and I was wincing with every step he took back once inside the flat in those slippers.
We shared the lift up with a Maltese neighbour of his. The poor bloke, in his seventies now, with spectacularly big hair, has recently lost both his wife and his dog and it shows. He often buys food and leaves it downstairs for neighbours, by the concierge’s office, though as he understandably grumbled about the escalating food prices, that’s unlikely to continue. Back in the summer, I saw him place a packet of biscuits in the communal hall, before he returned moments later to open the packet and stuff himself with at least four biscuits in one mouthful. I’m not sure that’s how a food donation is supposed to work.
I feel his pain on the food front. I’m definitely compromising on my food shops right now and getting far less for my money. Having just done my shop this morning, I know there were at least four food items, essentials until now, that I’ve not bought this week. Progressing on the comedy circuit is unlikely to see those items returning to the flat anytime soon and I am really regretting a number of the expensive journeys undertaken in October to do empty gigs. My next show is on Monday, or so I was told by the promoter, but I’ve now seen a post that suggests the show is tonight. I sought clarification but haven’t heard back. They’re a nightmare to contact, even by the comedy circuit standards. Their first correspondence began, “Hi Hayden”, which I suppose makes a change from ‘David’. That was over two months ago. I’m not expecting to hear back before tonight, if the show is tonight, and I’m not travelling to north London speculatively. The plan is to head out for a run before dusk (whenever the **** that is) and then come home and loaf. It shouldn’t be this hard to have a gig confirmed.
The desktop PC, having stopped working again for 24 hours, has been working again for a bit today. I’ll take what I can get. But let’s get back to my aunt and uncle’s building…
I’d seen a notice by the lift that further services are being cut in the building. This time, five cameras will cease operating owing to new Government legislation coming through related to privacy issues. My uncle has long been a CCTV voyeur, often watching the screen when you’re coming up in the lift, so this is definitely going to affect him in several ways. I told my uncle the news in Spanish, who in turn relayed this to the Maltese Man in his horrendous English.
“F***ing bloody,” is about as good as my uncle’s English gets.
As the Maltese Man got out on the ninth floor, my uncle made mention of the man’s massive toenails which were peeking out through his sandals.
“He could open a tin with those,” my uncle remarked.
My aunt put the kettle on. My uncle mentioned the situation with these cameras soon being phased out. Understandably my aunt wasn’t impressed. I can’t recall if there was a segue, but my uncle then got onto telling her we’d encountered the Maltese neighbour in the lift.
My aunt turned to me. “You should see his toenails. He could open a tin with those.”
Back in the café and I do have some news on the ‘barking’ café door audio (see yesterday’s post), but first, a mention for the historically problematic swing saloon doors that lead through to the tomb-like loos here. An ill-thought-out addition in the long refurbishment of early 2004, the saloon doors seem to serve no real purpose other than wafting the malodorous outbreaks that hit the café every day and have ruined many a meal, and quite probably, relationships, over the years. Some of the culprits live locally and unless it’s an emergency, if your home WC is within a short walk, then you shouldn’t be using the café loos for an evacuation.
The swing saloon doors always make a racket, a pain for low-key types like me. Since yesterday, one of the doors appears to have half come of its hinges, meaning that the audio has escalated. Washing my hands on arriving, I completely forgot they’re playing up again, but on returning to the café area, I made sure I used a hand to prevent the two doors from clashing with one another again. Every now and then, one of the waiters, usually Phil Collins, will grab a screwdriver and take the offending door off before putting it back again, but that’s yet to happen this time.
M has just got here, the signature single crutch audio on the tiled floor announcing her arrival. She’s wearing a fetching caramel fleece scarf. We make some weather-related SMALL talk. While it is a bit colder this morning, we both acknowledge that for this time of year, it’s relatively mild. Normally by now, I’m in my winter coat. As someone that never travels light, I’d welcome the big pockets that come with my behemoth coat, but for now I’m making do with my spring jacket and a hoody. I shouldn’t forget the balaclava given to me by The Chin back in Christmas 2013, which doubles up as a very tight snood.
Shortly after M sits down, a young, bearded dad, English, comes in with his little girl, who immediately makes a beeline for M’s table, wanting to sit there and for M to move. Bearded Dad picks up the girl and carries her off to the four-seater over by the door, the infant casting envious glances at M and her table.
Let’s get back to the ‘barking’ door though. I got to the bottom of this mystery before leaving the café yesterday with three magnificent lattes inside me. See yesterday’s post for context.
The exchange was also the most interesting SMALL talk I’ve had with the Beard since his injury impacted on our daily patter. The reason the café door is now making this sound is linked to this week’s heavy rain. The flats above the café, which I had, for many years mistakenly thought belonged to the late owner and that she lived there, are fairly run down. Apparently, the flats suffered serious leaks this week, the water travelling all the way down into the café. Midweek, they opened up to find the café awash with rainwater.
This is an improvement, I suppose, on 2011’s curious flooding when I found myself sat at my old toilet table - removed since the pandemic - and found sewage travelling from the loos and making its way through the café, cutting off my exit, while the late owner’s Husband, Late-life George Best Lookalike, tried to reassure panicking customers tucking into their pastries and cooked breakfasts that there was nothing for them to be concerned about. I’m not sure Health and Safety would’ve agreed with that. Breakfasting with human waste travelling, conveyor-belt like past your table, that’s a very niche type of eatery if you ask me.
While Seb K and Phil Collins, the day shift’s outstanding double act, were able to clear the flooding, unbeknown to them, the water had seeped right into the flooring, through the tiled floor and into the wood below. The wood has now swollen, pushing up the tiled flooring by the door, meaning the door is now scraping the floor every time it’s opened, making for this seriously annoying sound that really sounds like a dog barking. I’ve recorded this here for your audial aggravation.
Now tell me that doesn’t sound like a dog.
As a mystery, the barking door is not quite up there with D.B. Cooper or The Dyatlov Pass, two of my favourite unexplained episodes, largely I suppose because it’s been resolved, ergo it’s no longer a mystery, but I still enjoyed getting to the bottom of it. I think The Beard enjoyed breaking the situation down for me. It was our strongest SMALL talk exchange for weeks. He’s due in around midday and I’ll make a point of not trying to match yesterday’s exchange because I don’t think it’s doable. I’d rather bask in the glorious aftermath of yesterday’s dialogue for a bit longer. A little similar to the time in the summer that I beat a Gong show, only to return there less than a couple of months later where I got bundled off early. I should’ve waited before going back. There should’ve been more basking on my part.
We’ll see how this door situation plays out. The Beard tells me the café is trying to establish with the building’s management whether they will take responsibility for the leak, otherwise the curious canine-like door audio is going to be with us for the foreseeable.
A man comes in. He’s startled by the door audio.
“F*** me,” he starts. “I thought you had a dog.”
The waiters smile politely. The man continues. “Do you do smoothies?”
Seb K tells him they don’t.
And then we hear the barking door again as Mr Wants A Smoothie exits.
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