Londoners Magazine

I’m sat in the office in last night’s clothes.

This in itself is not unusual: I haven’t outgrown the student ability to sleep on sofas/the floor/top and tailing, and would always rather bed down at someone else’s than face the night bus home.

I’m not mad keen on buses: there’s always a much higher risk of crazies on the bus than the tube. Long ago I lived in Norbury, a wasteland between Brixton and Croydon, a short bus ride from my then job in Streatham. There’s a lot of sheltered housing in Streatham, and every day the residents would be kicked out to fend for themselves on the mean streets of South London. There’s precious little to do in Streatham once you’ve exhausted the possibilities of the Woolworths Pick n Mix counter so a lot of the socially other would use their Freedom Pass to full advantage and ride the buses around the surrounding environs all day long. Some of them still stick in my mind. No Knickers Man, for example.

No Knickers Man shtick was simple: he’d pick a lady, I can only presume at random, unless he had x-ray vision and I was the fool, and inform them and anyone in a 50 yard radius that they weren’t wearing any knickers.
“You ain’t got NO KNICKERS ON!” was a disappointingly familiar cry on the 109. “I don’t know why you looking away, you know me, and I know you ain’t got NO KNICKERS ON!”
Never directed at me, I’m pleased to report. There’s a steely glint in my eye that would make even the most crazed quail.

However, I had to take a bus today. It was especially terrifying as not only had I woken in a strange house but also a strange city (we’ve all done it: started the night in one city, woken in another, right? Right?), so had less idea than usual how to get anywhere. I enlisted the help of the driver and had to sit in one of the seats reserved for the elderly and infirm to be within nodding distance of him. I pulled my beret over my ears and affected a small drool in case anyone tried to challenge my right to sit there. No-one did, although a woman in a rakish tam-o-shanter eyeballed me for a short while.

So, after waking in an unexpected city, taking an enforced bus ride and then an hour’s train journey back to London, here I am at work in last night’s clothes.

I was at a fancy dress party yesterday.

Right now the question is: should I keep my Mrs Lovett outfit on, or change into the gym kit which is quietly mouldering under my desk?

Still, at least I managed to scrape the fake blood from my face before I made it in.

Most of it.