Category
Overheard
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07.11.02Caught on cameraIn the supermarket yesterday lunchtime, a sudden announcement was made over the tannoy: "Would all multi-taskers please go to the checkout immediately?" That's me, I thought. I can walk and hold a semi-sensical conversation at the same time. I also usually have at least four applications open on my work computer at any given moment, but that's a different matter entirely. I went to hospital today to have a camera inserted where no sensible person would ever wish to look. The consultant sprayed local anaesthetic up my nose, and the back of my face went numb. The spray tasted like hospitals, or maybe everything ...
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07.04.02On the buses (again)In my time, I've had housemaid's knee, jogger's nipple, nintendo thumb and mouse elbow.And now I've got turf toe (a.k.a damage to the ligaments between the big toe and the metatarsal bone in the foot). It's a bit like a bad sprain of the ball of the foot and big toe, if that's possible, and it hurts a lot - tear-springingly painful to walk, stand, sit with feet down...Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. I don't recommend it in the slightest - if you're going to get injured, I'd stick to something like, um, a papercut. The odd ...
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06.21.02Gooooooo-ooooo-ooooo-aaaaa-llllThis is the first and only time you'll ever catch me writing about football, I promise.Let's put the cards on the table. I'm not interested in football. Regional/local games and teams just leave me cold - perhaps because I've never really strongly identified with a particular part of the country (hence no local loyalty), perhaps because I come from a completely non-footballing family - I think my dad once had a magpies mug in the kitchen cupboard, because of his family roots, but I'm sure you'd never see him getting up at seven to watch a pivotal match. It's ...
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05.22.02Conversation overheard earlierHer: "God, it's just mad this week."Him: "Never a dull moment in your bit of the building, eh?"Her: "I know! No wonder I'm so spunked up these days..."Excuse me? Is this a real phrase? I'm utterly mystified... Also:World Cup. Not Wewd Cup.Tooing and froing. Not toing and throwing.*seethe*
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05.13.02LunchThere was a long queue for sandwiches in the deli this lunchtime. Good Cop seems to be off sick (food poisoning, perhaps?) so Bad Cop bossed everyone about - even the customers - barking orders in impenetrable Armenian at the minions, and choppy English at those of us on the other side of the counter. The queue snaked the length of the shop, and then doubled back on itself, as it usually does. We waited, some patiently, some not so. A short, unkempt, vague looking woman of a certain age wandered in, wearing a sports jacket and carrying her hand ...
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05.10.02Mr WolfThere is a big welsh man who lives (or is staying) in a flat across the road from us, but who I've never seen before (odd, because this street full of houses converted into flats with big Georgian windows is perfect for people watching - remind me to tell you sometime about the kiwi commune directly across from our kitchen window - hundreds of faces and never the same person twice, plus barbeques every weekend). For the second night in a row, at almost exactly the same time of night, he's leaning out of his second floor window, shouting down ...
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05.03.02Where the streets have no name[written 9pm last night on a bus]Listening to U2 on the top of a London bus rattling alonq Oxford Street in the dusk. A hundred flashbulbs go off as we pass Selfridges where they're opening Bollywood month. I catch a glimpse of a celeb in heavy makeup and not enough clothes. The camera flashes make her movements jerky and strange, and her skin the colour of wax.One of the great disappointments of my youth was discovering that Selfridges was not, in fact, a white goods emporium, dedicated entirely to the art of selling refrigeration equipment. Life can be so disillusioning ...
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03.14.02Yeah[On the number 9 bus last night, from Kensington High Street to Piccadilly Circus.] His side of the conversation*: "Mate! Yeah, yeah mate, definitely.... Yeah.... yeah, yeah, yeah.... Yeah yeah, definitely mate..... yeah. So did you...? Yeah yeah, mate.... Yeah?.... Yeah..... Definitely.... Yeah..... Yeah...... Nah, nah....nah mate, nah. ....Yeah mate, definitely..... Mate, deffo...... Yeah?... Yeah, Friday daytime, yeah?....Yeah mate... you give me a bell or I'll... yeah, yeah.... yeah, whatever.... yeah, sound mate, sound.... Definitely, yeah yeah yeah.... Yeah for sure....... Oh yeah, yeah yeah..... yeah mate...... Definitely mate..... yeah..... yeah yeah...... definitely.... OK mate, yeah...... yeah..... see you saturday night mate, ...
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03.13.02QueueingShe has flakes of breakfast cereal stuck around her mouth, and her denim jacket is stained and encrusted on the lapel with what looks like soup or possibly vomit. I don't want to know which. Brushing her long mousy brown-and-grey streaked hair out of her face, she joins the queue behind me. It's windy out today, and she tells me this. I turn down Nirvana on my headphones to agree with her. She looks twitchy, shifting eyes and breathing shallowly. A cornflake drops off her chin, and she says "It's ever so gusty, isn't it?" I say yes, and turn up the music ...
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01.30.02Waiting RoomThis is how many words you can write using a PDA while sitting in a consultant's waiting room in a big hospital in central London Four floors above London, the traffic is just a drone. Classic FM pumps out the 1812 Overture - seems far too jolly for these clinical surroundings - and the loose windows bang in the breeze. There are pictures of all the consultants hung on the wall, but the positioning is lousy - the overhead strip light reflects harshly on the glass in their picture frames, hiding their faces behind a bright glow. A water cooler bubbles ...
