This morning, queuing outside the Indian High Commission for Visas. I got there just after eight and the queue seemed enormous, but actually I was only 135th and 136th in the queue, and was out soon after ten.
As I was standing in the queue a couple arrived in a cab with suitcases, stood behind me, and demanded sympathy. They had turned up to the airport on Saturday to be told that they needed Visas, which they didn't have. "Our Travel Agent said we didn't need them." I decided very quickly that I did not especially like this woman who was clearly spoiling for a fight or in desperate need of a scapegoat. Under such circumstances, I am not very good at nodding and smiling.
"Didn't you check in your guide book?" I asked sweetly.
"I didn't get a guidebook," she said aggressively and contemptuously. "The travel agent said we didn't need a Visa. And when you've paid THREE THOUSAND POUND for a holiday you expect you can rely on the travel agent. And we booked it in January as well. We've spent two nights in a hotel near the airport." Pointing, angry. Sorry mate, that ain't my fault. I know you need to blame someone.
More money than sense. Spend three thousand on a holiday, and too tight to spend a fiver on a guidebook, or do a basic net search. So, in consequence, you've spent two hundred pounds - at least - on hotels, cabs and expenses in London rather than being in India yesterday. Desperately, she searched around for sympathy, everyone turned away. Everyone else had done their basic research.
Later, I wished I had said "Did the compu'er say no?" but one never thinks of these things in time.
On the way home the bus was crawling along Brixton Road. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two police officers dash across the road to New Look where a woman was shouting at and struggling with two shop staff. The police arrived and took hold of her. She struggled and looked as if she was going to hit one of them. I saw them slip he cuffs on: One on each arm, a copper attached to each. I was amazed at how quickly a crowd gathered to stand and stare. There was much sniggering on my bus.
It always makes me laugh when someone is getting arrested for essentially a minor crime and tries to assault the police. I'm not condoning shoplifting, but there are enormous pressures on some people at this time of year, and I doubt that my readership is without a few shoplifters. But I would have thought that it's so much easier to say "It's a fair cop you've got me bang to rights." Or burst into tears. It was a shame the bus moved on, because it would have been vaguely amusing to watch her paraded along a busy shopping street to the nearby police station, double cuffed.
When I got home I rang the bank to organise Travellers' Cheques. I arranged to pick them up from the branch opposite work. A few minutes she called me back to say that it's not possible to get currency from there because it goes via Royal Mail and it keeps going missing. So we arranged an alternative branch, not too far from work. I said that I didn't want to pick them up Thursday because I'm getting drunk and I don't fancy staggering round drunk with Travellers' cheques and passport. She giggled and suggested that it might be quite funny.
