Friday night was just an ordinary night out. We've changed curry house allegiance, a major transition in the life of any individual or lovey-dovey couple. The reason being the annoying TV screen in the corner with its constant churn of Bollywood pop-videos. I do not want TV in a restaurant, and I certainly don't want soft-core pornography. It's the distracting flicker rather than the porn that clinches it.
We walk down the road mindful of the existence of the local bunch of robbers/thieves/scrotes, henceforth to be known as the 30 Streatham Place Gang, because of their fondness for seeking robbery victims outside 30 Streatham Place. Not on Streatham Place, we saw a teenage boy behaving suspiciously on a bicycle. Riding direct and fast at oncoming pedestrians, then, as said pedestrians go to cross the road, riding into road and back-and-forth across road in a deliberate act of aggression. He then concluded we had our wits about us and rode off the down the road, heels on the pedals of his far-too-small bike, knees bent at an angle, wearing dark non-reflective clothing, against the flow of traffic on a one-way road, with no lights on his bike.
On the way home we crossed over and stood at a bus stop on Streatham Hill. A couple came along, she with a BMI of 12 and an IQ to match, he with a pony tail. He addressed me "When's it due?" "When's what due?" I sought clarification. "The bus," he said, just resisting the temptation to add "stupid." But his face and ponytail said enough.
"Which bus?" I asked.
"The one that goes...." he waved his hand in a northerly direction. I didn't think he wanted a southerly direction. Wrong side of the road. He's now determined to take the piss out of me. Bimbo-girl is trying to drag him away.
"Do you want to go to Brixton Station?" I asked.
"If you insist," he said witheringly.
"Four out of six buses from this stop turn off long before Brixton Station. There's usually one every couple of minutes from this stop or the next one..." a few feet along the road. "And one's coming now for the other bus-stop. So move it move it move it move it. Get that bus!" I ordered. They moved it, swiftly. Why the withering condescension when I precisely accurately gave him the exact information he needed? Arsehole.
Our bus, one that turns off, came. We got it. We got off it. We waited to cross the road. "The road" being the three- laned dual carriageway with a 40 mph speed limit (not 30 as for all other nearby roads). We stood at the crossing, waiting for the green man. Stood on the pavement. Suddenly a cyclist appears riding down the wrong side of dual-carriageway to make a right, almost knocking Jimmy off his feet. This time, not a member of the 30 Streatham Place gang, seemingly a proper cyclist, with lycra shorts and a decent racing bike, going at speed. At quarter past midnight, with no lights or reflective clothing, on the wrong side of the road, mowing down pedestrians.
Last night we watched from the bedroom window as the thugs and delinquents of the Thirty Streatham Place Gang congregated on the corner opposite, watching for victims to rob after the Tesco cash machine. One shone his bike lights at a man who walked past. Rode his bike at the man on the broad pavement of Streatham Place. Rode after him. Decided he was too fit, and walking with too much briskness purpose and wits about him to bother robbing him.
