Don't Make Me Laugh

I was sprawled out diagonally across my bed the other evening...perched with my elbows on top of the covers reading the excellent Kavalier and Clay, which was a gift from Krissa, bought when we happened across a great-looking little bookshop on West 10th Street after having dinner in a restaurant nearby.

The radio was on in the background. My radio is preset to have BBC Radio 1 as the first channel...I don't know why. I just haven't gotten around to changing it from when I used to like the station. My profound u-turn in taste came after they started playing lots of older music in these 'Oldie but goodie' type features. When I went as part of the RaW Krew, this was something they'd just sacked one of our alumni to move away from, and they vehemently defended their decision, citing themselves as 'a wholly new music station'. Everyone is scrabbling for cool. You don't scrabble for cool. You know you have it, and then you do. I know they don't. Wogan? Now Wogan is cool. But enough of my proto-middle aged meanderings.

I wasn't really listening, but when I'm reading, extended periods of speech on the radio, such as the news, interfere with the internal book monologue. There was a DJ and a caller, discussing why the DJ hadn't been on the air recently. It was a hip-hop programme. Well. It might have been. It sounded like one to me. No doubt in my old age I wouldn't notice if R1 sounds like that all the time now.

DJ: Yo yo yo! Browndog (or similar)! It's good to hear from you bruvva!
BD: Maaaaan! Where you bin man? It ain't bin da same on the airwavez. (yes he pronounced the z)
DJ: Well y'know...I bin ill.
BD: Ill? What? You is ill aaaaaaaaall the time, yo.
DJ: Nah man, like, sick.
BD: Nasty. Wozzit dat food poisoning?
DJ: Yeah, well, there was definitely sumfin gastric goin' on down there, dog.

Despite Kavalier and Clay being at a very tense and dramatic moment, I couldn't help but crack up at this.

Now, I know I've neglected my assumed project, Stuart's Guide to Hatfield. I guess I had better finish it off before hightailing it to New York, huh. The Galleria is definitely next on the list. In passing in the entry about Errol's Café and Grill, I mentioned...rather negatively, another bakery-cum-sandwich outlet across the square; Simond's Bakery (deliberately mis-spelled). At the time I couldn't understand how they could charge the prices they charged and survive.

Between then and now...it shames me to admit it, but I became almost a regular in Simond's. They had a marvellous breakfast bap with a number of sausages, more bacon than Errol's, and a snitch of sauce that I really liked, and it was only £1.99. Bargainous maximus. I strolled in there one morning this week and tried to order one. The staff - never the friendliest souls - were nowhere to be seen. A girl in school uniform skulked in a doorway out the back, focussed on her mobile phone. With the passing of time, a great hulking mass in a purple apron rolled out of the kitchen.

"Yes?" she asked, her tones stamped with proprietorial authority, and the weighty demand that whatever I wanted, it had better be good.
"Breakfast Bap, please."
"It's back up to normal price now. That's okay, isn't it." This was not a question.
"How much is the normal price?"
She glared at me, and began waddling around the counter towards the till and the price list there. She stared at it for a minute or so and then walked off into the kitchen.
The schoolgirl glowered at me.
My incredulously spherical servingwoman returned holding a large accounting calculator, and I started to laugh between pressed lips, earning myself another scorching glare.

Five minutes later we had collaboratively arrived at the princely sum of £3.99, and I was striding across the square on my way to Errol's Café and Grill.

Sorry old buddy, old pal, Mr. Errol, sir.
Forgive me?