I was in the Post Office this afternoon, queuing up as per usual, so I could post a set of show programmes to a fan (if you want to donate at least £10 on
my justgiving page and then email me your address to herring1967@googlemail.com I will - eventually - send you a copy of a programme from all my last six shows, including menage a un whilst very limited stocks last).
I looked to my right at a display of leaflets advertising various Post Office products (luckily I was in one of the few remaining small Post Offices and so didn't have to put up with those annoying looping TV advertisements for the place I was already in). One of the leaflets had something written on it by hand. In block capitals someone had written the phrase "SEXY CARAMEL EYES". I picked up the leaflet to see if the words referred to a picture beneath, but there was only text below, being, as this was, an advertisement for Post Office Travel Insurance.
I was immediately intrigued. Who had written this evocative phrase on this leaflet and why? And how had it come to be put back into the display?
Was it an attempt at seduction? Some shy person had been filling in their passport application by these leaflets and seen someone with light brown eyes beside them who they felt an attraction to, but didn't feel they could directly approach and so they wrote this love note on a leaflet and passed it over to the object of their affection? If so it seemed a little blunt. And addition of "You have..." at the front of the comment would at least make it a bit more personable. After all, if you're just going to describe the thing you most like about a person then this approach could result in messages such as "BLOW JOB LIPS" or "MASSIVE BOUNCY TITS" or "NICE PACKET" being written on a leaflet, though at least with the last one there would be some kind of amusing Post Office based double entendre.
Even though "SEXY CARAMEL EYES" is a little more romantic than my suggestions, it's still a bit of a risky opening gambit and a lot of the romance is removed from the missive given that it is written on a leaflet advertising travel insurance.
But that's partly what I liked about it. It's rather a poetic phrase, written in this, the most prosaic of places. Was it just a absent-minded doodle, inspired by some golden eyed god or goddess who had walked into the Uxbridge Rd Post Office? Did the poet jot down the phrase, merely for their own pleasure, never intending to show it to anyone else? Or perhaps they deliberately left the message on display afterwards to let the world know what they had just witnessed.
Maybe the person was just making a little list for themselves of things that would be sexy and was wondering how it would be if they covered their lover's eyes with caramel and then maybe licked it off, or just enjoyed them having to cope with the discomfort of sticky toffee eyes. Perhaps this idea was so sexual to the author that they were unable to come up with any other suggestions for things that would be sexy.
There was some unknown and unknowable story behind this phrase, scribbled on a leaflet in a Post Office in Shepherd's Bush, something that really appealed to me. I could come up with a hundred suggestions of how it came to be there, but none of them were likely to be correct. Perhaps, for example, a desperate Post Office manager who was failing to sell any travel insurance (I mean, why would you get this from the Post Office?) had thought he might be able to flatter customers into purchasing it by complimenting them with handwritten notes.
But however it got there, it had become a little three word poem, displayed for all the world to see (provided they had something to post) and to wonder about. "Sexy Caramel Eyes" is a rather beautiful poem in my opinion: I'd love to see the person who inspired it and love to meet the person who created it.
It's a lovely title for a book or a story, I think. So if I ever get round to the volume of Warming Up that will include this date (we're aiming to release a new book every six months or so - but it will take several years before 2009 is on your bookshelf) then I will sub-title it "Sexy Caramel Eyes" and dedicate it to the anonymous poet who created this image.
