Hungover after a great TWTTIN recording (easily the best yet, even though I had to deal with some drunken hecklers) I decided I would take control of my life. First job - to get my computer mended. I unplugged it and carried the box bit to the tube so I could head for Tottenham Court Road and PC World. It was quite heavy.
Once in town I planned to complete several other errands that were on my list. Even though I was hungover and the afternoon had already begun my life was starting to look ordered!
I got the computer up the stairs at Shepherds Bush Hammersmith and Shitty branch just in time to hear an announcement. The tube had stopped running because some "youths" were on the tracks at Royal Oak and the police were having to deal with it. I didn't want to waste time, so decided to head back down the stairs I'd just walked up and get a cab. It cost me £13, but small price to pay for getting close to one whole tick on the to do list.
Finally I was in the store with my computer and I took it up to the service desk. I told the man what was wrong and he said, "When did you buy it?" I told him it was about six months ago. He got a piece of paper and wrote down a number and said, "You're still in warrantly, ring this number and someone will come to your house to fix it."
"You're kidding," I said, my arms still aching from the short carry from the cab to this desk. Now I was going to have to take the computer home and also had no chance of doing all my errands with this big broken box of electronics weighing me down. If only I'd been clever enough to ring the store first then I would have saved a couple of hours and a couple of cab fares. At the back of my mind I think a voice had been telling me to do this. Because now that I thought about it exactly the same thing had happened when my laptop broke down earlier in the year - though that was slightly easier to carry. Even when I'm trying not to be a useless dick, I am still a useless dick.
Kindly the staff at Computer World said they'd let me leave the computer with them for a bit whilst I did a couple of my errands. I bought a new front door bell. Hey get me and my organised life!
I went to have some lunch in Cafe Nero. As I sat reading the paper and feeling sorry for myself and my aching head and tired arms, a small child approached me in a Spiderman mask holding out a paper cup and said, "Trick or Treat". Had it come to this, that trick or treaters are able to accost you in coffee shops and on the 27th October, (which as far as I'm aware is not All Hallow's Eve)? And does Spiderman officially count as a frightening entity? Yes he is part spider and part man. But he is good.
This all seemed perilously close to simply begging. Begging albeit in a colourful plastic mask, but still begging. I grumpily just shook my head, but received no trick for my reticence. Perhaps the craply attired child knew that he or she was on thin ice.
The Spiderman/urchin went away to bother someone else, but was immediately followed by a slightly smaller child with a paper cup and a witch mask. This was taking the piss.Imagine if I had given money to Spiderman, now I'd have to shell out again. These two could at least have split up and tried different coffee shops. At least she was marginally closer to it actually being Halloween than her friend. This one was definitely a girl, and at least a witch is a proper Halloween creature, but ironically her having an old crone's ugly face made it easier for me to scowl and shake my head than it would have been had her childish innocent eyes been looking down at me. She tried her luck with the barista. Would she be prepared to give up an hour's wages to a witch on the 27th October? No.
Suddenly there was a third child, this time in a Dracula mask and again smaller than the last. I didn't give Dracula more than a glance and he/she was gone. But the onslaught was not over. Finally a fourth even smaller child in a Frankingstein's monster mask was in front of me. This one was so small and cute looking (apart from the mask - imagine if it wasn't a mask though. Ooooh) and almost melted my Halloween version of Scrooge's heart. Maybe this had been the plan all along. We'll wear them down and they'll all give to little Frankingstein and then we'll share it out and buy fags with it.
But I had to stick to the rules. You can't do trick or treat anywhere you like and you can't do it on October 27th and certainly not in the afternoon.
The urchins ran off into the street. As far as I could see they had got nothing, except everyone's contempt.
And they didn't even know enough about the rules to know that they should have immediately flour bombed the shop.
Maybe they'd spent all their money on the masks.
