On the bendy 38 yesterday I was assailed by a lady fellow passenger's angry inquiries.
"Why don't you bloody well tell the truth?" she demanded. "Why don't you bloody well make up your mind?"
Good questions, you might think, and high time I came up with some straight answers. But she wasn't actually talking to me. She wasn't even very near me: I couldn't see her from my seat. I could hear her, though - as clearly as could the object of her ire at the other end of her mobile.
"Why don't you admit you've bloody well decided that Jamaica is more appealing?"
Crosser and crosser and crosser. I flinched in anticipation of an "f" word resounding down the bus's full, articulated length. Sure enough, it came.
"You flippin' well let me down!"
What a relief that "flippin'" was. I'd been braced for the full and multiple farkin eruption that's become so farkin familiar on public farkin transport these days. Didn't farkin happen, did it? In its stead was a dear little "flippin'," a quaint reminder of childhood rather than an exploding Class A profanity.
Later, gliding past the Angel, two girls got on, gabbing, eating their lunch from plastic boxes. One dropped a cube of pineapple on the floor.
"You'll have to pick that up," said her friend, between giggles. "You can eat it off the floor!"
I looked away, looked back and the chunk was gone. I don't know if the girl ate it or just pocketed it, but for the second time on the same journey I was thankful for a small mercy. Must be old age.
