Sort of like Romeo

I was sitting on the 236 bus when my eye was drawn to an old man standing on the third floor balcony of a tower block. The man was chatting to his son, enjoying a can of special brew wearing nothing but his underpants. The son was fully clothed in a navy track suit and there they stood leaning over the railings passing the time of day, watching the world go by, drinking beer in various states of dress and undress. 

I stared at them quite rudely believing myself to be invisible behind the obviously transparent bus window- I didn't realise they were watching me watching them- perhaps that's the definition of snobbery. 

The old man with his sinuous limbs and lank yellow hair that stuck to his fore head and cheeks like a veil  reminded me of Iggy Pop. The son had just the same face as the father; both wore an expression of acceptance mixed with disillusion.

After a few seconds Iggy Pop raised his can in the air, nodded and I think...although it was quite far away, winked suggestively at me. 

Another eligible suitor for my collection; and they say its hard to meet men in London!

Songs about Dogs

http://open.spotify.com/user/sarahross25/playlist/0WovEZdkO93XAlMyDh4HNr

I screamed and my friend  lifted her legs in the air and squeeked.

"Excuse me" I said to the barmaid. "There's a massive mouse in the fireplace" Prompting me to wonder if 'massive mouse' was an oxymoron.

"I know" she said casually "a man came to kill him."

I felt sad.

Hang on a minute

Sometime ago I was waiting for a friend outside the Tate Modern.

It was a Saturday and there were people wandering around pretending to know where they were going but not really having a clue. (I recognise the signs as I do this all the time, techniques include; looking at one's watch, looking at one's phone, looking at other people in the hope that they are just as confused as you.)

Two men walked around the corner. They stopped and looked up at the imposing brick work, the straight lines, the big signs. One of them took out his guide book, searched for the relevant page and on finding it he slowly rotated the book-as if turning it upside down might make sense of the world.

They looked at each other in confused silence and then the man with the guidebook said in surprise...

"Hang on a minute" He exclaimed in a shrill American accent "This isn't Shakespeare's Globe!"

The Time of My Life

Standing outside the Slaughtered Lamb a drunk San Franciscan to whom I had lent a lighter invited me to her home town for a holiday.

"What brought you to London?" I didn't particularly want to know but since we would be holidaying together I felt it only polite to ask.

"Well" She replied "I was working...and now...well, I'm kind of here illegally." She said with bravado. What if I was an immigration officer?

"Cool" I replied, I was not sure if I thought this was cool, I mean I didn't think it was uncool, I didn't really have an opinion. "Where were you working before you became an enemy of the state?"

"In a cupcake shop. But I want to study Human Rights at the London School of Economics."
She said earnestly.

"I work for Amnesty." And with that and without any further questions as to the nature of my role or indeed my personality she then begun to introduce me-undeservedly- to her friends as her 'hero'

I then spent a good ten minutes high fiving her once bespectacled friend Max having stolen his glasses. This made the process of high fiving harder because he couldn't see without his glasses and I couldn't see with them. Then after one rather elaborate hi five his glasses were knocked from my face on to the floor and were subsequently repatriated.

Just as we all discussed the finer points of my heroism a man ran out of the pub door.

"Oh my God!" He exclaimed in a slightly comic camp foreign accent "I've just had the time of my life downstairs!"

He was a friend of Max and the San Franciscan. "What happens downstairs?" We asked in unison.

He looked at us as if it was self evident
" Why, it's where people go to have the time of their life of course!" He gushed, still buzzing from having the time of his life.

"Why, it's where people go to have the time of their life of course!" I repeated mimicking his slightly comic camp foreign accent.


He looked down at me with narrowed eyes and said
"Ok, that was a bit racist, but that's ok because I've just had the time of my life."

"This is my friend Nicoli" said the San Franciscan  "He's Greek"
He nodded at me. And then he ran down the road as fast as he could.

Rubbish

My mother went to a series of austere Catholic schools.

Aged four she was shipped off to one such Catholic boarding school. On Tuesdays they had sewing class. My grandmother refused to buy my mother a sewing kit because she believed my mother was too young to handle scissors. 

The nuns were not impressed.

The evil sewing teacher nun said 

-Josephine, go and wait outside for the dustman.

-Why?

Asked my infant mother

-Because you're rubbish and the bin man is coming to collect you.

So every week my mother went and stood  outside waiting for the dustman to collect her. 

He never did. 

Children in suits are creepy

Today I was waiting at the bus stop and along came a child of about 10 in a suit. He was unaccompanied and stern of face. He carried a clip board. 

The suit was shiny and light grey and pin stripped. It was a sunny day, the kind of day where ten year old children should be running around the street, throwing water bombs at passing strangers and not wearing suits.

I'm not sure where he had been, I'm not sure where he was going, but looked like he took life very seriously. 

Much more seriously than me.

I think perhaps he was a tiny business man.

For a moment I considered asking for general life advice.

But then I thought, no, he is ten.