The View from Parson Street Nose

Are people incapable of leaving their mobile phones alone for five minutes?

I was trying to get past a shrieking, giggling twit in a puffball skirt who was trying to steer a fully laden trolley one handed around the aisles of Asda. At one point she very nearly took the buckle off my sling back when she slewed across my path.

Outside Lidl, I saw two women pulling trolleys like a wagon train down the slope. One woman was in the middle holding both trolleys while her friend at the front was keeping them steady with her bulk until her phone rang and she stepped aside to rabbit into the handset.

The trolleys immediately picked up pace, careering down the slope towards the street, the feet of the poor woman in the middle were going like the clappers, her gladiator sandals had become a blur.

I watched transfixed as her friend remained oblivious, continuing to gabble into her mobile.

Thankfully, the wall at the bottom of the slope stopped the first trolley from ploughing into traffic. I watched the woman in sandals extricate herself and advance menacingly towards her friend.

“Oy!” she howled. “Whatcha think you’re doing? I was nearly the cat’s dinner back there. Fat lot of help you were.”

On my way to the Cannon Street Post office I walked past several dirty, scruffy-looking fellows huddled together on a bench where they were attracting flies in the hot summer sunshine.

I heard ringing and quick as a flash one of the grubby group whipped out a shiny new mobile phone.

“Hello Harry,” said the vagrant. “How’re you? Are you coming down to Budget Booze later?”

Good grief, I thought, even the tramps are at it.