ANGEL ROAD

This morning I was sat next to a German couple on the Stansted Express. The guy, who was sitting opposite, was talking a lot. And in a way I was finding impossible to ignore. So I found myself listening to every word, even though I couldn’t decipher a single one. From his voice I formed a mental picture of him, and it was Christoph Waltz.

Eventually I looked up from my iPhone to sneak a proper look. And guess what, he looked exactly like Daniel Craig. For a moment I was terrified. Imagine that: the mind of Ernst Stavro Blofeld inside the body of James Bond. Retreating back into my phone, I wondered why I was instinctively afraid of Germans. Especially ones that looked like 007.

I hadn’t reached a conclusion when his companion turned to me and, in perfect English, enquired politely whether I knew what the next stop was. For some reason, the fact she was German made it imperative that I got it right. I had one chance, and if I couldn’t manage that then there certainly was no place for the UK in the European Union. I made a carefully considered guess that it was Tottenham Hale, and checked the London Underground app for verification. I was right. 

It occurred to me how odd it was for someone who needed to know something to ask a complete stranger instead of looking at their phone. A stranger that probably spoke a different language. In fact, come to think of it, the German couple were the only people in the carriage who didn’t have phones in their hands. That were talking to each other.

I chatted for a moment with her about the underground links available at Tottenham Hale, keeping my eyes diverted from Stavro Bond across the table. But I could feel his gaze upon me, and couldn’t imagine it was anything other than hateful. There she was, slipping effortlessly into my mother tongue while I wasn’t able to offer a single syllable of German utterance in return. But I guess that’s exactly what she'd expected.  

The train slowed as we entered the station. Okay, so I didn’t know German.  But at least I knew the stops on the Stansted Express. Then Stavro spoke:

“Was ist das? Angel Road hah?  Not Tottenham Hale.”

I looked out and saw, to my horror, that the signs on the platform did indeed say Angel Road. What the hell was Angel Road and, more to the point, what was it doing on the Thameslink route between Stansted Airport and Liverpool Street on the very day I needed to provide travel advice to a German couple which included the one-man-show version of Spectre?

Stavro Seven was looking at me expectantly. An explanation was required.

“Must be a new route,” I stammered. “Diversion or something.”  

He raised an eyebrow quizzically. He wasn’t convinced. I looked for help towards another commuter sat opposite, but he had earphones in and showed no desire to surface.

“Perhaps it’s a fake station,” I ventured. “A film set or something. Probably the next Bond film…”

That’s it. I’d said it. The ‘B’ word. There was a pause. Had I over stepped the mark? Had I rendered our chances of remaining in a unified Europe even more tenuous? Or just provided another good reason why we didn’t deserve to?  

He smiled and broke into a warm laugh. And I realised he didn’t look like Christoph Waltz at all. Or Daniel Craig for that matter. Just a good natured guy who wasn’t thinking about the fact he was German and I wasn’t.  But was just thinking about how funny it was that this bloke he’d just met was so insecure that he had to make up stupid stories to disguise the fact that, actually, he hadn’t got a clue about the London transport system.

The train gathered speed without stopping and a few moments later we arrived at Tottenham Hale, where the couple gathered their things and alighted. A silence descended on the carriage as we returned to our phones. I Googled Angel Road, and discovered it had always been there. Since 1840 anyway. And I thought about all the other things I’d got wrong that morning, despite Google. And how many Blofelds there were going to be in polling booths up and down the country on 23rd June. God help us.

@jesoverthinksit