Days Without Alcohol - 18
I had been out tonight to see "Lust, Caution" which though full of tragedy and sadness was still a lot less depressing than "Dan in Real Life". It's a good film.
As I headed down into Tottenham Court Road station and came out of the tunnel into the ticket hall, a man jumped out in front of me, shrieking at me and waving his arms. He was, I suspect, trying to give me a fright, but I recognised him immediately for what he was: a red-faced idiot who had drunk much too much and thought he was being funny. But it was a bit too aggressive and unpleasant to be amusing, and obviously late at night in London if someone jumps out at you, you might well fear the worst. Maybe the drunken world has started to rebel against my sober stance and is sending demons to try and scare me back to the dark side, but it didn't work. Being sober just makes you realise how ridiculous drunk people are and worry that you yourself behave in this same ludicrous and unpleasant way when you're pissed, thinking you're witty, but just being shitty. I didn't jump or shout at him or laugh or react in any way as I guess he would have hoped. I just gave him a withering look and continued walking.
He continued his act though to the person behind me, a quite tough looking young woman who was even less impressed with these childish antics and called him a "twat" and though my back was to them clearly used physical force to get the idiot out her way. He had been asking for it, that's for sure, but I was impressed that this woman had reacted with such clarity and given him what he deserved. I laughed to myself and turned round and said, "Did you just hit him?"
"I shoulder barged him - pretty hard!"
"Well done," I said, genuinely impressed. I am all for Londoners treating each other with politeness and respect, but I think it would also be good if more of us stood up to anti-social fools. Of course if I had gone with instinct and struck out at him (and we know that it is not impossible for me to get punchy) it might have led to a more unpleasant incident. If he'd been pushed or barged by a man he might have retaliated, but he would have had to have been very drunk to counter attack a woman. Particularly as this women was quite an imposing figure. I don't think he would have thought twice about getting into a fight with me, but she looked like she would take no prisoners.
It turned out that she knew me as she'd worked on
the Book quiz that I had appeared on last year, so we chatted amiably down the escalator, as I laughed about how I'd be in a bit over my head on that show and she told me they were doing a new series, but the controllers had decided to make it more serious and so David Baddiel was no longer hosting. I remember David being a bit frustrated at the time that they seemed to be cutting out all of his jokes, after initially saying they wanted a witty and light-hearted show. He had told me that it wouldn't be too intellectually challenging, but obviously even then things had been changing as I hardly knew any of the answers (and I am usually OK at that kind of thing).
Anyway, it was an entertaining diversion and it struck me that without the idiot jumping out on us the two of us would probably never have had our little chat, so some good had come from his ill-judged buffoonery. If him being assaulted was not good enough for you.
