The Central Library of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is a very fine building. I was sitting outside it this lunchtime, on a sunny bench, when a distinguished old cove (Kensington is awash with them) sat down beside me and launched into a loud and staggeringly inconsequential conversation on his mobile phone. He was phoning A because he was under the impression that A had told him that B had married C when B and C were both working in Kabul. Was this not so? No it was not. A did not even know B and C. Distinguished cove mystified. Was it D, A wonders, the one who married E? No, cove didn't think so. F perhaps? Eureka! Got it! It was F, who married G, and it must have been H who told cove about it. Cove apologised profusely for the confusion, and in a flurry of civilities the conversation ended. That was it: cove had rung A purely to establish that B had married C, and discovered that, far from it, F had married G. It must be wonderful to have connections, I mused, admiring the library's fine facade and enjoying the sun on my face.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Connections
The Central Library of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is a very fine building. I was sitting outside it this lunchtime, on a sunny bench, when a distinguished old cove (Kensington is awash with them) sat down beside me and launched into a loud and staggeringly inconsequential conversation on his mobile phone. He was phoning A because he was under the impression that A had told him that B had married C when B and C were both working in Kabul. Was this not so? No it was not. A did not even know B and C. Distinguished cove mystified. Was it D, A wonders, the one who married E? No, cove didn't think so. F perhaps? Eureka! Got it! It was F, who married G, and it must have been H who told cove about it. Cove apologised profusely for the confusion, and in a flurry of civilities the conversation ended. That was it: cove had rung A purely to establish that B had married C, and discovered that, far from it, F had married G. It must be wonderful to have connections, I mused, admiring the library's fine facade and enjoying the sun on my face.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You should have tapped him on the shoulder and said: "Excuse me, couldn't help overhearing. But I'm F, and in fact I married H, not G, and it wasn't Kabul it was Cairo."
ReplyDeleteOr look at him with wide-eyed horror and scream "F married G?! That bastard! I knew I should never have agreed to let them go to Kabul together. Just good friends, indeed. Just wait until that gobshite sets foot in this country again!"
ReplyDeleteThis occurring outside a library makes me think he was mistaken and should have been using the Dewey Decimal system. Everybody knows that 102.41 was having a bit on the side with 502.16.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure one could make lots of connections, Nige, by shifting from bench to bench around the borough - the local tramps remain undistracted by digital technology and are always up for philosophical chat.
ReplyDeleteReally effective data, thanks for this article.
ReplyDelete