Street Sadness

   Yesterday afternoon I went into Tesco to buy a couple of things for Friday's xmas lunch. The blazing neon lights dazzled as I came in from the dark 4pm street. It was crowded with shoppers. A fat christmas tree leaned drunkenly in the doorway, bedecked with tinsel and hanging things. Searching for the christmas puddings, I wended my way through the haphazard, basket-wielding shoppers. A young mother yelled at her three under-tens to "Stop fuckin' touchin' everyfing!" An old dear in a moulting black shaggy coat blew her nose on a scrunched handful of tissues. Several of the employees were wearing big red christmas baubles as earrings; some had Santa hats made of red felt perched on their heads. Suddenly, an entire christmas elf came lurching down the aisle, carrying a stack of baskets to the checkouts. The unfortunate, lumpen creature was dressed in a red and green outfit, complete with curly pixie boots and pointy hat with a little bell on it. Her makeup was qu...

   I called in to a pub for a very late lunch. It was nearly 4pm and beginning to get dark outside. The pub was festively festooned with xmas paraphenalia: twinkling lights; tinsel; paper decorations; a bushy christmas tree with colourful glass balls. I was served by what appeared to be a nine-year old girl, with braces on her teeth, although I surmised that she was probably in her late teens. I took my pint of pale ale to the back corner and settled in to listen to the various conversations. It being school holidays the room was sprinkled here and there with children, eating lunch with one-or-other of their parents. To my left was a large table of three women and three nine-year-old boys. They were all filled with xmas cheer, and/or alcohol. The women's voices were loud and shrill as they talked about their home-renovations and their child-minders - each trying to outdo the other in terms of the inconveniences visited upon them by their workmen. The boys were much-buoyed by a...

It's always disconcerting when one of the pub's kitchen staff goes downstairs to the toilet and returns fifteen minutes later, and there is no sound of the very loud hand dryer to be heard in his wake. It makes lunch a trepidatious affair - like dining at 10 Rillington Place.

   In the street two special needs men in their mid-thirties were having a face-off. The fat, red faced one, with a crewcut and a runny nose was standing in the doorway of a shop with his hands firmly jammed in the front pockets of his hoody. His adversary - a toothless Turkish man with wild eyes who resembled a demented Larry Rivers - was sprawled up against a parked car, his arms flailing manically. They took it in turns to shout at each other through the falling drizzle. The fat one was the more articulate of the two.    "Fuck off!" he yelled, at the top of his voice.    "Arrrgh!" came the earnest response.    "Fuck off!"    "Aaarragh!"    "Fuck off!"    "Rerrrgh! Arghagh!"    "Fuck off!"    "Aggah Durgh! Arraghaa!" (and now the arms were helicoptering wildly)    "Fuck off!"    "Arg! Argh! Aaaaarrrgh! Gurrah!"    "Fuck off!" It continued behind me as I ma...

   An elderly geezer on the 388 bus to Stratford Central mutters away to himself as he gazes out of the window. It is a surreal stream-of-consciousness ramble of bizarre juxtapositions.     "Oh, remember that woman who lived there? She was a lovely lady, really lovely... That's where Jim fell down the manhole... It won't be the same once they knock all them houses down... Not so cold these days... Lovely bit of bacon... Betty certainly had something to say to 'er - what was 'er name? Judith? Jenny?... Over the canal... Over the canal... Over the canal... Bloody idiot - you wanna watch where you're goin', mate!... Why ain't them kids in school on a Monday mornin'?..."   After twenty minutes of this running commentary he reached his stop. He left the bus and shuffled over to an old woman who was standing in the bus shelter and yelled "BOLLOCKS!" into her very startled face.

   A diminutive young black woman in Bethnal Green Road meets her friend, who is pushing a sleeping toddler in a stroller.     "'Ello", she says, "I juss got me hair done. Do you like it? Do you like me hair? Do you?" Her friend gave it a quick once-over, as did I. It looked like someone had fitted a tight helmet of macraméd nylon rope on top of her head. It was totally artificial and a very poor imitation of reality. Her friend said, "Ooh, very nice, Jamella. Yeah, really good", and then she quickly changed the subject.

   A young black man stands in the doorway of his ground-floor flat. He holds his phone up to his ear with his left hand.     "Yeah, dass right, fam, dass right. Iss always like that on a Monday, innit? All quiet an' everyfin', I ain't gunna lie." His right hand was plunged deeply down the front of his track suit pants as he spoke and he was having a really good fumble around his package. Even my frank eye contact with him as I walked by failed to halt his enthusiastic rummaging. I have to say that I rather envied his self-assuredness. 

   On Saturday there was a collection of street stalls along the main shopping strip near where I am staying in Hackney. Many of the proprietors had set up trestle tables outside of the shops with hot food, cakes and soft toys for sale. I wandered, rather desultorily, along the street, the chill December wind whipping up coattails and tablecloths and dead leaves.     I picked up a soft toy rabbit at one stall. A gushing middle-aged woman behind the table told me it was really good quality and that it was made by a local women's group. She pointed at a sign at the end of the table, which read: 'Womyn's Kollective'. This horrible distortion of the language prompted me to fling the rabbit back onto the table amongst the rest of the overpriced tat. I then moved on to the next table, which was manned by the street's gay Thai hairdresser. His stall had an array of confectionary, which was, he assured me, "Made by my very own little hands." He talked me through ...