An Unexpected Conversation

Earlier this week, Bank was voted the most hated tube station in London. Possibly because of the general loathing against bankers- the station is always full of them because of the direct service to London City Airport and Canary Wharf.

But for one Wednesday last week, the busiest station must have been St Paul's. It was there that I met a businessman who was rushing to do business somewhere around Greenwich.

I was waiting for a tube, just coming back from Margaret Thatcher's funeral, when joined by several well dressed gentlemen. One of them, nearing his 50s, approached the traffic warden with a question about the connection to North Greenwich - business interest, obviously.

Later he boarded the train and spent the journey engaged in conversion with a ‘peer'. I only overheard that one word 'peer' while reading paper, business news.

Upon leaving, I left the paper on the seat. The well dressed gentleman took it. I meant to leave it for other travellers to read, I apologized for what might be seen as leaving rubbish.

"That's all right', he said "I'll read it on my next train".

He asked me whereabouts I was from.

"Slovakia", he reacted to my country of origin. "I have a friend from there, Bruno, makes good guns".

I wanted to respond, but could not find anything smart related to guns. Immediately he changed direction for his train leaving me with no link to carry on the conversation.

Moving on with your career is about meeting influential people, archiving a clever chat with them. Well, maybe I should learn a thing or two about guns.

Erik Redli is a university graduate from Slovakia who is currently living in London. Read more posts by him here.

Share with friends