Through the window, near motionless nodes of life stood drumming their fingers methodically over smooth, shiny blobs of plastic and glass, all laid out tidily on grand tables of thick pine wood. Between the walls, floor and ceiling a repetitive drumbeat looped, occasionally accompanied by dense synthesised keyboarded melodies. Lee panned into the scene feeling out of complete sorts with the other passing occupants littered around the vast open plan retail space. The overly warm, still air immediately brought a pink to the young man’s face, reducing his appearance of age by some five years, increasing the extent to which a member of staff could patronise at his each undoing of a shirt button or scarf knot to release the itchy warmth of consumer angst.

Lee’s fingers remained firmly inside his pockets whilst little eye contact above floor level was made. The anticipation of patronage rolled along with the store music. Contact lurched slowly towards him, commenced by a firm, confident hand from behind, patting his shoulder. A blindingly white set of perfectly formed teeth danced behind a smile so smug it could snap.

The intruder of personal space’s eyes scanned every pixel of Lee’s face. The maximum volume of Lee’s voice seemed muted by the assistant’s unsettling over familiarity. He reached into his inside pocket, presented a diagram of the input ports behind his new television and pointed at a presentation laptop he owned a model of. The intruder swaggered into a back room, half dancing in his stride on returning and placed a series of wires into Lee’s hands. Lee paid for the items, re-knotted his scarf and did up a few shirt buttons. With determination, he power walked through the sliding electric doors to outside.

‘It’s incredible, the self importance great marketing can provide someone who ultimately just works in a shop’ typed Lee into his personal diary, letter to pen pal, tape cassette player and camera all rolled into one digital soapbox come necessity, whilst taking in the real, fresher air of the street. Outside of that businesses’ doors, he could have been standing anywhere, such is the regularity of international brand strategy. This time he was in London. The usual mild busyness of a mid morning performed choreographed poses the city knew too well.

‘It’s equally as unfathomable how right and sure a customer is that a particular product is the best choice because of bleached white television adverts positioned relentlessly throughout programming schedules’ typed somebody outside of that company’s San Francisco equivalent, into their own pocket PA system.

Lee stepped down into an underground station and watched the insides of his eyelids until his mental tally told him it had been six stops and was time to get up. The peaceful solitude of his own mind’s canvas was then drowned in buckets of noises sweeping, hanging, stomping and wheeling around the market stalls pitched immediately at the exit of his destination’s tube terminal.

In between prams, past snail paced shoppers, behind a leafleteer and across a set of traffic lights, Lee walked across an uneven terrain of paving slabs, seemingly against the flow of the earth, as baggy tracksuit bottoms, clouds of smoke, hints of urinated upon walls and bus dust marched towards him. A crisp packet got stuck on his foot. The unzipped tracksuit top of somebody running for a cab pinched past his forearm. At his front door atop six flights of stairs he refused to take a lift to avoid, Lee panted, took keys from his satchel containing an apple, notepad, box of cigarettes and newspaper, and shut himself away from it all.

Whether a Kenyan slum, Icelandic mountain or Californian airport, tell someone you’re English and it’s not long before they proudly tell you they support Liverpool FC. Their roll call of players is lost on me. Luckily Beatles Mania has had every shop and busker playing the Fab 4 these past three weeks in San Francisco. It’s like they’re a brand new band taking the world by storm for the first time – particularly impressive considering that 50% of the lineup’s dead.

After the typical ‘Who’s your favourite?’ conversation, things have generally gravitated towards a non Brit’s confusion as to why we love Oasis so much. It’s been tough to justify and the best I’ve done is to rank them second in the history of UK bands to Paul and John’s squad. It’s not a comfortable thing to say, for I adore Radiohead and many others too. By the looks of these stranger’s faces, it’s quite tough to hear also.

I quickly change topic slightly and turn the tables by asking why Coldplay and U2 are so popular out here. With that, bus journeys, flights or dinners conveniently beckon and conversations cease. Rock N Roll and attempts at it can sometimes create unexplainable oddities. I’ve yet to deliver a solid enough justification of Noel and Liam’s following, not one explanation of Chris Martin and Bono has ever been attempted and I doubt either case will be closed soon.

As is with the nature of hostels, I woke before seven in the morning at the shakes of my bunk bed because the guy up above seemed sure not to get dressed like the rest of the world with feet on the floor. Thump went my skull against the head rest as he spent what seemed like pointless minutes, sliding into one trouser leg after another. Just when I thought he was through – out came his jumper from a huge backpack which he presumably spooned all night. By the time he was done he’d woken the other two guys in the room as well.

I laid projecting exhausted yawns as if to kindly say ‘Please shut the fuck up’, the sounds of backpackers, lockers, tooth brushes, zips and sandals storming my mind awake. I reluctantly stretched to my toes, threw last night’s clothes over my shoulders and headed for the free breakfast down the hall, taking a leak along the way in a corridor toilet. I’d already been disrupted once by the room share. I certainly wasn’t getting in line for a ‘private’ bathroom to make small talk with the very folk who interrupted my intent. Nor was I going to place myself subjected to the peculiarities of a stranger’s toothbrush and sink routine. Just how many rinses and spits are necessary?

Over toast in the communal kitchen I spoke, or rather, I was spoken to, by a fifty year old lady who gave me a download of her views at every crunch of my bread – barely crispy due to the impatient huffs and puffs of people behind me in the toaster line. Hostels she moaned, used to be free. This one was too regulated. Everything in life is too complicated, she swims three hours up river from her home in the woods each day, VH1 play trash and if Kanye West and Beyonce are going to prance around as they do, they should at least install some high fashion. That girl Pink though, hits her spot.

With a final bite of my snack I politely smiled and left her to continue ranting aloud, reaffirming my observation that most, if not all hippies, be it the phonies or the real deals, have more chips on their shoulders and gripes with the world than they’ve grown dreadlocks, worn bangles or lit joints.

Suddenly the conformity in the sea of average joe hostel goers made more sense. Sure, the lumps of flesh headphoned into their laptops and wired up to head sets and microphones resembled something of a contradiction to the very purpose of a vacation away, their clothes almost matching from one node to another and nothing more controversial than a ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘How long are you here for?’ being exchanged, but they seemed content with their lives having not chosen the tree huggers route of looking first for a negative in any situation and looking or sounding like, well, an unhappy mess. Then again, should impact be the point, who makes the most?