Two mad magnets don't make a right.

I got out of work a little early on Friday, which led to me spending a half hour or so waiting at the pub for J to finish up in the office. Now, I know my last few posts have all been about my encounters with crazy people, and I should probably vary my subject matter, but I do just have to mention the elderly American Sikh man in a suit and broken glasses, who spent that entire half hour drunkenly lecturing me. I learned a lot. For instance, did you know that the basic physical law of thermodynamics means there is no such thing as a free lunch? How about that our knowledge of civilisation dates back only as far as the written word but that, as far as we know, neanderthals could have been very culturally advanced, just without a written tradition to prove it to us? Then did you know that the sun is going to die in two billion years, so we should all be devoting our energies to developing space travel? Or that, when we achieve this, the Kalahari tribesmen should be the first settlers on Mars? Incidentally, did you know that the Kalahari tribesmen can discern 50 different tones in language, and have you ever wondered why there are no Kalaharian opera singers? No...me neither.

It's also worth mentioning the three men who interrogated us about our outfits, demanding to know what we were trying to convey with them, the homeless woman who got angry with J because she deemed her cash donation insufficient, the till worker who requested I kiss his cheek so he could have a lipsitck print to match the one on J's cheek, the man who later grabbed J and scrubbed off said lipstick, and the boy who approached me when I got off the bus home to ask which way Tottenham Court Road was. "It's quite far away," I said, "and I'm not sure of the direction". "But isn't this Tottenham?" he replied. "Ah. Yes. That's really not the same thing".