When I was living in Islington
There was a girl who used to sit begging outside the antiques market - she wasn't bad looking and she was always polite, so often I'd drop a quid or 50p into her outstretched cup. Most of the time I thought "there but for the grace of God go I" or something like that, and I would often think about how terrible things must get before you're reduced to begging for change on the street. Anyway, fast forward a couple of months and I'm catching the bus back home after a long, long day at work. The bus stops at Angel and the begging girl gets on. I hear her have a couple of words with the driver, and it's obvious she hasn't got her fare. I was about to get up and say "It's okay love, I can spare a quid if you need to get somewhere" when she started screeching, shouting, throwing things around and generally having a proper mental fit. I've never heard a woman swear like that before or since. Anyway, my ride was held up for a good 20 minutes while the driver tried to extricate her from the bus, and by this time she'd moved on from the driver to hurling random abuse at the other passengers, myself included. Real vicious stuff as well. I ignored her by staring out of the window and firmly resolved that she'd got her last pound out of me.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 22 Oct 2007, 13:33, Reply)