or: Smoking Areas Are An Interesting Spot to Meet People

One of the 974 things I like about travel is meeting new people. Everyone has a story with some more willing to share theirs with random strangers than others.

This is about two of these people:
1) A twenty-nine year old woman who, by her own admission, is going through a midlife crisis. I told her she’s not expecting to live very long if that’s the case.
2) A man of fifty-five years who was a former British National Party Council Representative and was out for his birthday. He was concerned I worked for the New York Times.

Neither could be referred to as sober though the former was more so than the latter.

I met her with my two hosts in the outdoor smoking area of one of the local pubs. Smokers do have a benefit of meeting people a little more easily than non-smokers as they tend to congregate in common areas and even if they have nothing else to share, being wrapped in smoke seems to be enough to encourage people to talk.

I was along for the ride. One of those non-smokers who wants to see what the fuss is about without having to smoke. The fuss is the meeting of people.

I digress…

By way of introduction, this woman launched straight into her midlife crisis before telling us she’s the favourite granddaughter on both sides of the family, her parents are both millionaires and she is spoilt but not in a bad way.

Wearing all white and playing every part the angel with a devil on her shoulder, she went on to say she doesn’t take anything from her parents. Except her boob job. These were her exact words. Her siblings were all offered Audis and she figured her parents would give her one anyway so she asked for a boob job instead. She has two children and decided changing her boobs was the better option so she was prepared to forgo the Audi if needed.

She does have great boobs.

She also now has an Audi.

And a house.

Though she was at pains to mention she pays rent to her parents for the house.

I could have listened to her stories all night. She is one of those people that becomes so caught up in their story telling, they forget where one starts and finishes so they all meld together in a stream of consciousness. Her life is so far removed from mine that even if her stories are only one-eighth true, it would still be the difference between the desert and the sea. I would prefer to be the sea in this scenario. I’d recognise the fish.

After spending some time back inside, it was time for my hosts to have another cigarette so this time we went to the front of the pub and that’s where we met the Birthday Man. Skin like an anaemic prune, he looked like he had a rough life and it took me a little while to understand his accent combined with his drunken slur. I was also slightly distracted by his swaying.

He wasn’t quite so willing to share his stories except that it was his birthday. It turns out that he had a rather negative piece written about him in the New York Times around the time of the riots in June 2001 in the area.

Riots began after a taxi driver was stabbed and then turned into a race related free-for-all with petrol bombs and violence prevailing. Many crimes were committed some relating to race, some not. Unemployment was high, there was a perception that some were receiving benefits that others in the community weren’t and a lot of rumours, there was likely to have been an unsettled undercurrent jus waiting for the right moment. As with a lot of things, it depends on what you choose to read as to the actual cause of the riots over that week. In any case, it was expensive at GBP1m.

I guess the NYT didn’t paint a pretty picture of one of the people that would have been an active participant and one of the leaders of the rioting.

He didn’t discuss this with me. He was more interested in drinking my drink so I gave it to him. Who am I to argue with a drunken older man on his birthday that looked like he could become very angry very quickly. My life will be short enough at 104 years.

He wanted to pat me down to check for wires which is the other reason it was a good idea to part with my drink. It’s very difficult to be pat down by someone who is unlikely to put their drink down to do it.

As it turns out, BNP Birthday Man is the grandfather of Midlife Crisis Woman.

As they sat and shared a cigarette and drink, we went back inside to the cover band playing Rage Against the Machine, Killing in the Name Of…

* Thanks to The Doors for the title to this post.