I heard a skid, then a loud thud, angry car horns, and three different sirens.
There is a big smash at the intersection near my flat.
Now there is an ambulance and a crumpled red car parked on our curb. It is flashing blue into my bedroom window as I am trying to sleep.
Around 7:30 AM, I thought I heard the clip clop of horses. I crossed my bedroom and looked outside to see a herd of horses walking on the large road in front of my flat.
There were about thirty of them in neat rows of three. The horse in the middle of each row carried a police person, who also held the reins for the horses either side of him or her. All the horses were brown.
I watched for the minute that it took to get across the main intersection. The ‘clip clop clip clop’ is a lovely sound in the morning.
I have since seen this early morning parade of horses another two times. It seems to happen around once a month.
‘Should I get six eggs or the full dozen?’ I thought. It was confusing, even more so when I realised that twelve eggs were more expensive than two cartons of six eggs.
As I stood in the supermarket, perplexed, I saw something strange. The woman next to me was holding a carton of dozen ‘basics’ eggs. This is the most inexpensive option — nothing barn laid, free range or organic about those eggs.
Yet, I noticed the woman had her hand in a carton of free range eggs too. I watched as she swapped each basic egg with a free range egg!
I was gobsmacked. I understand that people shoplift but this… this seemed particularly pointless. I can’t taste the difference between eggs from free range chickens and caged chickens. I buy free range and organic eggs for the principle of it, not the taste.
Ethical stealing? ‘I only steal Fair Trade. I want to support the farmers, you know.’
I have seen people swapping ‘Sainsbury’s Basics’ tomatoes for the premium ‘Taste the Difference’ tomatoes. Now, that I understand. I really can taste the difference, the branding does not lie.
Later that evening, I was listening to the radio and there was a discussion about the global financial crisis (again).
The commentator said, ‘As the recession deepens, we’ve seen increasing rates of shoplifting. Interestingly, it’s middle class shoplifting. More iPods are being taken, perfume, books…’
And, as I witnessed, also free range Fair Trade organic groceries!
I was walking home from work along a main road when a bus roaring up beside me erupted into flashes and smoke.
I stopped and so did the the two people ahead. The bus, unharmed, continued on.
Another explosion. This time it was a rocket with a trail of white smoke behind it. BANG!
Tentatively, I started to walk again. Behind me, there was another RAT-TAT-TAT of machine gun fire sounds and yellow bursts of light appeared in the corner of my eye.
I turned to watch the group of six or seven kids throwing orange sticks in front of cars. The sticks exploded.
I watched for a minute, hoping to intimidate them into stopping. But another firework launched, again one of those rocket-type ones.
So I pulled out my phone and pushed 9. Then 9. Then 9.
‘Hello? What’s the emergency?’ asked the voice.
‘There are some kids throwing firecrackers into the traffic,’ I heard myself say. ‘It’s a really busy road.’
‘Police, then? You want the police?’
‘Yes.’
I waited two dial tones, then: ‘Police, what’s the situation?’
I told them where I was and what was happening.
‘Are they fireworks or crackers?’
‘Crackers, I think. They throw these sticks and it takes a while to explode into sparks. There are loud cracking sounds. I think they’re crackers.’
‘Okay, we’ll investigate,’ said the phone voice. ‘Do you want to leave your name?’
‘Ah, no,’ I said. ‘I won’t be in the area.’
I hung up, then went on to the gym, then home to cook dinner and fold my laundry.
I wonder if the police came.
Walking towards me was a girl with headphones on. Her headphones were attached to a something she was holding in her hand.
‘Wow, what’s that she’s got?’ I thought. ‘It’s huge.’
Then I got close enough to see it — She was holding a Walkman! One of those old school cassette players. Wow.
(Even more amazing, personal cassette players are still sold, and for £40 too!)
Damjan and I spent Easter in Edinburgh. On our last day in Scotland, we had lunch at a Chinese buffet.
‘Hey,’ I nudged Damjan. ‘Look at that man. He’s doing something weird with his prawn crackers.’
Damjan looked over. ‘What?’
‘He’s loading up each cracker with food then eating it! He’s using the cracker like a scoop.’
‘Huh. Weird,’ Damjan agreed.
Ten minutes later, I gestured excitedy again. ‘Hey, that lady on the other table’s doing the prawn cracker thing!’
Then I noticed a man sitting on the table next to us also loading up his prawn cracker.
‘What’s going on? I’ve never seen anything like it before,’ I hissed to Damjan. ‘Is it a British thing? Or a Scottish thing?’
When I got back to work and asked some native Brits at work, they too said that they hadn’t come across this behaviour.
‘It’s got to be Scottish,’ they concluded, disclaiming all responsibility for the quirks of the north.
‘Maybe they’re harking back to Yorkshire pudding, ‘ I suggested.
‘Maybe,’ my friends agreed. ‘Or maybe it’s something to do with Vietnamese lettuce cups.’
If anyone has a better theory, I would gratefully receive it.
I am a little freaked out after visiting Boots today. There are really big posters of a mother and daughter hanging from the ceiling. The mother’s face is obscured and the daughter is smiling into the camera. I had to look twice to confirm it but it’s true — the girl looks almost exactly like me!
I was in the fifth floor kitchenette at work, watching Dave fill up his plastic cup of water. When he finished he turned to me, expectant and uncertain. Clearly, he sensed the ‘I want to say something to you’ vibe of my loitering.
Indeed, there was something I wanted to ask. I have spent the past year watching people fill up plastic cups of water in the kitchen. People would take a plastic cup, fill it, drink from it, then very conscientiously place it into the plastic recycling bin. Meanwhile, two shelves of perfectly reusable ceramic mugs hovered above the filtered water tap.
My company is full of environmentally friendly people, yet despite recurring requests, the stacked column of plastic cups continues to be replenished.
I wanted to ask someone about this. Today was my lucky day because Dave is a nice Englishman and probably wouldn’t be offended.
‘Dave,’ I said. ‘Is there some reason you use a plastic cup instead of a mug? Is it…’ I paused, ‘…a cultural thing?’
Dave looked surprised, then lifted up his cup of water and gazed at it for five seconds.
‘I don’t know,’ he began. ‘I guess I wouldn’t drink water from a mug. I never thought about it.’
So he thought about it. ‘I think it is a cultural thing. I feel like I need to drink water from a clear cup.’
Now this was something that hadn’t occurred to me! I had speculated to myself that there was something wrong with having a handle on the cup, or that mugs were too big for water.
‘Oh! Thank you for that,’ I said.
Later, I tried to corroborate my findings with Chris, another Englishman.
‘I use a mug for water,’ Chris said. ‘But I can see why others might not want to. I think it’s because mugs are sometimes stained. When you have tea or coffee, then you don’t mind because you can’t see. But because water is transparent, the staining probably puts people off.’
I got into the lift with two men from my office floor. The lift went down a level and two other men got in. Looking idly around, I noticed with a start that all four men were wearing pink shirts.
‘Gee!’ I thought. ‘This fashion for pink shirts really has become a permanent fixture.’
As the lift neared the ground floor, I was mollified when I figured out that one of the men was actually wearing a white shirt. It had only looked pink because of the pink light being reflected off our colleagues.
Celebrity sighting!
I was having lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant when I spotted Jamie Oliver crossing Goodge Street. He didn’t see me, so I’m in the lead.