I have a bad habit of always rushing between two points as quickly as possible, even when I’m in no hurry at all, so after speed-walking, running up the escalators and taking steps two at a time when changing between the Northern and District Lines at Bank and Monument, I was pretty puffed out.
“You look red, do you have a tan?” this prompted from the Italian hairdresser I sat opposite from, and I spent the 10 or so minutes I talked to him trying to cool down and stop sweating. It was pretty hot down there but I also still get a bit flushed with the embarrassment of approaching strangers.
Hi, how’s your day been? was my opening gambit after walking down the carriage and finding that he was the only person both on their own and without headphones on. “Good. Long,” he said laughing. He had neat hair and what novelty fake moustache sets call a ‘partyboy‘, a neat thin one that runs along the top lip. He quickly (maybe too quickly) asked where I was getting off, but in a friendly manner.
What have you been doing today? I asked, moving across to sit next to him to hear him better. “Working,” he told me that he worked at a salon in central London. I actually cut my own hair, I said truthfully. “You cut that yourselves [sic]?” he asked incredulously. Yeah, what do you think? “It’s not bad!” he laughed, “With clippers no?” No, with scissors, I told him. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed dramatically in his musical, high pitched Italian accent.
I asked if he had any tips for me. “Go to a hairdressers! I’m training for 10 years… for men, 15 years for men and women.” And do you like it? “Yeah I like it very much. I don’t upset people!” I should hope not, I laughed. “Maybe you should try with clippers,” he said, looking at my hair more seriously now, “You have quite a lot of steps at the back actually.”
I was only going a couple of stops but the train was creeping along slowly and we kept talking about hair and my methods of self-pruning for a while, which I’ll spare you.
So what are you doing in London? I asked eventually. “Trying to be happy,” he said after thinking for a second, “and if not then make money.” Good answer. How does it compare to Italy? “I like here, it is better to me [sic] than when I was in Italy. I am completely free…. The relation here with people is, I think, is maybe better…”
This was just getting interesting, and I was about to ask what he meant when we were interrupted by one of those very English service announcements by the driver on the intercom: “Sorry ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been held because of a train coming across the junction ahead, just a train coming across the junction ahead, er, ah that’s actually, we’ve actually got green now so we’re actually on the move now. Thank you.”
Unfortunately, this threw us back to square one and talk about the tube (which he thought was great) and transport differences and so on but I just had time before we reached my stop to ask him what he thought of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s scandal-mired prime minister. “Berlusconi? Oh my God,” he said, rolling his eyes, “Another time! I can’t believe he still being there [sic].”
I couldn’t imagine David Cameron getting away with the same kind of thing I said, getting up to leave and we said goodbye laughing.
[11th October]
London Talking 
