I'd missed a delivery yesterday so jogged up to the Post Office to pick it up. The streets were busy as they usually are in Shepherd's Bush. It's a place where the pedestrian is king or selfishness is Lord Protector or something, because no one ever looks out for traffic or each other. It infuriates my wife that I always make way for everyone else and walk and move in a considerate manner. "Why should we always be the ones to move?" she asks. Presumably that attitude has led to the current breakdown in social manners and basic safety that the Bush is witnessing. Of course if everyone made way for everyone else then the place would be similarly difficult to navigate. But some balance could surely be struck. For now if you ever drive up the Uxbridge Road (and especially if you want to turn off into any of the side streets) then you will encounter dozens of seemingly suicidal Bush residents throwing themselves in front of your car without even looking to see if you're coming. It's a marvel to behold.
At the office the man took quite a long time to find my parcel and I thought they'd lost it. It would have been annoying to come this far for nothing. There were two counters at the facility and the man next to me handed over his card. The member of staff looked at it and read the address and his face dropped. He said, "I am really sorry, mate, they've given you the wrong card. You're meant to be at the other sorting office." He was genuinely embarrassed and contrite about the error - I know I would have been pissed off if I'd travelled out of my way to the wrong sorting office and the customer was fairly old. I really liked the Post Office guy's attitude though. He seemed genuine but was not obsequious. It was not his error, but he gave off the air of "isn't this just typical? We've all been there." But he wasn't passing the buck either. He was a charming and down-to-earth man, but made the blow much lighter by freely admitting how shit this was. "When you get there," he added, "Ask for Little Barry and give him Hell for this. It's his fault." We all laughed. It was good to have someone to blame and his nickname painted a reasonable image of the man responsible.
But mainly it was just unusual and refreshing to see someone doing his job with a sense of humanity and of humour. And I thought this guy was a master at his job, because this was a seriously annoying error and he made the man who had been affected by it leave the office with a smile on his face. I don't think it takes much to make the world a better place and really it's the small stuff like this that we're all in control of that could make all the difference. If the little things became less annoying then I'm not sure how many of the big things would still be there.
It's been three weeks, but I and the Mes finally got round to recording another frame of snooker. Me2 was angry with me because I've been spending all my time off gallivanting with movie stars and seem to have forgotten about what is important in life - playing myself at snooker in a basement, but Me1 was much more philosophical about it (some might argue he was creeping). But it turned out to be an extraordinary frame of snooker, very light on mistakes, with some shots that seemed to confound physics itself and the most astonishing piece of refereeing yet. If Referee 1 is still in charge of the game next week I will be very surprised. You'll be able to catch up on all the excitement
here or on iTunes. And unlike that bloody pretentious RHLSTP it remains free for all.
Talking of RHLSTP, the video podcast with Russell Brand has finally uploaded (Chris Evans - not that one - had some problems this week) and can be downloaded from
gofasterstripe.com. Russell is kindly donating both his fee and his cut of the download money to
Focus 12 a drug and alcohol rehabilitation charity.
