matt's 101 in 1001

Amongst the many other benefits of life in London, including the British staples of red buses, mailboxes and phone booths, is the wonderfully diverse mix of people out and about in the Big Smoke.

When I'm not responding to crackpots writing to our department about baldness, Nazis or the Loch Ness Monster (or Creature, as our paranormally-enthusiastic correspondent would prefer it be known), I've become a shameless participant in the sport of people-watching.

At the risk of morphing into a snooty decaf-cappa-frappa-mocha-cino latté-sipping snob (on skim milk, please), the, admittedly, exceptionally lazy activity of meeting someone for a coffee and absent-mindedly observing passers-by at a distance is sadly highly addictive. There's such fun to be had in weighing up whether to tell the lady wearing the bright yellow dress that there is a road going unworked-on around the corner, or to point out to the bloke with the ponytail that, well, he has a ponytail.

What, might you ask (were you somehow aware of the topic of this blog entry before it was published), prompted the origins of my penchant for people-perceiving? It all began just a few months ago as I was standing at London Bridge station during peak hour. The experience was not unlike Godfrey Reggio's superb film, Koyaanisqatsi (a plotless sequence of time lapsed and slow motion scenes). An absolute sea of people flooding in and out of the Tube station every minute, each oblivious to one other, save for tripping over someone's briefcase or being rammed in the heels with a stroller. Each wave of people is rushing, racing, never stopping. Yet despite the chaos taking place before my eyes, it was, for me, as if time had stood still. Seeing the manic pandemonium that was, in reality, no more than "just another Tuesday" was a strange, surreal feeling that has since prompted me to, every now and again, stop, pause and take stock of each moment before it passes.

Occasionally, people-watching becomes a contact sport, often in the most bizarre manner. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting at King's Cross Station with a friend, when we were approached by a man carrying a large bag over one shoulder.

"Excuse me," he tells us. "I'm half-blind and I was wondering if you can help me out."

"But of course," we say, ever the Good Samaritans.

"Do you see any arms hanging out of my bag?" he asks us with a wry smile.

Without an alternative, we reply with a strange look and a simple "no".

"Any legs?" he poses.

"No," we answer, unable to mentally comprehend a response longer than two letters.

"Any dripping blood at all?" he pushes.

"None," we reply in unison, having realised the two-letter responses were not removing us from this bind.

"Thanks, folks!" the fella says with a cheerful wink, and off he bounded.

Narrowly beating the time some chap tried to steal my newspaper (relax, I got it back, though the trauma remains), it's one of the strangest interactions I've had since I left home (such an exchange would seem much more normal in some of the less scrupulous parts of Nerang).

I'm paranoid now.

If I see anyone walking around a train station carrying a bag, I have the uncontrollable urge to twitch and shout out, "If there's a body in there, I don't want you anywhere near me!" (I get some odd looks, but they're the ones carrying around the bodies).

But it's these character-building experiences that truly make you pause to take in everything around you. Amidst the horde of people flowing around you like water through a river's delta, you get lost as you stand still, thinking, musing, pondering.

And then you lose all train of thought as someone rams you with a stroller.