Close Encounters

Even though its Sunday and the weekend is still going, I finish drinking and leave the pub at 10:30 like a good girl so that I can get home in plenty of time for an early start in work on Monday morning. Sat in the bus shelter opposite the Wrestlers is a man with a voluminous beard and a can of lager. He looks the archetypal tramp.

"Hello" he says in a non- archetypal accent straight out of public school, "my name is Martin". Used to people talking to me unannounced at bus stops, even in London, I responded with a cheery "Hello".

Martin proceeded to give me a bit of a summary of his life, ending with " I'm an old hippy really, a hippy tramp I suppose" He then asked me "What do you do?"

Now I am aware that my job is not exactly considered interesting to those outside the not very glamorous world of FE so I used my usual response of "nothing of great importance or interest, just an office job". Martin, however, is a man who understands the world; he knows that we all form a part of the great patchwork quilt of life, and so he says "But everyone's job is important, what is it you do?"

I make several attempts to explain the intricacies of life as a Development Advisor for the LSDA whilst Martin looks at me with concentrated bafflement. Finally I hit on the appropriate shorthand "I'm a sort of management consultant for colleges".

"A management consultant?" says Martin, supportively patting my arm "There, there. Never mind"

So, there I am, sat in the back of a taxi, on my way from Bath to some place miles away listening to the taxi driver. He's already got to the level of telling me the details of premature death in the family when I experienced a Royston Vassey moment.

Looking at me in the rear view mirror he says "I'm sociophobic. I don't suppose you know what that is do you?"

In true British fashion I kept that jolly, stiff upper lip, smile on my face and said "You're not very comfortable with groups of people?"

"Oh yes" he says, all the time keeping eye contact with me in the mirror, "but I'm what they call a vomiting sociophobe. I was vomiting 150 times a week at one point. I'm down to 7 times a week now."

Outside the taxi there is nothing but fields with no other human in sight; so I did what every other British person would have done in the circumstances. With the smile fixed on my face I said "That's nice".

When we arrived he insisted on carrying my bags through the building for me to look for reception. I was in a cold sweat the entire time, terrified that we'd bump into a group of people coming down the corridor...

I hadn't been in London very long when there was an outbreak of mass groping on the tube (nothing to do with me I swear).

Caught in the middle of a crush of commuters I became aware that the man squashed up against me was moving with a somewhat different rhythm to the rest of the carriage.

At the next stop the carriage cleared enough to allow me to take evasive action.

I turned the large hook handled umbrella that I was carrying upside down, placed it between his legs and thrust it skywards at some speed.

He fell to the floor, groaning in agony, against the tube door.

He fell, still groaning in in pain, through the opening door at the next station.

End of problem.

The Oxford Street festival was designed to bring people back into the West End following.

Oxford Street was closed to traffic for the day and there were street entertainers, several stages and some of the gayest entertainment I've ever seen. One part of the entertainment involved sequin-clad dancers miming to "The hills are alive to the sound of music" over a disco beat. As our friend said "I think the person who organsised today may be a single gentleman".

Many of the staff at John Lewis wore evening dress. We got a little tipsy on the copious free whisky samples and free champagne samples. One of our friends, let's call her Kathy, maliciously beat a small child at sprout racing and I ate strawberry kebabs dipped in chocolate from the chocolate fountain.

Best of all though were the two middle aged Elvis impersonators outside the store.

They weren't part of the official entertainment - they'd just turned up, presumably arriving by public transport.

Attached are a few photos of them.

I particularly like the one of them sat in the bus stop eating their sandwiches brought from home in tupperware boxes.

It made me proud to be British