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…and other festive tales

Will and I were waiting for the north bound jubilee line the other night, on our way to see Hard-Fi at Wembley (who were excellent). Once on the tube, it was immediately clear that someone in the carriage had not had a bath for a while, days, maybe weeks. The smell was almost overwhelming but as the doors had closed we had little choice but to move down the carriage, as far away as possible.

The unwashed man and a friend (also possibly unwashed) were sitting in the middle of the carriage, having a loud and largely incoherent conversation. Then unwashed man got up and stumbled, somewhat unsteadily, towards the other end of the carriage from where we were sitting. He asked the other passengers, very loudly, for a light and when they declined he shouted through the window into the next carriage to see if anyone there had one.

Wandering down the carriage, lighterless, he shouted incoherent abuse and stopped to exchange a few words with his (unwashed?) friend. By now its a good 2 or 3 minutes since we got on to the tube and we’re thinking - the next station must be coming up now, surely, then we can change carriages, very quickly.

But no. Unwashed man continues his meandering down the train. He stops in front of me and Will, the only people in that part of the carriage.

Unwashed man, brandishing an unlit roll up (his words are very thick): Excuse me, do you have a light.
Me: No, sorry.
Will: Sorry, mate, no.
Unwashed man: I have money, I can give you money for a light. He starts fishing in his pockets
Me: No, I’m sorry, I don’t smoke.
Unwashed man, pointing his finger at me : I’m going to kill you!
pointing his finger at will : but you’re alright mate, I know your type.

See, it’s true, everyone you don’t know in London wants to kill you.

Christmas shopping: almost done
Averaging: 1 mince pie a day, a glass of something sparkling every couple of hours
Putting off wrapping presents: too busy drinking baileys

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 8:43 pm and is filed under London. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.