The Hurried Conversation

The Hurried Conversation (from the series: Still Lives)

I nearly titled this “the tyranny of electronics” - because that’s how I feel about mobile phones, but that’s not what this sketch portrays.

There are seats opposite these stairs on Waterloo station and you can sit there and watch humanity gush out at you from them, during rush hour. I sat there one evening just watching it for maybe ten minutes - standing back and observing the stream within which I have also been just another drop of water. I’ve done the same on Grand Central Station, in New York, a station that is far more photogenic than Waterloo. Some have compared its high ceilings and windows to a cathedral, but the human stream is much the same - scurrying in every direction, many of them with phones pressed to their ears.