Dawn Coffee

0520 8 Apr 2005

I’ve slept in. Despite the ponderous clanging of mighty and historic bells determinedly ringing out the true and correct time of God, none of that Daylight Saving nonsense, thank’ee – and the equally loud contribution of another church, more in tune with the times a few seconds later – I’ve lain in bed until a time I normally regard as impossibly late.

My Australian room-mates slumber on, complete with sound effects. They and I are quite out of phase with each other with their late night pubbing and my early morning writing, but we somehow manage to interact on a clement level in the few moments when our schedules intersect.

I keep my disturbances to a minininimum, making sure in the evening that I have everything I need tucked into my backpack, so that when I rise before dawn I am not rummaging around amongst my increasingly jumbled luggage for vital power cords and the like. Then again, I suspect that they use the same tactic I do when they return late at night – clasping the bedclothes and rolling over back into the enfolding arms of sleep.

I work for a few hours, TV news beside me, a cup or two to keep me going. I haven’t actually made myself a mug of proper coffee yet. Yesterday I left the “plunger” bit behind in the room, and today when I have all the proper parts, I discover that the pack of coffee I’ve bought consists of whole beans. I consider grinding my teeth awhile to get the proper consistency, but no. I will try to exchange them later.

I fall back on instant.

(no subject)

It took me a while to get myself organised yesterday. I cut up the scanned and printed images of the Monopoly title deeds, discovering that I’d missed out on Whitechapel Road, and proudly stuck the first onto the cover of “Freedom Road”. A fitting title to set free on Old Kent Road, which is, after all, the first leg of the A2, the main road to Dover.

I showed the result to my room-mates, freshly breakfasted and ready to go out on another day of non-obsessive sightseeing. They were duly impressed, and in return showed me the croissants lifted from the breakfast kitchen which would serve them for lunch.

The included breakfast is rather heavy on fried goods and baked beans, but it’s good for fuelling a day of walking. The machine coffee is likewise free, but overpriced, in my opinion.

I hit Starbucks again to make release notes. I shall be releasing my books hours before I can get back to the Internet, so I make general notes on their release locations. At least with my Monopoly books I know the streets on which I shall leave them, if not the number or street corner. “Somewhere on Old Kent Road” is good enough to be going on with, and I leave a note that there shall be “details later”.

I also make a “pre-release” journal entry to serve as a vehicle for a photograph. My usual practice is to take two photographs of a release, one showing the general area and another to show the book as it sits. I can only attach one photograph to each journal entry, including release notes, so if I want to add in multiple photographs, I must make multiple journal entries.

Another reason to make an extra journal entry is to alert previous owners of the book that it is on the move. If someone makes a journal entry on a book, all previous holders of that book are sent an e-mail message so they can share the experience of their book being caught and appreciated. Or whatever.

But release notes are not likewise passed on. I can release a book into the wild in a significant location and an interesting fashion, complete with a photograph, and nobody knows. An oversight in the system, perhaps.

I’m ready. The very first book “on the board” is “If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O”, a book I selected on the sole basis of the title alone. It was released by markmcg at last year’s Australian Bookcrossing Convention in Sydney. I have kept this book for a special release, and it would be a pity if Mark were unaware of the moment.

The first square on the Monopoly board is, of course, “GO”. Always a welcome sight to the weary traveller hurrying up the high rent stretch of the greens and dark blues, but to the players lined up at the start of the game with a virgin field ahead, it is bright with promise. There are bargains ahead and a heavy purse to snap them up with.

For my real life trip around the board, I choose the modern world’s bank. The autoteller machine, the cashpoint, the hole in the wall. Pretty Peggy-O will grace the shiny metal shelf of the first ATM to catch my eye.

As it happens, this is one of a twin set of NatWest bank autotellers in Jukon House, a faux classic office building curving around the steps of St Pauls. Stand at the screen drawing out your two hundred pounds, and the hidden security camera is rewarded with a view of your cheerful face and that soaring cathedral behind you. Stirring stuff for a bank’s vault of video tapes.

Lacking access to this footage, I fall back on the beefy business-suited security guard at the nearby entrance.

“Uh, could you take a picture of me? With St Pauls behind me? And me holding this book? Fair into the blinding sun?”

He seizes the relief from the boredom of security guardianship, and diligently squints into the glare of the sun and my beaming features. I’m smiling with happiness at beginning my Monopoly trip, and with amusement at the expression on his face as he tries to make out anything at all on the tiny LCD screen on my camera.

“I don’t think it’s very good…” he says glumly as I walk back. I take the camera from him, flick it over to review, and prove him wrong. Not a great shot, but we’re both happy with it.

And so the trip begins. Peggy-O is left on the keypad of the cashpoint and I find a nearby bus stop for the trip out to Old Kent Road.

On the bus

I’ve done my research here, and what I need is a 172 bus to carry me out to this most distant of Monopoly’s streets. It is not a difficult wait with the towering flank of the mighty cathedral before me. For centuries this was the highest building in London and people must have come here from all over the kingdom to look up in awe and worship, gazing in rapture at Wren’s masterpiece. As I do, until the view is eclipsed by the shiny red side of a double-decker bus bearing the number 172.

For several blocks the mighty bus belongs to me and the driver, sitting a metre apart, he behind the wheel, me with my boots just over his head in the front seat of the deserted upper deck.

I hug myself with delight. This is as good as a roller coaster! I am transported down Fleet Street and the Strand, high above the traffic as the gargantuan vehicle is squeezed into impossibly small spaces on the crowded streets of the capital. I hold my breath as we miss walls, signs, other vehicles and scampering pedestrians by the thickness of a coat of red paint. However much they are paying the skinny young driver below me, it’s not enough.

We pull into a stop and a young lady climbs up to sit across the aisle as we wheel and swoop through London’s lanes. She seems not to notice as I press my nose against the windscreen, eyes everywhere as we pass architectural masterpieces and then turn left to rumble over Waterloo Bridge. There’s the London Eye, the incredibly high Ferris wheel across from Westminster, where my heart skips a beat or two as I recognise the ornate towers of the Houses of Parliament.

And then we are passing, passing, passing Waterloo Station, heading away from the central city. Somewhere ahead is Elephant and Castle, New Kent Road and my destination. I can almost hear the dice rolling, except that you can’t actually get to Old Kent Road from the GO square, not unless one of the two dice rolls away and is eaten by the dog.

Never mind. Monopoly is one of those games where rules are flexible. You want to play with a single die while you are waiting for the hound to finish with the other? No problem.

We rattle down roads marked with signs and arrows, lanes that guide us around bleak traffic circles. Thank goodness the driver knows what he’s about. I’d be lost in an instant here beyond the fringe of my guidebook’s map.

Elephant and Castle is bereft of both, New Kent Road is none of the three, and this must be Old Kent Road. I alight with delight.

Nobody else here is smiling.