And here he is.
I am sitting here in a pub, waiting for Jason to finish seeing to his client and in the meantime I am being treated to a burst of this man's rhetoric.
To begin with - let's make it clear, this guy is well liked by everyone in the bar. All say a big affectionate hello to him as they pass by.
That's the first clue - "as they PASS BY". The cleverest people pass him with their hands full of something - mostly crockery collected from the surrounding restaurant tables.
I pity the couple that he has pinned into his lair in he corner. The woman looks quite close to tears right now.
Every time he pretends he is about to leave, the lady starts to grin in quite an alarming fashion.
No chance of him leaving, though. He is presently a good way through describing his 9 carat gold-plated cuff-link collection.
9 carat, apparently, is perfect for cufflinks - affording, as it does, an attractive gold lustre, whilst retaining a durability in plate form that 24 carat can only dream of.
What I hate... is that he has me attributing varying kinds of hopes and aspirations to the different purity levels of commercially available gold.
The lady is now pretending to blow her nose - only it has gone on too long. She's either hiding laughter or tears. Under ther circumstances, I fear amusement is a wildly optimistic emotion to hope for.
Maybe he is taking the hint, because now he is really leaving. He left - with his single crutch - in the direction of the bar.
The lady's hanky is now safely tucked away and peace returns once more.
Time to go back home to sanity.
(As I left - he returned with pint and a short of some sort. Keep an eye on the news headlines....)
He's hilarious when you write about him! I'm so glad I didn't meet him in person.
Posted by: Ruby | September 20, 2007 at 08:09 AM
I'm so glad you weren't bored while I was hard at work over a young lady's laptop.
Posted by: Jason | September 20, 2007 at 06:17 PM