It is a brisk, temperate and, for once all damn week, not rainy Sunday morning in London so, like all Sundays, I am set to commence in my weekly stroll through the winding streets and crowded city squares that make up the heartbeat of the city. From my hotel on Gower Street, I leave heading south on Tottenham Court Road and then take a quick break for a smoke, as I invariably do on these walks. I have a feeling that this one in particular will be of great quality. No particular destination is on my mind. I plan on wandering aimlessly, but with purpose, through this great city of so much character, letting my thoughts roam with the goal of coming up with one culminating statement on the city before I end my four-week Dickinson Humanities course and relocate to the University of East Anglia in Norwich on the following Wednesday.
I take Tottenham Court Road to Charing Cross Road and follow it to Liecester Square, the crime scene of a truly disappointing club I frequented the night before. From there I continue south, towards the river, the one destination that is never absent from these Sunday toke-and-strolls. I am now at Trafalgar Square, the great statue of Lord Admiral Nelson surrounded by the three great lions reminding me of England’s valour and bravery of wars past. I am standing at a crosswalk, waiting for the passing traffic to stop and for the little green man on the stop light to appear, signalling my right of passage. He appears, and I start to cross. I am a few feet from the curb, when a black Ford Fiesta comes whizzing towards me, honking its horn and runs through its red light, forcing me to step back quickly onto the curb. Filled with scorn and indignation, I search for some sort of insult that I can fling back at this disrespectful motorist. Something that will portray my annoyance, but nothing personal. Something that makes it clear how I feel about this person and their breach of societal rules, but nothing profane. The word comes. But not as a result of my search, but rather by instinct. It reaches my lips and I shout: “Wanker!”
Immediately, my indignation and sentiments of scorn and disrespect are dissolved at the hands of this word, this perfect word. My thirst for an insult towards this person was duly quenched with “Wanker,” for it proved to fit perfectly into its role. If I was in America, I probably would called the Ford Fiesta an ‘asshole,’ but this is far too harsh and I also respect the fact that I’m in public where profanity is not always welcome. The Ford Fiesta was not doing anything evil or wicked, but merely proving to be an annoyance. Not acting like an ‘asshole,’ but just being a wanker, as everyone does from time to time. The fact that I found this word instinctively now makes me feel gratitude towards this wanker, for I appreciate this opportunity to attune myself naturally to the English colloquial, even if it was just this once, before I leave London.
Chuckling a bit to myself after this comical encounter, a broad smile comes across my face as I realize I have reached my culminating statement of London. Or, it is not a statement but rather a short, individual event, so quintessentially English that I have nothing but thanks for the wanker in the Ford Fiesta as I now look back a couple of seconds after the event’s occurance. I cross the street. Contented and pleased, I decide it is time for another smoke before I reach the Thames ... LW
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