The Real Thing

I was in my local supermarket last night. It was that or a takeaway. In my basket were the ingredients for a quick meal (veggie stir fry, since you ask).

 

I thought I'd chosen which till to approach wisely - all of my shopping was on the conveyor belt and ready to go - just as the last item of the people in front of me was beeped through. Perfect.

The people in front of me were twins. Identical twins. Their last item through the till had been a two-litre bottle of coke. As was the item before that. And the one before that, too. Pretty much the whole of their trolley was occupied by two-litre bottles of coke. But not the whole trolley. The little end section of the trolley was full of bread. There were at least twelve bottles of coke, probably more, and five loaves of plain white bread.

All they had to do was pay. They produced a wad of vouchers.
"Really?" said the man behind the till.
"Yeah, this'll work," said the Alpha twin.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm a checkout manager... I'm 100% sure."

Young Master Till started keying things in and scanning vouchers.

"No. Hang on, you've made a mistake," said the Beta twin. "You've done that wrong." He turned to Alpha. "He's made a mistake. He's done that wrong."
"You've made a mistake," repeated Alpha. "You're doing it in the wrong order. I'm a checkout manager. Void that. No, that. I know what I'm talking about. I'm a checkout manager. I'm a checkout manager, man... I know what it's like... I'm a checkout manager, man, I don't eat... I only eat when I'm hungry, man... here... do you want me to do this for you?"

Tilly didn't have a chance to accept or decline the offer of help. Alpha twin was already leaning over the counter, craning his neck so as to see the screen that customers don't normally see, and tapping away at the keys. It was quite an invasion of space.

"This is going to work, man," he said as his fingers tip-tapped away, "I'm gonna get all that coke... it'll work... right, there you go... now scan that voucher... y'see... I told you..."

"That'll be £4.80, please" Tilly looked confused and just a little suspicious.
"I'll have £10 cash back as well"

There was a pause - perhaps Tilly was expecting Alpha to present a magic 'free £10 cash back' voucher as well

"You've got to work the system, man," said Alpha to nobody in particular. "You just gotta know how it works."

And with that, the twins left, jabbering excitedly about how brilliant they were to get all that shopping for less than a fiver. They strode cockily, with swagger. They were bank robbers who'd managed to pull off a heist without even breaking the law. They were proud. They were just a little bit smug. And it was just a little bit impressive.

A little bit.

Because, of course, it was let down by the fact that they now owned twenty four litres of coke and five loaves of white bread. Bread that - I imagine - Alpha won't even eat. Least not until he's hungry.

A Polystyrene Cup

A Polystyrene Cup, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Have you ever wondered what Laurel & Hardy would look like if they each had the other's nose and mouth?

I have...

It's sort of right. But you know it's wrong...

It's Not What You Say, It's What You Don't Say

On Saturday night I was a guest on the Radio 4 show, Dilemma. As I made my way home that night I was sitting on the tube chatting idly with Mrs Gorman when the man sitting across from us leaned forwards with something of a conspiratorial look in his eye.

"Strip clubs are wrong," he said.
I paused, unsure as to how best to respond. I shrugged my shoulders, "I just don't get them," said I,

And then the train pulled into a station, he stood up and left.

That was it. That was our entire conversation. There wasn't any preamble. There had been no hellos. There were just those two sentences.

"Strip clubs are wrong."
"I just don't get them."

The woman sitting next to his now empty seat had clearly overheard the exchange and was looking more than a little bemused by it. As well she might. We must have looked like spies.

 

Fortunately it wasn't that cryptic to me. Odd, yes. But not cryptic. I knew what he was on about. Or at least I could work it out.

In December I'd been a guest on another Radio 4 show, I've Never Seen Star Wars. (Radio 4 shows are like buses to me, you wait ages for one and then two come along in the space of two months. Oh hang on... that's not buses is it.)

On I've Never Seen Star Wars the idea is that the guest takes on new experiences - things they've never done before that maybe they should have done, or that most people might expect them to have done - and then discuss them with the host, Marcus Brigstocke. For example - and I know this is hard to believe - Les Dennis had never eaten cheese. I know.

For my episode I tried my first water-cooler conversation, went horse riding, read some Dickens  and visited a strip club. While it was recorded in December it was broadcast just last week (it's still on the iPlayer and is available to download for the next 7 days so you can listen to it if you like).

So when the stranger leaned across a tube train and said, "Strip clubs are wrong" I knew that what he meant was, "Hello. I heard you talking about strip clubs on the radio recently and I'm inclined to agree with you. They're weird aren't they?"

But because he didn't say that... I had to fill in the blanks and work it out. It didn't take long - (of course I had to consider the possibility that it was just a coincidence, that he hadn't heard me on I've Never Seen Star Wars and was just that-man-on-the-tube-who-starts-weird-conversations-with-strangers but I checked his shoes and both sets of laces were tied so I figured that was unlikely) - but it was long enough to make our two-sentence conversation appear just that little bit more stilted.



As the doors closed and the train continued on its journey Mrs Gorman said, "That must have sounded very strange to anyone else."
"It did," said the woman sitting opposite. "Yes. It did."

I thought about trying to explain it to her. But leaning over to explain it would involve explaining what I do for a living - or worse still, assuming that a stranger knows what I do for a living - and that would make me sound like one of those don't-you-know-who-I-am? twonks. I mean, what if the person next to her hadn't overheard the weird strip-club conversation but had heard me trying to contextualise the weird strip-club conversation? It doesn't bear thinking about.

So I said nothing. I hope she thinks I was spy.

Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad

I've been watching a lot of Breaking Bad recently. This has been bugging me.

           Dennis Hopper         x             Gollum                       =     Mike Ehrmantraut

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Colin Hughes

At this special time of year I think it's nice to pause and remember what - or who - it's really about.
Colin Hughes.


Thanks Cliff