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Feb. 13th, 2006 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyStrolling home in the early hours of Sunday morning, feeling peckish because I hadn't eaten much that day, I decided to pop into the local takeaway and get a pizza before settling in for a lengthy slaughterathon on Far Cry until about 3am.
It was a little after midnight so the post-pub, not clubbing crowd were making their way home and the food shop had a fair few people in it so I ordered my grub, slouched against the wall and took my book out of my pocket to read whilst I waited.
As I waited I was vaguely aware of another customer entering the shop with the exaggerated care of someone who has had too much to drink but is trying not to let on and I was instantly utterly, completely sure, with the certain instinct of anyone who has ever tried reading a book in a South Yorkshire school playground, that I was going to be the target of his attention. I was right. After he'd made his way to the counter (with very careful, deliberate steps - he's not drunk, you see. Oh no) and argued over the cost of the cheapest thing on the menu he turned around and, ignoring the half dozen or so other people standing in the shop staring at their watches, or out of the window, or shuffling their feet and twiddling their thumbs, he made a beeline directly towards the only person in the shop who was actually doing anything - me.
I ignored him.
It's a challenge to ignore someone who smells that strongly of cheap booze, but I'm a determined fellow and years of knowing![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
colonel_maxim, lapinenoireuk and mrmmarc have given me plenty of practice.
He leant down and squinted at the title of the book I was reading before wafting a cloud of second hand alcoholic fug over me and saying:
"It's a good book, that, innit?"
Now, forgive me for being judgemental, but I'm not convinced that a man with a 'cut here' line tattooed around his neck and 'X's on each knuckle is a man who has an interest in cutting edge neuroscience (except when it comes to pickling his neurons), but I may be wrong so I was polite.
"Remarkable", I nodded.
"Not as good as his others, though."
"Really? This is the only one of his I've read. I'll be sure to get the others."
He leaned closer, with the air of one who is about to make a Bon Mot so witty that Oscar Wilde would have asked for a pen so he could jot it down.
"So who done it then?" Adding, in case I didn't get it the first time, "Was it the butler?"
I thought about this for a moment. The emergent properties of self-awareness in massively complex physical systems? Who did do it? Was it the butler?
"No." I answered, firmly. "It was God."
If there's one great advantage of mentioning God to the sort of people who pester you in public (unless they're trying to save you), it's that they recoil in horror and leave you alone like you've got some unpleasant disease. So at least I got to finish my chapter undisturbed from then on.
But I really have to wonder: what is it about reading a book in public that makes one a target for every passing drunkard, whacko and drooling slack-jawed troglodyte? Why are people who haven't washed in the last week so attracted to those of us capable of reading? Is it because of some vestigial memory of the few hours they bothered going to school twenty years previously, when picking on the smart kids was the only thing they were capable of doing? Why is it, when there are any number of other knuckle-dragging, drunken, unwashed, illiterate Neanderthals in the same room with whom they could interact as equals, they are so attracted to me? My charisma? My air of style, panache and charm? My evident bonhomie and care for my fellow man?
Whatever the reason, I now have a secret weapon. I'll stop blinking and start talking about God. That'll see 'em off.
It was a little after midnight so the post-pub, not clubbing crowd were making their way home and the food shop had a fair few people in it so I ordered my grub, slouched against the wall and took my book out of my pocket to read whilst I waited.
As I waited I was vaguely aware of another customer entering the shop with the exaggerated care of someone who has had too much to drink but is trying not to let on and I was instantly utterly, completely sure, with the certain instinct of anyone who has ever tried reading a book in a South Yorkshire school playground, that I was going to be the target of his attention. I was right. After he'd made his way to the counter (with very careful, deliberate steps - he's not drunk, you see. Oh no) and argued over the cost of the cheapest thing on the menu he turned around and, ignoring the half dozen or so other people standing in the shop staring at their watches, or out of the window, or shuffling their feet and twiddling their thumbs, he made a beeline directly towards the only person in the shop who was actually doing anything - me.
I ignored him.
It's a challenge to ignore someone who smells that strongly of cheap booze, but I'm a determined fellow and years of knowing
colonel_maxim, lapinenoireuk and mrmmarc have given me plenty of practice.He leant down and squinted at the title of the book I was reading before wafting a cloud of second hand alcoholic fug over me and saying:
"It's a good book, that, innit?"
Now, forgive me for being judgemental, but I'm not convinced that a man with a 'cut here' line tattooed around his neck and 'X's on each knuckle is a man who has an interest in cutting edge neuroscience (except when it comes to pickling his neurons), but I may be wrong so I was polite.
"Remarkable", I nodded.
"Not as good as his others, though."
"Really? This is the only one of his I've read. I'll be sure to get the others."
He leaned closer, with the air of one who is about to make a Bon Mot so witty that Oscar Wilde would have asked for a pen so he could jot it down.
"So who done it then?" Adding, in case I didn't get it the first time, "Was it the butler?"
I thought about this for a moment. The emergent properties of self-awareness in massively complex physical systems? Who did do it? Was it the butler?
"No." I answered, firmly. "It was God."
If there's one great advantage of mentioning God to the sort of people who pester you in public (unless they're trying to save you), it's that they recoil in horror and leave you alone like you've got some unpleasant disease. So at least I got to finish my chapter undisturbed from then on.
But I really have to wonder: what is it about reading a book in public that makes one a target for every passing drunkard, whacko and drooling slack-jawed troglodyte? Why are people who haven't washed in the last week so attracted to those of us capable of reading? Is it because of some vestigial memory of the few hours they bothered going to school twenty years previously, when picking on the smart kids was the only thing they were capable of doing? Why is it, when there are any number of other knuckle-dragging, drunken, unwashed, illiterate Neanderthals in the same room with whom they could interact as equals, they are so attracted to me? My charisma? My air of style, panache and charm? My evident bonhomie and care for my fellow man?
Whatever the reason, I now have a secret weapon. I'll stop blinking and start talking about God. That'll see 'em off.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 10:26 am (UTC)Good call! :)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 11:40 am (UTC)For the record, slack witted chav vermin are known to frequent cheap pizza shops.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 11:47 am (UTC)And another thing
Date: 2006-02-13 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 01:27 pm (UTC)Looks like my kind of thing.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 01:36 pm (UTC)I've still only got a lead pipe.
I've still only got a lead pipe.
Date: 2006-02-13 01:38 pm (UTC)