Human Decency in Soho Square

In Soho Square, three young homeless men sat on a bench under some trees, drinking cans of Special Brew and cackling. Another man was asleep on an adjacent bench, covered by a threadbare, filthy blanket. They were soon joined by a thick-set young skinhead wearing a camouflage jacket, beneath which a stark white Tee-shirt, emblazoned with the red St George's cross, tightly clung to his burgeoning belly. He had brought the men more cans of beer, which he handed round, to their evident delight.

After a while, an obviously-wealthy woman walked past them along the pathway. She was leading a Great Dane on a leash. One of the men called out, 
"Oh! Doggy! Doggy! What a bootifoo boy!" 
At this, the woman stopped and went back to the group, whereupon she began to talk to them while they all clustered around the huge dog and stroked it. There was great deal of laughter and merriment from all of them.

Eventually, the sleeping man got up from his crusty repose and offered the woman his half-full can of beer, for a swig. She politely declined, so he reached under the bench and pulled out a plastic bottle containing a petrol-coloured liquid and offered that instead. Again the woman declined and they all carried on their amicable conversation. I thought: What a classy thing for that woman to do. I take off my imaginary hat to her humanity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Bethnal Green Send Off

     A family shambles into the pub, all dressed in black. It comprises a set of obese twins, one of whom is the mother of a boy and a girl aged about eight and nine.       "My god", she says to the barman, "I need a fuckin' drink after the day I've 'ad." She orders for the entire entourage and they all sit around three tables, which they hastily drag together. The woman now spots me in the corner and she galumphs over on unsteady, knock-kneed legs, with a plaintive look across her pale, doughy face.     "'Scuse me luv, can I take summer dese chairs?" She gestures to the three empty seats around my table. I tell her she can. "Only, I cremated me muvver dis mornin'. " she says, apropos of nothing. I give her my condolences.       She seats her two children on tall stools at the bar. Another family member arrives with two bags of McDonald's food. He places these in front of the kids, who eagerly dig in. The adults sit ad...
Read more

Clomping Through the NPG

   Three gangly, teenage American girls spread out and clomped around the wooden floors of the National Portrait Gallery in their chunky boot heels, loudly calling out to each other about the portraits in the Elizabethan rooms.     "Lookit this guy! He's so cool! Look at his beard. So hipster. I LOVE it!"     "Oh wow! This woman is, like, ancient. Check out that bling!"     "He's, like, a king or some shit! Lookit his hat! " I sought to escape them by slipping into another room, but they followed me in. This room contained a group of young schoolchildren who were sitting on the floor quietly listening to a lady Gallery guide explain to them the beautiful portrait of Henry IV. The three girls seemed completely oblivious to this, and they edged around the room still shouting out their observations on the people in the paintings.     "Gahd! that looks like that dude in that movie, you know who I mean?" ...
Read more

The Old Marquis

     I found myself at the French House in Dean Street, Soho, where I sat at the bar and had a number of glasses of the house lager. I eavesdropped on the conversations.      A young man in his late twenties asked his friend, a woman about thirty, how she was.      "Oh, alright, I suppose," she replied, "except for having to shove suppositories up my father's arse for the last ten days."       Two old gents were seated on the stools under the window. They were red-faced, very merry, and very loud.             "And, of course, when I was sixteen," one said, "I was taken under the wing of the old Marquis, and I went out to live on his estate. He taught me a great deal about society, and food, and wine, and what to wear to table, and that sort of thing. All kinds of things, really. It was the perfect education for a young chap, in all sorts of ways ... And, of course...
Read more