A Paean to My Oyster card: First Story Workshop at Pimlico Academy

Oyster Card: give it its due

Through the freezing streets to the fabulous Pimlico Academy for an excellent First Story creative writing workshop. We wrote about abstract ideas linked with concrete places - eg, "The Palace of History", or my particular favourite, "The Sewer of Style." One of the best things that came out of it was writing letters to objects that you use day to day. So we had some brilliant letters to a ruler, a ball of blu-tac, a newspaper trolley, an apple, and a poster. Mine was to my Oyster card, and I liked it so much that I'm going to reprint (as it were) it here:

Oyster Card

Wallet

Upper Right Hand Pocket

Overcoat

7/02/2012

Dear Oyster Card,

Even your name is beautiful to say. Oys-ter. Redolent of the mysteries of the sea, of the beauties of gourmet dining. And with you, all those things are available - to me. I give you my gratitude for all those juddering journeys into town; all those breathless, anticipatory runs up staircases to moments of joy and hope. You are not an inexpensive friend and helper, though; but I don't begrudge you the monthly toll on my bank balance. With you, the world is my - I won't say it.

I won't mention the pearls of London life that are to be found with your elegant guidance. I won't mention the little skip of my heart that I get whenever I press you against the card reader (which, I may confide in you, is mostly because I'm worried that my balance will have run out.) But, dear oyster card - Oystie? - I jest - you are a key, a magic spell, a wonder, a Hermes, a leader into the underworld; but unlike Hermes, you also take us out - which is useful.With you, oh Oyster, the world is - I won't say it.

Thank you for your slimness, for the ease with which you fit into my wallet; for your ability, somehow, never to get lost. For all this and more, I thank you, and with you, the world is my .... lobster.

Yours sincerely,

Philip Womack

Now I hope you all go and write beautiful notes to your hoovers.

Coincidentally...

I was on the underground today – the Victoria line, to be precise, heading southwards at a leisurely pace. I threw my head back and emptied it. I'd been thinking about Sam Leith's novel, The Coincidence Engine, and about time travel, which has come up in discussions with friends about books for children; I remembered talking about chronological journeys with an old university friend, who recommended Daphne du Maurier's House on the Strand to me as being one of the best of its genre.

Du Maurier: Time Lady?

I tried to remember what it was about, having read it and loved it, and was picturing huge fields of corn and a rider galloping across them, when the train started to slow further as it came into the station. I sat up, glanced at the paper lying on the seat to my left, and at the three people sitting opposite me. One was a girl, who passed a newspaper to her friend; she then unzipped her rucksack and pulled out a book.

It was The House on the Strand, in the very same paperback Virago edition that I had. I couldn't help but whisper, 'god that's strange'; I hope nobody noticed. Perhaps I should have said something to her - but what? I was just thinking about that book, and you're reading it? Maybe I had gone back to a time when a girl on the tube was reading The House on the Strand. Maybe it was a message, from Daphne du Maurier, who is the last remaining Time Lord from Gallifrey and wants me to do something terribly important involving saving the world or writing a book or some such. I can but hope. (If you're listening, Daphne, and you'd like me to write an episode of Doctor Who - well, that would be marvellous.)

Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Whatever it was, it made me think about things twisting together, and making patterns in the world, and whether or not a pattern is intentional, or chaotic, it's still remarkably beautiful.

Tales from Underground: the Death of the Book?. Post No 1.

Being the sort of itinerant type who spends most of the day traipsing around London with my belongings in a red and white spotted handkerchief on a stick, I do seem to spend large amounts of time either on the tube or on the bus. There's been a lot of fuss about e-readers, for obvious reasons, so I thought I might see what I see people reading on the tube. It might also reflect people's reading habits (for better or worse...)

Yesterday, at about ten to ten in the morning, on an eastbound Hammersmith and City line (whose elegant, salmony pink I particularly enjoy), an older woman in a red jacket who'd earlier refused my seat sat down next to me and started in on .... The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I thought about wrenching it from her grasp, but thought that might upset the relative calm of a very bookish carriage - there were at least four others reading actual books, although I couldn't see the titles, apart from one chap who was deep in the Millennium trilogy. So far, so bestseller.

Later, as the clock eased its way towards cocktail time, on the brash, yellow Circle line (no longer a Circle, since its recent doglegging. It's like a tart that promises and doesn't deliver) to Sloane Square, again five readers of real books: the inevitable Stieg Larsson, and, hearteningly, a pretty young hipster type reading a paperback copy of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. There was also a middle-aged Asian man in a leather jacket, reading his Koran, his lips moving.

Just before supper, again on the Circle line (to whom I return like a spurned lover, again and again), I saw my first e-reader. The woman was was reading it looked very cross indeed.

So, in my entirely scientific investigation so far, that's

Stiegg Larsson 2
Khaled Hosseini 1
David Mitchell 1
The Koran 1
Ereader 1.

In your face electronic books! Suck on that Mr Kindle!

I may speak prematurely, but hey... watch this space. If you see a strange man peering at your book cover, it's probably me...

(As an addendum, I should note that I was reading The Transformation of Bartholomeo Fortuno by Ellen Bryson, a debut novel about the World's Thinnest Man and his love for a Bearded Lady.)