Overheard. Mark Love
Читать онлайн книгу.
A railway employee is approached by a Russian passenger at Victoria Station ticket barrier.
PASSENGER: (pointing at the London Bridge train) Excuse me pliz. Winsor?
RAILWAY EMPLOYEE: No sir, you need to take that train there, sir. Change at Clapham Junction.
PASSENGER: No! Winsor!
RAILWAY EMPLOYEE: Yes, sir, that train over there. You’ll need to change at Clapham Junction for the train to Windsor, which will depart from platform eleven.
PASSENGER: (irate) NO! WIN-SOR!
Pause.
RAILWAY EMPLOYEE: Yes, sir, I understand. You take the train there, the one waiting on platform eleven and you change at Clapham Junction, which will be the next stop…
PASSENGER: (very irate) NO! NO! NO! I vant WIN-SOR.
RAILWAY EMPLOYEE: (pointing to London Bridge train) That one, mate.
PASSENGER: (delighted) Senk you!
RAILWAY EMPLOYEE: My pleasure, sir.
An exhausted-looking wife is chatting to her neighbour, watching as her husband and the removal men load their furniture into the removal lorry. Her face reflects her anger.
WIFE: Yes, well, we would have been gone about two hours ago, if it wasn’t for sonny Jim over there. Can you imagine, I spend days going round the packed boxes and furniture, marking them with coloured stickers so the removal men will know which rooms the boxes need to be left in at the new place. Then, along comes my darling husband an hour before the removal company arrives, with a handful of coloured stickers that he’s assumed the kids stuck on the boxes and furniture and has spent the best part of an hour finding and removing. Oooh, if a divorce was cheaper than moving then he’d be gone!
A father and his young son are travelling on the Central Line. The father reads a book on parenting, while the little boy clambers around restlessly.
BOY: Daddy?
FATHER: (not looking up) Hmm?
BOY: Why does the train go underground?
FATHER: Because it’s easier to travel across London when you’re underground.
BOY: Why?
FATHER: Because then you don’t get stuck in traffic jams.
BOY: Why?
FATHER: Because there are no cars underground.
BOY: Why?
FATHER: Because cars travel on roads above the ground.
BOY: Why?
FATHER: Because that’s what they were designed to do.
BOY: Why?
FATHER: (sighing) Because people needed to get around faster.
BOY: (pauses, considering this) Daddy?
FATHER: What?
BOY: If they designed cars to get around faster, then why do we have to travel on the underground?
FATHER: Oh, just because!
Two mums, both mothers of mixed-race children stand, at the school gates, arms crossed indignantly.
MUM 1: So she says I can’t call ’em that no more…
MUM 2: No!
MUM 1: I says, wot? She says Indian. Well, wot am I supposed to call ’em? She says cahncil says you gotta call ’em…
MUM 2: Bengali British. Yeah, I know!
MUM 1: Well! I mean, I remember when they wuz jus’ black!
MUM 2: Yeah. Then it were Black British!
MUM 1: After that it wuz mixed-race…
MUM 2: Yeah.
MUM 1: I mean why’s it any of their fackin’ business anyway?
MUM 2: Wrinkles her nose and shakes her head.
MUM 1: I mean, you ain’t bovvered, is ya?
MUM 2: Nah.
MUM 1: Well then!
A comedy actor at a celebrity wedding is talking about ‘luvvydom’.
ACTOR: We kissed, reminisced and hugged for about an hour before we both had the nerve to admit we didn’t know who the fuck the other was.
A beautiful summer’s day. The owners of toy spaniels are chatting in the park, their dogs—in winter coats—shivering in their arms.
COIFFURED LADY: Yes, we were there the week. Well, it’s very nearly the Arctic Circle. Oh yes, it was magnificent. The real deal!
HUSBAND: Red in tooth and claw!
COIFFURED LADY: Oh, I can’t tell you! You know, these were real wolves, a real pack, and you’re seeing them living out there in the wilds…
HUSBAND: Hunting, killing…
ANORAK LADY: Ooh, it sounds grand doesn’t it, Michael?
MICHAEL: Aye.
COIFFURED LADY: Oh it was. And of course observing the wolves’ behaviour teaches you so much about your own dog.
A couple are taking part in a discussion about music to drive to.
MIKE: I’m a sucker for old sixties stuff when I’m driving. You know, Motown, that kind of thing. Pulled up next to a lorry in a jam the other day and the driver starts singing along too.
LIZ: I like heavy stuff. I think I drive better when I’ve got something heavy on.
SHELLY: I’d stick with Radio Four but Cameron has to have music.
CAMERON: Best track ever for driving is ‘Telegraph Road’, Dire Straits. Fourteen minutes long. Lasts me exactly as long as the drive from Aston into work. Perfect.
SHELLY: Yeah, but you don’t actually like the song though, do you, Cam?
CAMERON: No, but you’re missing the point. It’s fourteen minutes. That’s exactly the same time it takes me to drive to work from home.
SHELLY: Yes, but you bloody hate it. You swear about it every day.
MIKE: Why not just get a couple of songs that you do like that add up to fourteen minutes and put them on a tape?
CAMERON: (exasperated) Look, you’re not getting this, are you? It’s fourteen minutes